Astroturfing Global Warming: It Isn't Always Greener on the Other Side of the Fence
Journal of Business Ethics 104 (4):571-587 (2011)
| Abstract | Astroturf organizations are fake grassroots organizations usually sponsored by large corporations to support any arguments or claims in their favor, or to challenge and deny those against them. They constitute the corporate version of grassroots social movements. Serious ethical and societal concerns underline this astroturfing practice, especially if corporations are successful in influencing public opinion by undertaking a social movement approach. This study is motivated by this particular issue and examines the effectiveness of astroturf organizations in the global warming context, wherein large corporate polluters have an incentive to set up astroturf organizations to undermine the importance of human activities in climate change. We conduct an experiment to determine whether astroturf organizations have an impact on the level of user certainty about the causes of global warming. Results show that people who used astroturf websites became more uncertain about the causes of global warming and humans’ role in the phenomenon than people who used grassroots websites. Astroturf organizations are hence successful in promoting business interests over environmental protection. In addition to the multiple business ethics issues it raises, astroturfing poses a significant threat to the legitimacy of the grassroots movement. | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,653 |
| External links |
 |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesDaejoong Kim & Yoonjae Nam (2012). Corporate Relations with Environmental Organizations Represented by Hyperlinks on the Fortune Global 500 Companies' Websites. Journal of Business Ethics 105 (4):475-487.
Emery M. Roe (1992). Global Warming as Analytic Tip. Critical Review 6 (2-3):411-427.
Howard Friel (2010). The Lomborg Deception: Setting the Record Straight About Global Warming. Yale University Press.
Allen Thompson (2009). Responsibility for the End of Nature: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Global Warming. Ethics and the Environment 14 (1):pp. 79-99.
Mark A. Seabright (2011). The Role of the Affect Heuristic in Moral Reactions to Climate Change. Journal of Global Ethics 6 (1):5-15.
Nicholas Maxwell (2008). Are Philosophers Responsible for Global Warming? Philosophy Now 65 (65):12-13.
Elizabeth R. DeSombre (2004). Response to the Global Warming Tragedy. Global Warming: More Common Than Tragic. Ethics and International Affairs 18 (1):41–46.
J. A. Towey (2008). Classics and Global Warming. Classics Broadsheet (125).
Aaron Maltais (2008). Global Warming and Our Natural Duties of Justice. Dissertation, Uppsala University
Aaron Maltais (2008). Global Warming and the Cosmopolitan Political Conception of Justice. Environmental Politics 17 (4):592-609.
Maxwell Schnurer (2010). Corporate “Grassroots” Activism. Business and Professional Ethics Journal 29 (1/4):63-83.
Adrian Miroiu (1996). Global Warming and Moral Theorizing. Theoria 11 (3):61-81.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2011-11-22Total downloads2 ( #232,265 of 548,984 )Recent downloads (6 months)0How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
