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Home , Ethical omnivorism, Farm Sanctuary, Ingrid Newkirk, In Defense of Animals, Nathan Winograd, Wayne Pacelle

The Effects of Social Media on Participation Levels,

Contentious Activity, and Organizational Issues

in the Animal Protection Movement

Catherine Becker

Rural Sociology 5500

Linda Lobao

November 14, 2012

1

Introduction

The animal protection movement is widely regarded to have begun with the publication

of ’s in 1975. The book, which argues for extending the

utilitarian concept of the “greatest good” to include animals, sold 250,000 copies by 19881 and

half a million copies by the turn of the 21st century.2 The early 1980s saw the founding of

several notable organizations including People for the Ethical Treatment of

Animals by and in 1980, by Elliot Katz in

1982, the American branch of in 1982, and Animal Legal Defense Fund by Joyce Tischler in 1984.3 At the same time, national humane organizations that had already

been established began to see record growth. The of the , founded

in 1954, added 100,000 new members a year from 1984 to 1988, reaching half a million

members by 1988.4 Today the HSUS claims to have 11 million members and supporters, 1 in every 28 Americans.5 Meanwhile, the number of groups dedicated to protecting animals has also

grown. “There is no animal whose troubles do not matter to someone. Name any species and it

has its defenders,” says , president of the HSUS, who estimates there are now

more than 10,000 organizations devoted to helping animals in the United States.6

The “first wave” of animal rights activism was marked by confrontational tactics such as

splashing red paint on people wearing fur coats, disrupting conferences of biomedical

researchers, and breaking into research labs to remove animal subjects. As the movement has

grown, however, tactics have turned from direct action to political action, working within the

system to make change for animals. Perhaps no organization exemplifies this new approach

more than the HSUS, where Pacelle took the office of president in 2004 after serving 10 years as

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vice president for legislation.7 By 1996, Pacelle had begun to emphasize grassroots political organizing, with increasing success in passing ballot initiatives and mobilizing voting blocks.8

In 1999, Pacelle worked with other animal protection organizations to such as ,

Big Cat Rescue and ASPCA to form the Humane USA political action committee for supporting

animal friendly candidates.9 He is quoted as saying he wanted to make it the “National Rifle

Association of the animal-rights movement,” meaning he wanted it to make it a powerful force

for animals in the political halls of state capitols and Washington, DC.10

In pursuing this influence, the HSUS has concentrated on farm animal protection because

“the greatest of all animal abuses as measured in terms of animals involved and the duration and acuteness of their suffering,” Pacelle said.11 From 1990 to 2008, the HSUS spearheaded 41

statewide ballot campaigns, winning 28 of them.12 Many of these initiatives have centered on

farm including initiatives to ban forms of intensive confinement such as gestation crates for pregnant pigs in Florida in 2002; gestation crates and crates for calves in

in 2006; and gestation crates. veal crates and battery cages for egg-laying hens in in

2008. In 2010 in Ohio, the HSUS came to an agreement with an Ohio Farm Bureau not to bring an initiative to the ballot in exchange for regulations phasing out gestation crates and veal crates and putting a moratorium on new facilities. In addition, HSUS-backed bills to ban one or more of these practices have been passed by legislatures in Oregon in 2007, Colorado in

2008, Maine in 2009, Michigan in 2009, and Rhode Island in 2012.13

At the same time as these major initiatives in farm animal protection were getting underway, a revolution in digital communications was taking place with the invention and rapid diffusion of a series of social media platforms. The social networking site was launched by Mark Zuckerberg in February 2004; membership at first was restricted to college students but was opened to anyone older than 13 in 2006, with fan pages introduced in 2007. 3

The growth of the site was meteoric, rising from 100 million users in 200814 to 300 million in

2009,15 500 million in 2010,16 800 million in 2011,17 and 1 billion users in 2012.18 In June 2011,

Facebook hit 1 trillion page views, making it the most visited website in the world.19

Other social media platforms launched around the same time also became some of the fastest-growing sites on the Internet. The video sharing service YouTube, launched by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, garnered 100 million video views per day by July

2006.20After its purchase by Google in October 2006, user numbers skyrocketed with 2 billion

video views per day in May 2010,21 3 billion in May 2011,22 and 4 billion in June 2012.23 With

800 million unique visitors a month and 48 hours of new video uploaded every minute,24

YouTube is now the third most-visited site on the Internet after Google and Facebook.

Meanwhile, the microblogging platform Twitter, launched in July 2006, began with 5,000 tweets

per day in 2007, increasing to 300,000 per day in 2008, 35 million in 2009, 50 million in 2010,25

140 million in 2011,26 and 340 million tweets per day in 2012.27 The site currently has 500

million registered users.28 Full blogging platforms have also attracted millions of users,

including WordPress at 57.7 million ,29 and Tumblr at 80.5 million blogs.30

Social movements have gravitated toward the use of social media to mobilize resources

and frame the issues, but animal welfare organizations in particular have made use of these

networking tools. According to an analysis by Craig Newmark, founder of Craig’s List and

Craig Connects, the top five animal welfare nonprofits posted more often and were more talked

about in Facebook and Twitter than the top five nonprofits for any other sector including

children, culture, disaster relief, the environment, health, military and women.31 The top five

animal organizations posted an average of 14 times a week on Facebook and 134 times a week

on Twitter, while an average of 17,967 people on Facebook and 1,695 on Twitter talked about

them each week.32 All five of the animal organizations in the analysis have a social media staff. 4

Since hiring a full-time social media coordinator, the ASPCA increased its Facebook fan base to over 1 million and doubled its Twitter followers to 75,000.33 PETA, currently with 1.6 million

Facebook fans, averaged 31 Facebook posts and 390 tweets a week, more than any other organization analyzed.34 The HSUS reached 1 million Facebook fans in November 2011,35 and now has more than 1.5 million. Besides Facebook and Twitter, all three organizations have a presence on multiple other social media platforms including YouTube, Pinterest, and Instagram, as well as blogs maintained by the leadership.

In this paper, I will examine how animal protection organizations and the animal protection movement use social media as part of their mobilizing structure. The concept of mobilizing structure is part of a larger framework developed by McAdam, McCarthy, and Zald,36 who also consider opportunity structures and framing. In basing my discussion on this framework, I am following the lead of social media and social movement scholars R. Kelly

Garrett,37 Patrick Meier,38 and Joyce,39 who have used it to structure their own literature reviews. Meier provides this outline of the McAdam, McCarthy, and Zald framework:

Source: Meier, “From Evidence to Model,” p. 23

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Within this framework, I am concentrating on mobilizing structures because, as Garrett

says, “Scholars have written more about ICTs’ relationship with mobilizing structures than the

other two elements of the framework combined.” ICTs refer to Information and Communication

Technologies such as cell phones, email, and the internet;40 social media can be considered

another ICT. Mobilizing structures, drawn from the resource mobilization theory of social

movements widely credited to McCarthy and Zald,41 refers to processes that allow people to

organize and engage in collective action, including recruitment and participation, contention with

opponents, and organizational advantages and challenges. Opportunity structures, drawn from

political process theory widely credited to McAdam,42 refers to conditions in the external

environment that favor or hinder social movement activity, such as fragmentation among elites,

presence of allies, and economic inequalities. Framing processes, drawn from framing theory

widely credited to Snow and Benford,43 explores how social movement actors attempt to construct, diffuse, and contest the language and narrative describing the movement.

Definitions

Two additional points in this discussion. First, is the question of terminology. While I am using the term “animal protection” as a catchall phrase to describe this social movement, the movement is not unified in its goals, strategies and tactics but has several strands. Lyle Munro has identified three major strands to the animal protection movement.44 Animal welfare,

exemplified by the old line humane organizations such as the ASPCA, treats animals as a

political issue and seeks moderate improvements in the way domesticated animals are treated.

