For the past few weeks I have been studying how a contentious local policy was conceived, passed by authorities, and eventually enforced. Given that this policy was on a especially divisive topic with many people on both sides, the policy attracted large numbers of supporters and detractors before eventually passing. However, what I have discovered is that the decision to pass the policy ultimately rested perhaps just as much on how the two camps made their cases (online mobilization v. traditional protests) as on the merits of their claims.
The people who supported the policy focused their campaign primarily on using the Internet to send out mass emails, publicize the issues, and swamp authorities with emails from constituents. Those opposed to the policy took a more visible route: they blanketed communities with fliers and staged public protests. The supporters who waged the Internet campaign were ultimately far more successful in generating large numbers of supporters, including authorities who ultimately passed the policy.
Without going into the other factors that impacted the outcome of this case, I want to pause for a moment on what it means that a behind the scenes online campaign was ultimately more persuasive to authorities than more visible public protests, because I think that it offers lessons for how we think about organizing to promote that which we deem good.
Presumably, those who protested probably for the most part had stronger feelings and more willingness to labor for the cause than those who merely forwarded on what were typically form emails. However, the online campaign was ultimately more successful, because it showed that if participation was made sufficiently convenient (only a click away), then many people with only weak impulses could be organized to have ultimately greater numerical effect and impact of the minds of decision makers.
Next, when emails were sent to authorities, they flooded a specific person’s in-box and made that person somehow accountable for the contents of the email. Although it is arguably worrisome that a decision maker who received mass emails would find her view of what her constituents wanted distorted by those most likely to write, email could establish a relationship with a decision maker that protests simply could not, because someone had to be accountable for answering and receiving them. Moreover, cataloging such emails is presumably already part of some body’s job—no one needed to interrupt her routine to respond. Reading the emails was convenient.
Finally, form emails, while boring, speak with uniformity of purpose. While protests can send mixed signals since they often contain slightly different voices, emails that repeat the same words must be counted as making the same request. When decision makers look to the numbers to see what most people want, there is no question that those using form letters all asked for the same thing (at least on paper—I’ll ignore the question of what they intended). By contrast, when people speak with one purpose but different words, what they say risks getting coded within a variety of categories, hence reducing the collective power of their statements.
This is all to say that sometimes we don’t need to work hard or to sacrifice in order to successfully encourage people to organize for a perceived good. Sometimes, perhaps the best way to make a difference is simply to plan for and thrive on the fact that people are lazy.
P.S. I suspect that this post has been influenced in part by books like Wisdom of Crowds, but that only goes to show that ideas spread if the tools to spread them (like blogs) are made sufficiently available and easy!
July 12, 2009 at 9:39 am
There are a couple of different systems and protests/emails have different levels of effectiveness in them.
If we’re talking about referenda/elections, emails and other online media function the same as any advertising does. Their effectiveness is measured against the standard TV ad and they function the same as getting people to switch their detergent brand. In this case, protests are primarily good for committing ground troops; if you go out to protest, you’re a committed voter. Next they might win you a free TV ad in the form of perfunctory media coverage.
However, if we’re talking influencing legislatures to make laws or officials to interpret policies, neither emails nor protests are particularly effective. Mass emails, at best, are treated as a kind of poll. Nobody reads mass emails; the most attention they get is being tallied. Officials don’t want to be on the wrong side of serious poll numbers, but a few form emails here and there don’t necessarily equate to serious poll numbers. Protests meanwhile are pretty meaningless on this front, unless you really do get a million people to turn out.
The most effective way to lobby legislators and officials is by making personal connections. We all pay more attention to something our friends tell us than we do to spam. This is why all interests spend so much on lobbyists.
July 12, 2009 at 12:38 pm
Actually, in the local area in question (city-sized), public comments submitted to officials count a lot, because the officials have to publish records of what comments they received and what categories they fell into. In practice, officials tend to address the issues that many people who submitted comments care about and to ignore the ones that not enough people speak up about and to use these tallies to justify their decisions. But, what happens is that comments tend to be grouped into small categories, so differences in language amongst the comments can mean that they get tallied in different groups—potentially diffusing the overall impact of comments that intend more or less the same thing. Thus, if you are an advocacy group in this area, you really want to give everyone you know an easy form letter to submit or to read from in a public hearing. That way, the language stays the same and all of the comments register within the same category, plus it is convenient enough that people actually do it.
July 12, 2009 at 12:40 pm
Of course, I fully concede that my analysis might be off — I am no expert in this area! Feel free to correct away.
July 12, 2009 at 1:20 pm
I think that John’s point juxtaposed with Natalie’s, brings up an interesting point. I imagine that the kind of “lobbying” effective on one public official may not work with another–i.e. the individual’s style may have much to do with it. If that’s the case, I think that traditional in person lobbying would most often be the effective route, as someone could at least evaluate in person whether or not the effort is working. I’m sure some political scientists somewhere have studied this, but I’m just really uninformed about this particular topic.
I think that living in washington, and being exposed to lobbyists all the time, I’m much less offended by the whole concept. Yes, I do think that bad decisions are occasionally made because of it, and it does favor rich over poor constituents, which is disturbing, but in general, the lobbyists are bringing a lot of information to light. If someone takes the time to evaluate it, and compare against the adversarial information presented, it probably is a net good.
July 12, 2009 at 9:56 pm
Natalie — I completely agree with you that there’s a lot to be said for message discipline: everybody pushing the same message in the same words frames the debate. My thoughts above had strayed from the local level, but I wonder if protests aren’t more effective on the local level? If enough people stand around with signs in front of city hall in Ann Arbor, I think the city council is more likely to pay attention than Congress is to protesters on the National Mall.
At the same time, I still think that personal lobbying is wildly effective on the local level. If you really care about an issue and took the time to get to know the local official; I would imagine you could wield wildly disproportionate influence. Of course, that’s the opposite of harnessing your inner laziness.
July 12, 2009 at 11:39 pm
the lobbyists are bringing a lot of information to light.
I dropped off the money exactly as per… look, man, I’ve got certain information, all right? Certain things have come to light. And, you know, has it ever occurred to you, that, instead of, uh, you know, running around, uh, uh, blaming me, you know, given the nature of all this new [stuff], you know, I-I-I-I… this could be a-a-a-a lot more, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, complex, I mean, it’s not just, it might not be just such a simple… uh, you know?
July 13, 2009 at 7:25 am
great plug for slacktivism.
July 13, 2009 at 7:38 am
#5: “I wonder if protests aren’t more effective on the local level? ”
I have seen the TERROR inside a very large corporation’s Home Office, caused by one guy, with one sign, walking on their front sidewalk.