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Article

Can Digital Activism Change Sustainable Supply Chain Practices in the Agricultural Bioeconomy? Evidence from #Buttergate

by
Hamish van der Ven
Department of Wood Science, Faculty of Forestry, University of British Columbia, 4644—2424 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada
Appl. Sci. 2024, 14(24), 11893; https://doi.org/10.3390/app142411893
Submission received: 29 November 2024 / Revised: 12 December 2024 / Accepted: 17 December 2024 / Published: 19 December 2024
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainability and Green Supply Chain Management in Industrial Fields)
Browse Figures
Figure 1
<p>Contributors to #buttergate by number of followers.</p> "> Figure 2
<p>Twitter activity and media coverage of #buttergate 12 February 2021–1 February 2022.</p> "> Figure 3
<p>Diversity of key terms mentioned in #buttergate.</p> ">
Versions Notes

Abstract

:
Under what conditions will digital activism elicit a response from industry? What is the nature of that response and how does it impact sustainable supply chain practices? I develop three hypotheses in response to these questions by examining a recent case of digital activism targeted at the use of a controversial bioproduct in the Canadian dairy industry. Drawing on 14 key informant interviews as well as a novel Twitter dataset, I hypothesize that digital activism can elicit a response from industry when it originates with a small number of activists, provided that it also spreads to traditional media. I further hypothesize that industry’s response will be superficial and result in only token changes to sustainable supply chain practices due to the ephemerality and lack of cohesion inherent in some forms of digital activism. These hypotheses lay a foundation for broader cross-sectoral research on how industries respond to digital activism directed at their supply chains and add nuance to ongoing debates about the efficacy of digital activism as a means of changing industry practices.

1. Introduction

As societal expectations for responsible business conduct continue to grow, a growing amount of activism has moved online [1,2]. Alternately termed digitally native activism [2], cyber activism [3], clicktivism [4], hacktivism [5], or ‘e-mobilization’ [1], activism on social media platforms like Twitter or Instagram has increased exponentially in recent years as users attempt to pressure individuals, businesses, or political organizations into taking action on social, environmental, or ethical issues [6,7,8]. Hereforth, I use the term ‘digital activism’—defined as social activism mediated through digital technologies [5,9]—to conceptualize the full spectrum of activism targeting industries that occurs on social media.
Digital activism spans industrial sectors and issue areas. It can be directed at a single company (e.g., #BoycottNestle) or targeted at an entire industry (e.g., #DairyIsScary). The potential inherent in digital activism lies in its ability to ripple up supply chains and across national borders. For example, activism targeted at large palm oil buyers in Europe and North America (e.g., Unilever) can affect how palm oil is grown and harvested in countries like Indonesia and Malaysia.
While the prevalence and potential of digital activism are widely accepted, its effectiveness is hotly debated [10,11]. Proponents of digital activism see it as a continuation of activism by other means but with the advantage of reducing the costs of participating in collective action [12,13,14]. Proponents would further argue that social media can influence behaviour more quickly due to its greater velocity, reach, and emotionality when compared with traditional activism [15,16]. By contrast, skeptics deride digital activism as a superficial and ineffective substitute for conventional activism (i.e., “slacktivism”) [17,18]. They contend that digital activism lacks the unity of purpose and strong inter-activist linkages required to create cohesive and durable social movements [19,20].
This paper intervenes in this debate by asking under what conditions will digital activism elicit a response from industry? What is the nature of that response and how does it impact sustainable supply chain practices? It does so through an in-depth examination of an illustrative case within the broader landscape of digital activism. The case in question examines the use of a contentious bioproduct (palm oil derivatives) as a feed supplement by the Canadian dairy industry. The incident is colloquially referred to as #buttergate. #Buttergate emerged in early 2021 when social media users observed that their butter was harder than usual at room temperature. Subsequently, these same social media users hypothesized that palm oil derivatives were causing the change in butter and took aim at the Canadian dairy industry for fueling deforestation and biodiversity loss in Southeast Asia. I analyze the timing, provenance, and content of an original dataset of 2461 tweets and conduct 14 key informant interviews to understand how #buttergate started, what conditions were present, and what response and changes to sustainable supply chain practices it prompted from the Canadian dairy industry.
This topic is timely because little is known about how industries respond to digital activism. Below, I argue that industry-focused digital activism has different characteristics than activism targeting firms or individuals and, consequently, may be more disordered and ephemeral. Thus, responses to industry-focused activism can be more selective and superficial. Given that the existing state of knowledge about how digital activism affects industries is sparse, this paper abductively develops a series of three hypotheses about the characteristics and effects of industry-focused digital activism that can serve as a starting point for research in other industrial sectors. H1 predicts that digital activists must be well-connected within and outside of social media to elicit a response from industry. H2 anticipates that digital activists who attract traditional media attention (e.g., print, radio, and television) will be more likely to elicit a response from industry. H3 predicts that industry responses to digital activism will be more superficial and selective due to the diverse, overlapping, contradictory, and ephemeral demands on social media. As a result, digital activism seldom produces significant changes to sustainable supply chain practices. Taken together, these hypotheses add nuance to existing knowledge about the conditions under which industry-focused digital activism can provoke a response.
I proceed as follows. First, I survey the extant literature on digital activism and industry responses to activism to define core concepts and build a foundation for abductive hypothesis development. Second, I describe my research design, case selection, methods, and data for this paper. Third, I provide a brief description and timeline of my focal case: #buttergate. Fourth, I outline three hypotheses that integrate existing knowledge with observations from my data. Fifth, I conclude by discussing implications for both theory and practice and outlining an agenda for future research.

