Astroturfing

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This article is about engineered political activism. For artificial grass, see AstroTurf.

In politics and advertising, the term astroturfing describes formal public relations (PR) campaigns which seek to create the impression of being a spontaneous, grassroots behavior. Hence the reference to the "AstroTurf" (artificial grass) is a metaphor to indicate "fake grassroots" support.

The goal of such campaign is to disguise the agenda of a political client as an independent public reaction to some political entity —a politician, political group, product, service, event. Astroturfers attempt to orchestrate the actions of apparently diverse and geographically distributed individuals, by both overt ("outreach," "awareness," etc.) and covert (disinformation) means. Astroturfing may be undertaken by anything from an individual pushing their own personal agenda through to highly organised professional groups with financial backing from large corporations.

Contents 1 Word origin 2 Techniques 3 Examples 3.1 Early examples 3.2 Examples from the 1990s 3.3 Recent examples 4 Telecom astroturf 5 Fictional examples 6 See also 7 References 8 External links

[edit] Word origin

The term, said to have been used first in this context by former U.S. Senator Lloyd Bentsen (Democrat-Texas), is wordplay based on "grassroots democracy" efforts, which are truly spontaneous undertakings largely sustained by private persons (not politicians, governments, corporations, or public relations firms). "AstroTurf" refers to the bright green artificial grass used in some sports stadiums, so "astroturfing" refers to artificial grassroots efforts.

[edit] Techniques

A form of propaganda, astroturfing attempts to selectively affect the emotions of the public, whether trying to win a campaign, be the top music record seller, the top book seller, or gain political support.

The most frequently identified cases of astroturfing are found in recent political history. The concept itself is older and was widely used by the Soviet Communists.

Astroturfing techniques usually consist of a few people discreetly posing as mass numbers of activists advocating a specific cause. Supporters or employees will manipulate the degree of interest through letters to the editor, e-mails, blog posts, crossposts, trackbacks, etc. They are instructed on what to say, how to say it, where to send it, and how to make it appear that their indignation, appreciation, joy, or hate is entirely spontaneous and independent. This makes their campaign seem "real" rather than the product of an orchestrated campaign. Local newspapers are often victims of astroturfing when they publish letters identical to those received and printed by other newspapers.

It has become easier to structure an astroturfing campaign in the electronic era because the cost and effort to send an e-mail (especially a pre-written, sign-your-name-at-the-bottom e-mail) is so low. Companies may use a boiler room full of telephones and computers where hired activists locate people and groups that create enthusiasm for the specified cause. Also, the use of psychographics allows hired supporters to persuade their targeted audience. This correlates with the merge-purge technique that combines information about an individual from multiple databases. Companies can then turn hypothetical supporters into activists for the cause. This leads to misuse of the Internet, for one person is able to play the role of a whole group of like-minded people (see also Internet sockpuppet).

News consolidation services, such as Google News, as well as PR Watch and Sourcewatch, have made it easier to spot such campaigns through the search of specific key phrases that bring up results showing identical letters, articles, blogs, websites, etc.

[edit] Examples

[edit] Early examples

At the turn of the 20th century, it was common to have newspapers in major American cities sponsored by local political parties. Some were open about this practice, but many of these relationships were hidden. Other examples include political "clubs" which front for voter fraud and intimidation, letter-writing campaigns organized by local ward bosses, and some union-organized political activities.

In one case, documented in the book All the President's Men, the Committee to Re-Elect the President orchestrated several campaigns of "public support" for decisions made by President Nixon in the period preceding the 1972 election, including telegrams to the White House and an apparently independent advertisement placed in The New York Times.

Another case is that of Bolivian dictator General Luis Garcia Meza Tejada, who at the end of his promised one-year rule staged a televised rally and declared "Bueno, me quedo," or in English: "All right, I'll stay."

Manipulation of public opinion was also used in the Soviet Union. Political decisions were often preceded by massive campaigns of orchestrated 'letters from workers' (pisma trudyashchikhsya) which were quoted and published in newspapers and radio.^{[citation needed]} In Stalin's era, massive "public demonstrations" were organized against "the enemies of the people"; those attending were often forced or intimidated into doing so.

