It’s the Communication That Matters! An Analysis of Determinants of Interest Groups’ Media Exposure in German Newspapers

In modern societies the media functions as the most important source of information about current political or societal events. Given this media power, political organizations are eager to participate in the public discourse: Besides parties, interest groups also seem to rely more and more on media exposure to strengthen their position within the political decision making process, to court new members or to inform their members. The limited capacities of the media, however, do not allow for every interest group to get heard. Hence, the purpose of the present study is to address the following research questions: Q1: Which interest groups receive (what kind of) media exposure? Q2: Which factors determine the amount of media exposure? To answer those questions, firstly the media exposure of all interest groups listed in the lobby list of the German Parliament (n=2083) was measured in three national German newspapers. In this way it was possible to identify organizations with different amounts of media exposure (from very high to low or even no media exposure). Secondly, the information required to identify the impact of theoretically derived factors influencing the amount of media coverage (organizational resources, field of action, type of interest, type of membership, interest groups’ public relations) were collected for a smaller (in terms of the varying amounts of media exposure though representative) sample of interest groups (n=178) through an archival analysis, a questionnaire and a content analysis of interest groups’ press releases. These data were analyzed in SPSS using a regression analysis. Results indicate that mainly the quantity and the quality of the public relations activities of an interest group can account for a large part of the amount of media exposure: The more frequent and the more professional they communicate, the more likely they get covered. It’s the communication that matters!