Mobilizing strategies for environmental change

In recent years, there has been shift in the ways in which people support charities and non-profits. While environmental groups and non governmental organizations (NGO) earlier depended on traditional media and grassroots campaigns to get their messages heard, nowadays social media offers an additional distribution method for their messages. However, up to now, the potential of online activism to bring about social or political change has been debated. Advocates contend its positive contribution to participatory democracy. Critics however, deride it as being so-called “slacktivist” activity that bear minimal societal gain. The term ‘slacktivist’ is often used by critical scholars and practitioners who describe a new type of activist whose participation solely entails partaking online and whose activity bear minimal societal gain. As the act of ‘slacktivism’ becomes more and more commonplace, there is much concern amongst charities and non-profits that this would conflict with or even replace traditional forms of activism or political participation, such as donating money or partaking in a rally or protest. This study contributes to this discussion amongst scholars and practitioners by analyzing the mobilizing effects of efficacy messages on behavioral intent of environmental political participation. The positive mobilizing effects of efficacy messages on political participation have been discussed in the literature; however, minimal attention has been given to its specific effects on environmental political participation. By means of an online experiment with a Dutch national sample (N = 215), this study examines whether a fear-inducing or efficacy (internal, external, response) frame in (newspaper) messages is a better predictor for environmental political participation. Furthermore, the mediating effects of three discrete emotions (hope, fear, and anger) and the moderating effects of being considered a mere slacktivist or activist are included in the conceptual model. The findings of this study indicate that emotions fear and anger have a positive effect on environmental political participation. When evaluating the effect of efficacy information on environmental political participation, it appeared that such messaging had no significant effect on perceived efficacy. Yet, the most important finding of this study is the existence of an indirect mediation effect, meaning that the experiment reduces fear but then the reduction in fear overall reduces participation level, despite fear’s positive contribution towards participation. Moreover, this indirect mediation effect only happened significantly for slacktivists. The results of this study can serve as a foundation for future studies that aim to research the effectiveness of efficacy information and emotions on environmental political participation. As well as for practitioners in the field of environmental communication in their mobilization strategies.