Page 159 - Information and American Democracy Technology in the Evolution of Political Power

P1: GYG/IJD/IBA/IJD
18:0
August 14, 2002
CY101-Bimber
CY101-04
0 521 80067 6
Political Organizations
to solicit these affiliates heavily, even though their attachments to the
group are very weak. Referring to the organization’s initial communica-
tion strategy using new information technology, one Defenders official
says, “[W]e made a decision at the beginning not just to go after our
membership.” 81
By 2001, ED had developed strategies aimed exclusively at recruiting
the kind of lite-greens that it had discovered were visiting its original
web site. The group hired advertising firms to develop and place online
banner ads aimed at citizens sympathetic to an environmental issue but
not otherwise self-identified as environmentalists. It also developed a
dedicated lite-green web site in cooperation with the National Wildlife
Fund, and directed citizens responding to its banner advertisements to
the site. 82 ED now had multiple faces. To the dedicated traditional en-
vironmentalist, it was a committed, liberal defender of the environment
working on a range of issues to improve the condition of the air, land,
and water. To lite-green citizens, it was a friendly, nonstrident group who
cared about whatever particular issue they cared about.
The economics of this redefined membership have yet to fully de-
velop, but ED and Defenders of Wildlife approached affiliates in the
following way. Compared with a traditional member, an affiliate offers
less sustained value to the organization. An affiliate provides no mate-
rial resources to the organization, and may respond only once or twice
to appeals for action. In this sense, their political attachments are thin.
On the other hand, affiliates are inexpensive to identify and contact, and
represent a potentially very large pool of recruits. An official at Defenders
reports that his group is not concerned that citizens may have provided
the group with their electronic mail address only because they saw a pic-
ture of a cute animal at a commercial web site. His group is satisfied if
a lite-green affiliate participates in only a single mobilization effort and
then disappears. The group drops from its list any affiliate who has not
responded to at least three calls for action in twelve months, so the list is
constantly churning. The organization’s approach is quite the opposite
of attempting to extract extra yearly commitments from its dues-paying
membersonanannualbasis.EDstillmakeslittleefforttomobilizeitstra-
ditionaldues-payingmembersintograssrootsaction;itreservesthatclass
of politics for its affiliates. One organization official says, “The Internet

81
Anonymous official, Defenders of Wildlife, telephone interview by Joe Gardner for
the author, Feb. 28, 2000.
82
The site is http://www.formyworld.com.
142