2. Trends and Gaps in Digital Activism Research

Digital activism as a field of research has been expanding in recent years, yet there remains little cross-pollination between disciplines. On one hand, there is a thriving community of scholars in sociology and media and communications studies who tend to focus on the characteristics of digital activism that may render it influential or otherwise [1,2,9,21,22,23]. On the other hand, there is a vibrant group of business and management scholars who tend to focus on the conditions under which individual firms may choose to react to digital activist pressure [24,25,26]. At the intersection of this Venn diagram are a handful of scholars who consider how characteristics of digital activism interact with specific facets of target firms [19,27,28,29]. This paper attempts to further bridge these two groups of scholars by examining both the characteristics of digital activism that shape industry responses as well as the unique features of industry that make it susceptible (or not) to online pressure.

2.1. Features of Industry That Condition the Response to Digital Activism

This paper departs from the extant literature in terms of its unit of analysis. Whereas most of the existing literature considers how digital activism impacts individual firms, scant research has examined responses to digital activism from industries as a whole [30]. Yet, there are a number of good reasons to believe that industries might respond differently to digital activism than individual firms. These reasons centre around the nature of the demands imposed by digital activism, the materiality of the threat posed by industry-wide campaigns, and the capacity of industries to respond to activist demands.
First, we can reasonably assume that digital activists may seek different types of change from industries than they would from individual firms. As den Hond and de Bakker [31] note, activists may alternately seek field-level change or organization-specific change, both of which have unique tactical repertoires. Digital activism directed at industries often focuses on broader, industry-wide practices that can be more difficult to address. For example, Extinction Rebellion’s #DefundClimateChaos campaign asks the financial industry to stop lending money to fossil fuel projects. Fulfilling this demand would necessitate major changes to lending practices at financial institutions around the world. By contrast, digital activism directed at specific firms can make more targeted demands (i.e., remove a problematic CEO or stop sourcing raw material from a bad supplier). Thus, explanations for how industries and firms respond to digital activism must allow for the possibility that the nature of the demands varies in accordance with the target.
Second, there is the question of the material and reputational risk posed by digital activism. The risk of digital activism to the reputation of individual firms can be acute [27]. However, it is not clear that industry-focused activism consistently poses the same material or reputational threat. When industries are targeted with digital activism, the risk is diffused risk across all firms within that industry. Thus, industries arguably have more leverage to ignore activists, allow their members to point the finger at their competitors, or await unilateral firm-level responses. For example, the global outrage over the killing of Cecil the Lion by trophy hunters did nothing to slow the trophy hunting industry as a whole [19]. Thus, industry responses to digital activism may differ from firm responses because industries may face different pressures to respond.
Third, industries have a different capacity to respond to digital activism when compared to individual firms. Past research has established that smaller firms are more responsive to stakeholder pressure than larger ones [32]. Part of the reason for this lies in the complexity of decision-making structures. Smaller firms have more simplified decision-making structures than larger ones [33]. Following this logic, industry associations and other representative bodies have more complicated decision-making structures since they have to represent the interests of a heterogeneous group of members. Even if a majority of members support a particular response, there remains an implementation problem. An industry association or individual firm can endorse a particular course of action but ultimately has little leverage to compel its members to follow that course of action. Thus, we might expect industries and industry associations to respond differently than firms to digital activism because they lack the coherent and unilateral decision-making authority of individual firms.
While industries share certain common features, it is worth noting that not all industries will respond similarly to digital activism. There may be significant variation between industries depending on their degree of unity, level of fluency with social media, and capacity to engage with activists. Past research has found that organizations that are able to improvise quickly in response to digital activism experience less damage to operations and reputation than those who are slow to improvise [5]. Thus, an industry with a well-resourced, technologically proficient, and responsive associative body may be more capable of mounting an immediate response that limits the need for broader changes than otherwise. The task of differentiating between industries is an important area for future research.

2.2. Characteristics of Digital Activism That Condition Industry Responses

If distinctions between industries and individual firms provide a starting point for hypothesizing on when and how industries respond to digital activism, then the differences between digital and traditional activism provide a further foundation for hypothesis building. Indeed, the question of how digital activism differs from ‘traditional’ activism is at the core of the digital activism research agenda. Key distinctions between the two types of activism are outlined in Table 1. If digital activism is activism mediated by digital technologies, then traditional activism can be defined as groups of people coming together in a primarily offline setting to act for a common interest or shared beliefs [5,34]. Both are forms of social activism wherein groups of people voice concerns and take action in response to pressing social issues [5]. However, significant differences distinguish traditional and digital activism. The first distinction concerns who participates. Extant research finds that digital activism can be orchestrated by a smaller group of people using fewer resources, tends to engage a younger demographic, and affords a greater opportunity for marginalized groups to be involved [5,35].
The second distinction between traditional and digital activism concerns the nature of the linkages between activists. The differences are encapsulated in the distinction between the concepts of collective action and connective action [9]. Traditional activism involves collective action insofar as it requires individuals to overcome personal hesitance and sacrifice their time and energy in service of a common cause [9]. Collective action depends, in some part, on formal mobilizing organizations that convene activists and disseminate information and frames (i.e., slogans or imagery). For example, one might decide to spend a weekend day attending a protest organized by an environmental group where there are common signs, chants, and demands for change.
By contrast, connective action replaces formal mobilizing organizations with decentralized, large-scale, and fluid social networks facilitated by social media [9]. In connective action, activists are united less by a common cause and shared identity and more by their need for personal expression on an issue. In lieu of centralized sources of knowledge, knowledge is co-produced and co-disseminated through social media [23]. One might, for example, include a hashtag in a social media post without having a firm idea of who else is using the same hashtag and, in doing so, change the context in which the hashtag is being used. Under the logic of connective action, the nature of who participates in digital activism is also different. Social media reduce the transaction cost of participating in activism, which can lower barriers to participation, allowing for varying levels of commitment and broadening the reach of activism [5,9].
It is worth noting that not all digital activism follows the logic of connective action. De Bakker [36] distinguishes between ‘internet-supported’ activism, which is essentially an extension of offline tactics (i.e., using Facebook to organize an in-person demonstration), and ‘internet-based’ activism which expands the tactical repertoire by using online tools. Amongst these novel tools is “hashtag activism” in which actors use a common hashtagged term with a social claim [23,37]. Thus, responses to digital activism may vary depending on whether social media is used as a medium for traditional activism or as its own instruments of protest.
One other characteristic of digital activism may condition industry responses. Principally, when and how it receives coverage in the traditional media. Past research suggests that activism that attracts the attention of print and broadcast journalism is more likely to lead to a response from industry [38,39]. However, given broader changes in media consumption habits, one can no longer safely assume a direct relationship between media coverage and industry reputation [27]. With regards to digital activism, it is unclear whether coverage by print, radio, or television journalists has an impact on industry responses and whether virality on social media precedes or follows traditional media coverage. Conventional wisdom holds that the traditional media follow a convergence of social media sentiment [28]. For example, when United Airlines violently ejected a passenger from an overbooked flight, the story broke first via YouTube and was later picked up by major news outlets [27]. The incident prompted several changes to United’s policies on overbooking and cost its CEO a promotion to chairman [40]. One may reasonably wonder whether this response would have occurred in the absence of traditional media coverage or, conversely, in the absence of the accompanying YouTube video. In either case, industry responses to digital activism may be conditioned by when and how activism is covered by traditional media.

