2010 - Public Relations Society of America

those dedicated specifically for communications roles, combined with other staff having
significant communication responsibilities. CTFK works towards a goal of reducing tobacco use
and its harmful effects through changing public attitude and public policies on tobacco
(Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, 2009b) by influencing policy makers, the tobacco industry,
and voters to create changes. Since 1996, CTFK has been advocating, educating, empowering,
mobilizing, and assisting others by advancing policy development, distributing research, funding
organizations, speaking out, and other methods (Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, 2009a).
CTFK has worked to accomplish its goals including tobacco tax increases at the state and
national levels, advising negotiations leading to the Master Settlement Agreement between the
states and tobacco companies, supporting legislation for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
to regulate tobacco, and shaping laws that created smoke-free workplaces including bars and
restaurants (Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, 2009a). As a well-organized, consistently funded,
and accomplished activist group, CTFK provides a depth of information that can be studied.
Literature Review
Activists
As defined by Grunig, Grunig, and Dozier (2002) “an activist public is a group of two or
more individuals who organize in order to influence another public or publics through action that
may include education, compromise, persuasion, pressure tactics or force” (p. 446). This
comprehensive definition presents who the activists are, individuals that have come together on a
common topic or issue, and what they are trying to do, influence other publics to support a
similar viewpoint and invigorate a target audience to become active members of the public.
Many times, public relations professionals and theorists view activists as the “enemy,”
even though the activists may only have an alternate view from the organization. This viewpoint
of the “enemy” has been expressed such as when Mintzberg stated that activism is a problem for
organizations (1983, as cited in Grunig et al., 2002). Grunig et al. state that a fear of some
organizations is being “taken hostage” by activist groups because they do not fully understand
the activist public (p. 446). Grunig et al. even call activist publics “belligerent groups” (p. 447).
Activists tend to be considered threats to organizations, specifically corporations, because
of the effects they have by creating disruptions and refocusing attention on specific issues that
the organization does not want to address (Smith, 1997 as cited in Smith & Ferguson, 2001). The
conflicting relationships between corporations and activists have been studied: between AIDS
activists and Merck pharmaceuticals (Taylor, Vazquez & Doorley, 2003); a tobacco control
activist organization’s public relation efforts in Colorado against Philip Morris (Rubin & Stokes,
2006); and analysis of the relationship between Greenpeace and Dupont (Murphy & Dee, 1996).
Recently, there has been a growing trend to view activists as individual public relations
practitioners (e.g., Dozier & Lauzen, 2000; Holtzhausen, 2007; Holtzhausen & Voto, 2002;
Taylor, Kent, &White, 2001). “Activists are not just publics of an organization” (Aldoory & Sha,
2007, p. 352), but activists are organized entities. There has been an increasing scholarly interest
in activist organizations, “but it has not kept up with the increasing importance of activists on
public policy and advocacy efforts” (Aldoory & Sha, 2007, p. 352). Smith and Ferguson (2001)
put forth the idea that activist organizations are organized, use strategic communication to
achieve their organizational goals, and engage in public relations practices.
Much of the current research has contrasted activist publics and other organizations,
leading to a significant amount of the research comparing and measuring activists against
corporate standards (e.g., Reber & Kim, 2006; Simmons, 2003; Zoch, Collins, Sisco, & Supa,
2008). Although it is acknowledged that activists are unique entities, the studies analyzed the
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