How to Speak with Social Activists

How do you speak with social activists?

Local com­munit­ies or act­iv­ist groups have always spoken up when they see an organ­isa­tion step­ping over the line. Peaceful protests are vital signs of healthy democracies.

As a PR pro­fes­sion­al, I’ve helped many organ­isa­tions deal with angry pub­lics. It’s a per­fectly nat­ur­al part of our job description.

But lately, these attacks seem to have spir­alled out of proportion.

In this blog post, I’ll dis­cuss why social act­iv­ists are becom­ing a lar­ger and lar­ger PR threat in today’s amp­li­fied media land­scape — and how these social act­iv­ists ought to be addressed.

Here we go:

Social Activists = PR Problems

There have always been groups of people who speak out against brands. However, social act­iv­ists are becom­ing an even more severe PR prob­lem that seems to be grow­ing out of proportion.

But the play­ing field used to be more bal­anced. While organ­isa­tions are typ­ic­ally strong, the tra­di­tion­al media logic has always favoured social act­iv­ists as underdogs.

But when social media is com­bined with influ­en­tial soci­et­al trends of polit­ic­al cor­rect­ness, vir­tue sig­nalling, woke cap­it­al­ism, and post­mod­ern­ist iden­tity polit­ics, social act­iv­ists can grow their strength expo­nen­tially in hours.

And their attacks are often relent­less and unbal­anced. They use social media not as a plat­form for dia­logue but as a tool for coer­cing organ­isa­tions into compliance.

Where is this imbal­ance com­ing from?

Moral Slacktivism — Amplified

“Slacktivism (a port­manteau of slack­er and act­iv­ism) is the prac­tice of sup­port­ing a polit­ic­al or social cause by means such as social media or online peti­tions, char­ac­ter­ised as involving very little effort or com­mit­ment. Additional forms of slackt­iv­ism include enga­ging in online activ­it­ies such as ‘lik­ing,’ ‘shar­ing,’ or ‘tweet­ing’ about a cause on social media, sign­ing an Internet peti­tion, copy­ing and past­ing a status or mes­sage in sup­port of the cause, shar­ing spe­cif­ic hasht­ags asso­ci­ated with the cause, or alter­ing one’s pro­file photo or avatar on social net­work ser­vices to indic­ate solid­ar­ity.”
Source: Wikipedia ¹Slacktivism. (2023, November 7). In Wikipedia. https://​en​.wiki​pe​dia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​S​l​a​c​k​t​i​v​ism

“Why does­n’t your brand speak out against X?”

Anyone can tag a busi­ness on social media and hold it account­able for any­thing. And fel­low online act­iv­ists will quickly know how to tag along and whip up tensions.

Their author­ity stems from their pro­fess­ing mor­al superi­or­ity, which allows them to silence any­one who does­n’t share their polit­ic­al ideas. This is often referred to as “can­cel culture.”

How To Navigate Cancel Culture

“Cancel cul­ture or call-out cul­ture is a phrase con­tem­por­ary to the late 2010s and early 2020s used to refer to a form of ostra­cism in which someone is thrust out of social or pro­fes­sion­al circles — wheth­er it be online, on social media, or in per­son. Those sub­ject to this ostra­cism are said to have been ‘can­celled’.”
Source: Wikipedia ²Cancel cul­ture. (2023, January 4). In Wikipedia. https://​en​.wiki​pe​dia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​C​a​n​c​e​l​_​c​u​l​t​ure

The cul­ture war with de-plat­form­ing, can­cel cul­ture, online lynch mobs, woke journ­al­ism, pop­u­lism, fake news, and mor­al slackt­iv­ism are fast becom­ing our biggest chal­lenges as PR professionals.

