Intentional and emergent strategies: Analyzing the motivational and structural dynamics in online communications of political interest organizations

This article focuses on the motivational and structural dynamics of the online communication of political interest organizations. Instead of describing political interest organizations as fully rational players, we develop a theoretical framework that establishes an alternative view of political interest organizations by characterizing them as actors that are also dependent on their institutional environment. The basic assumption of this framework is that there is no unidirectional relationship between motives and structures and the online communication activities. Instead, there is a dynamic interplay of motives, structures, environmental conditions, and online communication. Against this theoretical framework, we discuss the findings from an interview study with communication executives of political interest organizations. The aim of this study was not to resolve the debate on whether political organizations communicate ‘strategically’ or not. Instead, we examined the motivational and structural dynamics that constitute the organizations’ online communications efforts