Hestres, L. (forthcoming). Preaching to the Choir: Internet-Mediated Advocacy, Issue Public
Mobilization and Climate Change. New Media & Society.
Hestres' article studies the assumptions, aims, communication objectives, and mobilization strategies of
Internet-mediated advocacy organizations based on interviews with key staff members of two such
organizations focused on the issue of climate change. Specifically, he focuses on the activities of
350.org and 1Sky as they took action to derail the Keystone XL pipeline in 2010-2012, a project that
had previously enjoyed a wide base of political support from Washington politicians, Obama and
others, with the power to launch it. The successful activist efforts, including massive demonstrations at
the White House and email inundations of senators, were led by these Internet-mediated advocacy
groups (among others); their assumptions and practices offer an interesting case study reflecting new
trends in Internet-mediated advocacy in general, as well as the future of the climate change movement
more specifically.
Hestres cites Earl and Kimport's 2011 theories about the way that Internet-based advocacy can either
“supersize” traditional activist activities or embrace new tactics made possible by unique allowances
within the online sphere itself, termed “theory 2.0” effects. Hestres goes on to cite Karpf's 2012
typology of Internet-mediated organizations:
 issue generalists, which exhibit an “organization-to-member/online” communication model
 online communities of interest, marked by a “member-to-member/online model,” and
 neo-federated organizations, characterized by a “member-to-member/offline model” (p. 3, citing
Karpf, 2012, p. 19)
Hestres argues that the organizations in question fall into a subset Karpf terms “Internet-mediated issue
specialists,” which add issue specialization to the basic structure of the issue generalists category
(Karpf, p. 49). One important difference between this subset and its parent category, however, is that
Internet-mediated issue specialists generally lack the ability to practice “headline chasing,” and
therefore must fall back on “communication and mobilization strategies, such as framing and dramatic
appeals, that shift issues from less favorable arenas to more favorable ones where public pressure can
make a difference” (p. 3-4, citing Hilgartner and Bosk, 1988; Nisbet and Huge, 2007). Hestres also
argues that Internet-mediated issue specialists, due to their “nimble” strategies, draw on tactics
associated with each of the three primary categories described by Karpf (p. 9).
Citing Leiserowitz, Maibach and Roser-Renouf's 2009 typology of the “Six Americas of Climate
Change,” Hestres' respondents stated that their primary aim was to mobilize this engaged segment, or
issue public, the 18% of “Alarmed” Americans. Since they already share consensus on the issue,
advocacy groups focusing on this segment can jump straight to mobilizing action, or getting “the choir
all singing from the same song sheet” (p. 8, from interview). Snow and Benford (1988) describe three
essential framing tasks that lead “frame alignment” and mobilization:
 “diagnostic framing, which identifies a problem and attributes blame;
 prognostic framing, which proposes solutions to the problem; and
 motivational framing, which elaborates a call to action that goes beyond diagnosis and
progrnosis.” (p. 6)
One respondent posited that the two organizations shared history of low budgets and staff numbers,
combined with their ambitions to gain media attention and inspire mobilization, led them both to use
art as a campaign tool. Both have also prioritized traditional forms of local, grassroots organizing
alongside blogs, social media, and other digital tools, often with the aim of providing “online tools to
support...offline work” (p. 9). 1Sky provided modest stipends to local “leaders,” (particularly engaged
activists) and also embraced grassroots “large scale, global days of action...facilitated by online event
management tools” (p. 9).
Focusing in more specifically on the XL pipeline derailment, Hestres states:
Available evidence indicates that 350.org and their allies may have affected the course
of the Keystone XL debate by mobilizing a portion of the climate issue public in order
to increase media attention to the impending decision, shift it from an administrative
arena—the State Department—to an overtly political one—the White House—and make
its outcome susceptible to public pressure.2 They tried to achieve action mobilization
through frame alignment by reframing the Keystone XL project and employing dramatic
advocacy tactics, which heightened and diversified media attention to include more
political reporting. (p. 12)
Hestres posits that the fact that the activists' dramatic techniques drew media attention to the issue
allowed them to change the dominant framing of the pipeline from one of job creation to one of public
accountability and the catastrophic “Pandora's Box” frame (p.12, citing Nisbet, 2009, p. 18). These
preferred frames were late reflected in the statements Obama later released when justifying his decision
to cancel the pipeline's construction.
In his conclusion Hestres cites areas of future study, such as the research into the alternate frames that
are most likely to activate consensus and action on climate change policy. For example, in 2010
Myers, Nisbet, and Baldwin found that a public health frame, as opposed to a national security or
environmental framing, inspired greater feelings of hope in the public and also mitigated anger among
segments of the population dismissive of climate change. Hestres also poses the relationship between
Internet-mediated advocacy and its “legacy” counterparts as an area meriting further study. The fact
that climate change is a time-sensitive and “wicked,” (a complex, contested, and seemingly insoluble
social problem) (Price, 2008) adds to the urgency of research into effective consensus-building and
advocacy practices.
Referenced citations (see Hestres' article for complete bibliography):

