Similar to most businesses in the United States, contemporary U.S. presidential campaigns execute a variety of online relationship-building strategies to achieve organizational goals (Kelleher, 2009; Sweetser, 2011). In addition to raising brand awareness and differentiating the organization/campaign from its competitors, these online communications are also designed to promote socially responsible behaviors and engage strategic publics (Levenshus, 2010). Grounded in the organization–public relations (OPR) literature, scholars have developed a political organization–public relations (POPR) framework for analyses of political communications and campaign effects on citizen–political party relationships and outcomes (Ledingham, 2011; Zhang & Seltzer, 2010). This line of research suggests strategic campaign communications significantly influence POPR with the political parties, which is related to individual levels of social capital, confidence in government and attitudes toward political parties’ issue positions (Seltzer & Zhang, 2011a, 2011b; Zhang & Seltzer, 2010). Additionally,the degree of interactivity and the extentto which both the organization and its publics engage in conscious and dialogic communications may influence POPR states and other relevant outcomes (Karlsson, Clerwall, & Buskqvist, 2013; Kim, Painter, & Miles, 2013; Lee & Park, 2013). Based on survey research indicating strategic campaign communications affect on voters’ POPR with the political parties (Seltzer & Zhang, 2011a, 2011b), this experimental investigation tests for the main effects of online information source on voters’ POPR with the presidential campaigns and individual levels of political trust.

Compared to traditional media, internet platforms allow for more interactive and two-way communication, and research indicates higher levels of interactivity may influence the effects of exposure to online political information (Pingree, 2007; Shah, Cho, Eveland, & Kwak, 2005; Shah et al., 2007; Tedesco, 2007). Moreover, research on the indirect effects of political communications suggest users who express themselves during interactions with political information experience higher levels of self-consciousness, awareness and ego-involvement, which influence their perceptions, attitudes and resulting behaviors (Cho et al., 2009; Kim et al., 2013; Kim, 2006; Pingree, 2007). Although much experimental public relations research focuses on the effects of message sources and/or contents, this study focuses on the influence of sending and receiving messages, or dialog, by manipulating users’ online behaviors to test for the influence of interactivity. Specifically, this investigation tests for the main effects of interactivity by comparing the differential effects of surveillance and expressive behaviors on gains in voter-campaign POPR and political trust. Finally, this investigation finds its place in the literature by testing for differential effects and interactions to specify the online information source (Facebook versus campaign website) and interactivity level (surveillance versus expression) exerting the greatest influence on voter-campaign POPR and political trust.