“Cancel cul­ture on social media is a form of pub­lic sham­ing that aims to dif­fuse pub­lic dis­course and pro­mote tol­er­ance, but can also be viewed as a form of intol­er­ance against oppos­ing views.”
Source: Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities ³Velasco, J. (2020). You are Cancelled: Virtual Collective Consciousness and the Emergence of Cancel Culture as Ideological Purging. Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities, 12. … Continue read­ing

Focus On What Truly Matters

Here’s how to nav­ig­ate can­cel cul­ture as an organisation:

Learn more: Cancel Culture is Evil

De-platforming: An Anti-Democratic Strategy

“Deplatforming of extreme Internet celebrit­ies leads to increased use of Telegram and oth­er altern­at­ive social media plat­forms, impact­ing both their repu­ta­tion and crit­ic­al social media research.”
Source: European Journal of Communication ⁴Rogers, R. (2020). Deplatforming: Following extreme Internet celebrit­ies to Telegram and altern­at­ive social media. European Journal of Communication, 35, 213 — 229. … Continue read­ing

“College cam­puses have long grappled with the ques­tion of allow­ing con­tro­ver­sial speak­ers on cam­pus, but recent years have seen increas­ingly divis­ive pub­lic fig­ures invited and dis­in­vited, with being “deplat­formed” becom­ing a badge of hon­or for these pub­lic fig­ures.”
Source: Journal of Intellectual Freedom & Privacy ⁵McDowall, M. (2019). Hate Speech on Campus: Reframing the Discourse. Journal of Intellectual Freedom & Privacy. https://​doi​.org/​1​0​.​5​8​6​0​/​J​I​F​P​.​V​4​I​1​.​6​906

Rather than pro­pos­ing dia­logue or debate, online act­iv­ists tend to grav­it­ate toward mak­ing severe threats, demand­ing total con­form­ity, and organ­ising efforts to smear or deplat­form the brand and its spokespeople.

From a PR per­spect­ive, social act­iv­ists seem to resort to increas­ingly more anti-demo­crat­ic meas­ures to coerce brands into total obedience.

“Deplatforming, also known as no-plat­form­ing, has been defined as an ‘attempt to boy­cott a group or indi­vidu­al through remov­ing the plat­forms (such as speak­ing ven­ues or web­sites) used to share inform­a­tion or ideas, or ‘the action or prac­tice of pre­vent­ing someone hold­ing views regarded as unac­cept­able or offens­ive from con­trib­ut­ing to a for­um or debate, espe­cially by block­ing them on a par­tic­u­lar web­site’.”
Source: Wikipedia ⁶Deplatforming. (2023, January 8). In Wikipedia. https://​en​.wiki​pe​dia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​D​e​p​l​a​t​f​o​r​m​ing

The Spiral of Silence Theory

Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann’s (1916 – 2010) well-doc­u­mented the­ory on the spir­al of silence (1974) explains why the fear of isol­a­tion due to peer exclu­sion will pres­sure pub­lics to silence their opinions.

The the­ory was developed in the late 1970s in West Germany, partly in response to Noelle-Neumann’s obser­va­tions of how pub­lic opin­ion seemed to shift dur­ing the Nazi régime and post-war Germany.

The spir­al of silence the­ory is based on the idea that people fear social isol­a­tion. This fear influ­ences their will­ing­ness to express their opin­ions, espe­cially if they believe these opin­ions are in the minority.

Rather than risk­ing social isol­a­tion, many choose silence over express­ing their opinions.

As the dom­in­ant coali­tion stands unop­posed, they push the con­fines of what’s accept­able down a nar­row­er and nar­row­er fun­nel, the so-called opin­ion cor­ridor). ⁷Opinion cor­ridor. (2023, April 8). In Wikipedia. https://​en​.wiki​pe​dia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​O​p​i​n​i​o​n​_​c​o​r​r​i​dor

Noelle-Neumann emphas­ised the medi­a’s role in shap­ing pub­lic per­cep­tion of what opin­ions are dom­in­ant or pop­u­lar, thus influ­en­cing the spir­al of silence. 

