After the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA) was introduced to Congress in 2005, animal rights organizations joined efforts to advocate against the legislation. Their efforts failed even though more than 250 groups across the nation joined together to lobby against the act. To evaluate the communication strategies and media relations efforts of these organizations, a content analysis of randomly sampled advocacy group Web sites was conducted. Of the 122 "Stop AETA" organizations in the sample, 82% had a Web site though only 36% of those organizations with Web sites had organized online press rooms to promote their causes. This paper examines the implications of advocacy communication in a virtual environment and recommends strategies for improving the media relations efforts.

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to examine how Kent and Taylor's dialogic features are used by agricultural associations in the USA and Germany to engage media. Design/methodology/approach -A content analysis of 51 American Farm Bureau Federation and 18 Deutscher Bauernverband web sites was conducted to evaluate the incorporation of the principles of ease of interface, usefulness, dialogic loop, conservation of visitors, and generation of return visits. Findings -The study found mixed results for the incorporation of Kent and Taylor's five dialogic principles. At the time of the content analysis, these sites failed to provide a solid dialogic loop between the organisation and the visitor, and they did not encourage return visits. This weakens the sites' potential to move past information provision and build lasting relationships with reporters.Research limitations/implications -The findings of this research project provide benchmark numbers for the presence of the five dialogic principles in the agriculture industry. Further, the findings strengthen the growing evidence of the impact of the principles in various sectors. Previous research has examined how nonprofit social service and activist organisations have incorporated the principles as well as for-profit organizations. The current results shine light on how other organisations are using their web site to develop relationships with visitors. Practical implications -Research on agricultural communication indicates that the media increasingly are downplaying the significance of the industry in mainstream news. Scholars have suggested that the agricultural industry is not well versed in media training and media relations. However, the findings of this study indicate that the leading agricultural associations in the USA and Germany are still primarily using their web sites as one-way information subsidies rather than capitalizing on the interactive nature of the web. By incorporating the five dialogic principles into their web sites, the agricultural communicators will be in a better position to interact with media in a lasting manner rather than simply serving as a source of one-way information. Originality/value -Though the dialogic principles have been studied in other settings, this paper examines their use by organisations in multiple countries. Given the increasing globalisation of the agriculture industry, it is vital to understand how this industry communicates with the media given that it has repeatedly complained about media coverage of agricultural issues and the push by the American Farm Bureau to assist other national agricultural associations around the world.