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Astroturfing is an English-language euphemism referring to political, advertising, or public relations campaigns that are formally planned by an organization, but designed to mask its origins to create the impression of being spontaneous, popular " grassroots" behavior. The term refers to AstroTurf, a brand of synthetic carpeting designed to look like natural grass. A basic explanation is: if a grassroots movement grows upward from collective efforts, on a local level, of dedicated people donating their time and efforts to further a political or social cause they deem to be good for the many, then Astroturfing ( Astroturf being an artificial grass) is an artificial grassroots movement, one that is made to appear as though it is a real grassroots movement, but it is usually done to advance a cause for the benefit of specific individuals or group(s), and most often not at a local level. The goal of such a campaign is to disguise the efforts of a political or commercial entity as an independent public reaction to some political entity—a politician, political group, product, service or 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 an individual pushing a personal agenda or highly organized professional groups with financial backing from large corporations, unions, non-profits, or activist organizations. Very often the efforts are conducted by political consultants who also specialize in opposition research. Word originThe term is said to have been used first in this context by former US Senator Lloyd Bentsen. It is wordplay based on grassroots democracy efforts – truly spontaneous undertakings largely sustained by private persons – as opposed to politicians, governments, corporations, or public relations firms. AstroTurf refers to the bright green artificial grass used in some sports stadiums, so " astroturfing" refers to imitating or faking popular grassroots opinion or behaviour. This practice is specifically prohibited by the code of ethics of the Public Relations Society of America, the national association for members of the public relations profession in the United States. As a private organization, the most significant punishment PRSA can hand out to members who engage in astroturfing is revocation of membership in the association. Although the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) does not specifically mention astroturfing, it does require honest communication. Techniques Astroturfing is a form of propaganda whose techniques usually consist of a few people attempting to give the impression that mass numbers of enthusiasts advocate some specific cause. In the UK this technique is better known as "rent-a-crowd" after the successful "rent-a-crate" business. US Senator Lloyd Bentsen, believed to have coined the term, was quoted by the Washington Post in 1985 using it to describe a "mountain of cards and letters" sent to his Senate office to promote insurance industry interests, which Bentsen dismissed as "generated mail." The National Smokers Alliance, an early astroturf group created by Burson-Marsteller on behalf of tobacco giant Philip Morris, worked to influence Federal legislation in 1995 by organizing mailings and running a phone-bank urging people to call or write to politicians expressing their opposition to laws aimed at discouraging teens from starting to smoke. In 1998, a combination of television ads and phone-banks were used to simulate "grassroots" opposition to a bill aimed at discouraging teenage smoking. According to The New York Times, "Those smokers who are reached by phone banks sponsored by cigarette makers, or who call the 800 number shown in television ads, are patched through to the senator of their choice."
In 2003, apparent "grass-roots" letters appearing in local newspapers around the US were denounced as "astroturf" when Google searches revealed that identical letters were printed with different (local) signatures. The signers were electronically submitting pre-written letters from a political website that offered 5 "GOPoints" for sending one of their letters to a local paper plus an additional 2 "GOPoints" if the letter was published.
Black propaganda is information that purports to be from a source on one side of a conflict, but is actually from the opposing side. Most astroturfing is black propaganda in that the identity of the source is falsified. However, the ostensible source of the evidence planted is usually not a grassroots organization. When black propaganda uses the same means as astroturfing, the distinction is less clear, as in the case of forged letters being sent to congressman Tom Perriello by a Washington lobbying firm working against 2009 clean energy legislation.
Journalist Ben Smith of The Politico has observed, "Interest groups across the spectrum have grown expert at locating, enraging and turning out authentic Americans. And the operatives behind the crowds say there’s nothing wrong with a practice as old as American politics."
In business, astroturfing is one form of stealth marketing, which can include the manipulation of viral marketing. Several examples are described as "undercover marketing" in the documentary The Corporation.
The term "astroturfing" is also used to describe public relations activities aimed at "falsely creating the impression of independent, popular support by means of an orchestrated and disguised public relations exercise....designed to give the impression of spontaneous support for an idea/product/company/service," according to the CIPR Social Media Guidelines, which cautions members that an astroturfing campaign is "self-evidently likely to contradict the CIPR Code."
It has become easier to structure a commercial 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 who create enthusiasm for the specified cause. Also, the use of psychographics allows hired supporters to persuade their targeted audience.
