This chapter serves as a summary of early research work, which condenses very different ideas and findings to strengthen the theoretical fundament. The following pages are structured in subheadings in order to clearly present the review and discuss the core elements that are relevant to this study.
Research allocation of lobbying
Public Affairs is about relationship management (Fleisher, 1994), for which communication is not only necessary, communication enables the actors in public affairs – for example lobbyists – to reach their strategic goals they try to pursue (Lock & Seele, 2017). Thus, as a research field lobbying is understood as a strategy for organizations to accomplish their political goals (De Bruycker, 2014). Communication is the vital part of lobbying and thereby purpose, direction and use of communication are essential to describe the concept of lobbying. Besides its interdisciplinary character, lobbying is, therefore, further imbedded in strategic communication research. Transferring Betteke van Ruler´s description, considering communication as the “pillar” on which strategic communication rests (Van Ruler, 2018, p. 367), one could argue that strategic communication is the pillar on which lobbying rests. Consequently, to study PA cases scholars use strategic communication research (communication science) (Harris & Fleisher, 2017).
Due to the specific research focus on Germany, it is also important to look at the political science oriented perspective to understand the development of lobbying research there. In the 1960s, Ernst Fraenkel articulated the need for the representation of private interests as a legitimate democratic tool in Germany (Fraenkel, 1964). Under this pluralistic view, contrary to the previous domination of particular interests, a normative ideal of political action was created: public interest. It is argued that pluralism thereby symbolises the foundation of interest representation and, especially, lobbying (Klein et al., 2003, p. 2). Over several decades the pluralist view, supported and further developed by Arthur Bentley, Robert Dahl, and David Truman, became very strong. A key question was the reason behind the discipline. The explanation of why organizations lobby is that it is part of the natural response of coming together to address a problematic political issue, but it also reveals a strong motivation to survive. The neo-pluralist view suggests that organizations lobby for the following reasons (Lowery, 2007, p. 45):
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the passing or blocking of policy initiatives;
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the severity of several lobbying tasks;
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the likelihood that they will be successful.
Both, political and communication perspectives connect at that point. Nothhaft and Zerfaß (2020) describe the survival and sustainable success of companies or other institutions as the significant aspect of strategic communication. Accordingly, companies or other institutions seek to shape conversations and opinion-forming processes especially in critical moments in terms of their success, which overlaps with the purpose of lobbying although specifically targeting politics. Doing so, is described by several scholars along different techniques.
Kollman analyzes outside lobbying which he describes as an interest group approach with two purposes. It is both, the attempt to communicate public support to policy-makers as well as to increase public support among constituents which reinforces each other. Thereby, interest groups target two audiences. Group leaders especially appeal to the public when they perceive that their stand has widespread popular support (Kollman, 1998). Two other very popular strategic lobbying forms involve public movements: grassroots lobbying and astroturfing. Grassroots lobbying is a network-supported movement with the goal of motivating the general public to become supporters (Hillebrand, 2017, p. 67). As Harris and Fleischer (2005, p. 111) observe, a grassroots program “is a continuous effort not only to persuade your people to become advocates for your issues, but also to educate them about the legislative process, provide access to elected representatives, create a sense of teamwork, and recognise stellar advocates.” Astroturfing, on the other hand, only pretends to have won relevant parts of the public as supporters and masks the real sponsors (Hillebrand, 2017, p. 67).
These examples demonstrate that public media-mediated communication processes that aim at the same objective as classic lobbying need to be considered as well (De Bruycker & Beyers, 2019; Filzmaier & Fähnrich, 2014). Especially in a time when social networks and the continuous availability through smartphones have led to a new quality of information exchange particularly to place demands on politics. Accordingly, scholars concur that academic research on lobbying is outmoded on terms of media and needs to be updated regarding further tactics and tools. Even though digital transformation stands for the profound transformation of business activities, competencies, and organizational models to fully leverage the opportunities of digital technologies, internet-based campaigning is also regularly questioned or disqualified as ‘clicktivism’.