[edit] Examples from the 1990s

In 1991 a memo from PR firm van Kloberg & Associates to Zairian ambassador Tatanene Tanata referring to the "Zaire Program 1991" was leaked. The memo outlines steps the firm was taking to improve the image of Mobutu Sese Seko's regime, including placing dozens of letters to the editor, op-ed pieces, and articles in the American press praising the Zairian government. [1]

In 1998, Paul Reitsma, former member of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia, was accused of writing letters to newspapers under assumed names praising himself and attacking his political opponents. A Parksville newspaper had asked a former RCMP handwriting expert to compare a sample of Reitsma's handwriting to that of letters to the editor submitted by a "Warren Betanko", and then ran a story entitled "MLA Reitsma is a liar and we can prove it". For this, Reitsma was expelled from the caucus of the British Columbia Liberal Party and then compelled to resign his seat after it became obvious that an effort to recall him would succeed. [2]

[edit] Recent examples

In 2001, the Los Angeles Times accused Microsoft of astroturfing when hundreds of similar letters were sent to newspapers voicing disagreement with the United States Department of Justice and its antitrust suit against Microsoft. The letters, prepared by Americans for Technology Leadership, had in some cases been mailed from deceased citizens or nonexistent addresses.^[1][2][3]

USA Next, a seniors' organization which supports the privatization of Social Security, has also been accused of being an astroturf group funded by corporate interests, especially those of pharmaceutical companies.^{[citation needed]}

In recent years, organizations of plaintiffs' attorneys have established front groups such as Victims and Families United and the Center for Justice and Democracy to oppose tort reform.^{[citation needed]}

A supposedly grassroots "teen" protest against alcohol advertising held in Washington at the Beer Institute was actually organized by the National Youth Advocacy Assembly, a group funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. (National Youth Advocacy Assembly)^{[citation needed]}

In March 2006, a supposed environmental group called the Save Our Species Alliance was exposed as a front group that was created by a timber lobbyist to weaken the Endangered Species Act. The campaign director for this group is Tim Wigley, the Executive Director of Pac/West Communications. Wigley was also the campaign director for Project Protect, another front group that spent $2.9 million to help pass President Bush's Healthy Forests legislation which has been criticized for its pro-industry bias. "[3]

The Save Our Species Alliance web site portrays itself as a grassroots organization against the Endangered Species Act (the word "grassroots" is mentioned no less than five times on their "Take Action Now" page), but is criticized by environmentalists for being a front group for wealthy cattle and timber interests which consider Federal environmental legislation an impediment to profit.

In the 2005 UK general election, the Labour Party packed press conferences with party workers who appeared as genuine, concerned members of the public. The Labour Party, The Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrat Party workers also sent letters to the local press purporting to be ordinary members of the public; all of the letters fit a common template covering specific party issues.^{[citation needed]} Aside from deceiving the readership, such tactics also deny space to genuine local residents. (New Labour's use of astroturf tactics was exposed by a UK Channel Four team with the use of an undercover reporter, shown in May 2005 - see below.)

Slobodan Milošević, a former authoritarian leader of Yugoslavia, also used astroturfing by broadcasting, on state television, numerous "letters of support" containing emotional expressions of love and support for his policies, creating an artificial impression of legitimacy.^{[citation needed]}

Wake Up Wal-Mart is an organization that claims to be "grass roots" but is actually run by the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, which seeks to pressure Wal-Mart to bend to the Union's demands. The group's website pages are clearly marked as copyrighted by the UFCW Union, but public statements empasize instead its "grassroots" nature.^[4]

Wal-Mart Watch was originally funded by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).[4] According to the Wall Street Journal, Wal-Mart Watch is mainly funded by Five Stones, a 501(c)(3) organization that received $2,775,000 in 2005 from the SEIU.[5][6] The Wal-Mart Watch "About" page clearly discloses connection with Five Stones, the name and SEIU affiliation of its President Andy Stern, and the names and affiliations of other board members.The SEIU reportedly gave Five Stones $1 million in 2004 to start Wal-Mart Watch.[7] [8]

One recent project of Working Families for Wal-Mart is its website PaidCritics.com, devoted to exposing the astroturf origins of such Wal-Mart critics as Wake Up Wal-Mart and Wal-Mart Watch. In a nice touch of irony, Business Week recently disclosed that despite its own grass-roots imagery, "Working Families for Wal-Mart" was created, run, and paid for by Wal-Mart's PR firm Edelman. ^{[5] [6]} The "About" page of Working Families for Wal-Mart] does not reveal the group's connection to Wal-Mart; the group's mission is said to include "fostering open and honest dialogue".

