1
STRATEGIES FOR STRUCTURATION: INSTITUTIONAL WORK IN THE
EMERGENCE A OF SOCIAL MOVEMENT FIELD
Itziar Castelló, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M), Business Department Email:
macastel@emp.uc3m.es
Adress: C/ Madrid 126, 28903 Getafe, Madrid, Spain
Tel.: +34 916249629; Fax: +34 916249607
David Barberá-Tomás, Instituto de Gestión de la Innovación y el Conocimiento, INGENIO
(CSIC-UPV); Universitat Politécnica de València
Email: jobarto@ingenio.upv.es
Adress: Ciudad Politécnica de la Innovación Camino de Vera, s/n 46022 Valencia, Spain
Tel: +34 963 877 048; Fax: +34 963 877 99
Charlene Zietsma, Schulich School of Business, York University
Email: CZietsma@schulich.yorku.ca
Adress: Room N317, Seymour Schulich, Building , 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, ON, M3J 1P3
Tel: 416.736.2100 Ext 77919
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STRATEGIES FOR STRUCTURATION: INSTITUTIONAL WORK IN THE
EMERGENCE A OF SOCIAL MOVEMENT FIELD
ABSTRACT
We study the intentional creation of the anti-plastic pollution social movement field in
California. Whereas previous studies have focused on the opportunity structures that movements
face, or the structure of a movement, we look at the dynamics of movement structuration through
collective agency. We present a process model of social movement field structuration in which
first elites, and later, grassroots members are mobilized. We define the brokering and engaging
strategies by which instigating actors manage the interrelations among field network, culture,
power and identity elements, and the balancing strategies by which instigators resolve the
tensions between opposing elements, consisting of two tactics: exclusive-inclusion and unequalequality. We advance the extant understanding of the theory of fields by outlining the strategies
by which actors structure social movements as fields through stages of emergence and diffusion.
Keywords: field theory, structuration, strategies, social movements
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INTRODUCTION
Studies frequently characterize change in institutional fields as the outcome of collective
action involving social movements of different types, either challenger movements, such as the
anti-genetically modified food movement (Schurman, 2004) which oppose the state or firm
incumbents (Aldrich, 1999; Bourdieu, 1993; DiMaggio & Powell, 1983; Fligstein, 1996;
Hargrave & van de Ven, 2006; Rao, Morrill, & Zald, 2000; Schneiberg & Lounsbury, 2008), or
social responsibility movements like Mothers Against Drunk Driving (Morris & Braine, 2001),
or the slow food movement (van Bommel & Spicer, 2011) that work for or against conditions
that affect the general population.
Recent work has argued that the extent of a social movement’s structuration influences its
outcomes (Van Wijk, Stam, Elfring, Zietsma, & den Hond, 2013), and the relationships among
structural elements such as cultural codes (Weber, Heinze, & DeSoucey, 2008), networks and
discourse (van Bommel & Spicer, 2011) have implications for the ability of movements to
emerge and effect social change. These findings suggest there is value in studying the
structuration of social movements as fields of their own, going beyond merely treating social
movements as the challengers in more comprehensive issue-based fields, as many studies by
organizational scholars have done (see, e.g., Hoffman, 1999; Zietsma & Lawrence, 2010). We
argue that social movement fields have their own institutional logics and practices, which usually
differ starkly from the fields they are challenging, and the movement´s structure will have
implications for its capacity for transformative collective action. Social movement scholars, for
their part, have mostly tended to analyze social movements as aggregates of actors, events and
actions, without considering their distinct social structure and the structuring elements, such as
identities and shared meanings, which constrain movement members (Diani, 2012).
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Elements of a field´s structure (network, culture, identity and power, DiMaggio &
Powell, 1983) affect one another in the process of structuration (Pachucki & Breiger, 2010;
Weber & Dacin, 2011), and thus attending to each of these structural elements, and the relations
among them, will be helpful in assessing a movement’s capacity to mobilize resources and affect
change. Few studies have focused on the integrated structuration of a social movement field and
its implications for agency (see, van Bommel & Spicer, 2011; Van Wijk, 2013, #1560 for
exceptions). Most studies of social movements study separately how such movements develop
collective action frames (Benford & Snow, 2000), or mobilize resources (McCarthy, Mayer, &
Zald, 1977), build collective identities (King, Clemens, & Fry, 2011; Otto & Böhm, 2006), or
exploit political or industry opportunity structures (Schurman, 2004; Tilly, 1978), without
considering the interactions among structural elements (van Bommel & Spicer, 2011; Van Wijk
et al., 2013) and how agents enact them during field structuration (Boltanski & Thévenot, 2006).
Structuration is most influential during the emergence phase of a field (Barley, 2008),
which is the most challenging phase of a field to observe (Fligstein & McAdam, 2012). While
we acknowledge that fields may emerge gradually as the distributed efforts of uncoordinated or
loosely coordinated actors cohere into a structure, as (Navis & Glynn, 2010) observed, for
example, in the nanotechnology field, in this study, we focus on a particular case of field
emergence: the intentional and strategic construction of a social movement field. We consider
how a social movement field can form and organize itself to undertake collective action. We
attend to key components of institutional field structuration: field networks, culture, identity and
power (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983), and the interactions among them. A structurationist
perspective suggests that agency is embedded in the structures that it also produces and
transforms (Giddens, 1984). We therefore analyze social systems of agency-structure relations
5
consisting of “an active constituting process, accomplished by, and consisting in, the doings of
active subjects” (Giddens, 1993: 121) to be able to look at the dynamics of field structuration
through agency. By studying the details of micro-level action needed to explain how macro level
institutions change (Hirsch & Lounsbury, 1997) we emphasize the institutional work (Lawrence
& Suddaby, 2006) of actors intentionally and thus strategically (Steele & King, 2011) attempting
to create and maintain capacity for collective action through the structuration of a social
movement field. Our research focuses on the process of structuration in an emerging social
movement field, and the strategies actors use to affect the field’s structure. We ask, how is an
emerging social movement field strategically structured?
To address this question, we study the intentional strategies of a group of instigators in
California to create a new social movement field involving multiple organizations exercising
collective agency against plastic pollution. Their work involved three strategies (brokering,
engaging and balancing), in two stages (elite structuration and grass roots diffusion), which
together resulted in the structuration of a new and diffused network, a hierarchical power
structure, cultural materials comprising a new prognostic (solution-focused) and diagnostic
(problem-focused) frame, and a compelling movement identity. Choices made by movement
instigators in balancing tensions and managing the interrelationships among elements had
significant implications for the movement’s outcomes. The anti-plastic pollution movement went
from being nearly non-existent in the early 2000s in California, to a movement mobilizing
thousands of people around consumption and political issues such as banning plastic bags. Our
findings contribute to theorizing the strategic dynamics of the emergence of social movement
fields and their structuration processes.
THEORETICAL ORIENTATION
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Social movements as institutional fields
Institutional fields have been defined as “communities of organizations that partake of a
common meaning system and whose participants interact more frequently and fatefully with one
another than with actors outside the field” (Scott, 2001:84), stressing shared logics reinforced
through isomorphic pressures. They have also been defined in ways that emphasize conflict
(Bourdieu, 1990), contradictions in logics (Seo & Creed, 2002), and struggles (Boltanski &
Thévenot, 2006; Maguire, Hardy, & Lawrence, 2004). There are various types of fields,
including professional fields (see, Abbott, 1988; Greenwood & Suddaby, 2006; Reay, GoldenBiddle, & GermAnn, 2006); fields associated with industries (Hoffman, 1999; Zietsma &
Lawrence, 2010); state fields (Evans & Kay, 2008); and fields associated with issues (Hoffman,
1999; Maguire et al., 2004). Fields matter because they are the social spaces within which a
social structure operates – they are “clusters of organizations and occupations whose boundaries,
identities and interactions are defined and stabilized by shared institutional logics”, which
influence what field members believe and how they act (Greenwood & Suddaby, 2006: 28).
While existing institutional research has usually treated social movements as the
“contentious” or “challenging” part of an issue-based field (Hoffman, 1999; Wooten & Hoffman,
2008), and social movement research has not fully utilized the analytical power of shared
network and cultural structures within institutional fields (Diani, 2012; McAdam & Scott, 2005;
Minkoff & McCarthy, 2005), we argue that conceptualizing social movements as institutional
fields of their own provides significant advantages in understanding their mobilizing potential,
for two reasons. First, treating social movements as fields of their own allows the simultaneous
analysis of multiple field elements and their interrelations within the boundaries of the social
movement. For example, the construction of the network of members in a social movement field
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can determine what cultural resources and opportunities are available to the movement’s cause,
and thus decisions on who to include in movement membership are strategically important
during field emergence. Similarly, the cultural discourse of the movement can shape its identity
and will also have implications for the movement’s ability to recruit public and elite actors into
its network (Taylor & Van Dyke, 2004; van Bommel & Spicer, 2011). Thus, the elements that
comprise the field, and their interrelations, influence the field’s ability to mobilize resources and
influence the outcomes of its challenges, as recent work has found (Van Wijk et al., 2013).
Weakly structured fields are expected to be unable to attract attention, while moderately
structured fields may foster collaboration but risk cooptation, and highly structured fields are
more likely to face competition and conflict (Van Wijk et al., 2013). Second, if we understand
the social structure of a social movement field, we have a much more nuanced view of
movement members than we do if we merely consider them to be a part of an issue-based field.
We can focus on core vs. peripheral membership with its status and conformity implications,
shared or competing logics, identities and interaction patterns, and we can categorize the field as
highly institutionalized, emergent or complex, bringing to bear what we know about fields to
bring a richer texture to our understanding of the social movement. Thus, the social movement
field’s own structuration is meaningful in considering its potential for collective action.
