Grassroots Campaigning

Grassroots campaigning refers to efforts to mobilize individuals to take some action to influence a political outcome. In practice, grassroots campaigns come in two types: (1) efforts to mobilize individuals either to turn out to vote or to vote a certain way in an upcoming election and (2) efforts to mobilize individuals to contact a policymaker to take a particular action (also called “outside lobbying”). The distinguishing features of grassroots campaigns are that they (1) mobilize masses to participate in politics, such as contacting their legislator or turn out to vote; and (2) they are conducted through narrow communications such as mail, e-mail, phone calls, or face-to-face visits rather than broadcast media such as television or radio.