About the network map
The map below illustrates a network of which and how actors relate to each other from their home pages on the web. Underneath the map, you can read more thorough descriptions and observations about the relations between actors.
Map legend
Red: FLO - The network resembles FLO's international department and all of it's national departments.
Curry: Governmental - Covers governmental, i.e. ministries and departments, and national, i.e. banks, institutions and organisations.
Lilla: Retailers - The retailers spans from companies specialising in coffee, like Deans Beans, to large supermarkets, like Whole Foods Market.
Light blå: Equal Exchange - Equal Exchange and it's blog Small Farmers. Big Change.
Bright green: Fair Trade USA - Fair Trade USA and it's blog Be Fair.
Pink: International - A broad category, spanning from both international investment groups to international actors in the fair-trade movement.
Mint: Co-ops - Retail co-operations, meaning companies co-owned by it's workers. Equal Exchange follow this structure as well.
Dark green: Media - Variuous news sites and blogs with publishings regarding the controversy.
Dark blue: Brazil - Actors geographically based in Brazil. Actors spans from coffee producers, i.e. Ipanema Coffees, to governmental departments.
Curry: Governmental - Covers governmental, i.e. ministries and departments, and national, i.e. banks, institutions and organisations.
Lilla: Retailers - The retailers spans from companies specialising in coffee, like Deans Beans, to large supermarkets, like Whole Foods Market.
Light blå: Equal Exchange - Equal Exchange and it's blog Small Farmers. Big Change.
Bright green: Fair Trade USA - Fair Trade USA and it's blog Be Fair.
Pink: International - A broad category, spanning from both international investment groups to international actors in the fair-trade movement.
Mint: Co-ops - Retail co-operations, meaning companies co-owned by it's workers. Equal Exchange follow this structure as well.
Dark green: Media - Variuous news sites and blogs with publishings regarding the controversy.
Dark blue: Brazil - Actors geographically based in Brazil. Actors spans from coffee producers, i.e. Ipanema Coffees, to governmental departments.
Large actors and their linking policies
Three of the largest actors in the network are FLO, Fair Trade USA and Equal Exchange. Via their linking policy on the web, these actors articulate their stands in great quantity, but in very different ways.
FLO's linking policy of is highly based upon linking to the national departments of the organisation and furthermore linking to international and governmental institutions, like the certification body ISO, and national banks involved in the financial dimensions of the fair trade certification.
Fair Trade USA is primarily linking to retailers and investment banks. However, one should not regard the linking policies of FLO and Fair Trade USA from the point of view that these are completely comparable actors. While FLO is an international actor, Fair Trade USA is nationally based and thus more involved in the retail market of it's single operating country.
Equal Exchange foremost link to news media articles backing up their own points of view in the controversy of fair trade certification of plantation grown coffee. Besides, it also links to other actors affiliated with the fair trade movement, consolidating it's involvement in the movement.
FLO's linking policy of is highly based upon linking to the national departments of the organisation and furthermore linking to international and governmental institutions, like the certification body ISO, and national banks involved in the financial dimensions of the fair trade certification.
Fair Trade USA is primarily linking to retailers and investment banks. However, one should not regard the linking policies of FLO and Fair Trade USA from the point of view that these are completely comparable actors. While FLO is an international actor, Fair Trade USA is nationally based and thus more involved in the retail market of it's single operating country.
Equal Exchange foremost link to news media articles backing up their own points of view in the controversy of fair trade certification of plantation grown coffee. Besides, it also links to other actors affiliated with the fair trade movement, consolidating it's involvement in the movement.
Small, but important, actors
Interestingly, the embarking point of our research, Ipanema Coffees only appears as a tiny node in the western perimeter of the map. Only connected to the rest of the network via their pilot corporation with Fair Trade USA, reflected in a link, the fair trade certification of Ipanema Coffees' beans doesn't seem to be an articulated issue on the web. The debate over the Fair Trade for All campaign among actors involved in the fair trade movement thus doesn't seem to concern the largest of the plantations involved in the campaign. This seems ironic, hence much of the debate between especially Equal Exchange and Fair Trade USA is about the sizes of the production sites.
Connecting actors
Only one actor in the map, Fair World Project, is linking the three of the four actors we see as the most important in the controversy. Fair World Project is a campaign made by the american based organisation Organic Consumers Association, operating to inform consumers about what certain kinds of fair trade labels mean. In terms of doing so, their website contains a brand analysis system - a system reviewing what coffee companies that are living up to the Fair World Projects benchmarks of fair trade.
One of the actors, reviewed in this system, is the multinational coffee company Starbucks, which is getting a low score for branding plantation grown coffee as "fair trade". In the map, Starbucks actually plays an important role for more reasons - both, it link associates itself with both Fair Trade USA and FLO AND is simultaneously one of the buyers of coffee from Ipanema Coffees. Starbucks affiliation with certification schemes are also underlined by the fact that they have their own certification standards, C.A.F.E Practices, audited by the same organ as Fair Trade USA, SCS Global Services. Despite this trade relation, Starbucks is not linking to Ipanema Coffees, nor does Ipanema Coffees link back.
One of the actors, reviewed in this system, is the multinational coffee company Starbucks, which is getting a low score for branding plantation grown coffee as "fair trade". In the map, Starbucks actually plays an important role for more reasons - both, it link associates itself with both Fair Trade USA and FLO AND is simultaneously one of the buyers of coffee from Ipanema Coffees. Starbucks affiliation with certification schemes are also underlined by the fact that they have their own certification standards, C.A.F.E Practices, audited by the same organ as Fair Trade USA, SCS Global Services. Despite this trade relation, Starbucks is not linking to Ipanema Coffees, nor does Ipanema Coffees link back.
Clusters
Professor in New Media Richard Rogers, claims that link networks can tell us something about how actors relate to an issue (Rogers 2013). This is reflected in the cluster of red nodes in the eastern part of our map, consisting of the national departments of FLO linking to each other. By associating to each other via a kind of a linking policy, these actors appear to articulate a particular stand in the controversy about fair trade certification of plantation grown coffee and by co-linking they will, due to the algorithms of search engines, appear dominant and more influential on the web.