Earl J and Kimport K (2011) Where Have We Been and Where are We Headed? Digitally
Enabled Social Change: Activism in the Internet Age. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Hilgartner S and Bosk CL (1988) The rise and fall of social problems: a public arenas model.
American Journal of Sociology 94: 53–78.

Karpf D (2012) The MoveOn Effect: The Unexpected Transformation of American Political
Advocacy. NY: Oxford University Press.

Leiserowitz A, Maibach EW and Roser-Renouf C (2009) Global Warming’s Six Americas 2009:
An Audience Segmentation Analysis. Yale Project on Climate Change and the George Mason
University Center for Climate Change Communication, New Haven, CT.

Myers T, Nisbet MC, Maibach E, et al. (2012) A public health frame arouses hopeful emotions
about climate change. Climatic Change 113: 1105–1112.

Nisbet MC (2009) Communicating climate change: why frames matter for public engagement.
Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development 51: 12–23.

Nisbet MC and Huge M (2007) Where do science debates come from? Understanding attention
cycles and framing. In: Brossard D, Shanahan J and Nesbitt TC (eds) The Media, the Public and
Agricultural Biotechnology. Wallingford; Cambridge, MA: CABI, pp. 193–230.

Price V (2008) The public and public opinion in political theories. In: Donsbach W and Traugott
M (eds) SAGE Handbook of Public Opinion Research. Newbury Park, CA: SAGE, 13–15.

Snow DA and Benford RD (1988) Ideology, frame resonance and participant mobilization.
International Social Movement Research 1: 197–217.
Bennett, L.W. (2012). The Logic of Connective Action: Digital Media and the Personalization of
Contentious Politics. Information, Community & Society.
In this article the authors describe changes within formations of large-scale contentious action that
depend upon digital modes of connective communications as well as draw upon more traditional
patterns of organizationally-led collective action to various degrees. In order to map the digitally
networked action, or “DNA” of large-scale action networks, they first define the distinction between
connective and collective actions.

Collective action is “associated with high levels of organizational resources and the formation
of collective identities”; “introducing digital media do not change the core dynamics of the
action” (p. 739). Convincing individuals to buy into collective identities and endeavors based
on a sense of public good requires rigid organizations and high coercion costs due to the fact
that “it is more cost-efficient not to contribute if you can enjoy the good without contributing”
(p. 749, citing Olson, 1965). Furthermore, the high costs of creating collectivities are
unavoidable because without a large enough base, efforts are wasted.

