Resource Type: Social Science Research

Using frames and rhetoric that emphasize consumer responsibility, demand, and the uncertainty of climate risk, fossil fuel companies like ExxonMobil downplay the seriousness of climate change. An analysis of ExxonMobil’s internal and external facing documents use different frames to talk about climate change. In advertisements, the company’s rhetoric acknowledges that climate change poses a risk, but the authors argue that the risk frame encourages uncertainty about the seriousness of human-caused climate change. Similarly, advertisements also use frames that put responsibility on individuals, indicating that individuals’ energy demand has been too high for companies to meet it with anything but fossil fuels. The company can use these frames and rhetoric to sidestep responsibility for their role in human-cause climate change.             

I vividly remember this phrase from my time at ACORN, an organization once known for its unbending commitment to organizing. It’s the perfect header for today’s newsletter, a guest insight from Ned Howey, the CEO of Tectonica Digital Campaign Solutions. Tectonica works with digital-first campaigning organizations looking to build lasting power. This work is pushing them to figure out how to get more organizations to do more organizing, so we can win big things.
Digital-first organizations are steeped in metrics and analytics, so they have naturally started thinking about ways of measuring organizing and its impact. And measuring is built on tracking. And if you aren’t tracking, you aren’t organizing.

Two core ways that movement organizations can build and wield “strategic capacity” are by (1) continuously learning about what tactics have worked and which haven’t and (2) re-organize or adapt its resources to new challenges and opportunities. “Strategic capacity” is the ability of an organization to make decisions with uncertain information about how to deploy its resources to achieve a goal. Democratic governance structures within organizations can be especially key in building and deploying strategic capacity. This report delves into much more detail about each of these components and describes a few organization case studies, such as of Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, Dakota Access Pipeline protests, and 38 Degrees. A secondary attached report provides guidance on how an organization can execute a process to evaluate its own strategic capacity.