Fuelling the Subsidized Public: Mapping the Flow of Extractivist Content on Facebook

Abstract

Background: This article explores the Facebook communications of Canadian oil and gas advocacy organizations, including industry-funded and nominally independent groups. Analysis: These groups are analyzed as producers of “subsidized publics,” with elites providing supporters with resources that enable them to take political action on industry's behalf. A social network analysis maps how they link supporters with information from diverse sources, constructing networked publics whose members can recirculate pro-industry talking points. Conclusions and implications: These communications enact powerful forms of network-making power, programming an interconnected echo chamber that interfaces supporters with material from neoliberal extractivist discourse coalitions-networks of industry advocates that industry has itself helped cultivate over decades.