Connective action is “based on personalized content sharing across media networks,” and
digitally-mediated communication practices are a (if not the) defining factor in the action (p.
739). The ubiquity and low cost of communication within digital platforms (in terms of
finances, time, and social cost since participation does not require rigid identification and
contribution to static group identities) means that even individuals with tendencies to “freeload” can easily become participants. The logic of connective action tends to avoid designating
spokespeople or official leaders.
Based on these definitions, the authors then break down prominent, contemporary large-scale action
formations into three types, the first two of which embrace the logic of connective action in “pure” and
“hybrid” forms, respectively:
1. “Connective Action Self Organizing Networks” (p. 756) in which technology applications and
platforms (such as social media, email lists, etc.) supplant established organizations all-together.
Personalized accounts easily travel across these digital platforms, and coalesce in compelling
forms such as the “easily personalized action frame 'we are the 99 per cent' that emerged from
the US occupy protests in 2011” (p. 742). These types of digitally-mediated, personalized
formations have often proven to grow quite large, and increase their size rapidly, and have also
demonstrated a remarkable flexibility in bridging issues and addressing quickly-shifting
political targets. They often shun formal organizations from their ranks. The authors tout the
indignados and occupy as examples of this type of formation (although some characteristics of
occupy, such as the General Assemblies, the authors cite as falling into the second category).
2. “Connective Action Organizationally Enabled Networks” (p. 756) which are coordinated by a
coalition of loosely-linked, established advocacy organizations who work behind the scenes to
spur action without foregrounding their respective brands or conventional frames of collective
action. Instead, they are able to inspire broad public engagement by using “interactive digital
media and easy-to-personalize action themes, often deploying batteries of social technologies to
help citizens spread the word over their personal networks” (p. 742). This type of formation is
typified by the Put People First movement that arose around the 2008 G20 Summit.
3. “Collective Action Organizationally Brokered Networks” (p. 756) “with identifiable
membership organizations leading the way under common banners and collective identity
frames” (p. 742) such as “group identity, membership, or ideology” (p. 744). This type of
legacy organizing is marked by less emphasis on communication practices as a defining feature
(although they do use digital technologies to coordinate goals and manage participation), and is
often spearheaded by organizations with decades of history. Furthermore, “the spread of
collective identifications typically requires more education, pressure, or socialization, which in
turn makes higher demands on formal organization and resources such as money to pay rent for
organization offices, to generate publicity, and to hire professional staff organizers (McAdam et
al. 1996)” (p. 748).
One piece of evidence the authors cite in justifying the importance of understanding new patterns of
digitally-mediated networked action (as exemplified in the first two categories) is that these types of
action “often seem to be accorded higher levels of WUNC than their more conventional social
movement counterparts” (p. 742). “WUNC,” defined by Tilly (2004, 2006), encompasses worthiness,
unity, numbers (of participants), and commitment. An important indicator of WUNC is a network's
ability to communicate their concerns and frames to outside publics through digital media directly as
well as positive press attention. The personalized, authentic nature of digitally-mediated networks
appears to be increasingly leading to positive reception of their messages by outside audiences.
However, the authors note that connective forms of action have also seen countless failures, and the
long-term effectiveness and sustainability of this networking strategy remains in question. While
critics of digital enthusiasm deflate connective forms of participation as “noise,” the authors argue that
this type of action logical requires analysis on its own terms.
The authors also cite shifts from group-based identities to more individualized societies as a further
catalyst of “flexible social 'weak tie' networks (Granovetter 1973) that enable identity expression and
the navigation of complex and changing social and political landscapes” (p. 744). For example,
younger citizens are increasingly avoiding party affiliation and other organized forms of political
action, preferring to associate with particular issue publics as opposed to defining themselves as
members of a particular group.
Digitally-mediated communication is characterized by memes, a meme defined as a symbolic packet
“that travels easily across large and diverse populations because it is easy to imitate, adapt personally,
and share broadly with others,” and further as “network building and bridging units of social
information transmission” (p. 745, citing Dawkins, 1989). However, it is important to note that memes
appeared in the pre-digital age as well, and can also be wielded by conventionally-structured social
movements and organizations (thus the authors reinforce the theoretical need for the distinction they
make between collective and connective modes of communication and action as opposed to exclusively
relying on memes to define digital communication trends).
As useful as the categories the authors define are in terms of understanding contemporary action
patterns, reality more often than not evades neat definition. Increasingly organizations working to
mobilize large publics to attain WUNC shift “among different organizational repertoires, morphing
from being hierarchical, mission-driven NGOs in some settings to being facilitators in loosely linked
public engagement networks in others” (p. 758). Furthermore, organizations in themselves are
displaying hybridity, at various points appearing as “issue advocacy NGOs to policy think tanks, to
SMOs running campaigns or pro- tests, to multi-issue organizations, to being networking hubs for
connective action” (p. 758). The authors note that they have seen the three networked paradigms sideby-side in the same action space, while in other cases the approach is switched within a single
movement over time. As such, unbounded (crossing issue and geographical boundaries) and dynamic
movements present inherent challenges for analysis. What is important, the authors pose, “is to
understand when DNA becomes chaotic and unproductive and when it attains higher levels of focus
and sustained engagement over time” (p. 761).
Referenced citations (see article for complete bibliography):

Dawkins, R. (1989) The Selfish Gene, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Granovetter, M. (1973) ‘The strength of weak ties’, American Journal of Sociology, vol. 78, pp.
1360–1380.

McAdam, D., McCarthy, J. D. & Zald, M. N. (eds) (1996) ‘Introduction: opportu- nities,
mobilizing structures, and framing processes – toward a synthetic, comparative perspective on
social movements’, in Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: Political Opportunities,
Mobilizing Structures, and Cultural Framings, Cambridge University Press, New York.

Olson, M. (1965) The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups,
Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.

Tilly, C. (2004) Social Movements, 1768–2004, Paradigm, Boulder, CO.

Tilly, C. (2006) ‘WUNC’, in Crowds, eds J. T. Schnapp & M. Tiews, Stanford University Press,
Stanford, pp. 289–306.