Definition
“Astroturfing” refers to illegitimate political practices that involve mobilizing mass participation on behalf of a (usually) covert or undisclosed external patron, whether that patron is a firm, industry group, government agency, nonprofit organization or foundation, or well-resourced individual. While the term is often used to describe a wide range of circumstances that fall outside politics – such as sponsored social media posts intended to appear organic and unprompted, fake reviews on consumer websites to support or oppose a product, or covert efforts to show the support of “opinion leaders” in the marketplace – the concept has been used most often to refer to political lobbying behaviors.
Introduction
It is critical to recognize up front that allegations of astroturfing abound in politics and the term is often used quite haphazardly by proponents of a particular issue or ideology to discredit any activism or political engagement by their opponents. It is quite frequent...
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Walker, E.T. (2020). Astroturf Lobbying. In: Harris, P., Bitonti, A., Fleisher, C., Skorkjær Binderkrantz, A. (eds) The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Interest Groups, Lobbying and Public Affairs . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13895-0_63-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13895-0_63-1
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