This does not mean that we advocate dropping the consideration of social movements as
challenger movements within issue-based fields. Building on various sources of field theory
(Bourdieu, 1993; DiMaggio & Powell, 1983; Levi-Martin, 2003), Fligstein and McAdam (2012)
highlight the “Russian doll” quality of field phenomena: as they put it, “higher level strategic
action fields can be usefully decomposed into their units, which themselves would be strategic
action fields” (Fligstein & McAdam, 2012: 59). This suggests that it is useful to consider a social
8
movement both as a field of its own, providing analytical power because of the field structure’s
influence on movement outcomes and member behavior, and as a challenger movement within
an issue field, enabling a focus on the contentious dynamics among multiple issue contestants.
Institutional elements of field emergence structuration
According to DiMaggio & Powell, (1983: 148),
“Fields only exist to the extent that they are institutionally defined. The
process of institutional definition, or ‘structuration’, consists of four parts: an
increase in the extent of interaction among organizations in the field; the emergence
of sharply defined interorganizational structures of domination and patterns of
coalition; an increase in the information load with which organizations in a field
must contend; and the development of a mutual awareness among participants in a
set of organizations that they are involved in a common enterprise”.
Thus four constitutive elements structure institutional fields: the interaction patterns of field
members, or networks, which are conduits for the sharing of ideas and resources; the power
structure or status hierarchy associated with positions in fields; the shared culture, or meaning
system of field members (Scott, 1995), including symbolic understandings and material
practices; and a common identity among field participants, usually relating to a shared purpose
(DiMaggio & Powell, 1983; Evans & Kay, 2008; Martin, 2003; Scott, 1995).
Recently, theorists have been calling for attention to the interaction of field elements as
they can be mutually reinforcing or destructive (Pachucki & Breiger, 2010; Weber & Dacin,
2011). For example, McVeigh, Myers and Sikkink (2004) showed that in the 1920s, the network
coherence of potential followers in Indiana allowed the Ku Klux Klan to tailor a successful
cultural frame which didn’t apply to less coherent structures elsewhere. Mische (2003) argued
that student activists in Brazil used flexible cultural tools as multiple frame production in their
public event discourses, which joined overlapping networks of social movements. However,
since the early 1990s, the “cultural turn” of social movement theory (Melucci, 1996 ; Williams,
9
2004) has instead highlighted these elements mainly in independent approaches stressing, for
example, shared identities (Hunt & Benford, 2004), frames (Snow & Benford, 1992), cultural
practices and symbols (Jasper, 1997), and networks (Diani, 2005). In addition, the movements’
status hierarchies and associated conflicts have also been noted (Heaney & Rojas, 2008; Rucht,
2008; Staggenborg, 1986; Tarrow, 2005).
In this study, we focus on the intentional construction of a social movement field.
Traditionally, field theory has rarely “examine[d] the historical process whereby the field arose”
(Martin, 2003: 15). Most studies of social movement emergence have focused less on the
construction of structural factors, and more on “leadership” characteristics and abilities to build
new movements (Nepstad & Bob, 2006). For example, Ganz (2000) studied the emergence of
unionization of California’s farm workers and related it to the strategic capacity of its leaders.
Dorious and McCarthy (2011) studied why some social movement leaders work harder in the
emergence of movements, also emphasizing leader characteristics, for example, gender.
However, this focus on leaders’ attributes in movement emergence analysis neglects the creation
and impact of structural elements.
Yet recent research addresses the interactions among some structural elements in
emergent fields. For example, Maguire, Hardy and Lawrence (2004) dealt with the interaction
between meanings and networks in the emergence of the HIV/AIDS field, arguing that only
institutional entrepreneurs that can assemble a wide array of meanings in their discourses can
bridge the interests of diverse networks in the emerging field. Van Bommel and Spicer
(2011:1733) described how Slow Food social movement strategists adopted an “all-embracing
and ambiguous nodal point”, or cultural frame element, to link the identities and interests of
disparate groups together into one network, thereby structuring the Slow Food movement field
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broadly and increasing the movement´s capacity for collective agency. Van Wijk et al. (2013)
found the interactions among agency, culture and networks to be recursive. The collaboration
between an industry field and an emerging movement supported the construction of the new field
of sustainable tourism in the Netherlands, as “instigators created cultural elements, which helped
to form network structures, which in turn advanced the development of more cultural elements
and created space for more agency” (Van Wijk et al., 2013:21).
Few studies have examined the interactions of power or identity with networks and
culture in social movement field emergence. This is somewhat surprising since power is essential
to one of the most influential sources of field theory, i.e., the work of Pierre Bourdieu (1993).
The institutional change that social movements desire is a political process that reflects the
power and strategic interests of organized actors (Fligstein, 1997; Rao et al., 2000), and while
relative power differences have been studied between movements and their opponents (e.g., Rao
et al., 2000; Spar & La Mure, 2003; Tarrow, 2010), further research is needed to understand how
power is used and developed in movement emergence (Tarrow, 2010; van Bommel & Spicer,
2011). And while identity is a key element of social movement participation and diffusion
(Klandermans, 2004; Strang & Soule, 1998), there may be tensions between the use of power
within a movement and the experience of identification. Tarrow (2010) argued that hierarchical
power-centered organizational structures can be incompatible with the more egalitarian and
decentralized identities of some movements. Power and identity will also likely both interact
with increases in network size, and with changes in the cultural frame which may privilege one
set of interests over another. These interactions remain hidden in many studies of social
movement identity diffusion, because a usual data source, mass media, may not allow the
observation of the micro dynamics that underlie them (Earl, Martin, McCarthy, & Soule, 2004;
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Thomas, Grimes, McKenny, & Short, 2013). Together, social movement structural factors have
significant implications for movement mobilization and the outcomes the movement can expect,
yet we know little about the interactions among networks, culture, identity and power in field
emergence and their implications for social movement outcomes.
Structural elements, agency and social movement outcomes
While the ultimate goal of social movements is usually to create some policy or social
change, such as the diffusion of new behaviors and attitudes, in practice it is difficult to
definitively attribute these outcomes to social movement activity because of the myriad other
influences that operate in the environment (see, e.g., Diani, 1997; Tilly, 1999). Diani (1997)
suggested that scholars instead focus on the structural preconditions which facilitate or constrain
movements’ attempts to achieve their social change outcomes, which is the approach we take
here. Diani (1997: 130) focused on networks: “the solidity of the linkages within the movement
sector as well as – more crucially – of the bonds among movement actors, within their social
milieu, and with cultural and political elites”. Such linkages produce social capital, he argued,
and “the broader the range of social capital ties that emerge from a period of sustained
mobilization, the greater a movement’s impact” (Diani, 1997:130). Inclusion of elite allies
(Soule & Olzak, 2004) in the network, especially those who provide access to the political
system or media, increase a movement’s impact (Tsutsui & Ji Shin, 2008).
Structural elements thus provide the resources which enable collective agency, and
agency not only reinforces those structural elements, contributing to movement endurance, but it
also leads to social movement outcomes. For example, the agency involved in enacting
movement ideals through campaign activities reinforces a movement’s collective identity, and
adds strength to network bonds, increasing the movement’s future mobilizing capacity
12
(Staggenborg & Lecomte, 2009). Campaigns also create new cultural materials which elaborate
the movement’s frames. When these resonate with the public, decision-makers (Snow, Rochford,
Worden, & Benford, 1986), or potential allies (Gerhards & Rucht, 1992; Staggenborg &
Lecomte, 2009), they bring attention to the issue (Zemlinskaya, 2009), and may help to establish
new coalitions, increasing the potential for influence in the future. Social movements have
greater impact if their frame is focused and their activism is organized and sustained (Andrews,
2001; Cress & Snow, 2000; Giugni, 1998; Tsutsui & Ji Shin, 2008). The size, scale and
longevity of a movement’s campaigns (Staggenborg & Lecomte, 2009) contribute to its
endurance (Cable & Degutis, 1997), and are all of interest in thinking about a movement’s
capacity for field diffusion and final influence.
Summarizing, we argued theoretically that we can gain insight into the emergence of a
social movement field and its capacity for collective agency by using a “whole field” perspective
to study the structuration of the field, which includes a detailed analysis of how agency affects
the field elements of identity, power, culture and networks and their interrelationships. By taking
a “whole field” approach, we can develop a better understanding of the interactions and tensions
among field elements as movement instigators work to build capacity for collective action.
METHODOLOGY
The Empirical Context: The Issue of Plastic Pollution
We address our research question, how is an emerging social movement field
strategically structured?, by studying the work of a group of instigators who intentionally
established a new field on the issue of plastic pollution. By the 1990s, the issue of plastic
pollution began to emerge among disconnected scientists (mainly oceanographers and marine
biologists), surfers and some environmentalists with contestation-oriented strategies focused on
13
the impact of ‘marine debris’ in the fauna and flora of the oceans and beaches.
By the end of 2012, as the anti-plastic movement became more structured, thousands of
people had mobilized to ban single use plastics: 79 California cities or counties had Plastic Bag
Ban Ordinances, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland, and major
supermarket chains, such as Whole Foods and Trader Joes, had committed not to use single use
plastic bags; at least a dozen organizations were officially constituted to fight plastic pollution;
and movement activities reached an estimated 4 million people (data from Plastic Pollution
Coalition, Res 17). Hundreds of actions were organized around the issue of plastic pollution and
the importance of refusing (not recycling) in California, and dozens of blogs and Facebook pages
connected thousands of people. Over 300 organizations had joined the Plastic Pollution Coalition
(PPC) as coalition members. We analyze how movement instigators worked collectively and
strategically to coordinate the efforts of heterogeneous activists and organizations.