Animal rights, exemplified by the philosophies of Tom Regan45 and Gary Francione,46 treats

animals as moral issue and seeks to protect their interests and rights as sentient beings. Animal

6 liberation, taking the pragmatic approach of Peter Singer, sees animal exploitation as endemic to capitalism and calls attention to the financial relationships that underpin specialism.

While unified on the platform of improving human treatment of animals, the different approaches of these three strands lead to an emphasis on different strategies and tactics. For example, animal welfare groups use conventional, legal tactics such as lobbying and petitions to achieve incremental reforms, animal liberationists use unconventional, disruptive tactics such as civil disobedience to achieve practical changes, and animal rights groups use disruptive, militant tactics such as undercover videos to achieve fundamental change.47 Contrary to how they are often portrayed in the media, however, none of these groups use violent tactics. Lyle reserves violent tactics for a fourth category of animal activist, the radical animal liberation movement, which he points out is often deliberately confused with the more utilitarian strand of liberation.48

The second point to note in this discussion is that the literature on the use of social media by social movements is not united in its consideration of who and what the social movements are fighting against. While Meier and Joyce look specifically at research on social movements operating under repressive regimes, Garrett does not and this paper will not either. While the animal protection movement in the United States has at times had to contend with state- sponsored repression through such laws as the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act,49 my focus will be on the use of social media by the animal protection movement and countermovement from animal use industries, primarily and agribusiness. “Movement and countermovement engage in sustained interaction with one another and not just the state,” say scholars David S.

Meyer and Suzanne Staggenborg, necessitating an extension of our theories of social movements and social change to include interactions between these non-state actors.50 Jasper and Poulsen look specifically at this interaction in the animal protection movement and countermovement, nothing that, “Because many social movements try to change the practices of nonstate actors -- 7 such as corporations, universities, or professional associations -- the responses of these targets often affect movement’s success or failure.”51 As the use of social media has spread to both sides of this debate, part of my paper will examine how these interactions play out in this space.

Mobilizing Structures

Garrett divides the literature on the social movement use of new communication technologies to mobilize resources into three main parts: participation levels, contentious activity, and organizational issues. Within this broader heading, my discussion will focus on the use of social media by the animal protection movement and countermovement.

Participation levels

The literature on the use of new communication technologies in social movements finds that they can increase participation rates in three ways: by reducing participation costs, promoting collective identity, and creating community. To these processes Garrett adds a fourth mechanism: microcontributions. 52 First, communication technologies such as social media reduce the costs of participating in a social movement. “By lowering communication and coordination costs, ICTs facilitate group formation, recruitment and retention while improving group efficiency, all of which contribute to increasing political participation,” Garrett says citing

Bonchek.53 Communication technologies such as social media also promote collective identity, or “a perception among individuals that they are members of a larger community by virtue of the grievances they share,”54 and communication technologies build community by “significantly reinforcing existing social networks while simultaneously allowing them to connect with those who hold different views,” says Garrett citing Norris, who in turns cites Putnam.55

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Other scholars agree with this perspective on how social media increases participation in

social movements. “Cyberactivism is no longer the unique provenance of isolated, politically

motivated hackers. It is instead deeply integrated with contemporary social movement strategy

and accessible to computer and mobile phone users with only basic skills: It is a distinguishing

feature of modern political communication and a means of creating the élan that marks social

change,” writes Howard.56 In his seminal book Here Comes Everybody: The Power of

Organizing Without Organizations, Clay Shirky argues that new online communication tools

allows groups to undertake a ladder of activities from sharing to cooperation to collaboration to

collective action.57 Sharing such as uploading photos to a common location creates the fewest

demands on participants. Cooperation, such as carrying on an online conversation, requires

participants to change their behavior to synchronize with others, but it creates more of a sense of

community. Collaboration such as in editing a Wiki page requires more negotiation between

users but results in a production that could not occur without the participation of many. Finally,

collective action, the most difficult group effort, “requires a group of people to commit

themselves to undertaking a particular effort together, and to do so in a way that makes the

decision of the group binding on the individual members.”58 For a group to undertake collective action, it must have a strong shared vision as well as a governance structure that requires members to abide by group decisions they don’t like and discourages free-loading.

Disagreeing with the idea that social media can powerfully affect participation in social movements is Malcolm Gladwell. Drawing from McAdam’s work on the civil rights movement,

Gladwell argues that social movements require strong ties to undertake high-risk activism such as sit-ins, freedom rides, and bus boycotts. Social media, by contrast, is built around weak ties.

While social media good at disseminating new information and ideas, Gladwell says, “weak ties seldom lead to high-risk activism.”59 Yet Garrett provides an effective rebuttal to this argument 9

with his notion of microcontributions, in which communication technologies “allow very small

contributions to be effectively aggregated” to result in larger change. Such small actions can

also build a greater sense of obligation to the cause or organization because once people

contribute to a movement, they become invested and are more likely to contribute again.60

The use of social media by the animal protection movement provides many examples of

all these principles at work. Petitions and pledges are an example of microcontributions,

especially if they get a lot of signatures. The website change.org is built on the foundation of

microcontributions from 20 million users in 196 countries who start and sign petitions in areas

such as animals, the environment, education and human rights.61 Current popular animal protection petitions include “Nike: Stop the Slaughter of Kangaroos to Make Your Soccer

Shoes!” (169,097 signatures),62 “Save Wild Horses from Slaughter” (122,117 signatures),63 and

“Restore Our Trust! Take Dangerous Dog Treats Off the Shelves” (70,150 signatures).64 These

petitions can sometimes achieve their goals. For example, in 2011, California Gov. Jerry Brown

signed a law banning the sale, distribution or possession of shark fins after receiving a petition

signed by 27,867 people,65 while Cumberland County, Iowa, dropped a proposal to euthanize

stray dogs after 72 hours after receiving a petition with 63,621 signatures.66 While it’s unlikely

the petitions alone led to these successes -- in California the shark fin ban received heavy

lobbying from both the humane and Asian communities -- petitions do let their targets know that

thousands of people from around the world are watching and care about the issue.

Community, collaboration, and collective action around animal protection issues can also

be found in social media. An example of a bridging community discussed by Norris and Putnam

was the Pro-HSUS/Anti-HSUS Debate Page on Facebook in which animal protection advocates debated farmers and ranchers about the HSUS humane farms initiatives from early to mid

2010.67 Also in February 2010, the Center for Consumer Freedom launched its corporate- 10

backed68 project HumaneWatch whose purpose was criticize the Humane Society of the United

States on Facebook, Twitter, and the Internet.69 In response, animal advocates launched Stop

HumaneWatch on Facebook and Twitter, and HumaneWatch Info on the web to criticize

HumaneWatch.70 Both Facebook pages became gathering places for a group of regulars with

similar interests and outlooks, thus acting as bonding communities. In addition, while the HSUS

could be regarded as a social movement organization and HumaneWatch as a countermovement

organization, Stop HumaneWatch is an example of a counter-countermovement group discussed

by Meyer and Staggenborg. 71

While HumaneWatch is run by paid professionals, Stop HumaneWatch is run by

amateurs who collaborate on what to post, how to deal with dissenting comments, and in creating

the HumaneWatch Info and website. Much of this collaboration has taken place in a

separate Facebook “secret group” which functions as a zone for internal negotiation, governance

and debate. Decisions can sometimes upset members of the group, such as when one member

left in a disagreement over whether to target the page of a small rescue group that had been

reposting links from HumaneWatch. This strong vision about the purpose of the group as well as

its internal governance structure means that Stop HumaneWatch functions not just as a

community and collaborative effort, but also as a form of collective action as outlined by Shirky.

