ABSTRACT
Activists often use many public relations strategies and tactics, including information tactics, to build influence and power. Ronald Mitchell, Bradley Agle, and Donna Wood used the interesting analogy of “annoying mosquitoes” to describe activists. Researcher Timothy Rowley has shown how activists gain power from coalition building within the organization’s stakeholder networks. Activist websites and social media can play an important role in developing the activist group’s legitimacy within the organization’s stakeholder network. Resources such as time, energy, and some money are needed to keep the cause alive while building power and influence, and activists must be creative; they have to develop new ways to share the problem they are trying to solve. The issue of power or the negotiation of power is at the center of a debate among public relations theorists who are grappling with how to fit today’s activism into public relations theory.
