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This article presents an examination of how communication models are used in advertising and marketing. The author notes that the common belief in the business world is that mass production is not possible without mass distribution and that mass distribution is not possible without mass communication. This mass communication is a necessity of the presale phase of an organization's strategy. The author notes that all the current communication models used by advertisers are based on the idea that they need to influence consumers to buy their product. The job of the communicator is to get the public to do or think something that has been formulated by the communicator. The author also examines how these model have developed along with the field of advertising.

This study assesses relationships between mass media orientations of communication professionals in organisations and their external communication strategies. We assume that mass media orientations within an organisation may affect an organisation’s external communication strategies of bridging and buffering. A survey among 150 Dutch communication professionals working for both for-profit and public organisations as well as NPOs was conducted. Our study shows that preferences for specific communication strategies are related to different forms of media orientation. Having media attention as an organisational goal is more strongly associated with buffering, that is, one-way and symmetric communication, yet a more negative attitude toward the media also hinders an organisation from bridging activities. Overall, few differences between the three types of organisations regarding communication strategies and media orientations were found. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sequences of individual words make up media reports. And sequences of media reports constitute the power of the news media to influence corporate practices. In this paper, we focus on the micro-foundations of news reports to elaborate how an atmosphere of negative news reports following an initial exposure of corporate pollution activity can help stop such activity through their impact on corporate managers. We extend our understanding of the corporate governance effect of news media by considering two new aspects of reports-one, the proportion of words in negative reports relative to the total number of words in all reports; and two, the geographical origin of news media. We suggest that the more negative the media coverage, and the more local this coverage, the greater the impact on corporations. Our study of news media reports from more than 600 newspaper sources on disciplining pollution activities of listed Chinese firms from 2004 to 2012 provides strong support for our hypotheses. These findings have valuable implications for the handling of pollution issues in transitional economies via the power of news words. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research summary: This study explores how relative prominence shapes rivalry between firms. Corporate litigation, an increasingly costly domain of interfirm rivalry, is threatening not just because of the immediate legal stakes but because of the indirect losses that unwanted negative publicity inflicts on defendants. I argue that potential defendants' incentives to avoid such losses create a source of value that firms can capture by agreeing to forgo litigation. The more prominent a firm is relative to rivals, the greater its threat and the more value it stands to capture from potential targets by sparing them from litigation. Managerial summary: The power to attract media attention can be valuable to firms beyond its role in managing relations with investors or the public. It can also provide leverage against industry rivals. Being sued by a prominent firm carries the threat of potential damaging publicity, especially for lesser-known rivals. Firms may be able to leverage this threat to elicit concessions in return for sparing rivals from litigation. Prominent firms stand to benefit not just from eliciting concessions from rivals but from the ability to do so while avoiding costly litigation. Data from the semiconductor industry show that firms that command much higher levels of media coverage than rivals are able to avoid litigation more often than firms with comparable or lower levels of media coverage. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article was to study the following three purposes. First, to identify and describe the platform strategies, content strategies, and management challenges that currently define the South Korean terrestrial broadcasting business. Second, to analyze from various angles the business area of global media group, in terms of platform strategies, content strategies, and management challenges. Third, to suggest how Korea's terrestrial broadcasting industry can become competitive with media groups. Looking at the digital conversion process and strategy as well as terrestrial broadcasting in each country, when digital switchover point and Action Plan, and the similarities in values and the role of digital terrestrial broadcasting times there are differences may be found. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public relations practitioners and academics are often silent on silence because the stigma on silence threatens to become a stigma on public relations. Journalists and communicators work in professional exchange and strive. The public relations practitioners are fully visible for the journalists; invisible are they only for the public. Silence has become a “code word” journalists use to pressure information sources not to shut up. This paper discusses public relations responses to that stigma, which include strategies of silence. I draw ideas from Aristotle's “apophatic” silence, Michel Foucault's “exhaustive representation”, Frances Sendbuehler's “profound communication silence” and John Cage's “sound of silence”. I suggest borrowing from those ideas and the development of silence and invisibility as central categories in public relations. Both are carriers of meaning. Both are ontological, neutral phenomena – neither good nor bad. I show possible applications in the areas of resistance, framing and change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on the Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communication Management’s Melbourne Mandate’s understanding of a communicative organization consisting of organizational character, responsibility and listening and engagement, this paper explores these principles in the context of new hybrid forms of online content. This study asks about the role of transparency in the context of commercial hybrid content. Through theoretical consideration as well as interviews of representatives of public relations and marketing communication associations and agencies in Finland, the article presents the practitioners’ perceptions and experiences using the literature on transparency. To better understand the communicative organization of today in the context of hybrid content creation, we propose the concept of the “transparent communicative organization.” We suggest four new propositions for the practice of hybrid forms of engaging publics to support the transparent communicative organization: (1) source identification to enable trust, (2) two-way transparency inviting user feedback, (3) stakeholder-centric arenas to enable engagement, and (4) content on organizational expertise to build long-term engagement. We invite further public relations research to improve and test these preliminary propositions as the use of hybrid content increases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research into corporate social performance (CSP) recently shifted to studying its political economic dimensions. In this paper, we test the influence of price and technological competition and two institutional factors, mandatory reporting and monitoring by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and media, on CSP. Combining survey data with CSP ratings from Sustainalytics, we find that technological competition, monitoring by NGOs and media and mandatory CSP reporting foster CSP. However, price competition is not found to significantly influence CSP. This indicates that there is no support for the existence of a trade-off between anti-trust policy and CSP. Furthermore, our findings imply that governments can stimulate CSP by making CSP reporting mandatory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A national sample of business-to-business (B2B) small businesses was surveyed regarding their attitudes toward and usage of social media in their marketing efforts. Results from this descriptive study show that many B2B small businesses utilize social media in their marketing efforts (54%). The four main purposes for using social media reported by the B2B small businesses were: (1) improving company reputation, (2) increasing customer interest, (3) increasing customer awareness, and (4) promoting business to new customers. Among the 46% not using social media, a substantial proportion (81%) had no intention to do so in the near future. Further, nearly a quarter of those who do use social media report that they do not know the effectiveness of their marketing efforts. Clearly there is still a need among small businesses to gain more knowledge of how to most effectively integrate social media into their marketing plans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corporate branding requires organizations to focus on uniqueness and differentiation. At the same time, public institutions must provide equal services in order to gain legitimacy. Hence, corporate branding in the public sector organizations has to handle two concerns simultaneously – securing legitimacyandbuilding reputation. We examine this tension through interviews with communication managers in Norwegian hospitals. Despite large investments in techniques borrowed from corporate branding, the informants were reluctant to talk about branding. Instead, they were more oriented towards the universal character of their hospitals. Four explanations are put forward for why branding has an ambiguous position in Norwegian hospitals. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article looks at the opportunities for and challenges to the national press in Scotland in the digital media era. Based on input from interviews with Scottish newspaper editors and managers and on reports about the current state of the industry, it explores how the changes that affect the press globally have impacted the Scottish market and how newspaper companies have reacted to them so far. It discusses the impact of the competition for readership and advertising in a small market with many players, the hope that the industry has placed in paywalls and portable digital devices, and argues that, despite widespread optimism among its members that the industry will successfully survive into the future, the business model that will ensure this survival is yet to be established. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How have three decades of change in Chinese society, business, and politics influenced its official media coverage of emerging partnerships and interactions with US business? This question was explored through text mining and semantic network analysis of 929 articles in China Daily and Xinhua News Service, from 1979 through 2011. The articles were examined via cluster analysis (grouping news stories with similar coverage) and factor analysis (revealing themes for each cluster). Four clusters of stories emerged, suggesting phases in Sino-American trade relations: 1979–1983 (emergence of basic principles), 1984–1987 (delicate balance between trade and politics), 1988–2002 (maturation of relations with American business), and 2003–2011 (tensions following China’s entrance into the World Trade Organization). Factor analysis revealed 17 themes throughout the period. A sense of historical inevitability surrounded China’s progress from the periphery to the core of globalization, while the US moved from sole player to one of many partners for China. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the history of the business section of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper of Germany during the 1950s. The relationship between the newspaper's business section and the head of the Federal Ministry of Economics Ludwig Erhard is explored, the role of Erich Welter as editor in chief of the section is examined, and the influence of the newspaper in fostering the elevation of the profile of business within the post-World War II German media landscape is described. Information is offered on the popularization of German ordoliberal economic policies by the newspaper.