For several years, the People's Republic of China has employed paid "astroturfing bloggers", known as "red vests", "red vanguard", or the "50 Cent Party", the last being a reference to the 5 mao they are paid for each supportive post. (Cf. Amazon Mechanical Turk.) Examples Early examples In the late 1800s, Léopold II, King of the Belgians used extensive astroturf lobbying in the US and Europe, including setting up a front organisation known as the International African Association, to facilitate his private colonialism and economic exploitation of the Congo Free State. Examples from the 1990s - In the early 1990s, the federal American Stop Smoking Intervention Study (ASSIST) program used federal funding to create the appearance of concerned citizens groups lobbying for the levy and allocation of state tobacco taxes. The beneficiaries of this program were tax-exempt voluntary health associations (VHAs) such as the American Cancer Society and American Heart Association who could not lobby for federal funding without violating tax laws, but who could lobby state governments. The plan was hatched in the wake of California's Proposition 99 of 1988, where in-fighting over allocation of the revenues almost scuttled the proposition. The federal program, administered through the National Cancer Institute, including hiring the Advocacy Institute to teach the ASSIST and VHA staff to set up interlocking front organizations. These front organizations presented themselves as a groundswell of concerned citizens' groups, but were wholly staffed by employees of the federal offices and beneficiary VHAs.
- 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.
CNN Politics from personal experience how opposition against health care reform proposals is manufactured behind the scenes:The big PR firms that work for the industry have close connections with those media outlets and stars in the conservative movement. One of their PR firms, which created and staffed a front group in the late '90s to kill the proposed "Patients' Bill of Rights," launched a PR and advertising campaign in conservative media outlets to drum up opposition to the bill. ... The industry goes to great lengths to keep its involvement in these campaigns hidden from public view. I know from having served on numerous trade group committees and industry-funded front groups, however, that industry leaders are always full partners in developing strategies to derail any reform that might interfere with insurers' ability to increase profits.
- In 1996, Philip Morris funded the creation of the "Guest Choice Network," which opposed regulation of smoking in restaurants, bars, and hotels. The group, now called the Center for Consumer Freedom, today is primarily funded by agribusiness and food companies. A complaint was filed with the IRS by Citizens for Consumer Ethics, alleging that the organization had violated the conditions of its tax-exempt status.
- 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 titled "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.
Recent examples PoliticalOrganizations representing opposing schools of political thought in the US and worldwide have engaged in this activity.
Examples include:
- According to Rachel Maddow of MSNBC, the "Brooks Brothers riot" of November 2000, billed as a "spontaneous grassroots uprising", was an example of astroturfing by US Republican Party operatives.
- Since 2005, schools and political party organizations in the People's Republic of China are recruiting paid-per-comment bloggers countering unfavorable information on websites, bulletin boards, and other internet-accessible sources; they are collectively known as the 50 Cent Party.
- In August 2006, a science journalist for the
Wall Street Journal 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 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 paid to have the alleged amateur film promoted was in itself suspicious.- In September 2008, Dutch columnist Margriet Oostveen wrote about her experiences ghostwriting letters for the McCain presidential campaign. Her editors at Salon.com asked her for proof that she had ghost-written letters, and she provided sample letters and lists of talking-points that the McCain campaign had provided to her.
- In December 2008, Russian human rights defender Sergei Kovalev wrote that the Public Chamber of Russia failed to intervene in major human rights violations around the country. He wrote that the government set up the Chamber by the Soviet-era recipes for puppet non-government organizations, GONGOs.
“Bonner and Associates are exploiting the African-American Community to achieve their misdirected goal.″
- In August 2009, FreedomWorks, a corporate and individual-funded conservative political activist organization, and 60 Plus Association, a self-described "conservative alternative to the AARP", played an instrumental role in organizing health care reform protests at a large number of Democrat legislators' town hall meetings. Health care reform proponents have labeled FreedomWorks' efforts as "astroturf", because they use millions of dollars in corporate funding to support conservative "tea party"-style protests.
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[ The AARP has described 60 Plus Association as being a front group for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.]
BusinessLos 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 delivered via a mailing list to deceased people or incorrect addresses, where the recipients forwarded them without correction.
- In 2002, The Guardian newspaper revealed the philosopher Roger Scruton had offered to place pro-tobacco opinion pieces in major newspapers and magazines in return for a fee £5500 from Japan Tobacco International.
Harmony plug-in. The work-around allows users to purchase songs from RealNetworks' Rhapsody and then convert it for use for the iPod. They also set up an internet petition "Hey Apple! Don't break my iPod" (www.freedomofmusicchoice.org) and slashed the prices of its songs to below that of iTunes. Many posters reacted negatively and accused RealNetworks of astroturfing.