Contentious activity

Many scholars have noted that communication technologies such as social media can

accelerate the diffusion of social movement information and protest by greatly increasing its

speed and geographical scope. Myers argues that this process causes cycles of mobilization and

response to become more rapid, contributing to an intensification of conflict.72 This intensification can have several results. First, Ayres argues that inaccurate information can 11

spread more quickly than the information can be checked or vetted.73 Second, Kohut et al., find that polarization can become more pronounced as people self-select where they get news and information.74 While Kohut was discussing television news, the same dynamic can take place in

social media, where people “opt in” to updates from friends and organizations that generally

reflect their outlook and interests. In addition, Facebook algorithms ensure that only friends and pages that users have interacted with in the past will continue to show up in their news feed, meaning they are more likely to see posts that reinforce their own points of view.

New communications technologies are also “producing changes in repertoires of

contention, allowing activists to engage in new forms of contentious activity and to adapt

existing modes of contention to an online environment,” Garrett says.75 Online activists can use

new tactics to mobilize quickly in swarm-like fashion to act on multiple fronts at the same

time.76 They can also adapt offline tactics for the online use, such as media tactics that seek to

influence public opinion and create political pressure,77 and electronic civil disobedience, which uses nonviolent means to expose wrongs and stop implementation of unethical laws.78 One

result of these tactics can be to increase the accountability of targeted groups. “Elites are more

likely to behave in a manner consistent with citizen concerns if they work in an environment

where they must assume their actions are being observed and that news of any inappropriate

actions -- even those traditionally outside the media spotlight -- will quickly reach the public,”

Garrett says.79 However, just as social movement actors use online tactics to advance their

cause, their targets can too. Ronfeldt points out that while previous communications technologies such as the printing press at first undermined power of the elites, these technologies were later “turned into tools of propaganda, surveillance, and subjugation.”80

Contentious activity online by actors in the animal protection movement and countermovement provide numerous examples of these concepts. Kimberly Alboum, North 12

Carolina director for HSUS, has noted the speed at which both information and misinformation

can spread through social media. Facebook “has been both phenomenal for the animal welfare

movement, and horrible,” she said during a presentation at the 2012 Taking Action for Animals

conference. For example, if a shelter is in need of supplies, it can put out a call on Facebook,

and mountains of blankets and food will be delivered. On the flip side, inaccurate information

can spread in a flash, undermining credibility and damaging relationships. “Once misinformation

about animal control, law enforcement or a shelter is out there, you can’t take thousands of

Facebook posts back,” Alboum said.81 In another example, in early 2012 online advocates

spread a photo of a puppy who appeared to be badly abused, claiming the HSUS would donate

$1 for his care each time someone shared or liked the photo. Unfortunately the story was a hoax

as the dog had been rescued in Taiwan in 2010 after getting into a batch of corrosive

chemicals.82

Polarization is also an issue in social media discussions about animal protection issues.

For example, people from opposing communities often make posts on the Facebook pages of those they disagree with. Sometimes this leads to a productive discussion, but often not. In

many cases, the debate becomes so vitriolic that the dissenting voice is “banned” from the page,

meaning that person and all of his or her posts disappear.

Such vitriol has occurred repeatedly around the HSUS decision to work with Michael

Vick, the NFL football star who spent two years in prison in connection with dogfighting, as a

speaker in its End Dogfighting Program in Philadelphia. The controversy exploded after HSUS

president Wayne Pacelle was quoted as saying, “I have been around him [Vick] a lot, and feel

confident that he would do a good job as a pet owner.”83 The outcry in social media and comments to online news stories was so intense that the next day Pacelle issued a blog post explaining why he made the statement.84 The post of that blog on the HSUS Facebook page got 13

thousands of comments, many of which were removed and the users banned due to violent or

racist content. Very few comments addressed the main point Pacelle made in the blog -- that the

HSUS was in the business of making change, and Vick has genuinely changed.85 HSUS

opponent HumaneWatch took full advantage of the controversy with no less than 22 Facebook

posts of its own in two weeks, many of which attracted hundreds of comments,86 as well as a full

page ad in .87 Counter-countermovement group Stop HumaneWatch also weighed in with a blog calling out violent comments allowed to stand on HumaneWatch.88

Online animal advocates as well as their opponents have both made ample use of new

forms of contentious activity made possible by social media. One example of Arquilla and

Ronfeldt’s “new tactics to mobilize quickly in swarm-like fashion to act on multiple fronts” is

the targeting by farmers and ranchers of the Facebook pages for businesses that supported the

HSUS in 2010. This tactic began with a YouTube video posted by South Dakota rancher Troy

Hadrick in which he pours a bottle of Yellow Tail wine into the snow because Yellow Tail had

made a $100,000 contribution to HSUS.89 The video, reposted on Hadrick’s Advocates for

Agriculture blog90 and across social media, touched off thousands of posts and comments by

farmers and ranchers on the Yellow Tail Facebook page,91 pressuring the company to issue a

statement saying the contribution would be earmarked for the HSUS Animal Rescue Team and

that they would not contribute again. With this success, Hadrick then targeted the Facebook

pages of other companies making donations to HSUS, including Pilot Travel Stations, Mary Kay

Cosmetics and Hill’s Pet Nutrition, all of which suspended or withdrew the contributions.92 The

controversy was widely covered in the ag trade press including Hoosier Ag Today, which called

social media “the new battleground in the fight against the anti-animal forces.”93

However, with each new target the tactic began to draw counter posts and comments

from HSUS supporters who called into question the accuracy of the posts and motives of those 14

commenting.94 The showdown between the two camps occurred in the week leading up to June

5, 2010, when Jordan Vineyard and Winery was scheduled to hold a celebrity fundraiser for

HSUS. Debate on the winery’s Facebook page was encouraged by both Stop HumaneWatch and

HumaneWatch, which crossposted Hadrick’s blog95 and encouraged its followers to call the

winery directly.96 In his blog, Hadrick said he had talked to winery owner John Jordan and was

told the fundraiser would be cancelled; however, in comments, “Sarah” of Animal Agriculture

Alliance said she had also spoken to Jordan and was told the fundraiser would take place, while

“Dannielle” claimed Jordan was lying and he and Pacelle were “thick as thieves.”97 In the end,

Jordan Winery did hold the fundraiser, resulting in a loss for the tactic of targeting company

Facebook pages. This tactic continued to lose in subsequent attempts on the pages of such

businesses and celebrities as Forever21, Fred Meyer Jewelers, Thundershirt, Sheryl Crow, Ellen

Degeneres, Petplan Pet Insurance, Land Rover, Einstein’s Bagels, and Chipotle.

The animal protection movement has also adapted conventional media tactics for online

use to pressure authorities and corporations to make changes and be held accountable. A good

example of this was the series of events surrounding Snapperfest, an annual festival held at a

campground in Ohio County, Indiana, in which contestants vie to pick snapping turtles out of a

tank, run with them across a field, then pull their heads out of their shells without getting bitten.