Recent corporate governance literature on gender diversity within boards has linked the effect of an increase in gender diversity to the firm's corporate reputation. This paper analyzes the media impact of appointing new directors of Spanish companies at a particularly significant moment, during the period from 2007 to 2010, just a year before and 3 years after the Gender Equality Act was passed. By analyzing female and male board nominations in Spanish IBEX-35 companies, the paper examines whether appointing a female does have greater visibility than appointing a male, and thus a potential signaling effect for corporate stakeholders and an effect on the firm's reputation. Results indicate that the effect on press visibility of appointing a female versus a male is negligible, although there is significant media visibility for new executive directors, in particular for the case of the only woman nominated as an executive director during the period. The paper contributes to the existing literature on gender diversity in corporate governance, specifically its effect on corporate reputation. The paper also offers information relevant to policy making and in particular to the current debate over quotas for women on boards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines how public relations can be understood, perceived, and ultimately constructed as a profession through professionals' everyday discourses. The article explores what it means for public relations practitioners to be considered professionals in the field that is actively developing in many parts of the world. The goal was to expand the understanding of what constitutes the profession of public relations through a qualitative analysis of workcentered discourses of practitioners. The results demonstrated that, specifically in Russia, similar to many other countries, public relations is often seen as a profession that is better suited for women than men due to historical, socio-economic, and societal factors as well as due to pre-conceived notions about public relations. This study contributes to a new theoretical understanding of public relations as a socially constructed profession and demonstrates how construction of this profession can both propel and slow down the development of the practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the moderating effect of media pressure on external directors in relation to disclosure of information on corporate social responsibility (CSR). Design/methodology/approach – The paper adopts a multilevel approach, integrating the institutional, organisational and individual levels of analysis in a whole model that explains corporate transparency. The paper uses a sample composed of 98 non-financial listed Spanish companies for the period 2004-2010, Findings – The results show heterogeneity between external board members. Proprietary directors, representing shareholders, tend to promote adoption of the Global Reporting Initiative guidelines in order to increase value for shareholders. On the contrary, independent directors are risk adverse in relation to the effect that CSR information disclosure could have on their professional reputations. Research limitations/implications – The sample could be improved, including companies from different countries and more years for the analysis, since the period studied comprises a particular economic setting (2008-2010), a global financial crisis. Practical implications – Although these results from the Spanish context, the authors recommend that regulatory bodies incorporate provisions into good governance codes that guarantee the existence of quality and comparable CSR information that favours stakeholders’ decision taking. Originality/value – The image that society has about a company comes from the opinions created from the mass media. The arguments proposed by agenda-setting theory can be managed by companies as a strategic mechanism to respond to society expectations. At present, two of the most studied aspects are the ethical and sustainable behaviours of organisations. These aspects are related to the characteristics of boards of directors, especially to external directors. Independent directors may disagree with disclosing information about CSR practices because they fear that this information would affect their professional reputations, since they are not specialised in these topics. However, proprietary directors favour the disclosure of this information in an attempt to reduce the cost of capital and risk perceived by investors, especially in more sustainable companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research suggests that the stock market reacts to stale information if it is reported in the media because it is gives the impression of being “new” news. The objective of this study is to provide a unique test of this hypothesis using the time-series properties of quarterly earnings. It is well documented that seasonally differenced quarterly earnings for adjacent quarters are positively correlated. Therefore a component of current quarter earnings when reported is news that was known or predictable at the end of the prior quarter and thus is old news. We find for those firms that receive media coverage in theWall Street JournalandThe New York Timesthat the price reaction at the time of the announcement of current earnings to past quarter's seasonally differenced quarterly earnings is greater than those firms that do not receive media coverage. The result is consistent with stale earnings information being given the appearance of new information resulting in a further price reaction. This suggests that the stale information hypothesis and media coverage could be a partial explanation for post-earnings announcement drift. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advertising was a key element in the capitalist structures of newspapers in the second half of the nineteenth century. It was the time of urban concentration, mechanization, new forms of transport and the widespread promotion of consumption, the development of civil society, a rising level of culture, the birth of show-business society, the cult to modernity and newness, and cosmopolitanism. And it is within this context that a new Catalan journalistic project began: La Llumanera de Nova York (1874-1881). Advertising represented the main source of income for the press during this period, a press perceived more than ever as a business. The analysis of advertisements appearing in La Llumanera allows us to interpret the implications of the newspaper's location in New York and witness the commercial strategy of the American businessman, far more advanced than that of the Catalan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the influence of media exposure on managers' earnings management behavior using China's publicly traded firms during 2001-2009. We find that firms with more media exposure (both negative and non-negative) manage their earnings less than firms with less media exposure. We also find that 'suspect firms' (being specially treated or with refinancing plans like seasoned equity offerings or right offerings) with more media exposure engage in more accrual-based earnings management relative to other firms. These results suggest that Chinese media serve as an external monitor to the majority of firms and place excessive pressure on suspect firms. This paper contributes incrementally to the literature by emphasizing the conflicting role media exposure plays in managerial decisions in earnings management. The findings of this study have practical implications for regulators, auditors, financial analysts, as well as other information intermediaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper begins by problematizing the use of “community” to define and theorize small commercial media outlets that have geography as their primary characteristic—particularly hyper local and small traditional newspapers connected to larger media organizations in digital space. We then extend the concept of “geo-social news” to outline “geo-social journalism” as a specific form of news work currently grouped under the “community media” umbrella. Geo-social is a concept for exploring how small commercial newspapers change as media technologies evolve. It offers a framework for understanding how these news outlets and audiences connect via the notion of “sense of place”. It can also be used as a lens for theorizing their role in social flows and movements and as nodes in the global media network. The practice of “geo-social journalism”, meanwhile, has two dimensions. Firstly, journalists must engage with the land (environment/agriculture/industry), populations, histories and cultures of the places they report news. Secondly, it involves connections and understandings of the shifting constellations of global and national systems, issues and relationships of the digital era. Finally, this paper argues that by its very nature, “geo-social journalism” eschews theoretical universalizing and instead demands fine-grained analyses of the specific dynamic of each “geo-social” publication, its setting and the practices which shape it and it in turn shapes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to analyse the sense and evolution of advertising communication strategies since the phenomenon of climate change appeared and started to be projected by the media, which simultaneously sparked off the public opinion debate. Several publications are examined so as to understand how environmentalist keys about publicity are reflected in scientific literature. The article pays particular attention to how the business perspective becomes a social and communication agent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bankruptcies at Enron and other corporations led to revelations of widespread wrongdoing: the Corporate Scandals of 2002. Congressional hearings into the scandals culminated in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (2002). There was extensive media coverage of these events. Using insights from Emerson and Messinger's (1977) Micro-Politics of Trouble perspective, we consider how three newspapers covered the scandals. We focus on how these scandals were defined, explained, and the remedies that were proposed for them. We consider what the Micro-Politics of Trouble perspective offers for an understanding of these scandals, corporate crime and deviance generally, and the media's role in reporting these issues. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The goal of this article is to examine the role of the media in the international fashion business between the wars. New York switched from a position of first importer of French fashions, to a contender of Paris hegemony. But despite a dramatic raise in tariffs and dwindling fashion exports, Paris managed to remain the main originator of women's fashions until the Second World War. In studying this situation, I will first examine the mechanisms of the diffusion of design innovation and set out the international fashion press networks of the interwar period. I will then examine the complex relationship that developed between fashion designers and the media, with a focus on the press, showing how during the 1920s the couturiers imposed an increasing number of restrictions to the shows' spectators, to photographers, and to the press, due to a growing concern for industrial espionage. Finally, I will examine specific cases of relationships of couturiers with the press, including the advertisement of tie-in products, the endorsement of couture by French and American celebrities, and the first attempts at professionalized public relations strategies in the fashion business. