Greenpeace tested by the media regime of major digital platforms

Taking Greenpeace France (GPF) as a case study, this article analyses the difficulty that well-established advocacy organizations have adjusting to the media logic of leading digital platforms. Based on field research conducted between 2019 and 2022, consisting of semi-structured interviews and analysis of data from three social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram and X), it highlights GPF’s difficulties adjusting to the era of ’platform politics’. The results highlight limited media visibility on platforms, due to campaign practices inherited from the mass media system and which are incompatible with the logic of responsiveness, polarization, and network effects characterizing digital platforms. The study shows that GPF’s organizational culture, based on expertise and image control, is an impediment to this adjustment. Ultimately, it questions whether maintaining a strategic presence on these platforms is still relevant for such advocacy organizations, whose values remain at the heart of their actions.