2010 - Public Relations Society of America

Excellence in an Activist Organization: A Case Study of Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids
Beth A. Kuch
University of Maryland
bkuch@umd.edu
Abstract
In response to a call to develop more research on the public relation activities of activist
organizations, this study uses case study methodology to evaluate the practices of the Campaign
for Tobacco-Free Kids (CTFK). In addition to the theoretical understanding, this case study
presents valuable lessons for other activist organization in how to develop a successful
communication campaign to accomplish changing policies and social norms. It utilizes six
interviews with executive level management and content analysis of 61 organizational documents
and 124 media stories. The study finds that CTFK demonstrates many concepts of the excellence
theory, while also providing unique insights into an activist organization such as the usage of
advocate versus activist and having an organization solely focused on communicating
information instead of providing services or selling a product. This leads to the determination
that additional theory building needs to be developed around activist organizations and how they
accomplish their goals and relate to other organizations.
Each year thousands of laws are passed at the federal, state, and local levels. Activists
play a large role in working to create policy and social norm changes through influencing others
(Grunig, Grunig, & Dozier, 2002). Yet the concept of activists in public relations literature is
relatively limited to activists creating conflict or comparing activist and corporate strategies. This
limited viewpoint does not take into account the valuable social contributions activists provide.
Why are activists not being looked at as an individual type of organization? Although
there is interest in activists it has been fairly limited because they tend to be harder to identify
because there is not a standard structure, there are less of them than corporations, and they may
be stigma attached to the organizations. The activist organization needs to be examined and
studied on its own (Dozier & Lauzen, 2000), not in comparison to corporations or lumped
together with nonprofits to determine unique contributions to the field of communication through
evaluating the activist’s merits, skills and methodology. If public relations scholars do not study
activist organizations, many changes in our society including passage of laws and altering of
social norms will not be fully understood. Dozier and Lauzen (2000) proposed that “it would be
more interesting to study social movements to see how they differ from other types of publics,
how they are not adequately accommodated by existing public relations theory” (p. 9).
The excellence theory was set out as an example of best practices and believed to apply
to all public relations organizations (Grunig & Grunig, 2009). This case study provides a look at
whether an activist organization possesses the attributes of an excellent public relations
organization. The research provides a case study using interviews and content analysis of the
primary activist organization in tobacco control, the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids (CTFK).
This study looks at how CTFK has accomplished influencing law changes and developing a
social movement around tobacco control issues through public relations.
Organization
The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids (CTFK) is the only national level tobacco control
activist organization and is recognized as the top tobacco issues advocacy organization. They
were founded on the principals of communication and have a staff of over 90 people with 10 of
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