The organization is an advocacy group that
encourages COs to be explicit about their
beliefs. Participants emphasised that the
advocacy is ‘non-partisan’ and ‘conservative’.
The Executive Director pointed out that ‘. . .
we are more on the role of a conservative
organization, not actively pursuing civil disobedience
or illegal resistance’. This conservative
self-identity is also evidenced on its Web
site: This group defines itself as a non-profit
organization focused on promoting the rights
of conscientious objectors.
The conservative and non-confrontational
self-identity was reflected in different ways by
most participants. For example, Board Member
2 argued that the organization is an interfaith
organization that represents a large body of
religious organizations. Board Member 3
indicated that the organization is largely a
counselling organization because it ‘helps
people in the military with questions about
discharges’ and works on ‘counselling people
about the draft, draft registration and counterrecruitment’.
On its Web site, the organization
labels itself as a support group committed to
help military personnel about military conscientious
objection.
Attempting to stay away from other typical
activist groups, the organization focused on
educational efforts instead. According to the
Counselling Coordinator, it educates the Congress
and the Selective Service about the reality
of conscientious objection and its implications
for laws and public policies. As revealed on its
Web site, the organization works closely with
diverse communities on public education of COrelated
issues such as changes in regulations and
legislation related to military conscription.
Different interpretations of activist
organizations
Participants believed that their target organizations
may perceive them as an activist group
but they see themselves as a faith and
counselling organization. According to the
Executive Director, people may think of the
organization as very ‘activist’ because it does
attempt to ‘change the opinion of the society
as well as the opinions of some large
organizations such as the Congress and the
military’. The BVS Volunteer concurred, ‘I
would say they definitely think we are an
activist organization. . .We are anti-war, antidrafts’.
Participants, however, defined an
activist organization in a different way. The
Executive Director indicated that an activist
organization should be ‘involved in protests,
demonstrations, civil disobediences. . .’ For
Board Member 3, an activist organization
was connected with ‘grassroots activism,
getting people out, protesting. . .’ The Lobbyist
admitted that the organization does send out
email alerts mobilizing its constituencies to
take certain actions. However, this type of
activism is only a minimum part of the
organization’s operation. As Board member 3
explained, ‘Mostly, we do counselling and
educational work, not exactly what an activist
organization does. . .. We would like to change
the law, but mostly getting people information
necessary for them to exercise their rights.
RQ2: How does an activist group
accommodate its dual role as a public
to target organizations it attempts to
change and as an organization itself
communicating with its own publics?
The organization’s communication with
internal publics and external target organizations
exemplifies ‘the dual role’ it plays. A
balance between internal and external communication
is pivotal. The organization is
expected to represent a variety of publics in
a single, clear and consistent voice. It is
also relied upon as a source of accurate
Copyright # 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Journal of Public Affairs, November 2009
DOI: 10.1002/pa
Activists playing a dual role 293
information. Constraints in playing the dual
role are also analysed.
Separation and connectedness in the duality
of the role
Participants suggested that the organization
plays two separate roles: communicating with
its own publics and communicating with
target organizations. As the Counselling Coordinator
said:
In one case, we are informing them [our
publics], supporting them, [and] encouraging
them in what we understand they are
concerned about. In the case of the Congress
and other governmental agencies, we
are trying to influence, [and] we are trying
to change them for most part.
Participants also realized that the two
separate roles are actually connected and
complementary to each other. The Outreach
Coordinator ascribed the connectedness to
the organization’s consistency in its goal:
the organization is committed to advocating
and educating about conscientious objection
no matter whom it communicates with. The
two separate roles are complementary to
each other because communication with
publics actually gives the organization credibility
in its communication with the
Congress. As the Counselling Coordinator
commented, ‘Experiences of people [the
organization’s publics, such as GIs and COs]
influence us when we go to the Congress and
talk about the changes they have to make. We
have an understanding of it because of the
realities that people in the system are struggling
with’.
Participants further elaborated the connectedness
as the organization ‘representing’ COs
and people in the military who are publics of
the Congress. The BVS Volunteer said, ‘By
communicating with them, we can be kind of a
better representative of them, those conscientious
objectors. We are communicating for
them as a representative [of them] to the
Congress’.
Playing a ‘funnelling’ role
Participants emphasized that in representing
its constituencies to the Congress, the organization
ought to speak with a single clear voice,
although it represents a variety of publics
groups. The Law Clerk said, ‘We have to take
over the views, kind of filtering them and
creating one view and one voice to the
Congress. If we present every single view,
we will have inconsistence’. The Executive
Director defined the aforementioned action as
a ‘funnelling’ role:
I think the Centre is playing a funnelling
role to help bring the voices of our
constituencies to the Congress. . .I get a lot
of different voices, so I try to create, again
kind of funnelling effect, so it’s intensified
by all kinds of groups and what the groups
mean, that kind of concentrated voice, so
make it stronger.