Analytical approach
We adopted a longitudinal approach using multiple sources and types of data to enable us
to perform “a more complete, holistic, and contextual portrayal of the unit(s) under study” (Jick,
1979:603). The aim of our empirical approach was to document as thoroughly as possible the
strategies and instruments used by the instigating actors of the new field. We collected data from
October 2009 to January 2013 using four sources: a netnography, Facebook posts, comments and
likes, interviews and archival analysis.
First, we conducted a netnography study from October 2019 until January 2013.
Netnography is an ethnographic research method adapted to the study of online communities
(Kozinets, 2002). Social media data has been used for analyzing social movement development
(Bennet, Breuning and Givens, 2008; Chadwick, 2007). Netnography overcomes the limitations
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of relying on the unidirectional relationship between movement elite and grass roots activists that
can be observed in the mass media (Earl et al., 2004; Strang & Soule, 1998; Toubiana, 2012).
We joined media platforms such as Facebook pages blogs and websites as participant-observer
cyber-activists. We systematically gathered information about the instruments, language and
codes used in the community.
Second, we collected post, comment and like data from the major coordinating platform
of the movement, the PPC Facebook wall, from its launch in October 2009 to January 2013. In
2012, PPC had more than 20,000 likes on Facebook and 300 organizations members compared to
other organizations working on plastic pollution such as Algalita (with 2,000 likes), and Heal the
Bay (with 5,000 likes). Facebook is an online social media platform aimed at promoting
conversations and sharing experiences within a community.
To systematize the data
downloading, we used a custom-built software application called Social Data Analytics Tool
(SODATO) (http://cssl.cbs.dk/software/sodato/) that runs in batches to fetch data and prepare
them for analysis (Vatrapu, 2013). The data retrieval was complemented by manual verification
and creation of an excel database. We downloaded all interactions in Facebook from October
2009 to January 2013. A total of 1,380 people posted on this wall, of which there were 267
frequent participants. The data consisted of 81,122 lines, including 5,267 posts, 10,753
comments on these posts and 65,102 ‘likes’ (which indicate people’s support of a post).
Third, we collected the views of 60 activists, through semi-structured email (47) and face
to face or skype interviews (24), and the presentations of 29 activists at a field configuring event
(TED Talk held on November 6th 2010), using snowball sampling. Presentations and interviews
were recorded and transcribed. The protocol was customized for each interviewee to best capture
the role of each person in the field emergence. From September 2010 until January 2011, we
15
participated in activities such as art exhibitions, conferences and parties held in California,
during which we conducted numerous informal interviews and had informal conversations.
Fourth, more than 200 archival sources such as publically available press interviews,
internal documents, policy documents, academic and non academic research reports and articles,
press releases, emails, newsletters and two books (Moore, 2012; Terry, 2012). We also analyzed
media activity over time using the database Factiva.
The combination of Facebook, interview and archival data allowed us to capture the
“perspective in action”, as the process unfolded (Snow & Anderson, 1987), providing advantages
over either interviews with their retrospective biases, or mass media data normally used in social
movement studies alone. Because we collected data over time, we had access to the “interaction
ritual chain” (Collins, 2004) between instigators and constituencies of the emerging field.
Data analysis
The data analysis comprised five stages: In stages 1 and 2, we identified instruments and
key actors involved in the field emergence, then produced a case chronology in stage 3. We then
examined field institutionalization, measuring participation in the social media data (stage 4) and
tracing collective agency by coding the data to discern and quantify strategies in the social
media, interviews and archival data (stage 5).
First stage. In the first stage, we identified instruments of movement configuration,
defined as “manifestations of individual and organizational actors’ actions that potentially
contribute to the creation of new institutions or the transformation of existing ones in an
organizational field” (Van Wijk et al., 2013:13), as our observational units (van de Ven & Poole,
2002). We used instruments suggested in the literature as proxies for institutional agency,
including the creation of new organizations (e.g. Lawrence & Phillips, 2004), pilot projects and
16
programs (e.g. (DiMaggio & Powell, 1991), advisory committees or boards (e.g. Greenwood,
Suddaby, & Hinings, 2002), delivering keynote speeches at conferences (e.g. Garud, 1994),
giving courses and lectures (e.g. Svejenova, 2007), writing articles or other publications, reports
and advertisement (e.g. Munir & Phillips, 2005), organizing and sponsoring meetings (e.g.
Lounsbury & Glynn, 2001), and creating social media communication platforms (Chadwick,
2007), blogs, Twitter accounts and Facebook pages (O'Mahoney & Ferraro, 2007; Vorvoreanu,
2009). Using Nvivo software we coded the interview and archival data and identified seven types
of instruments used by activists: 1) Field configuring events; 2) Framing documents; 3) Cultural
materials; 4) Social media platforms; 5) Community gatherings; 6) Programs; 7) Meso-level
events. (Appendix 1 provides an explanation and elements of the instruments as well as some
illustrative quotations; due to space restrictions it is available from the first author).
Second stage. In this stage, we listed 267 frequent participants on Facebook (initiating
conversations through posts) and 60 people identified through the snowball sampling process and
classified them as elite or grass roots members. Elite members had been actively engaged in the
creation of the movement, participating in the first key field configuring events and being
recognized as field experts of related fields by the community. Other frequent participants were
considered grass roots members. We found a total of 75 elite members (Appendix 2, available
from the first author, contains an encoded list of all analyzed members).
Third stage. We drafted a case chronology (See Table 1) by looking back and forth
through the data to discern which instruments were used in each activity and ultimately how the
movement was changing over time, which helped us to identify analytical stages.
Fourth stage. We looked for changes in the culture, network and characteristics of the
field over time. We used the number of Facebook conversations (posts and comments) as well as
17
the number of people that ‘liked’ these conversations, to identify changes in the size of the
network over time (Bennett, 2003; Castells, 2008), as shown in Figure 1. We assessed field
maturity, which we define as the self-reproduction of the movement, by counting the number of
grassroots activists leading the conversations on Facebook over time, as shown in Figure 2.
Three researchers manually coded frame cohesion based on the percentage of ‘posts’ and ‘full
conversations’ that were consistent with the new frame, as shown in Figure 3. Any post
containing the old frame (marine debris, recycle) or contradicting the new frame in some way
was coded as ‘non-cohesive’, while the rest were coded as cohesive. Yet, frame-conflicting
statements tended to show up in the comments, rather than the posts. Because it would be
impractical to code all 10,753 comments, we selected 5,526 lines of what we call “full
conversations”. Full conversations are those in which Plastic Pollution Coalition writes at least
one “comment”. In a typical sequence of a full conversation, PPC or another activist writes a
“post” on the Facebook wall, an activist responds writing a “comment” and PPC responds with
another “comment”. We analyzed conflict in all 5,526 lines of full conversations as an indicator
of lack of frame cohesion. We coded ‘conflict’ for a full conversation when any one of the
participants showed disagreement with any other person participating in that conversation. We
calculated the percentage of frame cohesion in the sample of full conversations, as shown in
Figure 3, as the percentage of non-conflictive conversations in this sample.
--------------------------------------------------------------------Insert TABLE 1 AND FIGURE 1, 2, & 3 about here
--------------------------------------------------------------------Fifth stage. We analyzed patterns of collective agency. We followed Berg (2004) in
coding the Facebook data, interviews and archival resources. We took an exploratory inductivedeductive approach (Russell, 2006). Three researchers looked for initial patterns in the data,
18
discerning fifteen first-order categories. Through a series of meetings, the three researchers
identified links among the first order categories and clustered them into six second order codes
that formed theoretically distinct sub-groupings. Once the second order themes were agreed upon
by the three researchers, three researchers coded all Facebook data manually (using Excel), and
the interviews and the relevant archival data (using NVivo). We systematically coded all 5,267
posts and from the 5,526 lines of full conversations we analyzed all comments from PPC, a total
of 1,164 lines. To assess intercoder reliability, 93 lines of conversations (1.8% of the data) were
coded in parallel by the three coders, using the rule of thumb of 100, used for large samples with
high variability (Lombard, Snyder-Duch, & Bracken, 2002). Kappa's Fleiss was measured
(KF)=0.841, considered very good amongst coders (Banerjee, Capozzoli, McSweeney, & Sinha,
1999). Disagreements were discussed and adjudicated by the three coders. The six second order
themes were defined as tactics: Network engagement, cultural engagement, cultural brokering,
network brokering, exclusive-inclusion and unequal-equality, which we compiled into three
strategies: Brokering, engaging and balancing. See Table 2 for themes and illustrative examples
from Facebook and interviews. We analyzed the frequency of each strategy in the Facebook data
over time (Figure 4) for posts and figure (Figure 5) for the comments in percentage. Using
temporal bracketing (Langley, 1999) we reviewed our case chronology and defined two main
stages, one focused on elite structuration and the other on grass roots diffusion.
---------------------------------------------------------------INSERT FIGURE 4 & 5, TABLE 2 ABOUT HERE
---------------------------------------------------------------INTENTIONAL FIELD STRUCTURATION IN A SOCIAL MOVEMENT FIELD
Background (1997-2007)
In 1997, Captain Charles Moore, discovered and named to the North American press the
19
Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a plastic dump in the middle of the Pacific twice as big as Texas,
containing an estimate of approximately 3.5 million tons of plastic trash. The Great Pacific
Garbage Patch and the issue of marine debris did not attract significant media or citizen
attention. A few disconnected environmental groups in California such as Heal the Bay,
Surfrider and The Sierra Club organized sporadic campaigns such as beach clean ups to address
the issue of marine debris. The scientific community research (see (Rootes & Brulle, 2004) for a
review), was limited to assessing the impact of plastic debris on the global marine ecosystem.