2.3. Variation in the Nature of Responses to Digital Activism

Apart from the question of when industries will respond to digital activism, there is equally a question of how they will respond. Martin and Kracher [11], distinguish between digital activism that is ultimately effective (i.e., prompts change in objectionable industry practices) versus intermediately effective (i.e., achieves an intermediate goal of capturing the attention of industry leaders but does not ultimately result in durable changes to business behaviour). This spectrum provides a starting point for conceptualizing industry responses but ultimately does not capture the less direct or delayed ways in which industries respond to digital activism. For one, digital activism can foster broader conversation on industry conduct [29]. On social media, these conversations can be conceptualized as ‘everyday talk’ whereby citizens become aware of other opinions, discover the important issues of the day, test new ideas, and develop and clarify their preferences [29,41]. Over time, everyday talk may lead to institutional change wherein new norms emerge and gain traction within specific industries and societies as a whole and slowly impact industry conduct [36]. An implication of this literature is that one must look beyond whether digital activism immediately and ultimately changes practices in an industry and allow for a delayed response as well.

2.4. Implications for Hypothesis Building

The multi-disciplinary literature on digital activism provides vital clues on which types of variables might make industries more or less responsive to digital activism. Related to the characteristics of industries, key questions are how do industries differ from firms in responding to digital activism? And to what extent might variations between industries condition responses? Related to digital activism, key questions are how do the unique demographics and logic of connective action specific to digital activism affect responses? And to what extent does digital activism require traditional media to elicit a response? These questions provide a lens through which to interpret my data and move towards building testable hypotheses. However, they also gesture to possible interactions between the features of industries and the characteristics of digital activism. I explore these interactions further in Section 5.

3. Research Design and Data

This is a hypothesis-building paper. My objective is to develop hypotheses about when digital activism will elicit a response from industry and the nature of industry’s response as it relates to sustainable supply chain practices. My approach to hypothesis building is abductive, meaning that I start with educated guesses on causal relationships derived from the extant literature and refine these guesses through careful analysis of the data. For this study, I start with what we know about the characteristics of digital activism and how industries respond to external pressure and then move to formulate hypotheses based on careful analysis of my interview and social media data. The end product is a series of hypotheses that are plausible but untested, held tentatively, and subject to continuous revision [42].

3.1. Case Selection

I select #buttergate as a typical case of digital activism directed at an industry over its supply chain practices for a number of reasons [43]. First, industry-focused digital activism does not have the same reach as broader instances of multisector hashtag activism like #BlackLivesMatter or #MeToo. The volume of social media posts associated with industry-facing environmental activism is modest by comparison. #Buttergate falls within the same twelve-month volume of posts as comparable movements like #LetsCapAviation or #StopOldGrowthLogging. Second, #buttergate constitutes an example of internet-based activism that utilizes the specific repertoire of hashtag activism [36,37]. The case contains no instances of people using social media to organize in-person protests against the dairy industry. This allows me to analyze industry responses to digital activism independent from responses to traditional activism. Third, #buttergate closely resembles other instances of industry-focused digital activism insofar as it arose suddenly, gained broad attention on Twitter, and subsequently faded from social and traditional media attention within a matter of weeks. Thus, #buttergate may be a useful starting point for building hypotheses about industry responses to digital activism in other sectors.

3.2. Data

I draw data from two sources. First, I assembled a novel historical Twitter dataset (n = 2461) containing posts between January 2021–January 2022. The historical Twitter data were procured through a third-party service (TweetBinder) with instructions to capture every tweet containing the hashtag #buttergate within the one-year timeframe in which the activism and responses unfolded. I subsequently coded each tweet according to its date, author, and whether it contains one of the following key words: “biodiversity loss” or “deforestation”; “animal welfare” or “vegan”; “transparency” or “supply management”; and “quality” or “hard.” These key words correspond with different digital activist agendas, from environmental critiques to scrutiny of product quality. I analyze the social media data with a view to determining when digital activism occurred in relation to media coverage and industry responses, who was involved in promoting and responding to #buttergate, what kinds of demands were made on the dairy industry and how these demands changed over time, and how social media intersected with traditional or legacy media (e.g., newspapers and broadcast television). Descriptive statistics are offered in Table 2. A list of the most prolific contributors to #buttergate is presented in Table 3. The full dataset of tweets is available in the Supplementary Materials.
Second, I conducted 14 semi-structured interviews with digital activists and dairy industry representatives targeted by the #buttergate campaign (see Appendix A). My recruitment strategy focused on identifying social media users who were prolific posters in #buttergate through the Twitter data and then using a snowball approach to expand the scope of recruitment. Through interviews, I sought to gain the perspectives of digital activists (three), industry representatives and dairy farmers (six), and neutral scientists/members of the media (five). My goal in conducting interviews was to gain a better understanding of the tactics and ambitions of digital activists, the motivations for industry to respond or not respond to #buttergate, the science behind activist claims, and perceptions of industry’s response. All interviews were conducted between May and August of 2022 by Zoom or phone and lasted an average of one hour. Interviewees were offered the option of participating anonymously or non-anonymously both before and after their interview. All human-participant research was approved by my university’s Office of Research Ethics (ID: H21-02400).