- In March 2006 video game manufacturers faced over seventy anti-games bills across the country. Embattled, they established the Video Game Voters Network, “a new grassroots political network for gamers” which publicly portrayed itself as a populist effort to lobby state and federal legislators against supporting violent video game-related legislation. In April 2007, in an interview on video game news website GameDaily, consumer advocate and founder of the Entertainment Consumers Association (ECA), Hal Halpin, stated that "The Videogame Voters Network is very needed and wanted by the industry, but it's supported by the industry, so it's called 'astroturfing', where[as] our organization is grassroots and the difference in the two pieces of terminology is significant when it comes to legislators because they'll look at an astroturf organization as one that's backed by the industry; funded by them, run by them, organized by them." The following day Entertainment Software Association (ESA) spokesperson Caroyln Rauch responded in a written statement, "...calling the VGVN 'astroturf' is not only counterproductive and just not correct, but it also demeans the passion and energy of its members."
- In December 2006, the "All I want for Xmas is a PSP" marketing campaign by Zipatoni and Sony sparked ridicule from the gaming community when it was discovered that the fake blog was in fact assembled by a marketing team. (
See PlayStation Portable#Controversial advertising campaigns)
- In early 2007, a number of advertisements appeared on London Underground trains warning commuters that 75% of all the information on the web flowed through one site (implied to be Google), with a URL for www.information-revolution.org. Links also appeared on the homepage of Ask.com and in videos on YouTube. Both the adverts and website were designed in shades of red, white and black associated with anarchist movements. The website was intended to foster debate about the use of search engines, with messages such as "One source isn’t choice". However, when web users found out that the site was actually built for Ask.com by the marketing company Profero, the site's forum became overwhelmed with negative messages.
- In August 2007 Comcast Corporation's public relations representatives were accused of astroturfing by posing as fans on internet college team message boards in an effort to spread their negative views about the newly created Big Ten Network. Additionally, Comcast created their own marketing campaign "Putting Fans First" on radio and on the web. At that time Comcast and the Big Ten Network were involved in acrimonious negotiations.
- In January 2008 Daniel DiFiore, the customer service manager of social networking site Moli.com was caught posting 'booster' comments under an alias on several web sites, including GetSatisfaction.com, Techcrunch and Digg.
- In February 2008 Comcast paid individuals to take up seats at an FCC hearing into Comcast's network management practices, including RST packet spoofing using Sandvine. These individuals fell asleep, applauded on cue, and took up so much room that a number of people with anti-Comcast sentiment were shut out.
- Hands Off The Internet (HOTI) purports to be a campaign for internet users' rights but in fact the site is owned by big telecom companies and is actually a front to push the telecom industry's objections to internet neutrality.
- In late 2008, in Osaka, Japan, McDonald's acknowledged hiring people to stand in line for a new hamburger release. The part-time workers were given a stipend for the product that were to be included in the store's sales figures.
- In 2009, in Montreal, Canada, Morrow Communications, a marketing company, acknowledged creating a dummy blog falsely pretending to be managed by 3 individuals to promote the use of bicycles in Montreal. They also created videos for the Blog and a Facebook webpage. Everything was in fact a marketing campaign, to prepare the launch of Bixi, the new public bike system in Montreal.
- Lifestyle Lift was charged a $300,000 penalty by the State of New York for anonymous positive reviews about the company in Internet message boards and other Web sites
BusinessWeek has stated that the public relations firm ASK Public Strategies, which works on behalf of clients including Chicago Children's Museum, ComEd, AT&T and Comcast, has helped set up front organizations that were listed as sponsors of public-issue ads. Some industry insiders have called this astroturfing. ASK's managing partner, Eric Sedler says opponents mischaracterize what ASK does, saying "I reject the notion that a company can't advocate a public policy." Fictional examples Julius Caesar depicts Cassius conducting what might be considered an astroturfing campaign on Brutus: he leaves letters where Brutus will find them encouraging Brutus to act against Caesar, purportedly from concerned citizens but really written by Cassius himself "in several hands".
- 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. The film is based on the novel American Hero by Larry Beinhart, which differs greatly from the picture although featuring many of the same dishonest practices by the characters.
The Onion had an opinion piece titled "I'd Love This Product Even If I Weren't A Stealth Marketer," which is written as though by a young employee for Pepsi-Cola who is paid to astroturf.
Thank You for Smoking, Nick Naylor mentions several astroturf groups, including a "Smokers' Rights" group made up of Hispanic smokers that was called "Fumamos", Spanish for "We smoke". (See also FOREST.'') See also Footnotes
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