Quality | 2009.07.03
Touching up the grassroots | Eliane Glaser
Belief in ordinary voices is exploited by PRs and politicians skilled in the dark art of astroturfing
Gordon Brown\'s promise to "put more power where it belongs – in the peoples\' hands"; David Cameron\'s pledge to restore "real people power" to the "man and woman in the street"; our utopian belief in Twitter, YouTube and citizen journalism; our love of ordinary heroes Susan Boyle, Billy Elliot and the Slumdog Millionaires; Anthony Gormley\'s plan to place members of the public on Trafalgar Square\'s fourth plinth: these are all signs of our increasingly ardent worship at the inverted altar of the grassroots.
Little wonder the phenomenon called astroturfing has spread in politics, advertising and PR: a technique to create the impression of grassroots support for a cause or product. The 300,000-strong Tax Day Tea Party protests in the US in April were billed as a spontaneous uprising against Obama\'s policies; but they were orchestrated by conservative lobbyists and promoted by Fox News. Al Gore\'s Penguin Army, a YouTube video supposedly shot by an amateur that satirised Gore\'s anti-global warming efforts, was in fact produced by a PR firm whose clients include Exxon. The Labour government has persuaded party members to pose as "real people", writing to local papers, supporting campaign visits and organising demos with folksy, handwritten banners. Employees of Sony, L\'Oréal and Wal-Mart have penned blogs by fictional happy customers, known to industry insiders as meat puppets.
A lot of virtual ink is being spilt trying to define the moral boundary between viral and stealth marketing, and between slick political organising and voter manipulation. An EU directive enacted in Britain last year made astroturfing illegal, and there have been similar moves in the US. But it is hard to police: lawmakers are swimming against a huge technological and commercial tide.
Politicians are scrabbling to exploit not only the technology but also the democratic cachet of blogs and social networking sites. Advertising and PR strategists regard astroturfing as the next frontier. John Prescott\'s online campaign to rally popular protest against bankers\' bonuses has made much of its "bottom-up" character, but it is hosted by GoFourth.co.uk, an organisation run by Alastair Campbell that\'s campaigning for a fourth Labour term. Obama\'s top adviser, David Axelrod , is an astroturfing expert. Simon Lewis, Gordon Brown\'s new head of communications, is also a PR man. Saatchi & Saatchi\'s "viral" ad for T-Mobile features an apparently spontaneous, flashmob-style "dance-a-thon" in London\'s Liverpool Street station. None of this is illegal, but it raises ethical questions about the truth of what is being presented.
Atroturfing is becoming the defining trope of our times. Participation, transparency and interactivity is the dominant rhetoric, and our obsession with "open door" talent shows propagates the myth that the salt of the earth can make it good if they just try hard enough. But in reality, income inequality is at a record high. Rates of social mobility in Britain are dire. Power is increasingly located in ministerial government, lobby groups and commercial interests. The unquestioning belief in the grassroots revolution coincides with a drastic erosion of the power of ordinary people.
Some of the grass is real: Iran\'s tweeters are inspirational. But the significant element of astroturfing in many of these instances of democratisation is widely ignored. And as grassroots technologies become more widely available, politicians and corporations find more effective and covert ways to exploit them. Astroturfing techniques are axiomatic of the false promises of decentralisation and enfranchisement that are being sold to us; and we, in turn, are willing consumers of the myth of the level playing field.
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/[...]g-advertising-twitter-politics
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