3.3. Limitations

There are two primary limitations to the methods and data used in this study. First, while the goal of this paper is hypothesis building, there are limitations to what new insights can be derived from a single case. #Buttergate, as with most instances of digital activism, has its idiosyncrasies that may not generalize onto a broader population of cases. Thus, the hypotheses developed here can and should be tested in other contexts. Second, there is a risk that some social media data have been excluded due to my search parameters. By limiting our search results to tweets that include “#buttergate”, I risk excluding relevant tweets that did not use this hashtag.

4. Buttergate: What Happened?

#Buttergate erupted into public view in early 2021. However, its origins date back a bit further. In 2020, baristas in British Columbia noted a problem with their milk not foaming consistently in lattes or cappuccinos. The BC Milk Marketing Board issued a notice to producers identifying a few potential causes of non-foaming milk, one of which was poor quality feed and nutrition [44]. A year later, Professor Sylvain Charlebois posted a question to Twitter on 29 December 2021: “Is it me or is #butter much harder now at room temperature?” The tweet received a handful of comments agreeing but also many who disagreed or brought up other issues (e.g., butter is too soft, too watery, or secretly imported from the USA). On 23 January 2021, a Twitter user named Amy Rosen asked, “Has anyone else noticed there’s something fishy going on with the water content in Lactantia unsalted butter?” To which a prominent Canadian food writer (anon) responded, “there’s something going on with butter in general. I’m looking into it…”. The following day, the hashtag “#buttergate” was first used by a CBC Radio reporter named Josh Pagé in response to Amy Rosen’s tweet. All of this led to the Canadian food writer posting a modified version of Charlebois’ question on 5 February 2021: “Something is up with our butter supply, and I’m going to get to the bottom of it. Have you noticed it’s no longer soft at room temperature? Watery? Rubbery?” This time, the tweet received significant attention with 376 individual comments in response. Suspicions about the role of palm fats were seeded in some of the comments on the Canadian food writer’s post.
Ten days later, Prof. Sylvain Charlebois published an op-ed in the newspaper Le Journal de Montreal [45]. In the op-ed, Charlebois claimed that, since the summer of 2020, farmers had been giving increased palm fat supplements to their cattle which may be the underlying cause of butter quality issues. The article cited the unpublished 2020 research into non-foaming milk as evidence that the industry knew it had a palm fat problem. Two more op-eds followed in short order, both making similar claims. The Canadian food writer’s op-ed ran in The Globe and Mail on 20 February and was immediately followed by Prof. Sylvain Charlebois’ second op-ed in the same paper on 21 February, which again pointed to palm fats as the underlying problem. Thus, the locus of protest began to shift towards a particular bioproduct in the dairy industry’s supply chain: palm fats.
From there, #buttergate started to gain national and international media attention. The BBC ran an article on 23 February that stated, “Since the summer, hundreds of farmers around the country have stepped up their use of palm oil substances in an attempt to boost supply” [46]. However, the article provided no evidence to substantiate this claim. On 24 February, #buttergate made the rounds of American media with stories on National Public Radio (NPR) and The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon [47]. By early March, the story had crossed into non-English language newspapers like Le Monde in France [48]. Notably, most of the international media coverage simply reiterated quotes and evidence from Prof. Sylvain Charlebois and the Canadian food writer’s initial op-eds.

The Dairy Industry Response

The response to #buttergate from the dairy industry was initially dismissive. On 11 February 2021, following the early social media activity, the Dairy Farmers of Canada (DFC) issued a statement essentially denying claims that butter was increasingly hard [49]. The press release called the evidence ‘anecdotal’ and included tips for consumers on how to soften their butter. However, as it became apparent that the issue was not going away, the industry was forced into action. Just over a week after the DFC dismissed #buttergate, it announced on 19 February 2021 that it was forming an Expert Working Group on fat supplementation in the dairy sector [50]. A mere six days later, and still lacking evidence connecting palm fats to hard butter, the DFC asked dairy farmers to consider alternatives to palm supplements [51].
Subsequently, on 8 April 2021, Les Producteurs de lait du Québec (PLQ), an industry group representing Quebec’s 4877 dairy farms, asked its members to stop using products containing palm oil or its derivatives in dairy cattle feed [52]. The PLQ press statement noted, “we are aware that there are environmental concerns about palm oil production” and called on the entire food industry to move away from palm oil [52]. However, only 22 per cent of dairy farmers in Quebec used palm fat supplements, and the PLQ had no authority to control the feeding practices of its members [53], so the ‘ban’ on palm supplements was more of a request to a segment of the province’s producers.
Roughly a year after #buttergate first made headlines, the Expert Working Group on feed supplementation released the findings of its report [54]. The overarching finding was that the Working Group “cannot conclude that any perceived increase in the hardness of butter be solely attributed to the use of palm-derived feed supplements” [54]. The report recommends that the dairy industry undertake routine testing of butter quality across time and regions to better understand product quality [55]. It also suggested improved efforts in ethical sourcing, including supporting major Canadian feed mills to pursue Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) or equivalent certifications. The Animal Nutrition Association of Canada (ANAC)—the industry association for the animal agriculture feed sector in Canada—is quoted in the report as saying that members of the feed sector have adopted internal policies in line with the RSPO. However, no such policies have been made public at this time.