Nevertheless, several researches have started to analyze campaigns focusing on their effectiveness and impact on targeting political institutions. The results of an EU digital rights campaign, for example, showed nuanced conclusions as to the concrete impact targeting the EU institutions and that the campaign was praised as very successful in gaining awareness for the issues at stake (Breindl, 2013). The results of another survey-based study also revealed a very clear overarching theme concerning the confluence of social media use with strategic communication processes: Social media use should be guided by strategic planning (Plowman & Wilson, 2018). Consequently, one of the latest social media studies investigates how profit companies manage their relationship with the public digitally, which proofs the growing importance of digital strategies when it comes to managing PA relationships (Johann et al., 2021). To strengthen the rationale that digital transformation is more than new channels, tools, or increased numbers of social media users, the following section looks closer into digital research in the field.
Digital research development of lobbying
Until a few years ago, studies concluded that “emails, websites, and other technological developments are no substitute for old-fashioned face-to-face contact” (Watson & Shackleton, 2008, p. 107). In other words, many scholars and practitioners were of the opinion that digital developments were not relevant for lobbying. Newer research, however, proves that “networked media can afford […] real-time, semi-private direct communication with decision makers” (Figenschou & Fredheim, 2019, p. 1) as a new form of lobbying. The reason is that in the past years more and more actors have started to use social media so that “the action repertoire of interest groups has changed and new forms of communication have been made possible [through] Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook” (van der Graaf et al., 2016, p. 131). Consequently, there has been growing literature on how political engagement has changed as a result of social media during the past decade. Yet, research on interest groups and social media has focused primarily on describing the extent to which traditional interest groups have joined popular social networks, rather than how these new media enable the formation of new interest representatives (groups and individuals) or how they assist influenced policy change (Whitesell, 2019). Yet, literature on social media as a strategic tool has grown particularly in terms of non-profit organizations, grassroots and social movements (Macnamara & Zerfass, 2012; Müller, 2019; Nah & Saxton, 2013). Non-profit organizations have for example had a strong presence on Twitter early on. Through the political network they successfully engage and exchange dialogically with their stakeholders, so that it can be said that the overall “adoption of social media appears to have engendered new paradigms of public engagement” (Lovejoy & Saxton, 2012, p. 337). Thus, organizations use different social media platforms and networks for different purposes knowing that it provides an extensive new marketplace to give voice to their ideas (Auger, 2013).
Corresponding, initial research on “lobbying in the virtual world” (Miller-Stevens & Gable, 2013, p. 52) or “Digital Public Affairs” was very enthusiastic, categorizing it as an enriching and revolutionizing “young discipline” that illuminates the practice (Thimm & Einspänner, 2012, p. 185). Even though not all studies regarding digital campaigning of non-profit organizations were that enthusiastic as a number of politicians and ministry officials did not use social media accounts intermediately (Krebber et al., 2016, p. 114), latest lobbying publications do understand social media as an addition to the “lobbyist´s toolbox” (Ihlen et al., 2020, p. 10). By now, studies have proven that “media has an impact on lobbyists´ communicative processes of influencing” (Ihlen et al., 2020, p. 6). Therefore, European scholars draw attention to “rhetorical, media and strategic communication elements [that] increase [the] understanding of the role of communication in constructing the social reality around the issues advocated by organizations lobbying for or against a cause“ (Ihlen et al., 2020, p. 6). Yet, the significant perspective on a favorable or unfavorable position only remains briefly addressed and deserves further response.
Scholars agree that reaching politicians and their employees has never been faster, easier, more dialogic and personalized (Zerfaß & Pleil, 2012). A reason is the significant 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”. Other advantages of social networks are providing information publicly, mobilizing supporters or interacting with multiple constituencies (Chalmers & Shotton, 2013; Figenschou & Fredheim, 2019, p. 1). Brown (2016), who’s study is based on data collected from interest groups operating in 13 countries, also proofs the increasing likelihood of using social media and describes even more internationally-bounded social media strategies especially for the groups operating in globalized countries. He proofs that interest groups use broader topics like climate change, terrorism, and privacy in their arguments on social media because more policy issues shift from a mainly local or even national context to the international. Hence, interest groups can also gain transnational influence by digitally mobilizing people outside of their home country (Brown, 2016).
