Astroturf: Difference between revisions

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A false or simulated "grass roots" movement that's really a [[Viral Marketing]] campaign. AstroTurfing is not limited to blogs, but the recent prominence of the medium has made them a prime target for exploitation by groups with an agenda and a willingness to fake greater support than they really have. This might be a company, a political party, a religion, or any other kind of organization with more energy than integrity.
A false or simulated "grass roots" movement that's really a [[Viral Marketing]] campaign. [[Astroturf]]ing is not limited to blogs, but the recent prominence of the medium has made them a prime target for exploitation by groups with an agenda and a willingness to fake greater support than they really have. This might be a company, a political party, a religion, or any other kind of organization with more energy than integrity.


The word AstroTurf® is a brand name for artificial grass used for sports fields (so named because it was first used by the Houston Astros [[Baseball]] team), thus it was [[Brand Name Takeover|"hijacked" to also mean an artificial "grass roots" movement]]. Note, however, that the trope is much older; it appears in [[The Zeroth Law of Trope Examples|Shakespeare's]] ''[[Julius Caesar]]'', and probably predates it by some time.
The word AstroTurf® is a brand name for artificial grass used for sports fields (so named because it was first used by the Houston Astros [[Baseball]] team), thus it was [[Brand Name Takeover|"hijacked" to also mean an artificial "grass roots" movement]]. Note, however, that the trope is much older; it appears in [[The Zeroth Law of Trope Examples|Shakespeare's]] ''[[Julius Caesar]]'', and probably predates it by some time.


AstroTurfing is usually managed by employing a large number of [[Sock Puppet]]s to post messages supporting the group's position in various [[Fora]], including blog comments and newsgroups, and by creating [[Flog|bogus blogs]] and websites that purport to be by "real people" but which are actually written by [[The Shill|shills]] working for the group. Such people are called [[Meat Puppet]]s to differentiate between the alternate identity of an interested person ([[Sock Puppet]]) and a third party induced to support them. Very often AstroTurfing extends out into the non-electronic world, with letters to newspapers from "concerned citizens", paid opinion pieces, and the formation of grass-roots lobbying groups that are actually funded by PR firms.
Astroturfing is usually managed by employing a large number of [[Sock Puppet]]s to post messages supporting the group's position in various [[Fora]], including blog comments and newsgroups, and by creating [[Flog|bogus blogs]] and websites that purport to be by "real people" but which are actually written by [[The Shill|shills]] working for the group. Such people are called [[Meat Puppet]]s to differentiate between the alternate identity of an interested person ([[Sock Puppet]]) and a third party induced to support them. Very often astroturfing extends out into the non-electronic world, with letters to newspapers from "concerned citizens", paid opinion pieces, and the formation of grass-roots lobbying groups that are actually funded by PR firms.


'''Astroturf''' efforts are often easily detectable, though, because such campaigns typically use a small number of templates for their messages and blogs, making them repetitive and eerily alike despite the geographic or social differences between alleged posters. (Sometimes the 'post this' instructions are thoughtlessly [[Reading the Stage Directions Out Loud|copy-pasted into the message]] as well.) It has been proposed that form letters should count as a single complaint in official statistics, regardless of the number of instances sent, to combat this.
'''Astroturf''' efforts are often easily detectable, though, because such campaigns typically use a small number of templates for their messages and blogs, making them repetitive and eerily alike despite the geographic or social differences between alleged posters. (Sometimes the 'post this' instructions are thoughtlessly [[Reading the Stage Directions Out Loud|copy-pasted into the message]] as well.) It has been proposed that form letters should count as a single complaint in official statistics, regardless of the number of instances sent, to combat this.
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