Verizon aired ads in spring 2006 where a group set out on a cross-country quest to film a documentary finding out why consumers favored Verizon. [9]

In May, 2006, SanDisk launched a site called iDon't, appearing to be a blog started by individuals opposed to Apple's domination of the portable music player market. It's actually an advertisement mechanism for their own device, the Sansa e200.

In October 2006, Quik sponsored the "Lactose Tolerance" campaign, where activists tried in the manner of Greenpeace and Children International to solicit public support for flavored milks as equal to regular milk. [10]

The Center for Consumer Freedom which claims to be a "nonprofit coalition of restaurants, food companies, and consumers working together to promote personal responsibility and protect consumer choices"^[7] is a corporate front group targeting actual grassroots organizations, such as PETA (referred to as "animal liberation activists"), Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and the Center for Science in the Public Interest (labeled "food police.") The Center for Consumer Freedom sponsors a number of anti-activism Internet campaigns, including ActivistCash.com, AnimalScam.com, CSPIScam.com, PetaKillsAnimals.com, PhysicianScam.com. ^[8][9]

In August 2006, a science journalist for the Wall Street Journal ^[10] revealed that a YouTube video - "Al Gore's Penguin Army" - which was claimed to be an amateur work in fact came from the computers of DCI Group, a Washington, D.C.-based PR firm whose acknowledged leaders all have ties to the Republican Party and whose client list includes ExxonMobil and General Motors. (See Al Gore's Penguin Army video controversy.) This hoax was discovered when journalist, Antonio Ragalado, noticed that the YouTube video was the first sponsored listing when he performed a google search for Al Gore. The fact that someone was actually paying to have the alleged amateur film promoted was in itself suspicious. ^[11]

Since the spring of 2006, American Airlines has received frequent accusations of astroturfing due to its acknowledged support (including some financial backing) of Stop and Think, a Dallas-based organization that has advocated the retention of the federal Wright Amendment ban on most longhaul commercial passenger airline service at Dallas Love Field. Many opponents of the Wright Amendment believe that American, the dominant passenger airline at nearby Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, has an overly cozy relationship with the management of DFW Airport and/or uses overly aggressive competitive tactics against other airlines that serve DFW, and that for airline competition in North Texas to increase substantively, the federal government must repeal the Wright Amendment and let Love Field be an alternative to DFW for airlines flying longhaul routes to and from North Texas. Therefore, these critics think that the Wright Amendment unduly limits the competition that American faces in the North Texas commercial aviation market and that American is using Stop and Think to try to manipulate the public into backing the law -- and, by extension, the airline's commercial interests -- under a pretense of broad-based community support.^{[citation needed]}

In July 2006, an article by Vladimir Socor, a veteran analyst of east European affairs for the Jamestown Foundation, claimed that a report on Transdniestria issued by the International Council for Democratic Institutions and State Sovereignty, "State Sovereignty of Pridnestrovie (PMR) under international law", was a Russian-sponsored attempt at disinformation. A spokesperson for the organization, Megan Stephenson, has denied these charges.^[12] Shortly afterwards The Economist published two articles highlighting the ICDISS's lack of a physical presence and its disinclination to provide independent verification of its activities and previous existence.^[13] The Economist also reported that prominent academics cited as sources in the ICDISS report on Transdniestria disclaimed any connection with the organisation. The Economist noted the Wikipedia entry for ICDISS created as part of the apparent disinformation exercise.

[edit] Telecom astroturf

Dionne Searcey, in the article "Consumer Groups Tied to Industry", in the Wall Street Journal, Tuesday March 28, 2006, p. B4, names some telecom groups as astroturf:

• Consumers for Cable Choice. Funding from Verizon Communications, Inc. and AT&T, Inc.
• Keep It Local New Jersey. Funding from New Jersey Telecommunications Associates; the WSJ indicates this is a coalition of various telecoms including Time Warner Cable and Cablevision Systems Corp.
• New Millennium Research Council. Funding from Verizon Communications Inc.

Other known telecom astroturfing groups:

• Video Access Alliance. Created by Netcommunication for an unknown client ([11])

• Hands Off the Internet, (http://handsoff.org/). Reported by Kos in Daily Kos ([12])

[edit] Fictional examples

Government astroturfing, as well as other sneaky tricks including an eleven-day war waged to distract from a sex scandal, are depicted in the film Wag the Dog. Although fiction, the film dissects the process of astroturfing in fine detail. Obviously, these techniques would normally be cloaked in secrecy.

