An analysis of the nine top players in the U.S. fossil fuel-derived hydrocarbon industries (oil/gas, plastics, and agrichemicals) shows tight linkages across the three different sectors, with news media, other petrochemical industry players, and politicians also frequently tagged.
The findings suggest more investigation is warranted into how these organizations may use social media to amplify one another’s messages and shape public discourse around their industries and the climate crisis.
Source:
Networks of climate obstruction: Discourses of denial and delay in US fossil energy, plastic, and agrichemical industries
https://journals.plos.org/climate/article?id=10.1371/journal.pclm.0000370
That’s something I’ve been presuming to be the case for at least a decade, and not just with fossil fuel companies (though they are a notably likely example).
It’s extraordinarily safe to assume that essentially every notable corporation has, either as a part of its own PR department or through another company, resources dedicated to not only massaging its own online reputation, but to affecting the public perception of its industry as a whole, and that that last would require some amount of liaison and cooperation with other companies in the industry, to their mutual benefit.
With the potential ROI, they’d be foolish to not do that.