In August 2011 three days before the event, PETA issued an action alert about

Snapperfest asking supporters to contact the county commissioners and camp managers urging

them to cancel. “Every year at the Campshore Campground, wild-caught snapping turtles endure

terrible violence at the hands of participants,” the alert read. “The frightened animals are

grabbed by their tails and repeatedly slammed to the ground. Their heads are yanked from their

shells, and they are then swung around until “contestants” are able to wrap their fists around the

animals’ necks.”98 The response was overwhelming. Over the next few days thousands of 15

people contacted the county and campground officials, while a petition on change.org garnered

16,076 signatures99 and one on the Care2 Petition site got 24,037 signatures.100 Multiple

Facebook pages were started with names like Boycott Campshore Campground in Indiana --

Home of SnapperFest, So Long Snapperfest, and Stop Snapperfest in Ohio Co. Indiana.101

This outcry came not just from PETA followers but also the reptile community led by

Allen Salzberg of Herp Digest and Susan Tellem of American Tortoise Rescue, as well as

naturalists such as writer Julie Zickefoose.102 Calls and emails also went to the Indiana

Department of Natural Resources, which told the New York Turtle and Tortoise Society that

Indiana’s cruelty statutes did not apply to animals hunted or trapped from the wild, and that state

monitors had not seen abuse.103 However, undercover video taken during the 2011 Snapperfest

told a different story, as bystanders teased turtles kept in a bin, female contestants repeatedly

dropped a single softshell turtle, and male contestants handled snapping turtles roughly.104

Armed with this video, Animal Legal Defense Fund and Best Friends Animal Society

filed a petition with the Indiana DNR, arguing it had misinterpreted the law because the turtles

were not being hunted, and in fact the campground owners claimed they let the turtles go after

the event. 105 The ALDF petition was heard during the May meeting of the Indiana Natural

Resources Commission. While the commission declined to change the wording of the statute, deputy director John Davis admitted that the DNR “incorrectly gave too quick an answer before

we really looked” at the issue, and that the “animal cruelty statute continues to cover wild

animals and protect them.”106 By August 2012, the DNR notified ALDF that Campshore

Campground had cancelled Snapperfest.107 This campaign shows that massive public outrage

expressed through social media and other new communications technologies, coupled with

coordinated action from animal protection social movement organizations, can be successful.

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Finally, animal protection movement and countermovement actors have also used social

media to engage in actions similar to electronic civil disobedience and hactivism. For example, in

February 2011, counter-countermovement page HumaneWatch Info published a blog entry

showing that David Martosko, research director for HumaneWatch, had used a fake Facebook

profile to friend hundreds of leading animal advocates,108 at least 50 of whom had been written

about in derogatory ways on HumaneWatch and other websites run by the Center for Consumer

Freedom. 109 While the blog presented a great deal of circumstantial evidence linking Martokso to

the fake profile, its webmaster got the “smoking gun” by friending the fake profile and sending

him links that when clicked registered his IP address, which were then traced to locations near the

Center for Consumer Freedom offices in Washington, D.C., and Martosko’s home address in

Virginia. Three days later, HumaneWatch Info presented evidence that Martosko had

impersonated a while leaving comments to online news stories.110 Soon afterward,

Martosko left Center for Consumer Freedom after 11 years of employment.111 He eventually

landed on his feet, however, as Tucker Carlson, founder of the conservative Washington online

news journal Daily Caller, hired Martosko as executive editor in July 2011.112

Organizational Issues

New communications technologies such as social media are also influencing the

organization of social movements, according to the literature reviewed by Garrett, Meier and

Joyce. Some scholars such as Arquilla and Ronfeldt think that hierarchical social movements

will decline in importance in favor of decentralized network forms. 113 Bimber suggests a model

of “accelerated pluralism” in which broad-based interest groups become fragmented into more

fluid groups formed for a single issue with little institutional coherence.114 However, Gladwell

thinks top-down organizations are still needed for success, 115 while Garrett believes social 17 movement organizations will simply adopt the new forms of communication.116 Earl and

Schussman see a third possibility -- the rise of “movement entrepreneurs” who are “motivated by individual grievances to undertake social movement activity and who rely on their own skills to conduct their actions.”117 Kanter and Fine, cited by Joyce, refer to an actor like this as a “free agent” who “leverages influence through social media, is never co-opted by an existing organization nor creates her own, operating forever as an individual within a network.”118

The animal protection movement has examples of all these forms of organization in its social media activities. The ease by which a page can be created on Facebook or Twitter to address a single issue supports Bimber’s model of accelerated pluralism. The pages created in response to Snapperfest are an example. Other pages have been created in response to the undercover investigation of a dairy farm in Ohio,119 a pack of dogs kept in a small shed in Virginia,120 and two oxen headed for slaughter at a small college in Vermont.121 Yet at the same time, social movement organizations such as the HSUS, ASPCA and PETA have not declined in importance; in fact, their membership base and budgets have been growing.

Moreover, as Garrett suggested, they have adopted new social media forms for themselves. The

HSUS in particular is noted for having social media employees who leave comments on online news stories, blogs, and social media posts that cast the HSUS in a negative light. In addition, the members of Stop HumaneWatch have functioned as “ambassadors” for the HSUS, posting complimentary stories on their page and countering negative posts on other pages.

Social media scholars seem more in agreement on the concept of movement entrepreneurs, and the animal protection movement offers plenty of examples of this too.

Perhaps the best-known example is , director of the No Kill Advocacy Center, which criticizes euthanasia of healthy adoptable dogs and cats at animal shelters. Winograd, who has a law degree from Stanford, is the author of three books about the no kill movement, as 18

well as a website, blog and multiple pages in social media.122 Having held leadership positions

at the SPCA and Tompkins County SPCA, he advocates for what he calls the “No

Kill Equation,” which includes partnerships with local rescues; a volunteer program; foster homes; trap, neuter, return for feral cats; and pet retention counseling among other points.123

Winograd is controversial in the animal protection movement for several reasons. First,

he claims that pet overpopulation, a core concept in the sheltering community, is a myth. 124

Using numbers from the animal welfare group Maddie’s Fund, Winograd claims 17 million

homes look for a pet every year, more than enough to account for the 3 million to 4 million

adoptable animals euthanized in shelters.125 Second, he blames not the public but the shelters

themselves for shelter euthanasia, with blistering attacks on shelter management, most of which

he considers corrupt, incompetent, or sadistic. Third, he has waged full-scale war against all the national animal protection organizations including HSUS, ASPCA, PETA, Best Friends Animal

Society, and Association. His blog features links to dozens of entries grouped by the organization he is attacking. The posts make personal attacks such as calling

PETA president Ingrid Newkirk “the Butcher of Norfolk,”126 launching a 10-count “indictment of Wayne Pacelle,”127 and accusing Best Friends of betrayal because it did not support a

Winograd-sponsored bill in New York.128 Such movement entrepreneurs pose a genuine threat

to the national social movement organizations, not just by splitting off their members and

supporters, but also by casting them as heartless “pro kill” obstructionists to the no-kill agenda.

Garrett makes one other point in his discussion of how new communications technologies

affect social movements: “Activists are not the only group capable of using technology to

become more fluid and flexible,” he points out. Elite organizations can also transform

themselves to be less dependent on traditional leadership structures.129 Meier agrees, noting that

“New social media tools don’t dictate the organizational form of the movement, they simply 19

create more options.”130 These observations have proven applicable to the animal protection

countermovement from agriculture. Starting with Troy Hadrick, actors in the agriculture

industry have increasingly used social media tools to engage in what they call “agvocacy.”

