Internet Activism as a tool for changing unhealthy corporate practices: How are "new medias" changing the face of corporate accountability?
As advocacy groups, journalists and academics increasingly look to Internet technologies as a method of participatory information gathering, mobilizing and advocacy, it's timely to consider the role of these methods in campaigns to reduce the harm from unhealthy corporate practices. This report examines Internet activism as a tool for social movements, examines a few examples of bloggers generating national awareness around corporate practices that harm health, and offers our own "blogroll", a list of partners that use the Internet to encourage a new dialogue on corporations and health.
What is Internet activism and what does it have to do with changing corporate practices?
Social networks, interactive mapping and weblogs are just a few of the participatory tools available to every user of the Internet, and as advocacy groups, educational institutions and professional organizations increasingly engage the medium toward social change, many are taking the opportunity to demand corporate accountability and lay out complex health issues in everyday terms.
Those inclined to label the successes of online activism as "netroots," a term coined in 2002 by Jerome Armstrong, founder of My Direct Democracy and co-author of 'Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics,' can cite Internet campaigns such as Food and Water Watch's Starbucks campaign that exposed the company's use of rGBH in its milk products and rallied enough support that the company voluntarily changed its policy on milk. Additionally, the Physician's Sunshine Payment legislation currently in the Senate and other state measures to reduce Pharma's influence on prescribing physicians have been greatly influenced by online advocacy campaigns such as those run by the Prescription Project, bloggers such as Pharmalot, and professional social networking groups such as No Free Lunch.
When Internet activism was just taking off six years ago, many observers agreed that the Internet provided a means for a "people-powered" participatory democracy. Two early bloggers on the topic, Markos Moulitsas, founder of Daily Kos and co-author of 'Crashing the Gate' and Jay Rosen, Associate Professor of Journalism at NYU, shared the opinion that as a "new media," the Internet can allow traditional "gatekeepers" of media, such as news editors, to drift out of view as lower cost, easier publishing access, and social networks "open" new, more equitable "gates."
In a 2006 article in the Washington Post, Rosen described a common conclusion:
The Net radically shifts principles of news distribution as all sites become equidistant from the reader. ... The 'closed' system of gates and gatekeepers has been busted open. What's the most amazing thing about the new media world? Its low barriers to entry. Thanks to the Internet, it is cheap and simple to launch a site that, theoretically, the whole world could be watching.
In theory, this greater openness also reduced the influence of global corporations, since their ability to control content and censor criticism were diminished in comparison to their power over mainstream media. For activists seeking to change corporate practices, this greater autonomy could facilitate the use of the Internet for local, national and global mobilization.
More recently, however, corporate media consolidation has challenged the more democratic aspects of the Internet. As social networking sites such as MySpace, with more than 100 million user accounts, become aligned with major corporate news outlets such as Fox Interactive Media, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch's global News Corporation, many digital media activists (e.g., Center for Media and Democracy, Center for Citizens Media, SaveTheInternet) and consumer advocacy groups (USPIRG Consumer Protection) worry that increased corporate penetration of the Internet will threaten net neutrality. Net neutrality is a concept that asserts that no entity should control content posted on the Internet.
Discussing new concerns about behavioral targeting and privacy issues created by such media mergers, Jeff Chester, Executive Director of the Center for Digital Democracy and blogger on Digital Media and the Public Interest, points out the need for policy regulation:
Given the growing recognition that IP addresses are among the data points which reflect our identity, these upcoming alliances and mergers should lead to the kind of global privacy debate about online advertising that has been lacking so far.
Sociologist Howard Rheingold studies interactive social networks and even in the face of privacy, marketing and monitoring concerns, continues to write about the power of social media, active participation and collective action. In a recent videoblog post, Rheingold asserts that "[t]echnological advances have led to social economic political changes in the way people communicate ... and the use of these tools enabled participatory media in the production of culture, power, community and wealth."
How have activists concerned about corporations and health used "new media"?
Although most media attention has focused on "netroots" activism related to the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections, many other types of advocacy campaigns have evolved their outreach techniques to include online activism. A surprising number are dedicated to public health advocacy.
