NGO Publicity and Reinforcing Path Dependencies

Abstract

Previous research finds that nongovernmental organization (NGO) publicity strategies—despite digital technologies—continue to focus heavily on garnering coverage in the mainstream news media. Drawing on theories of path dependence and interviews with NGO professionals, this paper identifies three factors that explain why this should be so. First, donors continue to value media coverage as a platform to learn about advocacy groups, as well as a mechanism for measuring their impact on political discourse. Second, political officials still value media coverage as a way to learn about advocacy demands. Third, NGOs occupy a position that is socially proximate to journalism, which leads the former to see the latter as an ally in the pursuit of publicity. Together, these factors confirm and extend the new institutional concept of “path dependence” by demonstrating how path dependence in one field (philanthropy, politics) can reinforce path dependence in another (NGO). These “reinforcing path dependencies” in turn interact with established mechanisms of institutional production (start-up costs, feedback effects, knowledge accumulation) to explain why NGOs continue to persist in media-centered publicity strategies despite new technological possibilities.