Climate change advocacy online: theories of change, target audiences, and online strategy

Abstract

Widespread adoption of the Internet has transformed how most US political advocacy organizations operate, but perhaps more important has been the formation of new types of advocacy organizations. These ‘Internet-mediated advocacy organizations’ tend to have smaller, geographically dispersed and networked staffs, behave as hybrids of traditional political organizations, and emphasize the use of online tools for offline action. The climate change debate has spurred formation of many such organizations – including 350.org – that now advocate for climate action alongside legacy/environmental organizations. How do these organizations differ from their legacy/environmental counterparts? What does their rise mean for climate change political advocacy? I explore these and other questions through in-depth interviews with top online strategists and other staffers at Environmental Defense Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, Greenpeace USA, Energy Action Coalition, 1Sky, and 350.org. Interviews revealed broad agreement among Internet-mediated/climate groups regarding core strategic assumptions about climate advocacy, but some divergence among legacy/environmental organizations. They also revealed connections between these assumptions, audience segment targeting, and strategic use of the Internet for advocacy. I discuss implications for the future of US climate advocacy.

Keywords:

• climate change
• Internet-mediated advocacy
• 350.org
• environmental organizations
• issue publics
• online activism

Acknowledgements

My thanks to Drs Matthew C. Nisbet, Laura DeNardis, Kathryn Montgomery, and Todd Eisenstadt, to my anonymous reviewers for their comments, and to the staff members of all the featured advocacy organizations for their cooperation.

Notes

1. In June 2014, President Obama announced an EPA plan to regulate carbon emissions from coal power plants. The regulations were prompted by a US Supreme Court decision that found the EPA has authority to regulate greenhouse gases (Massachusetts v. EPA, ‘Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency’ 2007). Several of the organizations featured in this article participated in the lawsuit against the EPA. These regulations will not be finalized before June 2015, and face opposition from Congress, several states, and the fossil-fuel industry.

2. While single-issue organizations advocate on multiple issues, they tend to fall within widely recognized umbrellas. For example, Sierra Club may be active on climate change, clean water, and species conservation, but it is highly unlikely to campaign extensively on network neutrality or reproductive rights. By contrast, organizations such as MoveOn.org opportunistically campaign across issue umbrellas. Meanwhile, Internet-mediated ‘specialists’ as described by Karpf share most characteristics with generalists such as MoveOn.org, expect for their single-issue focus. 350.org is an example of this.

3. I use the term ‘theory of change’ here as it is used within the advocacy community: an articulation of a strategy that could plausibly lead to desired changes in policy or norms. I used the term repeatedly during interviews, and all respondents understood the term before answering questions about it. See Klugman (2011) for an academic treatment of the concept.