Public aspect in lobbying
Even though the objective to convince a policy-maker of individual interests or of a policymaking-process continues to be the same in a digital setting (Krebber et al., 2015), because “the assertion of interests is attempted to be realized through communicative influence” (Krebber et al., 2015, p. 292), “a stronger public presence” was noted early on (Einspänner, 2010, p. 20). It is important to clarify the public aspect since in a digital setting strategic communication reaches a different type of general public which authors have labeled as “latent diffused publics” (Plowman et al., 2015, p. 276). This new form of public, reached by social media is further described as: “ready to respond, but will not do so until triggered by a message” which is also why it is “difficult or impossible to identify” it (Plowman et al., 2015, p. 274). It is undoubted that the ever-growing information networks form society (Castells, 2011) and that the internet and social media have marked society in terms of the public´s function (Lindgren, 2017, p. 4). Thereby the intersections between organizations and their public are expended, hence, companies and institutions face different conditions regarding to their public positioning and interaction with the political sphere (Ehrhart & Zerfaß, 2020), which is particularly important for lobbying. Against this background, scholars are certain that this development not only increases the complexity of today’s society, it even forces companies and other institutions to alter their approach to communication (Seiffert-Brockmann et al., 2021). This change is gaining momentum because even individuals use social networks strategically to place private demands on politics. Well-established theoretical perspectives are for example agenda‐setting, media agenda‐setting or framing theory (Lock & Seele, 2018). To further embed lobbying in the broader context of changing media logics and opinion formation, the concepts “framing interests” and “transparency” will be defined in order to understand relevant developments in the digital setting.
Lobbyists traditionally frame individual interests into public interests or common good to convince policy-makers. On behalf of the broader public the common good perspective is strategically put above individual interests. Since the public opinion is represented through the concept of public interest in form as a guidepost (Napoli, 2019, p. 132), communication scholars argue that “public communication lies at the heart of [the] democratic process [which] citizens require” (Garnham, 2004, p. 357). Even though lobbying is theoretically seen as a valid public response to policy conflicts and thus a support to democracy (Lösche, 2006), it is also connotated very negatively in terms of the non-transparency of the practice itself (Gammelin & Hamann, 2005; Gammelin & Löw, 2014).
Transparency in lobbying
In the context of lobbying transparency stands for the publication of an institution’s political activities. Regarding the German context, academics and practitioners discussed necessary professional standards (Wehrmann, 2007) in particular, as no official transparency register existed (until December 2021, effectively from March/2022 on). However, it is important to recognise that a debate about “successful lobbying” and “professional lobbying” emerged more than a decade ago (Althaus, 2006; Klüver & Saurugger, 2013; Meier, 2003), followed by the discussion on transparent lobbying (Sandhu, 2012), also in regard to digital developments.
Researchers therefore ask how the concept of public interest is represented in the context of social networks (Kruse, et al., 2017; Napoli, 2019). Especially in terms of representation of and transparency to the public the “interaction with and beyond the traditional media” (Bennett & Pfetsch, 2018) is crucial. Ihlen et al. (2018) therefore unpack “how businesses communicatively construct a link between their private interest and the public interest.” Their findings illustrate a “flexibility of the public interest argument” which is criticized as “empty” and “easy to capture” when special interests are made out (Ihlen et al., 2018). Even though the theoretical and practical basis of transforming “individual interest towards common interests” (Joos, 1998) was analysed in many classic “cases that allow for a change in perspective – from the client’s interest to the common interest” (Joos, 2015, p. 4) the digital component is still missing. The significant perspective on how digital framing functions and how communication strategies change in a digital lobbying setting deserves further response. And that although the public affairs practice continues to advance in light of public scrutiny in digital environments, but the academic field needs theories to describe and understand these phenomena (Lock & Seele, 2018).
Research gap
In summary, existing lobbying research offers an accumulating body of knowledge on traditional strategies and tactics, but lacks further understandings regarding lobbying in a digital setting. Literature shows a growing importance of social networks and demonstrates that conditions of communicating in the digital era have changed for all actors due to online communication and social network use (Conroy & Vaughn, 2018, p. 100; Wallner, 2017, p. 2). However, many strategic questions concerning lobbying in a digital setting remain unanswered. The public aspect outlines new requirements for the strategic orientation of lobbying, but previous studies have had difficulties examining profit-oriented lobbying actors in this respect. Literature also lacks explanations in terms of the strategic use of digital channels and tools, especially in terms of framing the public interest and concerning transparency.