In one sequence, spin doctors desire to create the illusion that broad public support exists for a kidnapped war hero (who is actually safe in military prison). Two contemporary musicians are hired to record a song in the idiom of turn-of-the-century acoustic Delta blues, as was archived definitively by John Lomax. The modern studio recording is artificially degraded with surface noise, scratches, and hiss; and a single 78 RPM record is pressed with a faded, worn paper label. The fake is inserted into an authentic old blank paper sleeve, and infiltrated into the Library of Congress audio collection. Once there, the song (whose lyrics appear to make reference to the name of the "kidnapped war hero"), is "discovered" and released to radio stations across the country, which are encouraged to air the song: scratches, pops, clicks, and all. That "historical" song provides the theme for an astroturfed wave of mass support for the "hero."

[edit] See also

• Spin (public relations)
• Sock puppeting – a form of personal astroturfing common in Internet communities
• Working Families for Wal-Mart
• Viral marketing
• Wikiturfing

[edit] References

• Anderson, Walter T. "Astroturf - The Big Business of Fake Grassroots Politics." Jinn 5 January 1996. [13]
• Astroturf. 17 Oct. 2004. Sourcewatch. 6 Nov. 2005. [14]
• Miller, Laura. "Powers Behinds the Throne." Center for Media and Democracy 21 February 2005. [15]
• National Youth Advocacy Assembly. Teens from Across the Country Rally in Washington DC to call on the Beer Institute to Honor its Marketing Code and Stop Targeting Teens. National Youth Advocacy Assembly press release, 27 January 2003.
• Odegard, Peter H. Pressure Politics: The Story of the Anti-Saloon League. NY: Columbia University Press, 1928.
• Rampton, Sheldon and Stauber, John. "Keeping America Safe from Democracy." Center for Media and Democracy 30 October 2004. [16]
• "Playing on astroturf," The National Journal, April 19, 1986 - 'the "grass roots is AstroTurf in many cases, artificial turf," says Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, D-Texas.' - quoted in [17]

1. ^ USA Today Microsoft funded 'grass roots' campaign
2. ^ Robyn Weisman Phony 'Grassroots' Campaign Orchestrated by Microsoft August 23 2001
3. ^ Thor Olavsrud Microsoft Supported by Dead People August 23 2001
4. ^ http://www.wakeupwalmart.com/about
5. ^ http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/oct2006/db20061009_579137.htm
6. ^ Shoppers Become Unwitting Warriors In PR Battle http://www.coxwashington.com/reporters/content/reporters/stories/2006/04/04/BC_WALMART_PR04_COX.html
7. ^ About Us. Center for Consumer Freedom.
8. ^ Unti, Bernard (01-07-2005). Center for Consumer Freedom: Non-Profit or Corporate Shill?. Humane Society of the United States.
9. ^ Mayer and Amy Joyce, Caroline E.. "The Escalating Obesity Wars; Nonprofit's Tactics, Funding Sources Spark Controversy", Washington Post, 27-04-2005.
10. ^ "Where did that video spoofing Gore's film come from?", Wall Street Journal, 03-09-2006.
11. ^ Episode Two Fake Grass and the Cyber City. 23/09/2006. Retrieved 2006, September 29
12. ^ Cooper, Jason. Megan Stephenson: "Western NGOs can make headway when governments can't" Tiraspol Times. 7/20/2006. Retrieved on 2006, 08-04
13. ^ Disinformation The Economist. 8/3/2006. Retrieved on 2006, 08-03

• DISPATCHES: Undercover with New Labour, "The Dirty Tricks Election". Channel Four (Hardcash Productions) first broadcast 25th May 2005. [18]

[edit] External links

• Outside Lobbying, by Ken Kollman
• Who Will Tell the People?, by William Greider
• Letters From Iraq from Sourcewatch
• Paul D. Thacker, "Hidden ties: Big environmental changes backed by big industry Lobbyists and industry officials who once pushed for the president’s Healthy Forests legislation now collaborate with Rep. [Richard] Pombo to alter the Endangered Species Act", Environmental Science & Technology, March 8, 2006.
• Wolves in Sheeps Clothing: Telecom Industry Front Groups and Astroturf (.pdf) a special report prepared by the Common Cause Education Fund, March 2006.
• Anti-Astroturfing campaign from the New PR Wiki
• Political parties and their use of modern media in obtaining information superiority