Hadrick’s motivation was simple: He was the person who sold the steer that Michael Pollan

wrote about in his article “Power Steer,”131 which became the basis of his bestselling The

Omnivore’s Dilemma,132 the book that touched off the current food movement. “When the

article came out, [Pollan] told people that we abuse our , that we pollute the air and

water and that the food that I was growing was making people sick,” Hadrick and his wife,

Stacy, told Agri-View. “When we finally read the article when it came out, we had to look each

other in the eye and say we are not going to let anybody else tell our story for us anymore.”133

Hadrick was the first in a long line of agriculture advocates, some amateur and others

professional. On the amateur side, Oklahoma rancher Derrel White, Michigan State ag student

Marcus Hollmann, and Iowa farmer Mike Develaar started The Truth About Agriculture page on

Facebook in August 2010. Like Hadrick, this page spends time “dispelling the myths and

misinformation spread by those opposed to agriculture,” but it also seeks to “promote all forms of

American agriculture and encouraging ideas for the best utilization of agricultural resources.”134

Somewhat more professional is AgChat Foundation, founded in February 2010 by

California rancher Jeff Fowle, Kansas farmer Darin Grimm, Ohio rancher Mike Haley, and

California dairy farmer Ray Prock to “empower farmers and ranchers to connect communities through social media platforms.”135 Named after the popular #agchat hashtag on Twitter, AgChat

Foundation offers annual social media training bootcamps and conferences for farmers and

ranchers, as well as strategic coordination with industry and data analysis.136 In his blog, Haley

explains the difference between what he calls “agvocacy” and “agtivism.” While agtivists “take

offense to others with opposing views and dismiss theirs concerns about agriculture,” agvocates 20

listen to the concerns of others, find common ground, and “connect with those outside of

agriculture that are curious about today’s farmers and ranchers,” Haley writes137

Finally, most professional is U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance, launched in September

2011 by a coalition of almost 150 state and national agriculture commodity groups and almost 20

industry partners. Formed in response to the national food movement touched off by Pollan’s

Omnivore’s Dilemma and documentaries such as Food Inc., USFRA’s mission is to “lead the

dialogue and answer Americans’ questions about how we raise our food.”138 One way USFRA

does this is through its annual Food Dialogues in which a panel of experts answers questions

about food from consumers.139 However, this event has been criticized as an “orchestrated

framing of the message about ‘modern agricultural production’ from the perspective of big

business” in which the one audience question was pre-arranged from the head of the National

Pork Board.140 The USFRA Facebook page141 also hosts discussions on such contentious issues

as antibiotics, biotech seeds, and animal welfare, always with an emphasis on hearing from

farmers and ranchers about why they employ conventional practices. The alliance has a $20

million budget and has hired global advertising and PR agency Ketchum to run its

communications and social media efforts.142 Whether this effort to “sell” the perspective of

conventional agriculture to the American public will be successful remains to be seen.

Conclusion

Drawing from the framework set forth by McAdam, McCarthy and Zald, social media

and social movement scholars Kelly Garrett, Patrick Meier and Mary Joyce have all put together

literature reviews on the effects of new communication technologies such as social media on

mobilizing structures, opportunity structures, and framing processes by social movements. In

this paper, I have narrowed that focus to consider the effects of social media on the first part of 21 this framework, mobilizing structures, for the animal protection movement and countermovement. Mobilizing structures, drawn from the resource mobilization theory of social movements widely credited to McCarthy and Zald, refer to processes that allow social movements to organize and engage in collective action, including recruitment and participation, contention with opponents, and organizational advantages and challenges. I chose to focus on mobilizing structures because according to Garrett, scholars have written more about the effects of communication technologies on mobilizing structures of social movements than on the other two parts of the McAdam, McCarthy and Zald framework combined. However, in future research, I would like to continue with this review and flesh out how the discussions by scholars of opportunity structures and framing apply to the animal protection movement.

In reviewing how the animal protection movement and countermovement have made use of social media for mobilizing structures, this paper has examined participation levels, contentious activity, and organizational issues. In all three areas, I have found a great deal of evidence to show that animal protection organizations, movement actors, as well as countermovement organizations and actors, have made the use of social media a priority.

Animal protection nonprofits make more use of social media than nonprofits in any other sector, while the animal agriculture industry has also embraced social media as an essential tool. The low costs of participation in social media and its ability to aggregate microcontributions have allowed thousands of people across the globe to come together in support of a cause. Movement actors on both sides of the debate have engaged in contentious activity, sometimes overt, sometimes covert, sometimes with results, and sometimes not. Even while traditional social movement organizations continue to thrive, communications technologies have led to a more decentralized structure in the movement and to the rise of movement entrepreneurs.

22

One criticism of this paper is that the evidence presented is largely qualitative and

anecdotal. However, the main reason I have not examined how the quantitative literature might

apply to the animal protection movement is, as Joyce points out, “current quantitative analysis

has not yet made a persuasive argument about the effects of ICT” because “the seminal quantitative research on this topic has not yet been created.”143 Joyce and Meier both review

limited quantitative research on the effects of communication technologies on social movements,

but find that the vast majority of studies have methodological drawbacks because the datasets

they consider predate the invention of the major social media platforms and thus yield outdated

results. Only one quantitative study by Howard in 2011 found that communication technologies

had any effect on social movements, while qualitative research points to a definite effect. Joyce

contends, and I agree, that in order to get reliable results, quantitative research will have to wait

until it can consider at least 10 years of social media use by social movements.

For future research directions, I would advocate continuing to flesh out what can be

found about the effects of social media on social movements through qualitative research, but all

the while gathering the data to make future quantitative research possible. Joyce and Howard are

addressing this issue by putting together a Global Digital Activism Dataset to “produce a

comprehensive database of international incidents of civic activism and non-violent conflict in

which digital media had some role in the evolution of events.”144 This dataset will likely become

an invaluable resource for future scholars, and could possibly be split into various spheres of

social movement activity online such as repressive governments, the Middle East, the

environmental movement, and animal protection. The best studies are those that make use of

both quantitative and qualitative data -- quantitative to identify the patterns of what is happening,

and qualitative to explain why it is happening and what it means those affected. If I continue in

this research program, this is the direction I would like to take. 23

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1 Jasper, James, and Dorothy Nelkin. The Animal Rights Crusade: The Growth of a Moral Protest. Free Press, 1992, p. 38. 2 Motavalli, Jim. “Rights from Wrongs.” E Magazine, March-April 2003, pp. 26-33. Accessed at http://www.glaserprogress.org/news/ns_E_magazine.asp 3 Jasper and Nelkin, pp. 29-37. 4 Jasper and Nelkin, p. 38. 5 “About Us: Overview.” Humane Society of the United States website, September 19, 2011. Accessed at http://www.humanesociety.org/about/overview/. 6 Pacelle, Wayne. The Bond: Our Kinship with Animals, Our Call to Defend Them. Morrow, 2001, p. 16. 7 Hall, Carla. “Wayne Pacelle works for the winged, finned and furry.” , July 19, 2008. Accessed at http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-pacelle19-2008jul19,0,3245888,full.story 8 Clifton, Merritt. “Books: The Bond by Wayne Pacelle.” Animal People, May 2011. Accessed at http://www.animalpeoplenews.org/anp/2011/05/17/books-the-bond-by-wayne-pacelle/ 9 Humane USA. Linked In. Accessed at http://us.linkedin.com/company/humane-usa 10 Starobin, Paul. “Animal Rights on the March.” National Journal, May 22, 2010. Accessed at http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/animal-rights-on-the-march-20100522 11 “(R)Evolution From Within? New Directions for the Humane Society.” Satya, June/July 2005. Accessed at http://www.satyamag.com/jun05/pacelle.html 12 “Ballot Initiatives.” Humane Society Legislative Fund website. Accessed at http://www.hslf.org/ballot- initiatives/ballot_initiative_history.html 13 “Timeline of Major Farm Animal Protection Advancements.” Humane Society of the United States website, October 11, 2012. Accessed at http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/confinement_farm/timelines/timeline_farm_animal_protection.html 14 Zuckerberg, Mark. “Our First 100 Million.” Facebook blog, August 26, 2008. Accessed at http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=28111272130 15 Zuckerberg, Mark. “300 Million and On.” Facebook blog, September 15, 2009. Accessed at http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=136782277130 16 Zuckerberg, Mark. “500 Million Stories.” Facebook blog, July 21, 2010. Accessed at http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=409753352130 17 Ostrow, Adam. “Facebook now has 800 Million Users.” Mashable, September 21, 2011. Accessed at http://mashable.com/2011/09/22/facebook-800-million-users/ 18 Fowler, Geoffrey A. “Facebook: One Billion and Counting.” , October 4, 2012. Accessed at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443635404578036164027386112.html 19 Titlow, John Paul. “Facebook Hits 1 Trillion Pageviews.” ReadWriteWeb, August 24, 2011. Accessed at https://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_hits_1_trillion_pageviews.php 20 Reuters News Service. "YouTube serves up 100 million videos a day online." USA Today, July 16, 2006. Accessed at http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/news/2006-07-16-youtube-views_x.htm? 21 Chapman, Glenn. “YouTube serving up two billion videos daily.” Agency Presse France, May 16, 2010. Accessed at http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jK4sI9GfUTCKAkVGhDzpJ1ACZm9Q 22 Richmond, Shane. "YouTube users uploading two days of video every minute." The Daily Telegraph, (May 26, 2011). Accessed at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/8536634/YouTube-users-uploading-two-days- of-video-every-minute.html 23 Oreskovic, Alexei. "YouTube hits 4 billion daily video views." Reuters, January 23, 2012. Accessed at http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/23/us-google-youtube-idUSTRE80M0TS20120123 24 Seabrook, John. “Streaming Dreams: YouTube Turns Pro.” The New Yorker, January 12, 2012. Accessed at http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/01/16/120116fa_fact_seabrook?currentPage=all 25 Beaumont, Claudine. “Twitter users send 50 million tweets per day.” The Telegraph, February 23, 2010. Accessed at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/twitter/7297541/Twitter-users-send-50-million-tweets-per- day.html 26 Twitter. “#numbers.” Twitter Blog, March 14, 2011. Accessed at http://blog.twitter.com/2011/03/numbers.html

