The document discusses the receptivity of different audiences to new and social media used by interest groups. It presents information on the types of audiences that interest groups aim to influence, including decision-makers, the public, and businesses. It also outlines the traditional, new, and social media tools that can be used to target different audiences, such as paper, email, social media, and semantic web tools. The document hypothesizes that new media represents an incremental change rather than a paradigm shift for interest groups, and that using the right mix of tools for each audience leads to greater influence. It finds that interest groups widely adopt new media but have diverging views on its importance, and that social media is best for mobilizing non-

1. Tools & Tactics: Audiences
Receptivity to New and Social Media
ECF Conference - Academic Stream
By Paul Shotton PhD

2. Supply and Demand
Decision-maker

3. ?
WHAT INFORMATION?

4. Preferences for Type of Info
European Council of Ministers European
Commission Parliament
In what
order?
European Info National Info Expert Info

5. Other Types of Information?
European National Expert
Degree of Public
Feeling?

6. At Other Levels?
Global European
National Sub-national

7. ?
WHAT TOOLS?

8. Traditional, New & Social
Web 1.0 Web 2.0 Web 3.0
Traditional New Social ?
Pre-web media: Web media: Web media: Web media:
• Paper • Read-only • User Generated • Computer
• Face to face • Email Content Generated
• Physical protest • Electronic • Social media Content
• Etc. documents (PDF) • Blogging • Semantic web
• Etc. • Wikis • Etc.
• Etc.
Pre-web 1990s 2000s ?

9. ?
WHAT TOOL FOR WHAT AUDIENCE?

10. What Tool for What Audience?
Supporter Decision-makers
Not very
Relevant
The Public Businesses

11. What Tool for What Audience?
Should we segregate Strategies
Outside Inside
or or
Voice Access

12. Direct and Indirect Influence
Supporter Decision-makers
Interest Group
The Public Businesses

13. Problem
1. To what extent does the audience targeted
by the communication action determines the
choice of tools and tactics deployed?
2. What role do the communication tools
derived from web 2.0 play within the overall
toolbox of communications tools and tactics
deployed by interest representatives?

14. Hypotheses
1. New and social media do not represent a major paradigm
shift in interest group strategy, but more an incremental
development whereby existing methods are being
reinvented with the use of new tools.
2. Interest groups making use of the most appropriate mix of
tools and tactics for different audiences will be those that
have the greatest influence over the policy-making
process.
3. Social media is most relevant as a means of mobilising
non-policy-making audiences in order to both legitimise
the interest representative’s position and arguments, to
mobilise external pressures on policy-makers and
generate resources enabling the interest representative to
function.

15. Methodology
• Online Survey • Problems:
www.SurveyMonkey.co – Small sample
m – Representivity of sample
• 65 responses – Data spread over several
years
• 17 closed and 5 open
questions
– 1-6 profile
– 7-10 classification
– 11-17 tools
– 18-23 elaborations

16. Key results – without ranking
N&SM adoption
rates are high!

17. Key results – Primary tool
N&SM
importance is
more modest.

18. Disagreement for decision makers
Diverging opinions
over N&SM

19. High importance for public and
supporters

20. Findings
• Interest groups are not uniformly adopting new
and social media in their communication
strategies.
• New media has become established alongside
traditional communication tools.
• Social media use focuses on the public and
supporters, while use with decision-makers is
more prevalent at national level.
• Onliner vs. Offliner generations are determinant
to N&SM effectiveness. Decision-makers largely
seen as Offliners.

21. Findings
• The data outlines an ideal mix and audience
allocation of tools according to each audience
• Social media adoption is high
• Opinions diverge: N&SM = cost saving or cost
barrier

22. Hypotheses Confirmed
1. New and social media do not represent a major paradigm
shift in interest group strategy, but more an incremental
development whereby existing methods are being
reinvented with the use of new tools.
2. Interest groups making use of the most appropriate mix of
tools and tactics for different audiences will be those that
have the greatest influence over the policy-making
process.
3. Social media is most relevant as a means of mobilising
non-policy-making audiences in order to both legitimise
the interest representative’s position and arguments, to
mobilise external pressures on policy-makers and
generate resources enabling the interest representative to
function.

23. Next steps
• Further analysis of data
• Further surveys
– Interest groups
– Audiences
• Tackle problems of multicultural,
multinational and multilingual samples

24. Thank You!
Questions?