Populism and Cancel Culture

The mech­an­isms behind Elisabeth Noelle Neumann’s spir­al of silence the­ory could fuel destruct­ive soci­et­al phe­nom­ena like pop­u­lism and can­cel culture:

In both cases, the spir­al of silence con­trib­utes to a polar­ised envir­on­ment. Views become dom­in­ant not neces­sar­ily because they are more pop­u­lar but because oppos­ing views are not expressed due to fear of social isol­a­tion or repercussions.

Learn more: The Spiral of Silence

Freedom of Speech is a Two-Way Street

In a demo­cracy, all organ­isa­tions must be open to cri­ti­cism — how­ever unpleas­ant or unsubstantiated.

Freedom of speech is a pil­lar of PR as well. Whenever the man­age­ment of an organ­isa­tion is under heavy fire and they’re try­ing to hide, escape, or deflect, the PR func­tion is there to pro­mote trans­par­ency and pub­lic action.

PR has this func­tion, not due to mor­al high ground but because pro­mot­ing open­ness in adversity is good for busi­ness. If an organ­isa­tion fails to adapt to neg­at­ive feed­back, the prob­lems don’t dis­ap­pear. Hence, open­ness is neces­sary for survival.

However, the basic prin­ciples of free­dom of speech also apply to social act­iv­ists. Self-pro­claimed mor­al superi­or­ity should­n’t jus­ti­fy anti-demo­crat­ic and dis­pro­por­tion­al attacks on organisations.

But some­times, it seems that it does.

Too Woke — or Not Woke Enough

With CSR issues becom­ing increas­ingly import­ant, brands must find strategies to deal with social activists.

Arik C. Hanson, the PR blog­ger, writes:

“[…] we’ve seen numer­ous reports from vendors and agen­cies like Edelman telling us 1 in every 2 cus­tom­ers is a ‘belief-driv­en buy­er.’ And, of those buy­ers, 65% will not buy from a brand because they stayed silent on an issue it had an oblig­a­tion to address.”

So, how do we nav­ig­ate the jungle of mor­al issues?

A com­mon brand strategy, albeit insig­ni­fic­ant, is to wait and see which issues become press­ing enough to war­rant action. 

At best, such a strategy is oppor­tun­ist­ic and cal­lous. If you choose this route, the media will expose your brand to accus­a­tions of piggy­back­ing on the social agenda. Being too woke is just as bad as not being woke enough.

It back­fired when Gillette came out in front of ongo­ing gender dis­cus­sions by sham­ing them­selves and their cus­tom­er base for being per­pet­rat­ors of tox­ic mas­culin­ity.

I would­n’t recom­mend brands make it their busi­ness to inform adults how they should live their lives. I would recom­mend more focused CSR activ­it­ies instead.

Opting to score points by going for the mor­al high ground is risky. Opting to please social act­iv­ists while dis­reg­ard­ing the busi­ness strategy is mad­ness.

Moral Pragmatism: Diversity of Ideas

Social reforms are com­plex by nature.

Whilst both the news media and the social algorithms are pref­er­en­tial to por­tray­ing con­flicts as hav­ing only two polar oppos­ite sides, the real­ity of social change is bet­ter under­stood as a spectrum.

A brand could be super pro­gress­ive by design, but it must remem­ber that its cowork­ers might have vari­ous polit­ic­al per­sua­sions. Diversity is good — also when it comes to polit­ic­al ideas.

Should brands sit down every morn­ing to review all poten­tial social issues and ask, “Where do we stand on this par­tic­u­lar issue?” Should a social policy team spend days draft­ing pos­sible responses while con­tinu­ously updat­ing a grow­ing lib­rary of documents? 

Well, maybe they should. But for most brands, this type of setup would be fin­an­cially impossible. Irresponsible, even.

There must be a way, right?

Teaching Brands to Speak Human

“How hard can it be to stand up against injustice?” someone might ask. 

As humans, we’ve evolved to com­mu­nic­ate with each oth­er, not with abstrac­tions. This is why we tend to human­ise brands, to think of a brand as a liv­ing entity with a mind of its own. In pub­lic rela­tions, we human­ise brands for this exact reason.

