Social Media Campaign Analysis | Richard Telofski on "The War on Capitalism"

Is Greenpeace Research Reliable?

Two weeks ago Greenpeace launched their “Caught Red-Handed” campaign with a report of the same name. The issuance of the report was supported by a simultaneous social media campaign against Nestlé. These events were well-documented in the blogosphere and in the mainstream media. I summarized the situation in my blog post titled “The Kit Kat Incident and an Abuse of Power,” and you may go to that article for a synopsis if you are unfamiliar with this incident.

The subject of today’s post is the report itself, “Caught Red-Handed,” or rather the research integrity thereof. If you go to the report, which you may do by clicking here, and turn to page 13 (page 8 on the PDF version) you will see Greenpeace’s “Sources of Evidence” page. Or, as it would be more commonly called, the Bibliography. On this page of listed sources, Greenpeace shows a total of 73 sources. If you read through those sources, you will find that fully 22 of those sources are from Greenpeace documents or files. This means that 30% of the total sources used in this report were internal, and not of a diversified and external nature.

When I attended graduate school, I was instructed that, in performing research, a researcher should not use their own work as references in a research paper. And if doing so was absolutely, positively necessary, then reference to that researcher’s own work should be employed very, very sparingly. The reason against a researcher not using their own research in subsequent papers is obvious. The more diversified research sourcing is, the stronger is the research argument. “In-bred” references only weaken a case.

Is 30% a “sparing” employment of internal sourcing? Does 30% internal sourcing in “Caught Red-Handed” weaken the study’s argument? I suppose that depends on your point of view. My view is that 30% internal sourcing is highly excessive, and seeing that high of a percentage in this Greenpeace report makes me call into question the integrity of their research and, consequently, the validity of the Greenpeace argument presented in “Caught Red-Handed.”

Is this a case of being “caught red-handed” in an issue of reliable and fair research?

You know my opinion; you’re certainly entitled to yours.

Collateral Damage in The Kit Kat Incident?

Here is another thought regarding The Kit Kat Incident, about which I blogged earlier today. So far in the blogosphere, or in the mainstream media, I haven’t seen this concern raised as yet.

Greenpeace’s argument over palm oil and image attack on Nestlé has been tactically oriented toward the Kit Kat bar. (Please see my previous post, “The Kit Kat Incident and an Abuse of Power,” for a synopsis of this direct action/PR event.) Nestlé produces the Kit Kat bar internationally, but Nestlé does not produce the Kit Kat bar in the United States. In America, the Kit Kat bar is produced by Hershey who, at least at the time of this writing, is not being targeted by Greenpeace.

Greenpeace has not made this distinction abundantly clear. Yes, they did note this difference on their initial call-to-action page. But their notation was extremely tiny, brief, and at the bottom of the page. And in subsequent Greenpeace Web sites posts and actions in social media, I am hard-pressed to find further references to this distinction between Nestlé and Hershey as it relates to the production of the Kit Kat bar. Clearly, this situation represents a business threat to Hershey.

So, this situation begs four questions:

Concerning Hershey, is this a responsible way to conduct an anti-corporate direct action?
In the form of lost sales, will there be “collateral damage” against Hershey, who at this point in the protest appears to be an innocent by-stander?
If there is collateral damage, will it form a basis of legal action against Greenpeace?
And if a legal basis is formed, will Hershey pursue it?

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

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