An article by CSSN scholars Robert Neubauer and Nick Graham explores the Facebook communications of Canadian oil and gas advocacy organizations, including industry-funded and nominally independent groups.

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.