There was little media attention regarding the issue -- only 82 articles were found on Factiva in
2008 and 84 in 2009, using the keywords “plastic pollution”, and of those, almost all discussed
the discovery of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and came from California news sources.
Actions and actors were disconnected. No organization was devoted entirely to focusing on the
broad implications of plastic pollution, beyond its impact on ocean flora and fauna.
Stage 1. Frame and network construction via elite structuration (2008-October 2009)
Managing interrelations between network, culture and power: the brokering strategy.
The starting point of new field emergence has been defined by Rao (1998) as the creation of a
new organizational form entirely devoted to the new issue and the creation of a new cultural
frame (Benford & Snow, 2000). In 2008, a group of previously disconnected environmental
activists, oceanographers and artists met somewhat randomly while participating in activities
such as an environmental film festival, and discovered they had a common concern about plastic
pollution. The idea of starting a new movement was born when Daniella Russo, producer of
environmental films, and Manuel Maqueda, entrepreneur, met in 2008 in Los Angeles while
producing a documentary about consumerism. During the filming, they met Captain Charles
Moore. Profoundly affected by their conversations with him about the marine debris problem,
20
they decided “to do something different about it” (Res 46 & 17). Neither had any movement
organizing experience or any specific expertise in plastic pollution. Furthermore, they knew that
the plastics industry supply chain included very politically and economically powerful players,
including petroleum, chemical and beverage firms – a frontal assault would not work. As they
argued: “we are not prepared to fight with the plastic industry, they are too powerful for us… we
decided to create a coalition…” (Res 46).
Recognizing their limitations, Daniella and Manuel began to connect scientists,
environmental activists, artists, film festival organizers and others to mobilize resources for the
issue using network brokering, a tactic involving connecting diverse, previously disconnected
actors to one another. They organized the first field configuring event in June 2009 in the form of
a “Google Talk” featuring Captain Moore. The two instigators carefully selected a group of 25
elite actors based on explicit criteria, starting to define the new boundaries of the field: “…it was
not only about how many papers you have published… we selected those people that transmitted
more passion” (Res 46), in a clear differentiation from previous very scientifically-oriented
activities related to marine debris. Manuel and Daniella did not want to reproduce another
environmental organization led by scientists but instead, create a movement capable of
mobilizing large numbers of people. Network brokering enabled Daniella and Manuel to create
the initial group of elites who were interested in plastic pollution. In doing so, Daniella and
Manuel placed themselves at the center of the emerging field because of their connecting and
organizing activities. Organizing field configuring events such as the Google Talk helped them
to have a central position in the network: “I was nobody in the field… but to Google they will
come” (Res 46). The Google event also enabled cultural brokering: ideas and information were
exchanged and connected into a coherent issue frame at the Google meeting and in the months
21
following the event. This field configuring event generated the opportunity to create framing
documents that instigators used to formalize expert knowledge and transform it into accessible
symbols and a unified discourse to promote the new anti-plastic pollution cultural frame.
Although most activists recognized the value of the scientific and environmentalist work
done to date, they felt a new disruptive frame was needed to achieve more diffusion, as
confirmed by an internal document: “our statement must not be directed at progress, but at the
transformation of our relationship to plastic. This is about the complete redesign of the entire
system …We need a new language, new concepts” (Google meeting notes). The group of elite
actors also synthesized previous cultural materials, and Daniella and Manuel’s leadership in
these discussions positioned them as central cultural brokers. Their efforts culminated in a new
diagnostic frame (identifying the problem or threat), and prognostic frame (articulating proposed
solutions to the problem), together forming the cultural basis of the new social movement field
(Snow & Benford, 1988). Instigators participating in the Google meeting decided after several
weeks of discussion that the term marine debris, dominant in the industry and policy realm, was
euphemistic and should be changed to ‘plastic pollution’ to truly diagnose the problem they were
facing. Instigators also agreed that refuse (and not recycle) should be the solution. They argued
bottles and bags cannot be efficiently recycled. By connecting different elite members and
moderating their ideas, the instigators placed themselves at the center of the emerging field’s
network and cultural frame.
Balancing tensions by means of exclusive-inclusion. To balance the tensions implied in
simultaneously enlarging the network and ensuring adherence to the new frame, instigators used
a balancing strategy, which we call exclusive-inclusion. The exclusive-inclusion tactic involved
excluding the previous framing (recycling and marine debris) by directly critiquing these ideas,
22
yet being as inclusive as possible in building relations with key providers of resources even if
they did not embrace the new frame. As one of the elite members said “I was considered a
monster in the community. People, especially here in the USA, are not used to having somebody
correcting them and telling them that it is not about recycling but the problem of plastic pollution
is a design problem” (Res 46). However, he also recognized the relevance of some members of
the network who originally were attached to the previous recycling frame. “Working with Diana
was crucial for the development of the movement” (Res 46). Diana was married to Jackson
Brown (a quite popular American singer) and later became the founding member that connected
PPC with some Los Angeles celebrities. Diana was initially involved in a project for recycling
plastic from the sea. Instigators argued for weeks with her that the Garbage Patch could not
efficiently be cleaned but they started to work with her before she was fully convinced of the
new frame. As one of the elite proponents of the “refuse” solution, acknowledged: “The passion
was great, the problem was real, but their solution was not a good one… We’ve got to work
together on a more realistic solution” (Res 44). In this way, instigators emphasized the
importance of being able to attract new elite members enlarging field boundaries, but at the same
time being firm enough to ensure the new frame would not be diluted. They enforced the new
frame using mainly simple, but technically well supported arguments, like “one single use of one
minute means four hundred years of non-biodegradability” (Res 8). Their aim was to convince
others to adhere to the cultural frame, but at the same time, maintain these influential people as
part of the network.
Stage 2. Identity diffusion through grass roots structuration (October 2009-2013)
The second stage aimed at the diffusion of the new frame to a broader grassroots
audience. The starting point can be set at another field configuring event, the formal launch of
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the Plastic Pollution Coalition (PPC) in October 2009. PPC was born with the intention of being
a coordinating online platform to attract grassroots members to the anti-plastic movement. The
launch of PPC was mainly an elite event – a party held in the Malibu home of Irmelin di Caprio,
mother of famous actor Leonardo di Caprio. Yet, the involvement of celebrities was a careful
strategic decision by instigators to get attention from new grassroots activists. At the Malibu
meeting, the strategic goals of the movement were formalized. Several social media platforms
where launched at this time, the first and most influential of which was the PPC Facebook wall,
which become one of the major diffusion tools of the movement.
The first months (from October 2009 to approximately August 2010) of the PPC
Facebook conversations were dominated by posts by instigators mainly reinforcing network and
cultural brokering (see Figure 4). For example, the PPC community manager encouraged visitors
to see a video made by an elite member (Wallace J. Nichols, famous marine biologist), in which
the new frame and how it differed from the old recycling logic was explained: “PlasticPollutes:
Plastic is misbehaving, time out! http://bit.ly/8pHk0I Video by @wallacejnichols” (PPC
Facebook, 04, December 2009).
Instigators also brokered network connections among different organizations or
individual activists that were working on the issue of plastic pollution or were willing to support
the new frame, e.g. “A special welcome to all of you who just joined us from The Global We:-D
The Global We is a group of 'eco-conscious humanitarians… Thank you so much Gordon J
Millar and The Global We!! We ask our fans to show their support back by becoming fans of
The Global We” (PPC Facebook, 15, December 2009).
By mid-2010, grassroots members started to take the lead in the promotion of the
movement (see Figure 2). By July 2010, 54% of the posts were written by non-elite members,
24
compared to 23% in April 2010, and 13% in December 2009. New activists, e.g. Toon
Eerdekens, Stella Witt, Don Mon, etc., previously relatively silent, started to reproduce elite
strategies. Also a growing number of activities were carried out by an increasing number of
organizations, and reported through the PPC Facebook page. We consider the reproduction of the
movement by non-elites as a first indicator of the maturity of the movement – it showed that the
frame was starting to be diffused among grassroots members, and constant strategic action by
instigators was no longer required to maintain the movement.
Field maturity also implies a reduction of consistency in the frame as indicated in Figure
3. The debate about the new frame was active and elites had to continue to use exclusiveinclusion tactics. The new frame was still not recognized in scientific conferences, for example:
“Over 90% of the panels (in the 5th International Marine Debris Conference, a scientific congress
celebrated in Honolulu in 2011) discussed plastic pollution, yet the official term used was
"marine debris" and plastic pollution was referred to euphemistically, but never mentioned by
name… Our continued requests to talk about plastic pollution, to identify the problems with
plastic… were ignored by the organizers of the conference and did not find a place in the final
summary report, titled The Honolulu Strategy” (Res, 17). This debate was also reproduced online
even in a medium such as Facebook that favored support rather than disagreement (Vorvoreanu,
2009). Field cohesion oscillated between 90% and 80% of the Facebook posts but field
agreement was much lower oscillating between 64,71 I June 2011 to 6,25% in October 2012 (see
Figure 3) showing elites aim at imposing a frame that was often rejected by grassroots members.
The tactic exclusive-inclusion was very present, especially in the comments of PPC in the
Facebook (see Figure 5) representing 15.33% of the total comments. Only two other tactics,
promoting engagement (43.76%) and cultural brokering (17.33%), were more prominent in PPC
25
comments. Instigators’ exclusive-inclusion consisted of gently disciplining the use of frame
inconsistent messages using clear and holistic arguments as this Facebook interaction shows:
“Erica Donnelly-Greenan (post): I am a scientist that presented at the conference. While
I agree that there should definitely be a focus on source reduction and producer responsibility,
when it comes to terminology, "marine debris" is the correct term. "Marine Debris" is an allencompassing term …
Plastic Pollution Coalition (answer): We believe that this terminology actually downplays the reality of the situation. Providing an all-encompassing term, in this case, creates a
disproportionate definition. (…) "Marine Debris" creates a benign and non-specific image. To
us, specificity in rhetoric is more important than general, non-specific inclusion.
