Publication Type: Invited Paper
Abstract: This paper will discuss the results of a project in which students immerse themselves in public advocacy. The student will be engaged in preparing and competing in collegiate debate tournaments as well as preparing and hosting public debates. The project hopes to host a Fall 2008 Indiana Governor’s debate as part of the project. The project may also engage area high schools in public advocacy. This paper will report the actions of the students in preparing for competitive debate tournaments as well as public advocacy projects.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The study used survey data and structural equation modeling to examine how community stakeholder attitudes were influenced by a marketplace advocacy campaign, a form of issue advocacy. The validated model demonstrates how awareness of a marketplace advocacy campaign initiated by an industry influenced the salience of industry-promulgated issues among the stakeholders. Subsequently, an agenda-building influence resulted in more favorable attitudes toward the industry. Environmental concern moderated this relationship by decreasing the salience of industry-related issues.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper examines the formation of NRDC, the development of its organizational structure, and its relationship with other similar environmental organizations. In pursuing an alternative theoretical formulation of the collective action problem facing advocacy organizations, it demonstrates the value of borrowing theoretical constructs from theories of firm behavior to advance our understanding of advocacy organizations. When we adopt an analytical perspective that considers advocacy organizations as entrepreneurial undertakings, public goods as marketable products, and other organizations as potential competitors, we begin to see with greater clarity the processes of organizational differentiation and political development that occur among advocacy organizations. Much like we observe firms and industries changing over time as markets evolve, advocacy organizations respond to external stimuli in ways that reflect the fit between existing organizational structures and the direction of new political opportunities. In following the development of the NRDC, this paper shows how one of the leading environmental organizations in the United States came to inhabit a particular political identity and came to appropriate a particular set of advocacy tools for achieving its goals. This perspective should be a useful way to understand the development of a wide variety of advocacy organizations, even across different types of polities.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Despite the abundance of research in the field of agenda setting, particularly the recent emphasis on how news media agendas are constructed, issue advocacy advertising has received little attention as a potential influence on either the media or the public’s agenda. This is surprising, given the very nature of issue advocacy campaigns involves the communication of often-controversial opinions in an effort to sway public sentiment or generate support. This study expands the intermedia agenda setting literature by examining the agenda setting function of issue advocacy campaigns. Specifically, the study focused on an issue advertising campaign by the coal industry and its impact on television news coverage. The study provides initial evidence that issue advertising may play an important role in shaping the media’s agenda. While the correlation between issue advertising at time 1 and the television news agenda at time 2 was moderately strong (+.536), the Spearman correlation coefficient between these time periods exceeded the Rozelle-Campbell baseline statistic, suggesting a potentially dynamic relationship between issue advertising and the television news agenda.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The research argues that legislatures enhance the influence of advocacy groups on national governments’ internalization of the norm of the ban on anti-personnel landmines in liberal democracies. Advocacy groups seek to such an interpretation that tilts th