Research

Public debates on topics such as sustainability, digitalisation, or migration take place both offline and online. Organisations influence media coverage via agenda-building. Digital communication channels allow organisations to have a say public debates in various ways. This research topic focuses on the influence of organisations on public debates through their strategic communication.

Lock, I., & Jacobs, S.H.J. (2023). Identity resilience in times of mediatization: Comparing employees’ with citizens’ perceptions of a public organization. Public Relations Review. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2023.102416External link

Lock, I. (2023). Conserving complexity: A complex systems paradigm and framework to study public relations´contribution to grand challenges. Public Relations Review, 49(2). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2023.102310External link

Schwinges, A., van der Meer, G. L. A., Lock, I., & Vliegenthart, R. (2023). The watchdog role in the age of Big Tech - how news media in the United States and Germany hold Big Tech corporations accountable. Information, Communication & Society, https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2023.2234972External link

Lu, G., Businger, M., Dollfus, C., Wozniak, T., Fleck, M., Heroth, T., Lock, I., & Lipenkova, J. (2022). Agenda-Setting for COVID-19: A Study of Large-Scale Economic News Coverage Using Natural Language Processing. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41060-022-00364-7External link

Lock, I. (2020). Debating glyphosate: A macro perspective on the role of strategic communication in forming and monitoring A global issue arena using inductive topic modelling. International Journal of Strategic Communication, 14(4), 223-245. https://doi.org/10.1080/1553118X.2020.1780240External link

Lock, I. (2020). Wie wirkt kongruente Text-Bild-sprache auf Glaubwürdigkeit und Handlungsabsichten in der Integrationsdebatte? Ein Online-Experiment zu den Internetseiten der Bertelsmann Stiftung und des Bundesinnenministeriums. Publizistik, 65(3), 425-450. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11616-020-00577-5External link

Lock, I., & Ludolph, R. (2020). Organizational propaganda on the Internet: A systematic review. Public Relations Inquiry, 9(1), 103-127. https://doi.org/10.1177/2046147X19870844External link

Organisations have been influencing political processes through lobbying since democracies exist. Public affairs describes not only lobbying of legislators (members of national or supranational parliaments), but also any influence through strategic communication aimed at influencing legislative or regulatory measures in the interist of the organisation. This happens, for instance, via grassroots lobbying, agenda-setting, or think tanks.

Lock, I., & Davidson, S. (2023). Argumentation strategies in lobbying: toward a typology. Journal of Communication Management, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1108/JCOM-09-2022-0111 External linkLink to DBTExternal link

Lock, I. & Jacobs, S. (2023). Behind Closed Doors: How Public Affairs Professionals Perceive the Process of Organizational Frame-Building. International Journal of Communication, 17, 4015-4036. https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/18644/4216External link

Ihlen, O., Lock, I., Raknes, K. (2023). Democracy, strategic communication and lobbying. In M. Heide & J. Falkheimer (eds). Research Handbook of Strategic Communication (Ch. 11). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-03895-3_5-1External link

Lock, I. (2020). Politischer Einfluss durch Kommunikation: Public Affairs in Europa. In U. Röttger, P. Donges, & A. Zerfaß (Eds.), Handbuch Public Affairs: Politische Kommunikation für Unternehmen und Organisationen (Live ed.). Springer Gabler. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-23391-4_4-1External link

Lock, I., Stachel, C., & Seele, P. (2020). Traveling frames: How corporate and civil society actors try to influence public administration and courts in a case on nuclear emission data in Switzerland. Journal of Public Affairs, 20, [e2008].

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2008External link

Ihlen, Ø., Raknes, K., Somerville, I., Valentini, C., Stachel, C., Lock, I., Davidson, S., & Seele, P. (2018). Framing “the public interest”: Comparing public lobbying campaigns in four European states. Journal of Public Interest Communications, 2(1), 107-128. https://doi.org/10.32473/jpic.v2.i1External link

Lock, I., & Seele, P. (2017). The Consequences of Astroturf Lobbying for Trust and Authenticity: Findings and Implications from an Experiment. Communication Management Review, 2(1), 30-52. https://doi.org/10.22522/cmr20170121External link

Lock, I., & Seele, P. (2016). Deliberative Lobbying? Toward a Noncontradiction of Corporate Political Activities and Corporate Social Responsibility? Journal of Management Inquiry, 25(4), 415-430. https://doi.org/10.1177/1056492616640379External link

Lock, I., Seele, P., & Heath, R. L. (2016). Where grass has no roots: The concept of ‘shared strategic communication’ as an answer to unethical astroturf lobbying. International Journal of Strategic Communication, 10, 87-100. https://doi.org/10.1080/1553118X.2015.1116002External link

With digitalisation, organisations increasingly use software applications that generate automated texts for communication with customers, employees, suppliers, or other interested parties. This includes, for instance, automatically generated emails, product descriptions, or content for social media. This research topic examines the content, motivations, and effects of automated communication in relation to different stakeholders.

Weller, T., & Lock, I. (2024). Automated Communication’s Impact on Strategic Communication: Implications from a Systematic Review. International Journal of Strategic Communication, 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1080/1553118X.2024.2379501External link

One of the defining issues of our time is how humanity can live sustainably on this planet. A contribution can be made by companies which, as a central part of society, on the one hand leave a significant social and ecological footprint, but on the other hand also have considerable power to provide solutions. Strategic communication on the role of companies in society (corporate social responsibility) is examined in this focus area in relation to credibility, effects on legitimacy, visual presentation, and actors in the sustainability debate.