Erica Donnelly-Greenan (answer): Agreed, it is important to highlight that plastic is an
overwhelming proportion of the marine debris issue.” (Facebook PPC, 3 October, 2011)
Discipline was often followed by inclusive rhetoric welcoming people to the movement:
“Hope Grable (comment to a PPC post): I still think we should try to clean it up… ;
Plastic Pollution Coalition (answer): As Captain Moore says, trying to clean this up
would be like ‘trying to bail out a bath with the faucet running. We should turn off the faucet
first’.… Beach cleanups might be a good educational tool, but are useless if we go back to our
wasteful ways afterwards. Thank you so much Hope. We are together in this. Onward!”
(Facebook PPC, 17 March 2010).
Instigators, as cultural brokers, reinforced the frame, but at the same time invited new
activists to join the emerging movement, even if these individuals initially held other opinions.
Managing interactions between culture, network and identity: The engagement strategy.
The enrolment of new grassroots members required effort to not only maintain and diffuse the
new frame but also to build a collective identity. The objective was to increase members’ sense
of belonging to the community through their engagement in movement activities. This
engagement strategy was twofold: network engagement and cultural engagement.
Network engagement consisted of making the sense of community very explicit and encouraging
members to engage in networking activities that brought the community together. Instigators
organized events and promoted campaigns of peer movement activists, reinforcing the emergent
feeling of community and consolidating the network. At the same time, they promoted a constant
26
sense of celebration via group support: “Plastic free living hero Jean Hill featured in The New
York Times YEAH! What a great example! Women are leading and we are all rising together!
Onward!!!!” (PPC Facebook, 24 June 2010). They also used celebrities strategically so that
community members could identify with people of high status and “avoid that feeling of being
the only crazy guy worried about plastics” (Res 38). The elite network elicited the involvement
of celebrities such as Benicio del Toro and Jeff Bridges posting their “refuse disposable plastics”
call on their Facebook pages. The American Idol television show also encouraged Americans to
refuse disposable plastics.
Cultural engagement consisted of encouraging members to enact the movement’s cultural
frame. Instigators encouraged members to “live the plastic free life”, suggesting new consumer
and citizen behavior and providing cultural materials to make it easier to enact the movement’s
frame. Sharing tips on how to reduce plastic in everyday life or asking Facebook friends to sign
petitions to promote plastic bag bans in their areas was frequent activity for instigators. An
example of the multiple Facebook posts promoting cultural engagement follows: “If you have a
choice between plastic and glass, PLEASE opt for a glass container. Glass, while being unsightly
when discarded, does little or no actual harm to the ocean.” (PPC Facebook, 10 April 2011 by
Alison C. Clarke). The launch of projects such as Plastic Free Campuses and Plastic Free Towns
provided people with a set of concrete instruments to campaign for change in regulations at
various levels of government. Cultural engagement gave grassroots members a sense of
belonging to the group that went beyond going to parties. This tactic helped members behave
differently in their day-to-day life, reinforcing their identification with the movement.
Furthermore, the distributed grass-roots activities were like guerrilla warfare – difficult for the
industry to respond to, and with the potential of creating significant public awareness by
27
affecting all users of plastic bags in many different areas.
Balancing tensions by means of unequal-equality. Unequal-equality tactics focused on
reducing the tensions between the promotion of a collective identity and the power relations
developed as the movement formalized. Before the Malibu meeting, the formalization of the
movement was limited: “At the beginning, the only condition for joining the movement was a
‘virtual handshake’” (Res 46). But as the movement grew, the organizations in the movement,
including PPC, started to adopt specific organizational practices which often involved the
establishment of formalized hierarchies. Instigators started self-attributing intra-organizational
hierarchies, naming themselves ‘the movement founders’. One of them later became the
Executive Director. Most of the elite activists that participated in the different field configuring
events were named as ‘board members, scientific or outreach advisors’. One of the founders was
hired as a full time employee by PPC, and several part-time and project based workers were also
hired. In addition, PPC made extensive use of interns.
Coalition hierarchies were also created. PPC created an organizational variant of
membership, which was conceived to provide different services to organizations in the coalition
and included a fee. This coalition work was coordinated by a professional lobbyist in
Washington and an intern. It involved both international and national relationships: “PPC is
widely recognized as an ‘international hub’, linking for the first time the US anti plastic pollution
field with other organizations in Central America, Asia or Africa. However, the coalition is still
“dominated by US groups”” (Res 24). “Whereas the coalition work in the national arena is very
focused in national campaigns (e.g. “Plastic Free Campuses”), the international members are
using PPC as a ‘communication hub’, both for data sharing and social media diffusion” (Res 24).
Hierarchies were also created at the grassroots level. Boundaries between members and
28
non-members were set with the creation of member fees to participate in several movement
activities such as conferences and receiving newsletters. The individual and organizational
membership process included the completion of a questionnaire to filter members. Despite this
means of member exclusion, elite activists argued that “only on very rare occasions had there
been a reason for excluding a membership application” (Res 51). Online, posts encouraged
membership and provided information to create the sense of exclusiveness of belonging to the
community: e.g., “All members of PPC receive our monthly newsletter, subscription to Earth
Island Journal, and a members-only tote http://ow.ly/cWzTQ” (PPC Facebook, 28 Nov 2012).
Some activists were not totally comfortable with this formalization and the establishment
of field boundaries. At the intra-organizational level, important elite members expressed their
disagreement with establishing hierarchies: “I decided some years ago that I didn’t want the
word ‘manager’ or ‘director’ in my title, so you have to do things differently” (Res 58).
At the coalition level, elite members also acknowledged the potential deleterious effects
of formalizing status hierarchies: “Your motivation is passion and you cannot constrain people’s
passion by setting frontiers” (Res 46). This feeling was shared by grassroots activists, who
rejected the managerial approach taken by instigators and highlighted instead inspiration and
non-hierarchical activism. “I’m inspired. I live on liberty and freedom… What we want is to be
able to exchange some more of our ideas. Be a catalyst for change” (Res 22).
Instigators recognized this tension between collective identity and organizational power
and strategically promoted unequal-equality tactics. Instigators used often a coalition ethos to
create a sense of inclusion and open community by insisting that the coalition was built for
promoting cooperation instead of competition: - “we are a coalition. We are working on our own
projects but we are mainly a communication hub” - (Res 30). This rhetoric allowed them to
29
characterize their central position in the field as coalition organizers. In their messages they
stressed the sense of we-ness of belonging to a global and game-changing community:
“Becoming a Plastic Pollution Coalition Global Ambassador does more than make for a
great section on your resume. It allows you to be a part of a huge global movement, to
collaborate with the great minds of your generation, and it's something you'll be able look back
on and say that you were a part of something monumental” (Facebook PPC, 15 August 2011).
Unequal-equality appeared in only 74 Facebook posts and 28 comments. Although
instigators sometimes used the launch of specific campaigns to stress their status: “Daniella
Russo, Executive Director of PPC, announces the launch of the global Plastic Free Campuses
campaign” (Facebook PPC, 17 January 2012), they tended generally to avoid the tension
between power structures and collective identity in favor of other strategies more focused on
engaging and brokering the network of grassroots online constituents. And yet, the creation of
status-differentiating memberships and positions clearly showed that inequality existed, as much
as organizers worked to downplay it.
As the movement expanded, the tensions increased as the tendency of some instigators to
emphasize their own centrality in the movement clashed with the progressive maturity of the
movement. Although the movement expanded in terms of members (more than 300
organizations joined PPC by the end of 2012, including 81 business and 74 NGOs) and media
impact (a Factiva search identified 294 articles in 2012, compared to 84 in 2009), Facebook
posts fell. The reduction in the number of posts on the PPC Facebook during the last months of
2012 was associated by several of the movement members with an excessive show of power by
some of the instigators. Some movement members not only rejected explicit hierarchies but also
fought any changes in the movement frame. At the end of 2012, some of the instigators decided
to invite the industry to participate in the movement. The “Think Beyond Plastic” contest they
launched, an innovation competition for entrepreneurs, opened up a controversial debate. Most
30
of the industry supporters proposed recycling activities and were willing to change the frame to
“plastic free life instead of refuse” (Res 30). The intent to change the order in the new
community opening the boundaries of the field to previous objects of contestation provoked a
reaction against the instigators, showing the delicate equilibrium between power and identity in
emergent fields.
DISCUSSION: FIELD STRUCTURATION AND STRATEGIC INTENT
In this article, we sought a better understanding of the structuration process of an
emergent, social movement field. Instead of defining the “ideal” levels of structuration (Aldrich
& Herker, 1977; Boudreau, 1996; Van Wijk et al., 2013), we look at the dynamics of
structuration through agency. We distinguished the strategies by which instigator actors
organized the field and attempted to resolve tensions to collectively configure the movement. In
looking at the dynamics of structuration, we traced the formation of the cultural, network,
identity and power structures and their interrelationships as they were being formed.