Health behavior and health education are expanding through the development of consumer advocacy action networks (ie, Consumers Union, Corporate Accountability International, Rainforest Action Network), wikis and public databases that provide previously difficult to locate information (SourceWatch's Tobacco Portal, Public Health Advocacy Institute's Tobacco Control Resource Center, Center for Responsive Politics' OpenSecrets project), weblogs (see below), pod/videocasts (Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity's Sound Bites, Kaiser Family Foundation's KaiserNetwork HealthCast), interactive newsletters (Marin Institute, Center for Science in the Public Interest's Nutrition Action Health Letter) and several other "new media" resources (American Diabetes Association's local diabetes calculator.
Calls for health policy change via Internet activism and advocacy represent a significant effort in the campaigns that seek to change health harming corporate practices. For example, working to reduce environmental influences that encourage alcohol use, a Bay Area organization, the Marin Institute, launched a 'Get Alcohol Ads Off the Bart' campaign which included an online outreach strategy. The campaign was successful in removing alcohol advertising from public transportation and has set a template for other cities to follow suit.
The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) played a key role in changing Food and Drug Administration food labeling guidelines in the late 90's and has also been a strong voice advocating a national ban on trans fats—their efforts are often credited with designing a movement toward increased food regulation.
In 1993 CSPI began petitioning the FDA for food labeling standards that indicate how much trans fat each product serving contains and in 2004 petitioned again to revoke the authority for industry to use trans fat in food production. Through partnerships with the American Public Health Association and the American Heart Association and utilizing research from Harvard School of Public Health and The Institute of Medicine, CSPI successfully organized a national awareness about the health harms—including 50,000 U.S. deaths per year—that accompany industry use of the cheap oil food additive.
During this time period, Internet advocacy and interactive media gained readership and CSPI began developing online resources for policy makers and consumers alike. The group's Food Safety site is an excellent consumer safety source, providing basic information on food-borne illness, food additives (like trans fat), and the CSPI action network urges public participation in food policy development. Their current campaigns seek to add nutrition information on restaurant menus, improve school foods and increase FDA funding with the emergency supplemental appropriations bill—all of which Internet users can engage through the CSPI website's petitions and resources.
Food label advocate, author, blogger and NYU professor Marion Nestle, has also organized around food safety. In a recent Science Progress article, Nestle reminds readers that the USDA and the FDA are struggling with food safety issues, and advocates for a fix. (Proposed by Sen. Durban and Rep. DeLauro, Congress is set to consider Safe Food Act which would create a single Food Safety Administration)
To help Corporations and Health Watch readers tap into the growing community of netroots activists working to change corporate practices, below are some useful resources. We encourage readers to send us their favorite sites to add to these lists.
The CHW BLOGROLL and ACTION NETWORKS
TOBACCO
Corporate Accountability International Action Network
The WHO Global Tobacco Free Initiative
Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids Action Center
Center for Tobacco Control Public Information Resource
ALCOHOL
Marin Institute Action Center
CSPI Alcohol Policies Project Action Network
FIREARMS
The Brady Center (blog and action center)
GunPolicy.org (international gun news database)
AUTO
Public Citizen's Auto Safety Action Network
Freedom From Oil (online training, recruitment and education)
The Sierra Club's Clean Car Campaign
The Union of Concerned Scientists Clean Vehicles Action Center
FOOD
US Food Policy (blog)
Chef Ann Cooper: Renegade Lunch Lady (blog)
What to Eat (blog)
Rudd Sound Bites (blog and podcast)
Food and Water Watch Blog (blog)
Strategic Alliance (Prevention Institute) ENACT Local Policy Database
PHARMA
Pharmalot (blog)
Pharm Aid (blog)
PostScript (Prescription Project's blog)
Marketing Overdose (Consumer's International blog)
General Sites on Corporate Reform
Center for Science in the Public Interest
Commercial Alert
CorpWatch
Crocodyl
Photo Credits:
1. guategringo
2. kino-eye
3. Steve Rhodes
Visit the Corporations and Health Watch resource 'Corporate Research: The Basics' for other websites devoted to expanding research on corporate influences on health.
