Lobbying Inside (and) Out: Interest Group Behavior on Social Media

Abstract

Studies of lobbying often draw distinctions between inside lobbying-direct attempts to influence policy through meetings, campaign contributions, and other activities that build and leverage relationships with policymakers-and outside lobbying-activities such as protests, demonstrations, and media strategies that put indirect pressure on policymakers. These studies have found that while all groups increasingly use all available tactics, business and trade associations favor inside lobbying, and citizens' advocacy groups are more likely to engage in outside lobbying. This project reexamines this literature in the context of the recent growth in the use of social media and ask whether existing patterns of lobbying are replicated in the digital environment. We theorize that business and professional groups will be less likely to engage in social media use and, when they do use it, will be more likely to use social media platforms to build and reinforce relationships with policymakers. In contrast, we expect that citizens' advocacy groups will be most likely to engage in an online form of outside lobbying, using social media to inform the public and build grassroots support for their policy agendas. We test these expectations using an original dataset of Twitter and Facebook posts from interest groups. We find that outside lobbying messages are more frequent than inside lobbying messages on social media across all types of groups. Citizens' groups are significantly more likely to engage in social media use overall, and they are more likely to use it for both inside and outside lobbying messages than all other types of groups.

Pursuing Change or Pursuing Credit? Litigation and Credit Claiming on Social Media

“…Although there is a burgeoning literature on how interest groups use social media to engage in lobbying (e.g., Bortree and Seltzer 2009, Chalmers and Shotton 2016, Lovejoy, Waters and Saxton 2012, Obar, Zube and Lampe 2012, Widner, Macdonald and Gunderson 2020, so far it offers little insight into how interest groups use social media to credit claim for their amicus activity in the courts. We extend theories of credit claiming to this essential, low-cost context and hypothesize that interest groups will use social media to publicize their amicus activity to their members.…”

Digital Lobbying: How Digital Transformation and Social Networks affect lobbying in Germany

“…A reason is the signi cant difference between traditional and digital communication on social networks in terms of immediate responses (Plowman et al, 2015). Thus, digital communication channels have become very important for numerous international social movements (Brown, 2016, p. 302) as well as public affairs practitioners (Fleisher, 2012;Widner et al, 2020) as they can enable new forms of political advocacy and gain further attention of decision-makers. Figenschou and Fredheim say (2019, p. 1): "For all interest groups, being noticed by those in power is imperative; hence, interest groups employ a number of strategies to promote their interests vis-à-vis government agencies, parliaments, and the public".…”

Pursuing Change or Pursuing Credit? Litigation and Credit Claiming on Social Media

“…Although there is a burgeoning literature on how interest groups use social media to engage in lobbying (e.g., Bortree and Seltzer 2009, Chalmers and Shotton 2016, Lovejoy, Waters and Saxton 2012, Obar, Zube and Lampe 2012, Widner, Macdonald and Gunderson 2020, so far it offers little insight into how interest groups use social media to credit claim for their amicus activity in the courts. We extend theories of credit claiming to this essential, low-cost context and hypothesize that interest groups will use social media to publicize their amicus activity to their members.…”