Our findings described a process of the intentional creation of a social movement field,
summarized in the model in Figure 6. The process of field emergence required two stages: first,
frame and network construction by means of elite structuration and second, identity diffusion
through grass roots structuration. Central to our model is that movements use three types of
strategies (brokering, engaging and balancing), which manage the interrelationships and balance
the tensions among the cultural, network, power and identity elements involved in field
structuration. In the first stage, using primarily brokering strategies, the instigators in our study
were able to establish an elite structure of key actors with the resources needed for developing a
new and coherent collective action frame. They also used a balancing strategy to ensure the
network could grow without compromising on the coherence of the frame. These structural
31
building blocks, the new frame and the elite network, were essential for the second stage of grass
roots diffusion. In the second stage, instigators aimed at growing the movement size and sense of
identity. Instigators used primarily engaging strategies to draw new members in, have them
participate in movement activities and enact the movement frame, and in this way, build an
identity connection to the movement. Balancing strategies were also required in this phase to
ensure members felt acknowledged, not dominated, by an increasingly elaborated status
hierarchy, and again to maintain the coherence of the frame while allowing the network to grow.
We describe the strategies in relation to the literature and the structuration elements.
------------------------------------------------------------INSERT FIGURE 6 ABOUT HERE
------------------------------------------------------------Strategies for Structuration
Brokering Strategies. While a number of prior studies have identified the importance of
both cultural and network brokering separately (e.g., Van Wijk et al., 2013), we found that the
two brokering tactics work in synthesis to build an emergent movement’s mobilizing capacity.
Cultural brokering involves creating a cultural frame which bridges multiple interest groups
(Maguire et al., 2004). This requires combining interests, using some of the groups’ symbols and
discourse, and finding a sufficiently broad rallying point that will appeal to all members of
desired networks (van Bommel & Spicer, 2011). In our case, “plastic pollution” and “refuse”
were terms that were new to the field, but sufficiently broad to be meaningful in multiple
contexts and with heterogeneous constituencies. Network brokering involves selecting people or
networks that provide key resources and forging connections with them.
In the initial elite structuration stage, instigators carefully selected individuals who could
draw additional members into the movement, because of their passion, referent power and/or
centrality in an existing network. Instigators invited these elites to co-define the frame with them,
32
giving elite actors legitimacy and status in the network and a significant voice in the movement’s
frame in order to attract them. Elite members were drawn to the network not only because the
frame appealed to them, but also because they participated in its creation. While creating the
frame, elite members were strengthening their connection to the movement, and experiencing the
psychic benefits of having elite status (informally in stage 1 and formally in stage 2). Attracting
important well-resourced players to the network, and creating a new cultural frame recognizable
by heterogeneous groups, established a stable base of mobilizing capacity from which the
movement could grow.
Failure to recognize the interaction between culture, the network and power could have
resulted in negative movement outcomes. If movement instigators had not selected
heterogeneous and resourceful elites, they would not have had access to the networks connected
to those elites. In addition, they would not have had the elites’ influence on the cultural frame,
perhaps limiting the resonance of the frame to diverse audiences. Both of these factors would
decrease the movement’s ability to appeal to broad grass-roots audiences, limiting its mobilizing
capacity. On the other hand, failure to broker the most appealing cultural materials (often
developed by very heterogeneous actors such as artists, housewives and scientists) in frame
construction might result in a decrease in network members’ commitment (Lawrence & Phillips,
2004), limiting the scope of action as well as the scale. It is likely that anti-plastic precursors,
such as the renowned environmentalist Captain Moore, had gained little traction for their efforts
because they used little network and cultural brokerage, preventing them from creating a frame
that was both focused and appealing to heterogeneous elite and grass roots activists.
Engagement Strategies. To grow the movement beyond the network of elites, instigators
used network and cultural engagement tactics in the second phase of mass diffusion. Network
33
engagement involved encouraging members to participate in parties, organized campaigns, beach
“clean ups”, and celebratory events, increasing the positive feelings associated with network
membership and reinforcing a sense of collective identity. Cultural engagement involved
encouraging movement members to enact the cultural frame of the movement – in this case, by
refusing the use of plastic in their everyday lives, sharing movement symbols and participating in
movement campaigns like plastic bag bans. By providing clear and easy directions for how to
enact the frame, and by providing cultural materials that reduced the costs of enacting the
movement’s frame (such as tips on how to produce your own soap, materials for launching a
plastic bag ban, explanations to give retailers when refusing plastic straws, etc.), instigators
enabled behavior change which fostered a sense of collective identity. Literature on social
movements has described the importance of mobilizing ‘action-oriented’ beliefs and meanings
that inspire and legitimate activities and campaigns (van Bommel & Spicer, 2011) and promote
collective identity (King et al., 2011), and our data illustrate how movement instigators use
cultural and network engagement strategies to this effect. Movement members gain networks and
a sense of meaning by participating in movement activities (Cable & Degutis, 1997), and
enacting movement frames, resulting in stronger identification with and commitment to the
movement (King et al., 2011). Cultural and network engagement thus build collective
identification, which in turn reinforces the enactment capacity of activists. Staggenborg and
Lecomte (2009), in the case of the World March of Women in Montreal, argued that network
bonds formed during campaigns were the basis for mobilizing capacity in subsequent campaigns
(Staggenborg & Lecomte, 2009). Failure to promote identification has also been observed in
movements with limited enactment capacity (Wry, Lounsbury, & Glynn, 2011). We thus argue
that cultural and network engagement dynamics increase the movement’s future mobilizing
34
capacity by fostering members’ enactment and identification with the movement.
Engagement strategies increase the movement’s mobilizing capacity specifically through
size, scope and longevity. The more attractive the events involved in the network engagement
strategy, the larger size of the group that is attracted to engage. The more members enact the
frame through cultural engagement strategies, the greater not only the scope of the movement but
also its longevity since changing behavior involves a deeper appreciation of the issue (Albert,
Ashforth, & Dutton, 2000). The greater the involvement in both network and cultural
engagement activities, the greater the member’s identification with and commitment to the
movement, contributing to the movement’s longevity (King et al., 2011).
Balancing tensions between elements. The final strategy, which we call balancing,
manages the tensions between elements. Its tactics are exclusive-inclusion and unequal-equality.
Exclusive-inclusion balances the tension between growing the network and imposing a
new cultural frame. To have the largest movement possible, a movement could have a highly
inclusive (and likely ambiguous or unspecific) frame. Such an inclusive frame creates the risk of
an unfocused movement, however (Snow & Benford, 1988). If it isn’t clear what the movement
is for or against, no clear strategy can be devised or discerned, and potential members may feel
little identification with it. By contrast, social movement literature has emphasized the role of
strongly oppositional collective action frames (Benford & Snow, 2000) where field actors work
hard to defend and maintain a field’s frame with defensive institutional work (e.g., Maguire &
Hardy, 2009). Failing at creating and reinforcing a focused framework might lead to distraction
from the issue and thus limited endurance (Andrews, 2001; Giugni, 1998; Staggenborg &
Lecomte, 2009; Zemlinskaya, 2009). Yet too narrow frame might make it difficult to find
coalition partners (Obach, 2004), and diminishes the ability to attract useful resources.
35
We found that movement instigators worked to “discipline” frame-inconsistent
discourses, however, they used a cheery tone and inclusive, welcoming expressions, in an
attempt to build the network. This exclusive-inclusion strategy allowed instigators to maintain
fairly rigid adherence to the frame but do so in a way that maintained the connection with the
member. In doing so, instigators balanced the need for size against the need for the coherence
that would help the movement endure and have focused impact.
The rigid adherence to a frame that we observed is not a universally-used tactic. The
Occupy movement, for example, kept its frame purposefully broad to embrace heterogeneous
groups with broad floating signifiers such as the “We are the 99%” banner (Castañeda, 2012; van
Bommel & Spicer, 2011). As a result, Occupy’s membership swelled to very large ranks in a
very short period of time, and members’ commitment to the movement appeared significant as
the movement involved sustained occupations. However, without a coherent focus on specific
issues, the endurance of the Occupy movement has been less than one might expect given its
meteoric rise to super-movementhood.
Also the Slow Food movement described by van Bommer and Spicer (2011) made a
virtue of a broad frame capable of being adapted to fit multiple purposes. Given its predominant
orientation to changing consumer attitudes rather than fighting a powerful opponent, having a
coherent focus may be less important (Morris & Staggenborg, 2004). While the anti-plastic
movement looks similarly focused on changing consumer behavior, it has formidable opponents
(petroleum firms, plastic firms, industrial users of plastics). The movement is expecting to fight
them directly, and thus instigators are building a more focused and closed frame. It remains to be
seen what the impact of such a frame will be on movement longevity and mobilizing capacity
relative to one with an open frame. Future research is required to identify where movements of
36
different types fall on the exclusive-inclusion continuum, and whether the movement type affects
the strategy used to manage this tension.
Unequal-equality balances the tension between power and identity. In George Orwell’s
(1946) book Animal Farm, when pigs led an egalitarian revolt of the animals against the
authoritarian humans, but then gradually took the same privileges for themselves that the humans
had, the pigs excused their privileges by saying: “All animals are created equal but some are
more equal than others”. As argued by Bourdieu (1989), agents that occupy a higher position in
one of the hierarchies of objective space might symbolically deny the social distance between
them and the others. The unequal-equality tactic used by movement instigators shares this
sensibility. In order to attract and maintain the support of elite members, movement instigators
provided extra privileges to such members, including voice in defining the movement’s agenda
and acknowledgement of their network centrality. In the grassroots diffusion stage, as instigators
increasingly formalized the movement hierarchy, membership was required, which included a
fee and a questionnaire. A set of roles were defined for elites, which established their privileges
in the movement. The formalization of roles, hierarchies and rules implied the creation of
organizational status including “member vs non-member; advisor; director; ambassador;
employee” which helped instigators to reinforce their central status in the network, and
acknowledged the contributions of elites in order to maintain their support. Power structures and
a centralized organizational structure also allowed the movement to make faster decisions, and
maximize the effects of movement activity through focus (Gamson, 1975). Tilly has argued that
“decentralized movement communities are less capable of collective action on a regular basis
than more visible and centralized communities” (Tilly, 2004: 165). However, social movement
members join voluntarily and frequently have egalitarian expectations that could be violated by a
37
very visible status hierarchy, reducing their commitment to the movement (Tarrow, 1994).
