Know(ing) Your Power: Risk Society, Astroturf Campaigns, and the Battle over the Red Rock Coal-Fired Plant

Abstract

Using qualitative content analysis of newspaper articles, Web site matter, and newsprint advertisements, the authors analyze the nuances of Know Your Power (KYP), a corporate Astroturf campaign created in 2007 to challenge the permitting of the Red Rock coal-fired facility in northern Oklahoma. Employing a risk society framework, the study contributes to literatures on Astroturf campaigns, the social construction and definition of risk, discourse on the contentious politics of energy, and corporate use of false grassroots coalitions in an environmental conflict. Findings indicate that KYP utilized an educational framework, neighborhood expert knowledge, themes central in the risk society, and the impression of a grassroots coalition to convince lay publics and regulatory actors that “Red Rock is wrong.”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors are grateful to Kristen Dmytryk for her assistance with data collection and to The Sociological Quarterly's editors and anonymous reviewers whose comments on various drafts were educational and essential in strengthening our argument.