Astroturfing

From dKosopedia

Category: Kossary

Producing the illusion of broad grass-roots support by top down actions. This creates the illusion of grass roots when it is really like "astroturf."

Astroturfing is employed by big companies and also by the government.

For example: A templated Letter to the Editor expressing wingnut outrage at an imagined liberal offense that is duplicated and sent to city newspapers across the country as if it were penned by a local reader. Local papers never fail to publish the artificial letters and thus OpEd pages from coast-to-coast are carpeted with artificial grass-roots or "AstroTurf".

Astroturfing also involves creating organizations that supposedly reflect the will of the people but actually are sponsored by big corporations.