5. Discussion and Hypotheses

What can #buttergate tell us about the conditions under which digital activism will garner a response from industry? And what can it tell us about the impact on sustainable supply chain practices in the Canadian dairy industry? In this section, I propose three novel hypotheses about how industries will respond to digital activism. I derive these hypotheses by building or modifying insights from the past literature in conjunction with careful observation of my data. Below, I present the hypothesis first, followed by substantiating evidence from both the literature and the data.
H1. 
A small number of digital activists can elicit a response from industry, but only if they are well-connected to conventional media outlets, have a large social media following, and have credibility with their targets.
#Buttergate affirms the observation that digital activism can be orchestrated by a smaller group of people using fewer resources with a paucity of formal organizational involvement [2,5,35]. As a campaign, it very much illustrates the concept of connective action insofar as costs of participation were very low and a common hashtag united a diverse assortment of Twitter users with vastly different objectives in the absence of any top-down coordination [9]. Thus, there is some truth to the claim that any participant in digital activism has the potential to become a significant voice because of the high degree of equality afforded by social media [29].
However, the data from #buttergate add nuance to this claim by illustrating that who is involved matters significantly for the nature of the response. Specifically, the size of an activist’s pulpit, both in terms of traditional media connections and social media following, has a significant impact on the visibility of activism and, consequently, industry’s response. So too does the credibility of activists with the industry that they target. As Figure 1 illustrates, roughly 17% of the contributors to #buttergate had sizeable followings on Twitter (>5000); these are the users that we might expect to be best positioned to elicit a response from industry.
#Buttergate was catalyzed by just two people: Prof. Sylvain Charlebois and the Canadian food writer. Without the involvement of either, it is reasonable to argue that #buttergate would not have received either media attention or a response from industry. As one industry association representative commented on Sylvain Charlebois’ involvement: “this thing would not have gone where it did without his tremendously large following and the kinds of folks that are listening to him” (Janet Horner, interview). Both were integral to escalating the issue to a level at which industry felt compelled to respond. Prof. Charlebois by posing the initial query on Twitter on 29 December 2020 and subsequently providing the material for the first print media coverage in Le Journal de Montreal on 15 February 2021 and the Canadian food writer by posting her viral tweet on 5 February 2021 and subsequently publishing the first English-language exposé in The Globe and Mail on 20 February 2021.
However, neither Prof. Sylvain Charlebois nor the Canadian food writer are typical social media users. Both have strong ties to multiple traditional media outlets and large social media followings. These connections allow them to amplify issues to a large audience. While other social media users with smaller followings raised concerns about butter hardness prior to #buttergate, they lacked the connections to bring the issue into the public eye. An implication is that, while a small group of digital activists can compel a response from industry, it helps if those activists are influential and well-connected within and beyond social media.
While Sylvain Charlebois’ connections helped provoke a response, his involvement may have also adversely impacted the nature of that response. As one academic observer noted: “Sylvain Charlebois has a history of animosity with the dairy industry.” (Canadian Economist, interview). Dairy farmers and industry representatives echoed this point: “whenever he gets involved, dairy farmers look at it with a pinch of salt because his opinion or research always seems to be slanted against us” (Jake Vermeer, interview). The fact that #buttergate originated from someone with a history of antagonism with the dairy industry allowed the industry to collectively roll its eyes and dismiss some of Charlebois’ claims. Thus, in addition to the networks of digital activists, their relationship with industry targets is another variable that may condition the nature of industry’s response.
H2. 
Digital activism that targets traditional media in addition to social media can gain more attention and be more likely to elicit a response from industry.
#Buttergate offers new insight into the relevance of traditional media to digital activists. The case lends credence to the idea that activism that gets covered by traditional media is more likely to garner a response from industry [38,39]. Notwithstanding the decoupling of industry reputation from media coverage in recent years [27], industries retain a strong impetus to respond to negative media coverage. #Buttergate also demonstrates that the relationship between traditional media and digital activism is more bidirectional than previously conceptualized. Past research has positioned traditional media primarily as an amplifier of digital activism [56]. By mentioning specific hashtags, traditional media can bring a cause to a broader audience in a way that plays a role in agenda-setting [21]. Yet the empirical data in this case suggest that the reverse is also true. Social media play a key role in amplifying stories from traditional media.
The Twitter data suggest that #buttergate became a social media phenomenon only after stories began to run in traditional media outlets (see Figure 2). The hashtag #buttergate was first used on 24 January. On 5 February, the Canadian food writer received hundreds of comments on her first tweet on the topic, but, outside of comments on this tweet, there was very little activity on Twitter. On 12 February 2021, one week after the Canadian food writer’s initial tweet, there were only 32 tweets containing the hashtag #buttergate. Then, the topic hit the national press through articles by Prof. Sylvain Charlebois and the Canadian food writer in the Journal de Montreal and The Globe and Mail on Feb. 15, 20, and 21st. By 25 February, following broad North American media coverage, the number of tweets containing #buttergate shot up to 645 tweets. The topic then moved into international non-English media through coverage in Le Monde on 5 March. Social media activity subsequently reached its apex on 9 March with 1068 tweets.
The importance of traditional media is further borne out by the responses from interviewees. The majority of those interviewed mention that they first learned about #buttergate through stories in the print media, mostly one of the two op-eds in The Globe and Mail. This reflects a deliberate strategy by digital activists involved in the campaign to leverage traditional media. As Prof. Sylvain Charlebois observes: “If you want a story to explode, you give it to Le Journal de Montreal. And that’s what happened” (Sylvain Charlebois, interview). Greenpeace similarly aimed for coverage in traditional media in its campaigns:
“Greenpeace is not a digital activism organization insofar as that’s not all we do. When we design campaigns and tactics we don’t design them to be centred on that…we always have a number of different tactics if we’re taking a campaign seriously. Journalistic media—stories—are still a really critical part of that” (Greenpeace Campaigner, interview).
Taken together, the extant literature and #buttergate data suggest the continued importance of traditional media for the influence of digital activism. The relevance of newspapers, national broadcasters, and even late-night comics is counterintuitive given the seismic shifts in how North Americans consume news. A growing array of research suggests print and televised media are being displaced by social media as a news source, especially for younger generations [57,58]. Traditional media have been accused of lagging behind the social media news cycle and conducting lazy and cheap journalism by reporting on social media trends [59]. Yet, #buttergate offers a counter narrative. Here, it appears that social media actually lagged behind traditional media coverage and acted more as an amplifier than a source of influence in and of itself.
H3. 
Digital activism will present far more diverse, overlapping, contradictory, and ephemeral demands on industry than traditional activism. Consequently, industry responses to digital activism will be more superficial and selective.