But while an organ­isa­tion is not “human” in any sense, it must still be taught to imper­son­ate a human being.

And make no mis­take about it: 

Getting an organ­isa­tion to “speak human” with many unique indi­vidu­als is challenging. 

So, how should a com­munity man­ager respond to social act­iv­ists online?

The Stoic Tonality

An organ­isa­tion is the poly­phon­ic sum of all its cowork­ers. Imagine extract­ing each cowork­er­’s most vir­tu­ous and mature traits and com­bin­ing them into one voice — the Stoic tonality.

Stoic Tonality Examples

“Why does­n’t your brand speak out against indus­tri­al over­fish­ing killing our oceans?”

“As a com­pany that sells fish­ing gear, we want our oceans — and all anim­als and plants liv­ing in them! — to be healthy and plen­ti­ful. We, too, were dis­turbed by the recent news of over­fish­ing. How could any­one not be? We now ask ourselves, how can our com­pany make more of a dif­fer­ence? Honestly, we’re dis­cuss­ing our strategy for sus­tain­ab­il­ity every day. I can­not say how or when we might take spe­cif­ic action regard­ing this latest news, but rest assured that we’re tak­ing the gen­er­al issue of sav­ing our oceans seriously.”

“Why does­n’t your brand engage in Black Lives Matter?”

“As for right now, we’re listen­ing. We’re listen­ing to the stor­ies being told. We’re listen­ing to under­stand bet­ter how we can learn and grow as a com­pany. As for inclus­ive­ness and human rights in gen­er­al, we think we’re doing a great job, and part of that is to stay open and care­fully listen to people’s stor­ies. We might take spe­cif­ic actions, but we’re listen­ing and learning.”

“Why does­n’t your brand join our protests against tox­ic mas­culin­ity and the pat­ri­archy?”

“Honestly, we’re a product com­pany. We make products for any­one who likes them. And I dare say that we’re experts in mak­ing these products. However, we’re not experts on ideo­lo­gies or soci­et­al struc­tures. So, for now, we listen. And we con­tin­ue to focus on mak­ing the best products that we can. For every­one. We believe that’s our best way of con­trib­ut­ing at this point.”

“Why does­n’t your brand sign our peti­tion to boy­cott all com­pan­ies on our Environmental Black List?”

“As a com­pany, we oper­ate dif­fer­ently. Instead of sign­ing peti­tions or par­ti­cip­at­ing in oth­er pub­lic demon­stra­tions, we take action with­in our sphere of influ­ence. And I dare say that our many envir­on­ment­al ini­ti­at­ives are mak­ing a lot of dif­fer­ence world­wide rel­at­ive to our size and reach. If we were to sign your peti­tion, we would first have to use our resources to research the legit­im­acy of its cre­at­ors and then make sure that none of the com­pan­ies on that list is being wrong­fully accused. While it would be pos­sible, we’ve decided that we can do more good by dir­ect­ing our resources to where we can make the most difference.”

“Why does­n’t your com­pany act against your female employ­ees who take time off for abor­tions?”

“All our employ­ees are grown-ups, and what they do on their own time is frankly none of our busi­ness. We’re a large com­pany, and we have employ­ees who are pro-life and pro-choice. We believe we have a work­place where people can have dif­fer­ent opin­ions but still respect each oth­er and work well together.”

“Why has­n’t your com­pany offered your thoughts and pray­ers for the vic­tims and their fam­il­ies of the school shoot­ing?”

“The vic­tims and their fam­il­ies have our empath­ies, of course. I speak for every­one work­ing at our com­pany when I say we were dev­ast­ated by the news as every­one else. But you’re right that we haven’t pos­ted any status updates about the shoot­ing on our Facebook page. It’s not that we don’t care (we do!), it’s just that we focus our updates on our products and ser­vices and how they make a pos­it­ive dif­fer­ence in the world.”

Learn more: The Stoic Tonality