Instigators were careful to signal an egalitarian, coalitional structure to maintain the support of
the grassroots, and to emphasize the collective and group belongingness. They tried to hide their
hierarchical work on Facebook -- as social media was mainly devoted to engaging grassroots into
the emergent movement -- but at the same time they conducted vibrant organizing activity
offline, in a sort of background social site (Mische, 2011). It remains to be seen if this tactic,
which attempted to reduce the negative effects of power relations of elite members, can be
maintained over time.
Again, Occupy Wall Street provides an interesting counterpoint to the Plastic Pollution
Coalition. Occupy used a very egalitarian and decentralized process to manage movement
activities. Recent accounts of Occupy movements acknowledge the efficiency dilemmas
associated with consensus-based decision-making processes (Klein, Lennon, Lanford, & Lennon,
2012). The Occupy Movement’s creation of a complex, multi-layered ecosystem (Morel, 2012)
allowed a broad initial mobilization but prevented resourceful elites from committing and even
acting without broad consensus-seeking. Without member engagement through ongoing,
purposeful action, member identification with the movement is limited, which in turn limits the
movement’s endurance (Castañeda, 2012). Occupy thus appeared to trade off longevity to
achieve size and scope, though it is likely the experience of mobilizing will endure for many
Occupiers, and thus Occupy likely created resources which can be exploited by more focused
movements for years to come.
Future research is needed to explore these tensions and the strategies that movements use
to manage them and/or the decisions they make about which outcomes to prioritize. These
strategies might differ depending on contingencies such as the goals of the movement (e.g.,
38
social responsibility movement vs. challenger movement), the scale or scope of the grievance
and thus the kind of action that is required by the movement, the personality of movement
leaders, or others. In any case, the study of “unequal-equality” gave us the opportunity to explore
the controversial interactions between power and collective identity in the stage of grassroots
diffusion, rather than merely among elite groups, as has been the norm (Polletta, 2005).
Contributions
This study argues for the importance of analyzing social movements as fields rather than
as an aggregation of actors, events and actions as usually understood in the social movement
literature (Diani, 2012). It highlights the mechanisms through which social movement fields
emerge in the intentional interplay of structuring elements such networks, culture, power and
identity. This study contributes to the growing literature on field theory (Evans & Kay, 2008;
Fligstein & McAdam, 2012; Pache & Santos, 2010), and the literature on the internal dynamics
of social movements in the emergence phase (Lounsbury, Ventresca, & Hirsch, 2003; Maguire et
al., 2004; Van Wijk et al., 2013). Prior research has tended to present field change mainly in the
interaction of two field elements, such as network and culture (e.g., Pachucki & Breiger, 2010;
Rao, Monin, & Durand, 2003; Van Wijk et al., 2013; Weber & Dacin, 2011) power and identity
(e.g., Delmestri, 2009; Gould, 1992; Rao et al., 2000), or culture and identity (Evans & Kay,
2008). In contrast, we found that attention to all four field elements, and their interrelationships,
provides more insight into the potential for, and enactment of, field emergence and change.
A primary contribution of the current study is to focus attention on the role of intentional
and thus strategic agency in the emergence of a social movement field by introducing a set of
three strategies that instigators enact in order to structure a field: brokering strategies promoted
the construction of a new frame and an elite network; engaging strategies focused on enhancing
39
grass roots identification with the new frame and the diffusion of the movement to larger
networks; and balancing strategies focused on managed the inherent tensions among field
configuring elements to enhance movement outcomes. We argue that these strategies have
substantial effects on valued field outcomes such as size, scope and longevity.
This study focused on a very strategic process of movement creation – one which
illustrated more agency directed toward structuration than do most accounts of social movements
(Steele & King, 2011). In part, this may be because the nature of our data enabled us to see
agentic processes in detail, while prior studies could not. The combination of Facebook data,
direct observation and interview data that we used allowed the analysis of both the microinteractions among movement grassroots and elite members, as well as the explanations of why
instigators and elites took the actions that they did. Social movement diffusion studies have used
mainly media data, as diffusion is usually considered to be coming from an external “source”
(Earl et al., 2004; Strang & Soule, 1998; Thomas et al., 2013). By definition, any kind of
interaction between grassroots activists and the “source” of mobilization efforts is not present in
this kind of data. Our data provided a more detailed view of movement dynamics and the elites’
intentions. The deliberateness of the process we observed may also be explained by the very
early stage of field emergence we studied, a stage in which instigators’ efforts play a much
greater role in stimulating movement activities (Fligstein & McAdam, 2012).
Yet, in part, it may be that the anti-plastic pollution instigators were in fact operating
differently than many social movements. Instigators were very aware that direct action against
the plastics industry was unlikely to be successful due to the political power of plastic producers
and their suppliers and buyers. The industry frame of recycling was very strong, and plastic is
ubiquitous, and taken for granted as necessary. The political opportunity structure was weak.
40
To be able to reduce the problem of plastic pollution, instigators focused on making
consumers more aware of the problems of plastic in order to build an opportunity structure from
the ground up. In doing so, they stayed “under the radar” of the plastic and ancillary industries,
while establishing the structure of the field and a membership base throughout both elite
structuration and grassroots diffusion stages. Elite members used Facebook as a “social setting”
(Mische & Pattison, 2000) to engage grassroots members during the mass diffusion of the new
collective identity, sometimes disguising or publically rejecting the process of hierarchical
ordering that was happening “off line” by means of the balancing strategy of unequal-equality.
When the base was deemed sufficient, the movement elaborated its strategy further by focusing
on multiple local plastic bag bans, rather than a national or international campaign. With the
tools the movement had (a dispersed network of members, an elaborated set of guidelines for bag
ban campaigns), the movement could strike in multiple places at low levels – guerrilla warfare
that was expensive and challenging for the plastics industry to fight. Because bag bans affected
virtually every consumer in the affected geography, a bag ban also had a strong potential to
diffuse awareness of the plastic pollution issue quite broadly, thus enhancing the political
opportunity over time.
In short, instigators were very strategic. They were not career campaign organizers, as
many social movement leaders have been (Soule & King, 2006). Several came from a corporate
background, and being aware of the corporate ethos and toolkit, they could use it against the
industry to develop a movement that would endure. Institutional studies of organizations have
shown that leaders who move from one field to another can bring new logics and practices to the
field (Kraatz & Moore, 2002), and this seems to be also true in this social movement field.
Future research could examine how the backgrounds of leaders interact with the structuration
41
processes of the movement or identify other conditions which affect how deliberate the
movement structuration process is during field emergence.
Our study has limitations. As a new environmental movement focusing on an
increasingly important issue, the plastic pollution field may be rather idiosyncratic. Yet, we
believe that the phenomenon we study – intentional field emergence and the work of instigators
in the diffusion of a social movement – is not uncommon in practice but quite difficult to observe
as it does not usually emerge in concrete places. The PPC’s Facebook wall allowed us to observe
movement interactions as they unfolded. We acknowledge Facebook conversations do not cover
the whole spectrum of the debates among field constituents. Through Facebook we are able to
identify mainly network and cultural structuration but we are not able to explain the resolution of
all debates. However, by combining social media data with interviews and archival data we have
been able to identify some of these influences and introduce them in the study.
A third limitation of the study may relate to the critique of the epistemology of strategic
agency and the development of strategies as generalizable forms used for field change. We
acknowledge the limitation of a pure strategic view of field change, as argued by Bourdieu “only
a virtuoso with a perfect command of his “art of living” can play on all the resources inherent in
the ambiguities and uncertainties of behaviour and situation in order to produce the actions
appropriate to each case” (Bourdieu, 1977:8). To avoid excessive emphasis on the
“hypermusculated” characteristics of the change agents (Lawrence, Suddaby, & Leca, 2011), we
look more broadly at agency-structure dynamics. We argue that the definition of strategies and
the study of strategic intent provide us the possibility to understand how actors use various
strategies and work with other actors to create the conditions for emergent collective action. By
studying the process of intentional field structuration closely, we believe we have contributed to
42
naturalistic generalizability, which allows the broadening of similar cases (Stake, 1994) and
analytical generalizability allowing the broadening of theoretical insights (Yin, 1984).
CONCLUSION
Drawing on an intensive case study of the anti-plastic pollution social movement in
California from the end of the 1990´s to 2013, this study has shown how a field can emerge
through the collective work of instigators, elites of different fields and grassroots constituencies.
Our results show the importance of understanding and managing structuration processes and the
tensions that emerge in the intersections among field configuring elements such as power vs.
identity and cultural production vs. network expansion.
43
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TABLES
Table 1: Case Chronology
1997-2008 activists’ initiation and key events
•
•
•
•
1997, Capt. Charles Moore and crew encountered, documented and named the Great Pacific
Garbage Patch in a mission through the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre
2000, Heal the Bay, Surfrider, Sierra Club, Algalita Foundation) start beach clean ups,
2000, First trip of Algalita to Midway Islands with Marcus Eriksen, Anna Cummins
2007, Legislation: AB 904 on Plastic & Marine Debris Reduction & AB 2449 Plastic Bag Litter
and Waste Reduction (recycling bags) passed in California Assembly
2007, Diana Cohen launches “conscious couture”; Beth Terry launched Fake Plastic Fish blog
2008, The Malibu City Council voted in May 2008 to ban plastic bags
2008, 5Gyres founded. M. Maqueda meets Capt. Moore, C. Jordan and D. Russo
•
•
•
2009
• June 4, Google Event
• August 14, First strategy meeting “Communicating Plastics”
• October, Launched PPC at Irmelin di Caprio’s home in Malibu
• October, Launched PPC Facebook and webpage, led by Manuel Maqueda
2010
• January, first business plan; mission, vision and statement
• August, AB 1998 Plastic Bag Ban fails off the California Senate Floor.
