The Role of Public Education in NGO Advocacy in the Authoritarian Context: A Case Study of Chinese ENGOs

This study examines the role of public education in the advocacy strategies of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) under authoritarian constraints, using Chinese environmental NGOs (ENGOs) as a case. Despite the increasing use of social media, the advocacy function of public education remains underexplored in such contexts. Drawing on content analysis of 2,961 social media posts from 20 ENGOs and 12 in-depth interviews, we find that ENGOs primarily use social media to disseminate information and gain “safe attention,” while largely underutilizing their interactive potential. Public education is viewed as a long-term goal, but is not strategically integrated into broader advocacy efforts due to limited resources and political sensitivity. Building on attention-based advocacy theory, we propose a strategic attention management approach, recommending that NGOs adopt differentiated strategies: community-based education anchored in offline legitimacy for resource-limited organizations, and large-scale, frame-sensitive communication for those with greater capacity. This study contributes to NGO advocacy literature by conceptualizing public education as a form of indirect advocacy and highlighting the need for nuanced attention strategies in authoritarian contexts.