#Buttergate neatly illustrates both the advantages and disadvantages of digital activism and how its unique features are conditioned by its targets. Skeptics of digital activism point out that, while it may mobilize more people, those people are bound by a looser logic of connective action and lack a common cause, tactics, and frames [9]. The result is a broad and loosely connected group of heterogeneous constituents who express their opinions based on diverging expectations, values, and norms [16,27,28,60]. While this heterogeneity empowers participants to contribute in unique and positive ways, it can also create a lot of noise and distraction [61]. Or, as Barnett et al. [19] succinctly put it: “although it is now easier for stakeholders to broadcast their perspectives and demands, the resulting cacophony has made it harder to be heard by those they seek to influence.”
The heterogeneity of digital activists also creates a condition of entropy wherein movements struggle to sustain pressure on target industries. Absent a common cause or the centrifugal force of a formal mobilizing organization, there is little to prevent factions of digital activists from losing interest and moving on with their lives. Thus, while digital activism is useful for engaging as many social media users as possible, the substantive engagement of most users remains quite low, falling within what George and Leidner [5] label ‘digital spectator activities’ such as liking or sharing a post. These digital spectators are particularly susceptible to losing interest over time. It is for this reason that Twitter has been likened to a tempest in a teapot [62]. Twitter storms arise quickly and dissipate just as fast. An implication of this characteristic of industry-focused digital activism is that industries can alternately ignore the cacophony of contradictory voices or simply wait for them to go away.
Proponents of digital activism counter that the heterogeneity inherent in digital activism allows activists to unite around a broader demand for change while maintaining different identities and views [28,60]. This process is abetted by the use of ‘empty signifiers’ in the form of hashtags [60,63]. Generic hashtags allow each social media user to append their own cause or values while uniting under a common demand for change. For example, the 2017 #deleteUber campaign did not possess a single cause but nonetheless succeeded in forcing the resignation of Uber’s CEO. In this way, heterogeneous convergence can force an industry to respond by exerting reputational pressure on several fronts simultaneously, although the extent of change is highly variable [60].
The #buttergate data suggest a middle ground between these two camps. On one hand, #buttergate’s status as an empty signifier certainly broadened the range of people interested in supply chain practices of the Canadian dairy industry. On the other hand, it also allowed for a proliferation of demands and requests that led to a rapid dissolution of its heterogeneous constituency and made it easier for industry to ignore or selectively respond to demands.
#Buttergate began with a focus on one issue—product quality—and evolved over time to include many others, including deforestation, supply management, corporate transparency, and animal welfare (see Figure 3). Prof. Sylvain Charlebois, who was the first to tweet about the perceived hardness of butter, said this about his original motivations: “My focus was to get Canadians better butter. That was my goal. Because I knew that the dairy sector was cutting corners…The intent was butter quality and it evolved into a multi-faceted issue” (Sylvain Charlebois, interview). By the time #buttergate was picked up by the Canadian news media about five weeks after the question of butter hardness was first raised on Twitter, elements of deforestation and biodiversity loss had entered into the reporting. This was by design, as environmental groups and independent digital activists sought to incorporate #buttergate into broader agendas related to animal agriculture in Canada. As a campaigner for Greenpeace observes:
“Environmental issues were missing from the discussion…We were seeing questions like ‘how firm is the butter’ and thinking that’s not the crux of the matter. What’s much more interesting here is the fact that you have palm oil derivatives—with their huge connection to global deforestation—actually going into the feed of industrially-raised livestock in Canada” (Greenpeace Campaigner, interview).
By late February, roughly eight weeks from the original tweet, animal rights activists on social media began using #buttergate as an argument in support of ending animal agriculture and the dairy industry altogether. At roughly the same time, consumer price advocates began using #buttergate to decry Canada’s supply management system and its effects on prices. A consequence of this cacophony of demands was that industry was able to respond with a series of token gestures to address product quality and environmental concerns in its supply chain while essentially ignoring most of the other demands.
The most significant responses from industry were the establishment of the DFC Expert Working Group and DFC’s request for dairy farmers to look for alternatives to palm fat supplements. Both actions relied entirely on voluntary action, and neither was met with much enthusiasm from industry skeptics. As a campaigner for Greenpeace commented about the industry response:
“It was crap. Really weak. Eventually they set up a committee to investigate it. A really classic corporate response to an issue is to sweep it under the rug and make it go away…They threw up a few red herrings but were unwilling to engage in the fundamental, underlying issues that are driving unsustainability within their sector” (Greenpeace Campaigner, interview).
Certainly, the request from DFC to consider alternatives to palm supplements rings hollow given the lack of viable options. Many online commenters inquired about a made-in-Canada alternative to palm fat supplements, perhaps one based on canola or sunflower oil. Yet, these would be costly and inefficient to produce. As one animal nutrition expert commented: “there are strains of sunflower, patented by the Spanish, that have 35% palmitic acid in them. But if you work out what the yields would be in Western Canada compared to the Indonesian palm trees, there is no economic possibility of producing a competitive palmitic acid here that I can see” (Dr. David Christensen, interview). Thus, DFC’s request to look for alternatives was a bit disingenuous since there were none.
Digital activists point out that the use of palm fat supplements has declined in the wake of #buttergate. However, there is little evidence to suggest that this is due to DFC’s actions or the scandal. Rather, palm fat supplements are yet the latest bioproduct to increase in cost due to challenges in global value chains and increases to the cost of shipping. As one Alberta dairy farmer commented: “we’re using very little at the moment, because it’s too expensive to give us any sort of return on investment” (Jake Vermeer, interview). Another member of the animal feed industry commented: “It’s business as usual. This year sales are up and down, but that’s due to economics. I haven’t heard anyone hesitating to put palm fat in other than the fact that it’s $3500/ton” (Kevin Weppler, interview). Thus, there is every reason to believe that supplementation levels will return to pre-#buttergate levels when prices stabilize.
The absence of a larger shift in industry supply chain practices can be at least partially attributed to the ephemeral nature of industry-focused digital activism. Gathering a diverse group of social media users under a big tent contributed to an aura of transience wherein all but the closest industry observers lost interest in #buttergate shortly. Industry was not unaware of the whims of Twitter and thus adopted a batten-down-the-hatches approach to engaging with digital activists. As one observer noted: “the reaction from the industry was defensive…It will go away” (Canadian Economist, interview). By industry accounts, this technique proved effective. As one industry interviewee noted: “I hadn’t heard the term #buttergate in 12 months until your email” (Kevin Weppler, interview).
Notwithstanding industry’s perspective that nothing changed as a result of #buttergate, there is some evidence of a more gradual institutional change [36]. If nothing else, #buttergate catalyzed a broader conversation on industry conduct and exposed more people to supply chain sustainability issues related to the dairy industry for the first time [29]. It remains to be seen whether this emerging consciousness about the dairy industry and the agricultural bioeconomy’s role in deforestation and biodiversity loss translates into industry-wide change, but there is some evidence of a newfound sensitivity within the industry to concerns about its sustainability. While the DFC has historically run advertisements that appeal to Canadians’ sense of nostalgic pastoralism, it recently launched an entire ad campaign about the sustainability efforts of its members [64]. Among palm fat suppliers, there is a growing imperative to comply with voluntary sustainability standards like RSPO. Thus, there are some signs that both industries are aware that they are under scrutiny.

