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methods at the other end of the country, but when things operate in this matter it is difficult to get a comprehensive pic-
ture. Unless serious research uncovers this type of strategies.

Aggressive PR-campaigns can create a climate for violent attacks. In the United States the constant promotion and use of
the term ecoterrorist by anti-environmentals set up a fear dynamic. It makes the police and private security firms begin to
worry. It sets the stage for counter-action and makes anti-environmental violence seem like an acceptable response. It is
impossible to quantify the specific level of violence against environmental activists in America, because violence is de-
signed to silence. There will be hundreds of acts of intimidation that will go unreported because they have succeeded their
aim, simple intimidation to ‘chill’ the person concerned. It is mainly grassroots activists, miles from the safety of big cities
who are suffering the most. The majority of these activists are women, who are involved in local environmental problems.
Activists who live in remote areas or in blighted neighbourhoods are also singled out for attack. Furthermore, the support
these ‘front-line’ activists are receiving from the mainstream environmental movement has been verging on non-existent.
Not speaking out against violence isolates people making it safer to attack them.

WHAT CAN BE DONE TO DIMINISH THE EFFECTS OF THESE COUNTER-STRATEGIES?

Knowledge of corporate PR strategies may help activists and concerned citizens to recognise manipulative strategies and
distinguish them from industry behaviour that is truly indicative of change. This kind of awareness places activists and cit-
izens in a better position to counter such strategies. Action groups could set up public data banks on persons involved in
‘two-step-communication’ (the use of third parties) ‘front organisations’ and on corporate-instituted ‘grass root organisa-
tions’. They could try to expose publicly the most influential or consciously-manipulative persons or organisations through
their own publications and, if possible, through other media. They could institute an annual competition for the best ‘cor-
porate camouflage' of the year (similar to existing awards for the 'top polluter, for instance).

The Counter-strategies panel should try to develop a ‘strategic’ focus on corporate communication: what specific tools are
being developed as a response to a changing society and to the particularities of new media? How has communication
evolved to fit in with modern society and values?

For this purpose an insight into the Monsanto 1998 PR campaign will be presented, from a PR consultant's point of view.
New strategic tools in bio-tech communication will be analysed: targeting children, the ‘informed decision’ and the use of
invisible corporations. The aim should be fitting in with campaigners’ experiences in order to stimulate debate on ideas on
how communication may be used by activists both as a tool in itself (strategic information exchange) as well as means of
better understanding and following corporate strategies.

Tactical research is a most important hidden weapon of activists. Not only should they investigate acts of violence and
more serious attacks to expose the disinterest of the law enforcement authorities. The ‘green private investigator’ speak-
ing at the N5M panel also teaches how to research corporations’ practices by following the right leads.

Let's not forget that most corporations still see the use of new media as a threat to which they don't know how to respond.
Online communities are developing as well as horizontal communications. Companies tend only to think about vertical com-
munications - pushing out brand messages and treating consumers as if they exist in a vacuum. The lesson that brand own-
ers are about to learn, is that the web is an increasingly powerful cultural phenomenon. As long as they have not yet all de-
veloped sophisticated communications tactics for their fiercest critics, there remains some room to play. Let's use it. Now!

The Counter-strategy panel: Helen Holder is working at the Monsanto Round Up campaign, a project of ASeed-Europe
based in Amsterdam. As a former PR-consultant she is specialised in corporate strategies. Sheila O'Donnel, the ‘green PI’
investigates violence against environmentalists in the USA, and teaches activists in tactical research. Claudia Peter, au-
thor of Deckmantel Okologie, about astroturf strategies in Germany is researching lobbying strategies at a local level in
Germany and at a high-level in Brussels. Andy Rowell, author of Green Backlash, Global Subversion of the Environmental
Movement. He is specialised in corporate PR and the strategies being used by companies (Monsanto and Shell) against
activists. Host: Eveline Lubbers has been monitoring police and secret services since the eighties, supporting activist

TTF