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27 Twitter. “Twitter Turns Six.” Twitter Blog, March 21, 2012. Accessed at http://blog.twitter.com/2012/03/twitter- turns-six.html 28 Dugan, Lauren. “Twitter To Surpass 500 Million Registered Users On Wednesday.” All Twitter: The Unofficial Twitter Resource, February 21, 2012. Accessed at http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/500-million-registered- users_b18842. 29 WordPress, “Stats.” WordPress website. Accessed at http://en.wordpress.com/stats/ 30 Tumblr. “About.” Tumblr website. Accessed at http://www.tumblr.com/about 31 Craig Connects. “Who Rules Social Media? A Look at Social Media Impact by Nonprofit Issues.” craigconnects., November 8, 2011. Accessed at http://craigconnects.org/2011/11/who-rules-social-media-a-look-at-social-media- impact-by-nonprofit-issues.html 32 Switzer, Cody. “Animal Welfare Charities Among the Most Popular Online.” Charity News Forum, November 10, 2011. Accessed at http://charitynewsforum.com/2011/11/animal-welfare-charities-among-the-most-popular- online/ 33 Craig Connects, ibid. 34 Craig Connects, ibid. 35 Kanter, Beth. “When Is One Million Fans on Facebook Worth More Than A Million Bucks?” The Networked Nonprofit blog, November 15, 2011. Accessed at http://www.bethkanter.org/million-fans/ 36 McAdam, Doug, John D. McCarthy, and Mayer N. Zald. Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures, and Cultural Framings. Cambridge University Press, 1996. 37 Garrett, R. Kelly. “Protest in an Information Society: A Review of Literature on Social Movements and New ICTs.” Information, Communication, and Society, 9(2), pp. 202-224. Garrett is in the School of Communication at Ohio State. 38 Meier, Patrick. “From Evidence to Model.” In Do Liberation Technologies Change the Balance of Power Between Repressive Regimes and Civil Society? Draft dissertation chapter. Available at “ICTs, Democracy, Activism and Dictatorship: Comprehensive Literature Review,” iRevolution blog, January 19, 2011. Accessed at http://irevolution.net/2011/01/19/dissertation_litreview/ 39 Joyce, Mary. “Activism, Repression, and ICT: What We Know Now.” Meta-Activism Blog, January 20, 2011. Accessed at http://www.meta-activism.org/2011/01/activism-repression-and-ict-what-we-know-now/ 40 Garrett, p. 4. 41 McCarthy, John D., and Mayer N. Zald. “Resource Mobilization and Social Movements: A Partial Theory.” American Journal of Sociology, 82(6), May 1977, pp. 1212-1241. 42 McAdam, Doug. Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930-1970. University of Press, 1982. See especially Chapter 3, “The Political Process Model,” pp. 36-59. 43 For example, see Snow, David A., Burke Rochford, Steven K. Worden, and Robert D. Benford. “Frame Alignment Processes, Micromobilization, and Movement Participation.” American Sociological Review, 51(4), August 1986, pp. 464-481. Also see Snow, David A., and Robert D. Benford. 1992. “Master Frames and Cycles of Protest.” In A.D. Morris and C.M. Mueller (eds.), Frontiers in Social Movement Theory. Press, 1992, pp. 133–155. 44 Munro, Lyle. Confronting Cruelty: Moral Orthodoxy and the Challenge of the . Brill, 2005, pp. 48-63. See also Munro, Lyle. Compassionate Beasts: The Quest for Animal Rights. Praeger, 2001, pp. 33-37. 45 See Regan, Tom. The Case for Animal Rights. Routledge, 1984. 46 See Francione, Gary. Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approach. Online at http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/ 47 Munro, Lyle. “The Animal Rights Movement in Theory and Practice: A Review of the Sociological Literature.” Sociology Compass 6(2), 2012, pp. 166-181. 48 Munro, 2012, p. 173. 49 Two recent treatments of this topic are Lovitz, Dara, Muzzling a Movement: The Effects of Anti-Terrorism Law, Money and Politics on Animal Activism, , 2010, and Potter, Will, Green is the New Red: An Insider’s Account of a Social Movement Under Siege, City Lights Books, 2011. 50 Meyer, David S., and Suzanne Staggenborg. “Movements, Countermovements, and the Structure of Political Opportunity.” American Journal of Sociology, 101(6), May 1996, pp. 1628-1660. 51 Jasper, James M., and Jane Poulsen. “Fighting Back: Vulnerabilities, Blunders, and Countermobilization by the Targets in Three Animal Rights Campaigns.” Sociological Forum, 8(4), 1993, p. 641. 52 Garrett, p. 8.