6. Conclusions

As more and more activism occurs on social media, there is a growing debate about how digital activism will affect sustainable supply chain management in industries. This debate can be divided into those who see digital technologies as new tools in the activist’s toolkit and those who are more skeptical. The skeptics perspective is encapsulated in Barnett et al.’s [19] assertion that “overall, firms appear to have maintained, if not gained, autonomy from stakeholder influence in the digital age.” The preceding investigation of #buttergate finds some middle-ground between optimists and skeptics and, importantly, lends insight into the specific conditions under which digital activism will elicit a response from industry.
To this end, this paper makes a number of conceptual and theoretical contributions to the literature on responses to digital activism. First, it makes the broader point that the nature of the response to digital activism is conditioned, to some extent, by who or what it targets. Industry and supply chain focused digital activism can be particularly chaotic and ephemeral due to the expansive nature of demands on industries and the lack of a unitary cause binding activists (per H3). In #buttergate, the Canadian dairy industry confronted a heterogenous constituency of activists with demands ranging from banning palm fat supplements, to ending supply management, to ending animal agriculture altogether. The comparatively loose connective tissue binding activists allowed the dairy industry to selectively engage with some demands while ignoring others and waiting for the storm to abide.
Second, and relatedly, this paper argues that industries should be treated as conceptually distinct from individual firms due to differences in the nature of demands they face and their capacity to respond to those demands. In this case, industry’s capacity to respond was limited to making voluntary requests of its members and convening an investigative committee. In a counterfactual scenario where a single dairy farm was targeted, one might envision a more trenchant response where palm fat supplements are banned altogether because the risk is more acute and the decision-making procedure is less complicated.
Third, this paper adds nuance to a number of existing findings about digital activism. For example, while #buttergate demonstrates that digital activism can elicit a response when launched by a relatively small group of people, it adds the proviso that it helps if these activists are well-connected and not known enemies of their target industry (per H1). #Buttergate also reiterates that traditional media remain an important medium for activism, but it demonstrates a more bidirectional relationship between social media and traditional media (per H2). In this case, social media virality was achieved only after coverage in the mainstream media, and not the other way around.
Fourth, this paper adds further nuance to the spectrum of responses to digital activism. Measuring whether or not digital activism succeeds in immediately changing industry supply chain practices may miss some of its broader impact. While #buttergate achieved very little substantive change in either dairy industry supply chain practices or sustainability in the agricultural bioeconomy, it did succeed in igniting conversations that put both industries on high alert. Thus, there is the potential to shift norms about green supply chain management in the agricultural industry in a similar way to norm shifts in global environmental governance over time [65]. It is too soon to tell whether this new self-consciousness will result in observable changes to these industries in the future, but it does illustrate the importance of not jumping to conclusions about the (in)effectiveness of digital activism in the short term.
Importantly, there are limits to what can be learned from a single case. Thus, a central task for future research is to determine whether the hypotheses developed here travel to other cases of industry-focused digital activism. This paper also omits a number of important comparative questions that require different research designs. Topmost amongst these is the question of whether some industries are more responsive to digital activism than others. Relatedly, future research might disaggregate the various sub-types of digital activism [5] to understand whether some are more likely to elicit a response from industry targets than others. Finally, future comparative research should investigate how different social media platforms affect the nature of digital activism and industry responses. Twitter/X is not substitutable for other social media platforms. Its users tend to be more affluent, political, and prolific than users on other platforms [66]. Thus, a key task for future research is to understand whether digital activism via TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, or other platforms elicits a different response from industry. The research agenda on industry responses to digital challenges to supply chain practices will require periodic renewal as new technologies emerge and theoretical developments occur in different disciplines, but this paper lays the foundation for a transdisciplinary research agenda bridging business/management, sociology, and media and communications studies.

