Grassroots vs. Astroturf

A grassroots movement involves ordinary citizens, who, like everyone else, must make political decisions in their everyday lives. People formulate on particular issues to bring about awareness and influence political action and hopefully a change in legislation. Often, politicians try to appeal to voters by seeming interested in various grassroots movements, in an effort to gain support from ordinary citizens. Truthful grassroots movements take the form of lobbying, letter writing, and other forms of activism in order to create some form of awareness.

A grassroots movement can be disguised as astroturf, which began in the 1990s with “fake grass roots were labeled by their opponents with the trademarked name for artificial and rootless grass” (http://www.answers.com/topic/grassroots-democracy).