Promoting Practices: How Activists Employ Online Tactics to Promote Energy Efficiency

This research combines institutional and social movement theory to explore and describe how social movement organizations use online tactics to promote new institutional norms. The research setting for the current research is the Dutch environmental movement. The process of an online campaign of the HIER Climate Organization is studied. A case study is conducted at the Klimaatstraatfeest (Climate Street Festival) campaign. Using a process approach, the empirical results depict the organization of an online competition in which the social movement organization, participants, and market parties collaborate to promote energy efficiency. The findings provide insights into how the social movement uses online collective action tactics, and illustrate how framing processes and mobilization structures are digitally equipped to engage participants and market parties to promote a new institution. Furthermore, the empirical evidence shows how pragmatic arguments and incentive structures are important to gather support from the audience for an abstract cause such as climate change. The findings stress the strategic importance of choosing tactics for institutional change. Moreover, the case highlights the importance of tactics for mass participation in order to persuade and motivate both consumers and businesses to adapt their attitude towards sustainability