Supplementary Materials

The following supporting information can be downloaded at: https://www.mdpi.com/article/10.3390/app142411893/s1.

Funding

This paper draws on research supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (430-2021-00261). I gratefully acknowledge funding from a Hampton New Faculty Grant at the University of British Columbia.

Institutional Review Board Statement

The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and approved by the ethics committee of University of British Columbia (ID: H21-02400, 24 August 2021).

Informed Consent Statement

Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, [Hamish van der Ven], upon reasonable request.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Rawie Elnur and Diego Corry for discussions and references that strengthened this paper.

Conflicts of Interest

The author declares no conflict of interest.

Appendix A. Interview Participants (Alphabetized)

No.NameAffiliationMediumDate of InterviewRole
1Bovine Veterinarian (anon)AnonZoom3 August 2022Neutral
Scientist
2Canadian Economist (anon)AnonZoom18 August 2022Industry Supporting
Academic
3Sylvain CharleboisSchool of Public Administration, Dalhousie UniversityZoom28 June 2022Digital activist
4David ChristensenDepartment of Animal and Poultry Science, University of SaskatchewanZoom17 August 2022Neutral
Scientist
5Melissa DumontAnimal Nutrition Association of CanadaZoom28 July 2022Industry Rep.
6Food Marketing Expert (anon)AnonZoom27 July 2022Neutral
Scientist
7Janet HornerGolden Horseshoe Food and Farming AllianceZoom14 June 2022Industry Rep.
8Greenpeace CampaignerGreenpeaceZoom 23 August 2022Digital Activist
9Daniel LefevbreLactanet and Expert Working Group on FeedZoom11 July 2022Industry Rep.
10Yannick PatelliLa Vie AgricolePhone18 August 2022Media Rep.
11The Canadian food writerIndependentZoom27 July 2022Digital activist
12Jake VermeerVermeer’s Dairy Ltd.Phone21 July 2022Dairy Farmer
13Kevin WepplerAnimal Nutrition Association of CanadaZoom28 July 2022Industry Rep.
14Hannah WoodhouseUniversity of GuelphZoom7 August 2022Neutral
Scientist

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Figure 1. Contributors to #buttergate by number of followers.
Figure 1. Contributors to #buttergate by number of followers.
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Figure 2. Twitter activity and media coverage of #buttergate 12 February 2021–1 February 2022.
Figure 2. Twitter activity and media coverage of #buttergate 12 February 2021–1 February 2022.
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Figure 3. Diversity of key terms mentioned in #buttergate.
Figure 3. Diversity of key terms mentioned in #buttergate.
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Table 1. Traditional vs. digital activism, a comparison.
Table 1. Traditional vs. digital activism, a comparison.
CharacteristicsTraditional ActivismDigital Activism
Who participates? *Often larger, well-organized, well-resourced groupsOften smaller, decentralized, less resourced groups
How are they connected? *Collective actionConnective action
Relationship to traditional media?Highly dependentUnclear
* The characteristics in these categories reflect ideal types; there are often significant areas of overlap across forms of activism.
Table 2. Descriptive statistics for #buttergate on Twitter, 2021.
Table 2. Descriptive statistics for #buttergate on Twitter, 2021.
VariableValue
Total tweets2461
Replies598
Links and pictures1631
Followers per contributor27,260.35
Tweets per contributor1.49
Unique contributors1651
Table 3. Contributors to #buttergate by number of original posts.
Table 3. Contributors to #buttergate by number of original posts.
RankUserUsernameTotal TweetsFollowers
1@FoodProfessorThe Food Professor9814,208
2@LaVieagricoleYPYannick Patelli282583
3@zecohealthNarado Zeco Powell |277580
4@AgWomen_CanadaIsabelle D.24741
5@ldeichelLeonard Eichel22363
6@DanShock1Dan Shock DVM PhD211116
7@realagricultureRealAgriculture1546,834
8@CrowleyArklieChristina Crowley-Arklie154557
9@jsjonkerDairy Air14478
10@michelinemongMicheline Mongrain14196
11@AshtoniaCowsDairy Done Daily132959
12@cultureddairyCheese Goddess121921
13@DanaMcCauleyDana McCauley117739
14@NatashaMcKillopNatasha McKillop10250
15@EasternPeweeCarole Portelance9175
16@PeggyStrankmanPeg Strankman91501
17@GastroHistoryGastronomic History95972
18@GreenpeaceCAGreenpeace Canada951,819
19@MilkabotCoViren-19 D’souza™95629
20@climate_lensClimate Lens8363
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van der Ven, H. Can Digital Activism Change Sustainable Supply Chain Practices in the Agricultural Bioeconomy? Evidence from #Buttergate. Appl. Sci. 2024, 14, 11893. https://doi.org/10.3390/app142411893

AMA Style

van der Ven H. Can Digital Activism Change Sustainable Supply Chain Practices in the Agricultural Bioeconomy? Evidence from #Buttergate. Applied Sciences. 2024; 14(24):11893. https://doi.org/10.3390/app142411893

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van der Ven, Hamish. 2024. "Can Digital Activism Change Sustainable Supply Chain Practices in the Agricultural Bioeconomy? Evidence from #Buttergate" Applied Sciences 14, no. 24: 11893. https://doi.org/10.3390/app142411893

APA Style

van der Ven, H. (2024). Can Digital Activism Change Sustainable Supply Chain Practices in the Agricultural Bioeconomy? Evidence from #Buttergate. Applied Sciences, 14(24), 11893. https://doi.org/10.3390/app142411893

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