{Social Action Research

Name: Nicole Tunningley

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Campaign poster research

Nicole Tunningley

Purpose are written in bold

https://www.ohio.edu/orgs/stars/Poster_Campaign.html

The main purpose of this poster is to bring about global change on a shadowed subject. People don’t really tend to discuss this subject mainly because in most cases they consider it fun to do (Dressing up) but that doesn’t rule out how offensive and racist it is to the people who belong to that particular culture. In another sense this poster is intended to raise awareness to the extent some people go for the ‘accuracy’ of their costume (painting their skin a certain colour for the ethnicity of the culture etc.) and how mentally harmful it can be to the victims of this as they essentially being mocked for being who they are. These can range from the traditional attire of the culture or the stereotypical representation of it and the people who belong to it.This poster was also made with the intention to change attitudes because it is so common now that people consider it normal and a non-sensitive subject, even that the offended are just attention seeking because they don’t feel that what they are doing is wrong.This campaign poster also has the purpose of building a relationship with the subject as it is an ignored situation because many people feel uncomfortable talking about it which is one of the main reasons why some people consider it an okay thing to do.This particular campaign by STARS has achieved their aim of infiltrating mainstream media, with this particular ‘We are a culture not a costume’ campaign, which I personally have seen on various social media sites. They have done this by activating a Facebook page and twitter to not only raise awareness but gain support. The people behind the campaign are a group of racially diverse students from Ohio University in USA and the group STARS were founded in 1988 winning various awards such as the Social justice innovation award. The poster itself has both the a legitimate person belonging to that culture alongside the costume/mockery.Fancy dress/Halloween costumes can be incredibly offence not just to people of culture but with many other stereotypes. For example, it hit news that both Asda and Tesco had to both apologize and remove certain products from their stores because so many of their consumers were offended. The products themselves were ‘Mental patient murder outfits’ they were to resemble people in mental institutions/Asylums but with blood all over the costume and a possible fake weapon. People on social media complained to these companies and explained why they were upset by basically saying that the image was distressing and stigma causing to people who don’t understand what it is like to struggle with a mental illness. The companies took down these products, made ‘sizeable’ donations to mental illness charities and made their own public apologies.

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2013/sep/26/tesco-psycho-ward-costume-asda-mental-patient

Tesco & Asda:

This Barack Obama campaign poster for the election in USA 2008 had many purposes whether intentional or not.The posters main purpose was a very minimalist take on a election poster for Obama to be the president of the United states of America, they also aim to campaign for awareness that he is running and to changes attitudes about him to make him seem like the right candidate. This campaign was of course incredibly popular as Obama won the election and became the president.This poster is incredibly minimalist but it has had such a strong impact not only on the election itself but in the media, as it became very popular for people to edit the poster or make their own in the same style. They used the red white and blue colours to make up Obama to show that he is made up of these colours, like the American flag almost hinting that he is made by America for America. This poster also has the clear intention of bringing about national change as he was the first black president of the United States of America.The design for this political poster became so popular in the media that ‘Obama poster generators’ (seen with the montage above) where created across the internet. Parodies also became popular changing the image to match certain fandoms such as Star Wars changing the image from Obama to Luke Skywalker from the franchise. You also had people taking the other candidates running for president at the time using their face as the subject of the image and changing ‘Hope’ to ‘Nope’.The design of this poster was very good and well-thought out. I believe this because of the message it brought about, for example using the traditional red, white and blue can link it to the fact that he wishes to represent the country (with the stripes) or link him to the American dream of a better future which he may be promising them, if he became president. He also may have used the red, white and blue to cloak his ethnicity to show that it really doesn’t matter what colour your skin is when you have good intentions for the future of the country. Giving a sort-of short and sweet message that how he appears does not define him, but what he does with the position and power that will label him as the president that he would be, if voted for.It also has a sense of challenging the traditional agendas of the US, that not all of it’s presidents have to be white. Also, informing them that you have to keep on top of modern news or trends in order to interact with the people better.So, not only is the poster a inspiring, popular campaign poster to change voting behavior but also one to bring about change for the better.

http://www.obama-me.com/obama-me.php

The campaign arrived in many different forms of media, becoming popular worldwide with the intention of raising both awareness and creating community ties.Firstly, it started of with a filmmaker arriving by chance at a cardboard-crafted arcade built by a 9 year old kid named Caine. The man was impressed by Caine’s imagination and asked his father if he could create a short film on him, it was only when he figured out from his father that he was Caine’s first customer that he made his first move.He firstly decided that he would campaign online for people to surprise Caine by coming down to his arcade as a flash mob and play his games. He did this firstly by forming a group on Facebook but he initially didn’t know how incredibly popular it would become. The event was shared across the internet, even onto the front page of reddit and popular national news stations showed up to record the event. But it increased in popularity even still as more people showed up, it made the news, had articles written about it and Caine even had celebrity appearance at his arcade such as Jack Black with his kids. Other celebrities such as Justin Timberlake were amongst the people sharing the event on social media.It was with this increased popularity that a short film raised about Cain’s arcade encouraging people to enhance their children’s creativity and it was with this that the ‘Imagination Foundation’ was created.The Imagination Foundation was initially made to raise money for Caine to go to College but with as many people seeing what has formed from this one little idea, Caine received Scholarship offers from various Colleges as well as a free-trip to space. Due to the what amount of money had been raised the goal of the Imagination Foundation is to help more kids like Caine to develop their creativity and gain more opportunities. I would say with this that Caine’s Arcade definitely infiltrated mainstream media and created/strengthened community ties in the local schools holding certain event with the Imagination Foundation where the children will use their cardboard to create various different creative things.The impact of the short film caused more people to donate because like the subject itself, it was a very inspiring and heartwarming event to witness.