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53 Garrett, p. 5, citing Bonchek, Mark S. From Broadcast to Netcast: The Internet and the Flow of Political Information. PhD Dissertation, Department of Political Science, Harvard University, 1997. 54 Garrett, p. 6. 55 Garrett, p. 6-7, citing Norris, Pippa. “The Bridging and Bonding Role of Online Communities.” In Society Online: The Internet in Context, ed. by Philip N. Howard and Steve Jones. Sage Publications, 2004, pp. 31-41. Norris in turn attributes the concepts of bridging and bonding communities Putnam, Robert D., Bowling Alone, Free Press, 2000, and Putnam, Robert D. (ed.), The Dynamics of Social Capital, Oxford University Press, 2002. 56 Howard, Philip N. “Prologue: Revolution in the Middle East Will Be Digitized.” In The Digital Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. Oxford University Press, 2010. Accessed as online e-book at Ohio State Libraries. 57 Shirky, Clay. Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations. Penguin, 2008, pp. 49-54. 58 Shirky, p. 51. 59 Gladwell, Malcolm. “Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not be Tweeted.” The New Yorker, October 4, 2010. Acessed at http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/04/101004fa_fact_gladwell 60 Garrett, p. 8. 61 “About.” change.org. Accessed at http://www.change.org/about 62 “Nike: Stop the slaughter of kangaroos to make your soccer shoes!.” Change.org. Accessed at http://www.change.org/petitions/nike-stop-the-slaughter-of-kangaroos-to-make-your-soccer-shoes 63 “Save Wild Horses From Slaughter.” change.org. Accessed at http://www.change.org/petitions/save-wild- horses-from-slaughter 64 “Restore Our Trust! Take Dangerous Dog Treats Off The Shelves.” change.org. Accessed at http://www.change.org/petitions/restore-our-trust-take-dangerous-dog-treats-off-the-shelves 65 “Join the APA Alliance To Ban Shark Fin In California.” change.org. Accessed at http://www.change.org/petitions/join-the-apa-alliance-to-ban-shark-fin-in-california 66 “Cumberland County Animal Control: Drop the 72-hour-kill proposal.” change.org. Accessed at http://www.change.org/petitions/dr-jeannette-m-council-drop-the-72-hour-kill-proposal 67 Unfortunately in mid 2010, the couple moderating the debate page broke up, and one of them deleted the page. Three of the farmers and ranchers who had been active on the page subsequently started another page called “The Truth About Agriculture,” which could be considered a “bonding community.” 68 Center for Consumer Freedom maintains a nonprofit status which means it is not required to divulge funding sources. However, known funders from the food, restaurant and agribusiness industries include Coca-Cola, Wendy's, Tyson , Cargill, Monsanto, and Pilgrim's Pride. See Warner, Melanie, “Striking Back at the Food Police,” The New York Times, June 12, 2005. Accessed at http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/12/business/yourmoney/12food.html. For a complete list from 2002, see SourceWatch, “CCF Funding,” at http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/CCF_funding 69 HumaneWatch’s Facebook page is at https://www.facebook.com/HumaneWatch, Twitter page at https://twitter.com/Humane_Watch, and website at http://humanewatch.org/ 70 Stop HumaneWatch’s Facebook page is at www.facebook.com/StopHumaneWatch, Twitter page at https://twitter.com/HumaneWatchInfo, and website at humanewatch.info/ 71 Meyer and Staggenborg, p. 1632. For this concept, Meyer and Staggenborg cite Zald, Mayer N., and Bert Useem, “Movement and Countermovement Interaction: Mobilization, Tactics, and State Involvement,” in Social Movements in an Organizational Society, ed. by Mayer N. Zald and John D. McCarthy, Transaction, 1987. 72 Myers, Daniel. “Communication Technology and Social Movements: Contributions of Computer Networks to Activism.” Social Science Computer Review, 12(2), July 1994, pp. 250-260. 73 Ayers, Jeffrey M. “From the streets to the Internet: The Cyber-Diffusion of Contention.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 566, pp. 132-43. 74 Kohut, Andrew, et al. “Online news audience larger, more diverse.” Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, 2004. Accessed at http://people-press.org/reports/pdf/215.pdf. 75 Garrett, pp. 10-11. 76 Arquilla, John, and David Ronfeldt. “The advent of netwar (revisited).” In Networks and Netwars: The Future of Terror, Crime, and Militancy, ed. by John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt. Rand, 2001, pp. 1-25. Accessed at http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1382/.

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77 Rucht, Dieter. "The quadruple 'A': media strategies of protest movements since the 1960s." In Cyberprotest: New Media, Citizens, and Social Movements, ed. by Wim van de Donk, Brian D. Loader, Paul G. Nixon and Dieter Rucht. Routledge, 2004, pp. 29-56. 78 Manion, Mark, and Abby Goodrum. “Terrorism or Civil Disobedience: Toward a Hacktivist Ethic.” Computers and Society, June 2000: 14-19. 79 Garrett, pp. 11-12. 80 Ronfeldt, David, and Danielle Varda. “The Prospects for Cyberocracy (Revisited).” RAND Institute, 2009. Accessed at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1325809. Posted on Meier, Patrick. “The Propects for Cyberocracy.” iRevolution blog, January 17, 2009. Accessed at http://irevolution.net/2009/01/17/the-prospects-for-cyberocracy/ 81 Cowan, Catherine. “‘Never give up’: Tips for animal advocates working with law enforcement.” Animal Issues Reporter, July 29. 2012. Accessed at http://animalissuesreporter.org/tag/laws-affecting-animal-advocates/ 82 “Puppy Love.” snopes.com, February 8, 2012. http://www.snopes.com/critters/crusader/abusedpuppy.asp 83 Tagami, Ty. “Humane Society president says Vick would be good pet owner.” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, December 15, 2010. Reprint of article accessed at http://articles.dailypress.com/2010-12-15/news/pets16-cox- 20101215_1_atlanta-falcons-quarterback-michael-vick-judge-henry-e-hudson 84 Pacelle, Wayne. “Michael Vick Having a Pet.” A Humane Nation blog, December 16, 2010. Accessed at http://hsus.typepad.com/wayne/2010/12/michael-vick-pet.html 85 The remaining 1,413 comments are at https://www.facebook.com/humanesociety/posts/161664333878022 86 See these posts and comments at https://www.facebook.com/HumaneWatch/timeline/2010/12 87 See http://humanewatch.org/images/uploads/2010-12-19_HSUS_Vick_NYT.pdf 88 “HumaneWatch brings out the worst.” HumaneWatch.Info blog, December 23, 2010. Accessed at http://humanewatch.info/blog/2010/12/22/humanewatch-brings-worst/ 89 Hadrick, Troy. “Yellow Tail is now Yellow Fail.” YouTube video, February 5, 2010. Accessed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCR_J2fWsKA 90 Hadrick, Troy. “Yellow Tail is now Yellow Fail.” Advocated for Agriculture blog, February 8, 2010. Accessed at http://advocatesforag.blogspot.com/2010/02/yellow-tail-is-now-yellow-fail.html 91 Chuck Jolley of Drover’s Network counted 2,442 people on one of Yellow Tail’s Facebook pages and 1,657 on the other. See Jolley, Chuck. “Five Minutes With The Yellow Tail Fiasco.” Reprinted on Advocates for Agriculture, February 5, 2010. Accessed at http://advocatesforag.blogspot.com/2010/02/keep-advocacy-going.html 92 Buckeye Farm News. “Farmers sway companies to end HSUS sponsorship.” Ohio Farm Bureau, March 26, 2010. Accessed at http://ofbf.org/news-and-events/news/707/ 93 Truitt, Gary. “Social Media: The New Battleground For American Agriculture.” Hoosier Ag Today, February 10, 2010. Reprinted by Tory Hadrick, Advocates for Agriculture, at http://advocatesforag.blogspot.com/2010/02/farmers-ranchers-being-heard-online.html 94 Posts and comments are still available on the Facebook page for Pilot Travel Centers at https://www.facebook.com/pilottravelcenters/timeline/2010/2. 95 “Guest Column: CA Winery Stops HSUS Donation.” HumaneWatch website, June 1, 2010. Accessed at http://humanewatch.org/index.php/site/post/guest_column_ca_winery_stops_hsus_donation/ 96 See https://www.facebook.com/HumaneWatch/posts/122620771111543 97 Hadrick, Troy. “CA Winery Stops HSUS Donation.” Advocates for Agriculture blog, June 1, 2010. Accessed at http://advocatesforag.blogspot.com/2010/06/ca-winery-stops-hsus-donation.html 98 Owen, Rachelle. “URGENT! Turtle Torture Event Scheduled!” peta2.com, August 17, 2011. Accessed at http://www.peta2.com/blog/urgent-turtle-torture-event-scheduled/ 99 “Stop Snapperfest.” change.org, posted August 18, 2011. http://www.change.org/petitions/stop-snapperfest 100 “STOP SNAPPERFEST 2012!” Care2 Petition Site, August 24, 2011. http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/stopsnapperfest/ 101 See https://www.facebook.com/StopSnapperFest, https://www.facebook.com/solongsnapperfest, and https://www.facebook.com/pages/Stop-Snapperfest-in-Ohio-Co-Indiana/121991844564654 102 Zickefoose, Julie. “Snapperfest: The World is Watching.” Julie Zickefoose blog, August 20, 2011. Accessed at http://juliezickefoose.blogspot.com/2011/08/snapperfest-world-is-watching.html 103 New York Turtle and Tortoise Society. “NYTTS Snapperfest Report.” August 23, 2011. Accessed at http://nytts.org/nytts/snapperfest.htm