Board Member 3 pointed out that the
organization often needs to persuade its
constituencies to accommodate and compromise
one another because the purpose of the
organization is to ‘make a difference around
the common concern [conscientious objection]’.
He suggested that people with different
political, social and religious convictions
should speak with a focus and think about
how they can promote the rights of COs by
working as a community.
Being reliable
Being reliable is a critical component in the
dual role the organization plays. Evident on its
Web site, the organization is committed to
‘provid[ing] accurate information’ on selective
service registration, alternative to enlistment,
GI rights, the draft, the military, etc. The
organization ‘debunk[s]’ false information
about any of the aforementioned topics.
Participants indicated that the organization
always tries to make sure the information is
reliable and current before it makes such
information available to its publics as well as to
Copyright # 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Journal of Public Affairs, November 2009
DOI: 10.1002/pa
294 Hua Jiang and Lan Ni
the Congress. The Outreach Coordinator
argued, ‘Whether we are viewed as a reliable
source of information for both of them [publics
and the Congress] is very critical’. The
Executive Director also emphasized the
importance of being reliable and honest:
‘Having integrity and being reliable is a
fundamental thing. . .You have to have a
reputation of being honest and that’s valuable’.
A balance in playing the dual role
Participants indicated that the Centre, in
playing its dual role, encounters conflicting
expectations. As Board Member 1 said, the
organization, as a public communicator,
attempts to stand up for the rights of the COs
and other publics to the Congress; however, the
Congress expects the organization, as its
public, to show ‘respectful faithfulness’. The
Lobbyist concurred:
Sometimes publics might have certain
expectations of us. But that could be in
conflict with how the Congress views this
organization. You know what I mean, and
so for example, the public might want us to
be more…some sort of peace march that
might be very radical. But we do get
involved in the Congress…
Therefore, it is critical for the organization to
find a balance in communicating with its target
organizations and its own publics. Board
Member 3 provided a good example:
When we work with the Selective Service,
what’s important to us is that we don’t
cross certain line. We don’t really want to
work with them to make the draft work
better because we don’t really want to have
a draft. But on the other hand, we really
want to help people who will be subject to
the draft if there is a draft there [and
educate our constituencies about their
rights]. There is a balance there.
Constraints in playing its dual role
Participants identified several constraints the
organization face in playing its dual role. For
example, according to Board Member 1, the
organization has to ‘move from a really
marginal entity in the public sphere to a voice
that is considered to have expertise and be
positively proactive’. This marginalization has
led to incorrect preconceptions in the minds of
their publics as well as those of people in the
Congress, which the organization is trying to
overcome. As the Outreach Coordinator
argued,
A lot of people have preconceived notions
about what conscientious objection is and
who CO is and you know, what the field
looks like. . .I think we have to figure out a
way to correct those notions and communicate
with them in a way that tries to fix
the very incorrect information they
receive, update and educate them about
what the situation really is.
In addition, in playing the dual role, the
organization encountered difficulty in both
mobilizing their own publics and trying to be a
good ‘public communicator’ in front of their
target organization. For example, it is very
challenging for the organization to get its
constituencies to really act on what they care
about. The Counselling Coordinator discussed
this in detail: ‘You need to come to Washington
and talk to the Congress. People would say
yeah, but they do not actually do it’. On the
other hand, unsuccessful negotiations with the
Congressmen are sometimes due to their
constituencies who disagree or refuse to
compromise. As the Law Clerk pointed out,
‘The fact that a lot of Congressmen are not
interested in what we say is . . .because they
have constituencies who disagree. . .As a
result, what we represent is generally ignored’.
Finally, Board Members 2 and 5 identified
getting and allocating resources as one big
concern of the organization in playing its dual
role. The Centre ought to ‘keep on getting
resources that help us do what we do’ and
‘think about whether we should spend more
resources on our constituencies who already
support us or on the Congress that we are
attempting to influence and change’.
Copyright # 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Journal of Public Affairs, November 2009
DOI: 10.1002/pa
Activists playing a dual role 295
RQ3: How do the self-perceived
identities of an activist organization
interplay with its organizational goals
to influence the way public relations is
practiced?
The organization adopts various public relations
tactics when communicating with both
internal and external publics.
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