My latest DeSmogBlog post reports on a new study, in the Journal of Business Ethics, about the rather icky corporate practice known as "Astroturfing"--e.g., setting up fake grassroots organizations to defend the status quo, rather than challenge it. The study tested the effectiveness of Astroturf websites in sowing doubts about global warming, and lo and behold, they work. Here's a bit of the experimental design, which I appreciated:
The website for each condition, respectively, consisted of a ‘‘Home page’’ with links to five other pages pertaining to global warming and the organization’s activities. In the grassroots condition, these were labeled as ‘‘About us,’’ ‘‘Key issues and solutions,’’ ‘‘Why act now?’’ ‘‘Get involved!’’ and ‘‘Contact us.’’ Similarly, in the astroturf condition, the pages links were labeled as ‘‘About us,’’ ‘‘Myths/facts,’’ ‘‘Climate science,’’ ‘‘Scientific references,’’ and ‘‘Contact us.’’ All of the content was based on information found on real-world grassroots and astroturf ...