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We constructed and tested a theoretical model that integrates the effects of movies and TV dramas on tourists' perceived destination image and intention to visit, and how tourists process the destination image. To analyze the impact of viewing movies and/or TV dramas on tourists' intention to visit the places depicted, we compared two nested models : a partially mediated model that tests both direct and indirect effects of viewing movies and/or TV dramas on tourists' intention to visit, and a fully mediated model that only tests the indirect effect. Data from these models were analyzed using structural equation model. Self-administered questionnaires based on Republic of Korea as a tourist destination were distributed to 500 students in Hefei City universities in April 2011. A total of 463 questionnaires were returned and 390 were used alter filtering unusable ones (i.e. those with missing answers), certain combination of "Yes/No" answers and those with "Yes" answer for the first filtering question and/or "No" answer for the second one. The data were analyzed using SPSS 18.0 and AMOS 18.0 software packages. First, a principal component factor analysis with varimax rotation was used to extract underlying dimensions of the cognitive image of South Korea as a tourist destination. Four common factors with eigenvalues higher than 1 were extracted. Second, we conducted structural equation model analysis to test our hypotheses and to compare the two nested models. The goodness-of-fit indices indicated that the fully mediated model is better than the partially mediated model. We came to the following conclusions. 1) In the destination image construct, the effect of affective image on the overall image was larger than that of cognitive image. The two components resulted in 87.8% variance of the overall image. 2) The effect of viewing movies and/or TV dramas on the cognitive image was larger than that on the affective image. This is because movies and/or TV dramas are greater information sources and are part of popular culture. They not only send messages about the places they depict, but also allow viewers to experience other cultures, locations and lifestyles. Consequently, they influence people's attitudes on a variety of levels. 3) The overall destination image perceived by potential tourists significantly influenced their intention to visit that destination. The comparative analysis results of the two nested models indicate that the impact of viewing movies and/or TV dramas on tourists' intention to visit is completely mediated by their perceived destination image. Our results have theoretical and practical implications. From a theoretical point of view, we have expanded the existing knowledge of screen-induced tourism by providing insights into the effect of movies and/or TV dramas on tourists' potential behaviors. From a marketing standpoint, we surmise that as tourism officers do not have control over how a place is portrayed in the movies and/or TV dramas, they need to constantly adjust destination image management strategies to maitainlenhance positive images and to change negative images depicted in the movies and/or TV drams. The implications for promoting destinations via film tourism and further research topics are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays culture and entertainment has become one of the tools of participation and relation between an organizations and stakeholders that have reached a top development. Companies know that to be part of the moments of joy and entertainment of their publics is an effective way of engagement and improving the link between them. The ways and technologies that exist to promote a company and to be part of this offer is very plural, it goes from actions of sponsorship to new strategies based on the corporate social responsibility (RSC). Between both, there is a whole range of options to interact with the public using cultural initiatives, but not all of them have the same level of effectiveness. After building a theoretical frame on these disciplines, this paper suggests a model able to determine the efficiency of these initiatives, based on two criteria: the nature of the communication management and the real engagement of the company with the cultural actions and decisions. These criteria allow to give a quantitative value to the efficiency of these actions based on the participation that they generate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the effect of sentiment on asset prices during the 20th century (1905 to 2005). As a proxy for sentiment, we use the fraction of positive and negative words in two columns of financial news from the New York Times. The main contribution of the paper is to show that, controlling for other well-known time-series patterns, the predictability of stock returns using news' content is concentrated in recessions. A one standard deviation shock to our news measure during recessions predicts a change in the conditional average return on the DJIA of 12 basis points over one day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marketers are increasingly relying on promotional practices (variously labeled as stealth marketing, hybrid messages, covert advertising) based on the diffusion of product information by third parties that appear to be independent of advertisers. In this paper, we examine to what extent the media treat their advertisers favorably, providing these advertisers' products extra visibility in supposedly neutral editorial content. Empirically, we model the determinant of media coverage of Italian fashion products in an extended dataset of consumer magazines in Italy, France, Germany, UK, and the USA. Research findings show that advertising is an important determinant of product placements in editorial content, and this result is consistent across countries and publishers. Our results imply that resource-rich advertisers engaging in compensatory advertising (that is, advertising investments that compensate poor product quality) might bias media coverage in their favor. Consumers will consequently