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104 snapperfestwitness. “Snapperfest 2011.” YouTube video, uploaded September 6, 2011. Accessed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwSdzhi8-6A 105 Franzetta, Lisa. “Petition Filed to Stop Abuse of Turtles at ‘Snapperfest’ Following Undercover Investigation of Cruelty.” ALDF website, January 19, 2012. Accessed at http://aldf.org/article.php?id=1925 106 Indiana Natural Resources Commission, Meeting Minutes, May 15, 2012, pp. 7-9. Accessed at http://www.in.gov/nrc/files/nrc_minutes_may_2012_draft.pdf 107 Franzetta, Lisa. “Good News For Indiana’s Turtles: State Says No More Snapperfest.” ALDF website, August 1, 2012. Accessed at http://aldf.org/article.php?id=2122. Also see “SNAPPERFEST ’12 IS CANCELLED!!!” Julie Zickefoose blog, July 27, 2012. http://juliezickefoose.blogspot.com/2012/07/snapperfest-12-is-canceled.html 108 HumaneWatch Info. “ALERT: Stalker Targets Facebook Activists.” humanewatch.info blog, February 9, 2011. Accessed at http://humanewatch.info/blog/2011/02/09/alert-stalker/ 109 HumaneWatch Info. “Facebook Stalker Victims.” humanewatch.info blog, February 9, 2011. Accessed at http://humanewatch.info/blog/stalker-victims/ 110 HumaneWatch Info. “Hope You Guess My Name.” humanewatch.info blog, February 12, 2011. Accessed at http://humanewatch.info/blog/2011/02/12/guess-my-name/ 111 HumaneWatch Info. “Exit Stage Left.” humanewatch.info blog, February 26, 2011. Accessed at http://humanewatch.info/blog/2011/02/26/martosko-fall/ 112 Rothstein, Betsy. “The Daily Caller Hires Glee Club Conductor With Rap Sheet as New Executive Editor.” Fishbowl DC, July 20, 2011. Accessed at http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowldc/daily-caller-hires-glee-club- conductor-with-rap-sheet_b45079 113 Arquilla and Ronfeldt, pp. 7-10. 114 Bimber, Bruce. “The Internet and Political Transformation: Populism, Community, and Accelerated Pluralism.: Polity, 31(1), 1998, pp. 133-60. 115 Gladwell, “Small Change.” 116 Garrett, p. 17. 117 Earl, Jennifer, and Alan Schussman. “The New Site of Activism: Online Organizations, Movement Entrepreneurs, and the Changing Location of Social Movement Decision Making.” Research in Social Movements, Conflict, and Change, 24, 2003, pp. 155-87. 118 Beth Kanter and Allison H. Fine, The Networked Nonprofit: Connecting with Social Media to Drive Change. John Wiley and Sons, 2010, pp. 15-20. Cited in Joyce, “Activism, Repression, and ICT.” 119 See ***WORST ANIMAL CRUELTY CASE*** Conklin Dairy Farms in Ohio DEMAND JUSTICE NOW!!! at http://www.facebook.com/OhioFarmCruelty 120 See Free the Dogs in a Box at http://www.facebook.com/FreeTheDogsInABox 121 See Save Bill and Lou at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Save-Bill-and-Lou/371275146280425 122 Winograd, Nathan J. “About.” Nathan J. Winograd website, http://www.nathanwinograd.com/?page_id=4 123 No Kill Advocacy Center. “No Kill Equation.” Accessed at http://www.nokilladvocacycenter.org/shelter- reform/no-kill-equation/ 124 Winograd, Nathan J. Redemption: The Myth of Pet Overpopulation and the No Kill Revolution in America. Almaden Books, 2009. 125 Karel Minor, executive director of the Humane Society of Berks County, rebuts this argument in his own blog. Minor, Karel. “Do the Math.” HSBC blog, September 14, 2011. Accessed at http://berkshumane.net/blog/?p=506 126 Winograd, Nathan J. “The Butcher of Norfolk (6th Edition)”. Nathan J. Winograd blog, February 23, 2012. Accessed at http://www.nathanwinograd.com/?p=8651 127 Winograd, Nathan J. “The Indictment of Wayne Pacelle.” Nathan J. Winograd blog, August 9, 2011. Accessed at http://www.nathanwinograd.com/?p=6510 128 Winograd, Nathan J. “With Friends Like These.” Nathan J. Winograd blog, February 11, 2011. Accessed at http://www.nathanwinograd.com/?p=5038 129 Garrett, pp. 16-17. 130 Meier, Patrick. “My Thoughts on Gladwell’s Article in The New Yorker, Part 2.” iRevolution blog, October 10, 2010. Accessed at http://irevolution.net/2010/10/10/gladwell-part2/ 131 Pollan, Michael. “Power Steer.” The New York Times Magazine, March 31, 2002. Reprint accessed at http://michaelpollan.com/articles-archive/power-steer/

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132 Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. Penguin Press, 2007. 133 Schoenborn, Sara. “Troy and Stacy Hadrick: Advocates for agriculture.” Agri-View, November 18, 2011. Accessed at http://www.agriview.com/news/regional/troy-and-stacy-hadrick-advocates-for- agriculture/article_00143210-1232-11e1-8979-001cc4c002e0.html 134 “About.” The Truth About Agriculture. Accessed at https://www.facebook.com/TheTruthAboutAgriculture/info 135 AgChat Foundation. “About Us.” Accessed at http://agchat.org/about 136 AgChat Foundation. “Farmer Enthusiasm for Social Media Leads to Creation of the AgChat Foundation”. Press release, April 5, 2010. Accessed at http://agchat.org/news-media 137 Haley, Mike. “Agvocate or Agtivist?” Just Farmers blog, February 28, 2012. Accessed at http://www.justfarmers.biz/blog/2012/02/28/are-you-an-agvocate-or-agvitist/ 138 U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance. “About USFRA.” U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance website. Accessed at http://www.fooddialogues.com/about/what-are-the-food-dialogues/ 139 This year’s Food Dialogues takes place November 15, 2012. For details, see http://www.fooddialogues.com/ny- food-dialogues 140 Lappé, Anna. “Who’s Behind the U.S. Farmers & Ranchers Alliance and Why It Matters.” Civil Eats, September 23, 2011. Accessed at http://civileats.com/2011/09/23/who’s-behind-the-united-states-farmers-and-ranchers- alliance-and-why-it-matters/ 141 See https://www.facebook.com/USFarmersandRanchers 142 SourceWatch. “U.S. Farmers & Ranchers Alliance.” Accessed at http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=U.S._Farmers_%26_Ranchers_Alliance 143 Joyce, Mary, ibid. 144 Digital Activism Research Project. “The Project.” DARP website. Accessed at http://digital- activism.org/index.php/about/about-the-project/

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