• August, 1st Plastic Monster Gathering in San Francisco lead by Andy Keller
• October, launched member’s questionnaire and membership fees in PPC
• November, TEDx: Great Pacific Garbage Patch: The Plastic Pollution Crisis
• December, PPC Legal foundation established as a project of Earth Island Institute
• December, PPC hired first interns to support membership coordination, outreach
2011
• January, San Jose City approved to ban plastic bags (first big city)
• January, Plastic Free Campaigns (Christmas, Eastern) & Plastic Free Times launched
• September, PPC hired team (part time external: coalition coordinator)
• October, launch of Plastic Free Campuses (15 campuses) – reached over 100,000 students
• November, launched of Central America project with a speaking tour of 3 countries
• November, regional ambassadors East Coast and Latin America
• December, new REFUSE campaign: viral videos, talks, outreach materials
2012
• January, PPC hired team & Plastic Free Campuses: 120 campuses
• March, New campaigns: Plastic Free Towns: Green Spa Network, Atlantic Nationals Plastic Free
/ Clean Regatta
• May, Launched United Arab Emirates Project and the Plastic Pollution World Expedition
• June, UN Rio+20 Oceans Day
• September, Plastic Antidote strategic partnership & launch campaing
• September, Plastic Oceans Project partnership between PPC, S. Earle and Sir Attenborough
• November, launch of Think Beyond Plastic Innovation Contest and Competition
2013
• January, 79 CA Cities or Counties Covered by Plastic Bag Ban Ordinances.
• January, 5 Gyres international alliances with Plastic Free Seas (Hong Kong) (Plasticfreeseas.org)
and The Plastic Soup Foundation (Netherlands) (plasticsoupfoundation.org).
58
Table 2: Themes, Categories and Quotations
Third order
theme strategies
Second
order
themetactics
Engaging
strategy
Network
engagement
First Order Categories and Representative Quotations
Making the ‘we-ness’ explicit: This (movement) is very inclusive and people tend to
reach out and help each other (Res, 52).
We must keep fighting the good fight, as we are on the right side of the argument,
and I'm sure, history. (Facebook PPC, July 28, 2011, Rick Siegel).
Celebrity promotion: One of the most valuable is the currency of celebrities. Even
if it’s used just to keep people’s attention and use to social media... (Res 44).
Our supporter singer songwriter Jackson Browne and all his team have ditched
bottled water. (Facebook PPC, May 17, 2010).
Celebration of success: In California we can congratulate group site ‘Heal the bay’
who has recently passed federal clean water act legislation to reduce trash in Santa
Monica Bay, outside this very venue where we are here today, by 2018. (Res 43).
YAY!! We passed the 2,000 fans mark! Thank you all for recruiting 150 new friends
in two days! Welcome everybody. Hugs to all of you! Together we can free the world
from plastic pollution and its toxic impact on human health and the environment.
Onward!! (Facebook PPC, January 13, 2010).
Joining and organizing events and campaigns: At the beginning we worked with
volunteers, we went to concerts and to environmental causes. We participated in a
lot of events, the Monterey Festival where J (Wallace J Nichols) was, film festivals.
(Res 51).
Plastic Pollution Coalition team at Crosby, Stills and Nash concert in Saratoga,
California raises awareness about the dangers of plastic pollution. A great
event!(Facebook PPC, June 8, 2010).
Cultural
engagement
Encourage frame enactment: e.g. supporting and promoting bans: Join us at our
press conference with Governor Schwarzenegger and please visit the plastic
pollution collation website for more information and how you can support these
legislated initiatives in this country and in others. (Res 43).
Californians: we need your help to ban plastic bags in California…(Facebook PPC,
July 8, 2010).
Provide culture materials to reduce cost of enactment: Giving ideas on how to
reduce plastic in our life is very important... The weekly call conversations are all
about that. It is very central also in our communication. I get and search suggestions
on what to do. (Res 30).
PlasticPollutes: Don't buy this! Just laugh at the irony... Brilliant!
http://bit.ly/YCeyl. (Facebook PPC, October 29, 2009).
Brokering
strategy
Network
brokering
Signs of connecting people with elites:
We wanted to help the members of the coalition to outreach to people, and we will
give them the social media exposure that otherwise they might not have. (Res 17).
Our advisor Beth terry, author of the blog FakePlasticFish.com just posted the tally
of her plastic waste for 2009: an amazing 3.7 pounds total… (PPC Facebook,
January 6, 2010).
Organizing expert events/memorandums to connect people: Our third important
deliverable for a first year was to produce a conference on all the aspects of plastic
pollution. (Res 17).
TEDx GreatPacificGarbagePatch conference is coming up!! Mark the date:
59
November 6. It will be broadcasted LIVE online. (Facebook, October27, 2010).
Cultural
brokering
Broker cultural symbols (pictures, artistic objects, logos): PPC they are very
good at social networking, very good in capturing people’s imagination. The picture
of the albatross is a very good example, it is a heart breaking story, very sad and I
think this is the key to success. (Res 6).
PlasticPollutes: TV interview with @DRexplore of @Plastiki on @Bloomberg_TV
http://bit.ly/4s1ZPg. (Facebook PPC, December 14, 2009).
Unifying the message: We give them (other activists) the information they are
lacking and we unify the message (Res 51). I was little by little creating a common
discourse. (Res 46)
Plastic is not biodegradable. In the marine environment, plasticbreaks down into
smaller and smaller particles that absorb toxic… (Facebook PPC, January 29,
2010).
Creating expert projects to allow exchange of ideas and information: We do
outreach to school— that is new. We want to form habits that are sustainable. We
have been to a few universities, high schools. PPC provides tools. We have a new
program, Plastic Free Campus…. It is something that is very helpful. (Res 51)
Tomorrow, October 13, 7 PM GMT. "Plastic Pollution in the Oceans" panel
discussion at the Royal Geographical soc in London. (Facebook PPC, October 12,
2010).
Balancing
strategy
Unequalequality
Filtering membership: We started to use the questionnaire in October 2010. We
use the questionnaire as a way to mostly get information, location, and activity. (Res
30)
“Wouldn't you sleep a little better knowing you're helping to reduce all the plastic
pollution in this world? A membership in Plastic Pollution Coalition is just that. It's
like a warm cup of chamomile tea for your conscience. Join us and make a
difference. Please share…” (PPC Facebook, 05 Dec 2012).
Coalition ethos: “we are a coalition because… we want to promote cooperation
instead of competition among environmental organizations” (Res 46).
Plastic Pollution Coalition visits Central America. The message of plastic pollution
is spreading fast around the globe. The coalition has members on all continents. At
the end of this month, Executive Director... http://plasticpollutioncoalition.org
/2011/06/plastic-pollution-coalition-visit-to-central-america/ (Facebook PPC, June
26, 2011).
Exclusiveinclusion
Welcoming others: Part of that is that this is a global problem and that you have to
find partners to solve it. The PPC is to open in a big umbrella and we invite
organizations and they can work in whatever area but they need to agree on the
three principles. (Res 17).
Plastic Pollution Coalition Thank you Mark for your kind message, and for all you
have done and continue to do for the betterment of our world :-) Plastic Pollution
Coalition @Gus, yes, the comments were not meant to be personal and we shouldn't
get personal here because we all are obviously somewhat lazy and conformist ;-)
otherwise we wouldn't have this big environmental mess in our hands! We are all
culprits, and we are learning together. (Facebook PPC, July 11, 2010).
Using discipline without being too exclusive: We wanted to hand shake. You just
compromise yourself to try to follow the 2 principles as you can and to be to others
disposal to share your information. (Res 46)
We are all together. But we need ninja-style focus, and recycling and cleaning up
are not going to work…Start refusing single use plastics, such as bags, bottles, and
packaging as much as you can, spread the word, and support legisla-tive measures
in your community. Thank you Jenny! Onward!! (Facebook PPC, April 21, 2010).
60
Figure 1: Evolution of Facebook Posts, Comments and Likes Over Time (October 2009January 2013)
7000
6000
5000
4000
3000
2000
1000
COMMENT
LIKE
Dec-12
Oct-12
Aug-12
Jun-12
Apr-12
Feb-12
Dec-11
Oct-11
Aug-11
Jun-11
Apr-11
Feb-11
Dec-10
Oct-10
Aug-10
Jun-10
Apr-10
Feb-10
Dec-09
Oct-09
0
POST
Figure 2: Field maturity. Number of Posts by Elites and by Grass Roots over Time,
(October 2009-January 2013)
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
Total Elites
Grass roots
61
Figure 3: Percentage of Frame Cohesion in “Posts” and “Full Conversations” Over Time
120.00
100.00
80.00
60.00
40.00
20.00
0.00
% Frame cohesion "Posts"
% Frame cohesion "Full Conversations"
Figure 4: Proportion of Strategies of Each Type Used on PPC Facebook “Posts” Over Time
(October 2009-January 2013)
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Brokering strategies
Engaging strategies
Balancing strategies
62
Figure 5: Proportion of Strategies of Each Type Used on PPC Facebook “Comments”,
Over Time (October 2009-January 2013)
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Brokering strategies
Engaging strategies
Balacing strategies
63
Figure 6: A process model of field emergence