Lock, I. (2023). Conserving complexity: A complex systems paradigm and framework to study public relations´contribution to grand challenges. Public Relations Review, 49(2), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2023.102310External link

Lock, I., & Araujo, T. B. (2020). Visualizing the triple bottom line: A large‐scale automated visual content analysis of European corporations' website and social media images. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 27, 2631-2641. https://doi.org/10.1002/csr.1988External link

Lock, I., & Schulz-Knappe, C. (2019). Credible corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication predicts legitimacy: Evidence from an experimental study. Corporate Communications, 24, 2-20. https://doi.org/10.1108/CCIJ-07-2018-0071External link

Lock, I., & Seele, P. (2018). Politicized CSR: How corporate political activity (mis-)uses political CSR. Journal of Public Affairs, 18(3), [e1667]. https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1667External link

Lock, I., & Seele, P. (2017). Corporate Social Responsibility, Public Affairs and Corporate Community Involvement: Torn between Instrumentalism and Deliberation. In P. Harris, & C. S. Fleisher (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of International Corporate and Public Affairs (pp. 550-564). Sage Publications. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781473947391.n31External link

Lock, I., & Seele, P. (2017). Measuring credibility perceptions in CSR communication: A scale development to test readers’ perceived credibility of CSR reports. Management Communication Quarterly, 31(4), 584-613. https://doi.org/10.1177/0893318917707592External link

Lock, I., & Seele, P. (2017). Theorizing stakeholders of sustainability in the digital age. Sustainability Science, 12(2), 235-245. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-016-0404-2External link

Seele, P., & Lock, I. (2017). The game-changing potential of digitalization for sustainability: possibilities, perils, and pathways. Sustainability Science, 12(2), 183-185. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-017-0426-4External link

Lock, I. (2016). Glaubwürdigkeit in der CSR-Kommunikation Entwicklung eines legitimätsbasierten Ansatzes. Publizistik, 61(4), 413-429. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11616-016-0300-xExternal link

Lock, I., & Seele, P. (2016). CSR governance and departmental organization: a typology of best practices. Corporate Governance, 16(1), 211-230. https://doi.org/10.1108/CG-01-2015-0010External link

Lock, I., & Seele, P. (2016). The credibility of CSR (corporate social responsibility) reports in Europe. Evidence from a quantitative content analysis in 11 countries. Journal of cleaner production, 122, 186-200. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.02.060External link

Von Schnurbein, G., Seele, P., & Lock, I. (2016). Exclusive corporate philanthropy: Rethinking the nexus of CSR and corporate philanthropy. Social Responsibility Journal, 12(2), 280-294. https://doi.org/10.1108/SRJ-10-2014-0149External link

Lock, I., & Seele, P. (2015). Analyzing sector-specific CSR reporting: Social and environmental disclosure to investors in the chemicals and banking and insurance industry. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 22(2), 113-128. https://doi.org/10.1002/csr.1338External link

Images play a special role in digital communication because of their impact on attention and emotions. Thus, the media as well as strategic communicators use images to highlight specific contents or to emphasise certain meanings (e.g., through framing). On the one hand, this research topic deals with the content of visual communication of organisations and in the media, on the other hand, we develop methods to analyse the massive number of digital images more efficiently and to render computational methods applicable to communication science.

Peng, Y., Lock, I., & Sallah, A. A. (2023). Automated visual analysis for the study of social media effects: Opportunities, approaches, and challenges. Communication Methods and Measures. DOI: 10.1080/19312458.2023.2277956

Araujo, T., Lock, I., & van de Velde, B. (2020). Automated Visual Content Analysis (AVCA) in communication research: A protocol for large scale image classification with pre-trained computer vision models. Communication Methods and Measures, 14(4), 239-265. https://doi.org/10.1080/19312458.2020.1810648External link

Lock, I., & Araujo, T. B. (2020). Visualizing the triple bottom line: A large‐scale automated visual content analysis of European corporations' website and social media images. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 27, 2631-2641. https://doi.org/10.1002/csr.1988External link

Lock, I. (2020). Wie wirkt kongruente Text-Bild-sprache auf Glaubwürdigkeit und Handlungsabsichten in der Integrationsdebatte? Ein Online-Experiment zu den Internetseiten der Bertelsmann Stiftung und des Bundesinnenministeriums. Publizistik, 65(3), 425-450. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11616-020-00577-5External link

The changing communication landscape also raises the question whether we need new theories to explain novel digital phenomena. This research topic evaluates existing theories of communication science and develops new conceptual and theoretical approaches.

Lock, I. (2023). Conserving complexity: A complex systems paradigm and framework to study public relations´contribution to grand challenges. Public Relations Review, 49(2), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2023.102310External link

Lock, I., Wonneberger, A., Verhoeven, P., & Hellsten, I. (2020). Back to the Roots? The Applications of Communication Science Theories in Strategic Communication Research. International Journal of Strategic Communication, 14(1), 1-24. https://doi.org/10.1080/1553118X.2019.1666398External link

Lock, I. (2019). Explicating communicative organization-stakeholder relationships in the digital age: A systematic review and research agenda. Public Relations Review, 45(4), [101829]. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2019.101829External link