Muting or Meddling? Advocacy as a Relational Communication Strategy Affecting Organization–Public Relationships and Stakeholder Response

This article conceptualizes organizational advocacy as a relational communication strategy by which organizations take stances on controversial, sociopolitical issues to signal shared commitment with key publics. The authors conducted a series of two-by-two experimental surveys—controlling whether an organization took a defined position (advocacy vs. silence) and whether it acted alone or in line with peers (leader vs. follower)—across both less partisan (Study 1) and highly partisan (Study 2) issues. Findings indicate advocacy is an effective relational communication strategy that strengthens organization–public relationships (OPRs) and increases publics’ support for the organization. Theoretical contributions and practical applications are discussed.

• Publication year

  2020

• Venue

  Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly

• Publication date

  2020-06-11

• Fields of study

  Political Science

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1177/1077699020916810
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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