be exposed twice to favorable messages about those products, in both advertisements and media content, resulting in higher purchases and reduced consumer welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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We investigate whether public opinion influences the level and structure of executive compensation. During 1992-2008, the negativity of press coverage of chief executive officer (CEO) pay varied significantly, with stock options being the most criticized pay component. We find that after more negative press coverage of CEO pay, firms reduce option grants and increase less contentious types of pay such as salary, although overall compensation does not change. The reduction in option pay after increased press negativity is more pronounced when firms, CEOs, and boards have stronger reputation concerns. Our within-firm, within-year identification shows the results cannot be explained by annual changes in accounting rules regarding executive compensation, stock market conditions, or pay mean reversion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) in China is an issue of global concern. China's business sector has been facing criticisms both at home and abroad for its unsatisfactory records on environmental conservation, business transparency, labor conditions, and product safety. Even some multinational corporations are said to have lowered their ethical standards when they operate in China. Media are a major stakeholder in defining and promoting CSR, and media coverage of CSR sets the agendas for the public and, to some extent, for corporations, by raising awareness about CSR issues and selectively emphasizing certain aspects of CSR. Guided by theories of agenda setting, framing, and agenda building, this paper reports a content analysis of the CSR coverage in five leading Chinese newspapers in 2009 and shows that China's newspapers predominately define CSR as companies' responsibilities towards the community, employees, and customers. Furthermore, the country's leading newspapers have yet to play an active role in facilitating a social dialogue about CSR, as they often adopt an uncritical attitude and a celebratory tone in their CSR reporting and allow corporations and the government to dominate the journalistic discourse of CSR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Media companies are increasingly becoming aware of the importance of their reputation. In order to legitimate themselves, they are starting to present themselves as 'good corporate citizens' by engaging in media governance and corporate social responsibility ( CSR) activities. The communication of those activities is crucial for the building of reputation. However, to date, no comprehensive studies have been conducted to evaluate the communication of media governance and CSR activities of media organizations. This study aims to fill this gap and examined websites and reports of selected media organizations in Germany, Italy, France, Austria, and Switzerland. Results indicate that public service media organizations communicate proportionally more on media governance than private media organizations, which may be due to the fact that public service media organizations feel more accountable to the public as they have a public service obligation. Concerning the communication of their CSR activities, media organizations focus on society-oriented measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine how Kent and Taylor's dialogic features are used by agricultural associations in the USA and Germany to engage media. Design/methodology/approach – A content analysis of 51 American Farm Bureau Federation and 18 Deutscher Bauernverband web sites was conducted to evaluate the incorporation of the principles of ease of interface, usefulness, dialogic loop, conservation of visitors, and generation of return visits. Findings – The study found mixed results for the incorporation of Kent and Taylor's five dialogic principles. At the time of the content analysis, these sites failed to provide a solid dialogic loop between the organisation and the visitor, and they did not encourage return visits. This weakens the sites' potential to move past information provision and build lasting relationships with reporters. Research limitations/implications – The findings of this research project provide benchmark numbers for the presence of the five dialogic principles in the agriculture industry. Further, the findings strengthen the growing evidence of the impact of the principles in various sectors. Previous research has examined how nonprofit social service and activist organisations have incorporated the principles as well as for-profit organizations. The current results shine light on how other organisations are using their web site to develop relationships with visitors. Practical implications – Research on agricultural communication indicates that the media increasingly are downplaying the significance of the industry in mainstream news. Scholars have suggested that the agricultural industry is not well versed in media training and media relations. However, the findings of this study indicate that the leading agricultural associations in the USA and Germany are still primarily using their web sites as one-way information subsidies rather than capitalizing on the interactive nature of the web. By incorporating the five dialogic principles into their web sites, the agricultural communicators will be in a better position to interact with media in a lasting manner rather than simply serving as a source of one-way information. Originality/value – Though the dialogic principles have been studied in other settings, this paper examines their use by organisations in multiple countries. Given the increasing globalisation of the agriculture industry, it is vital to understand how this industry communicates with the media given that it has repeatedly complained about media coverage of agricultural issues and the push by the American Farm Bureau to assist other national agricultural associations around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]