http://cainesarcade.com/about/

‘Carousel’ is an Brighton-base organization that’s main purpose is to create access to media production for non-traditional groups.Through research on their website I discovered that Carousel helps learning disabled artists develop and manage their creative lives. One way they do this that I have noticed is by holding/organizing local events such as rock houses or film festivals such as upcoming one called ‘Oska bright’. At which they will accept submissions from people to display to audiences at this event. Which is a good way to raise awareness and gain support for this non-profit organization. You can donate to this organization by fundraising or directly through the website and use their social media to raise awareness. The Organization are very personal with this subject as most of the organization themselves are disabled with board members too. The technique of this organization is to allow non-traditional/disabled groups to learn artistic skills in this creative genre as they shouldn’t be deprived of that just because they are different.

http://www.jcwi.org.uk/

The campaign posters for the JCWI (Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants) are very mind opening and clear on their intentions. The purpose of this organization and their poster is ‘to campaign for the justice in immigration, nationality and refugee law and policy’. The impact of this particular poster is to make you consider the reality of immigration rather than just what you hear in the news/media, as it is not always true. Many media platforms/people portray immigration as a bad thing, saying things like they have come to steal your jobs or abuse our privileges as British citizens. When in reality they exist just as we do, having a job to eat, pay rent etc. because those things are considered necessities of life and people should not be deprived of those necessities just because they weren’t born here. So they are also making people aware of the reality of immigration. Also, the technique was well thought out as by saying “For 7 years I have been saving lives and your life could be saved next” which is a very powerful way to make people consider themselves in this equation and how better off they are with immigration, therefore changing their attitudes on the situation.Immigration has been in the news a recently too, such as Huffington Post talking about the fact that some British landlords refuse to rent to people with a foreign name (3rd September 2015). Also, in social media such as Twitter and Tumblr you can see pictures of various different countries in the EU protesting to their governments to allow immigrant through their borders. This shows that campaigns such as these and the subject in general has definitely infiltrated mainstream media with the intention to bring around both global and national change so that immigrants wont be deprived of necessities.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlawCTdZrs8

Idea Generation

Transphobia, Gender Discrimination and Gender Dysphoria

Chosen social action:

QuestionnaireI formed my questionnaire so that it consisted of a variety of quantitative and qualitative questions.

The questions such as 8, 9 and 10 required detailed answers which I know I require but may struggle with as some people have little to no knowledge on the subject.

I included a disclaimer on my questionnaire as it is a very sensitive/personal subject. One at which I never meant any offence if unintentionally given.

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Questionnaire data summary

Transphobia & Gender discrimination

This is where I would ask typical quantitative research such as age, gender etc.

Determining the type of person who took the survey (Audience)

What gender do you most commonly identify yourself as?

FemaleMaleOther

GenderThis is a pretty important piece of audience identification/profile data for my particular piece of research.It shows here that a larger majority of people who took my survey were female (trans women included) and that a small amount of people considered themselves out of the average gender categories (Male/Female).This could mean that typically I should aim to make my campaign appeal to the more feminine side of the spectrum but that does not mean (for my subject) that I should make it all pink and aesthetically appealing to only women when it statistically goes beyond this.Therefore, I feel that I should contain a mixture of colours, fonts, images and styles aesthetically for my work to create variation.

What age category do you fall into?

18 and under19 - 2526 - 3030+

AgeAge is a common stereotype in my chosen subject as people believe that it is mainly youths that encounter theses issues as they consider what they are going through to be a ‘phase’ and that they will ‘grow out of it’.I see it is quite the opposite with my results as most of the people (as confirmed later on) had more issues at age 30+ with transphobia and discrimination.But overall I have come to the conclusion with my research that my social action issue doesn’t just conform with one age range in particular as it is an issue that could happen to anyone.

Do you consider yourself as Cisgender? (Identify yourself as the gender you were as-

signed to at birth) YesNoUnsure

CisgenderThis is a very important piece of research for my topic as it allows me to know what segment of my audience aren’t a different gender to what they were born as. This category is important to my research as these are the people who typically know little to nothing on the issue I will be discussing and are therefore the audience that I will raise awareness of the subject to.Those who stated that they are not cis are the people who would typically be trans or non-conforming who are my overall target audience.Therefore, appealing to all categories if important for my campaign.

Are you Transgender?

YesNoUnsure

TransgenderThis piece of research is also very important for my work as it distinguishes what amount of transgender people exist among the cis with my research.This itself is a good piece of statistical research but in order to have a clear grasp on the legitimate data I would have to look for additional statistics elsewhere to back up my own.Also, someone in the unsure category stated that they placed themselves there as they were experiencing Gender Dysphoria and therefore to them there gender was unclear.This information is useful as hopefully I will be able to cover the issue with gender Dysphoria amongst my work.

If you are transgender, do you face any issues such as har-

rasment in your everyday life?

YesNo

Discrimination

This piece of information though upsetting is important as all the people on my survey who stated that they were transgender ALL of which said that they experience discrimination because of this.The details of this harassment include being purposefully mis-gendered and workplace harassment alongside ‘common’ discrimination including being excluded for non-conforming gender presentations.People (unless doing the harassment) are typically unaware of this happening which is why I hope to raise awareness on the subject as discrimination is not acceptable in any form.

Short hair

Suits

9.4 9.6 9.8 10 10.2

10.4

10.6

10.8 11 11

.2

What do you consider to be the most stereotypi-

cally male physical characteristic out of the

following?

Stereotypes(Male)

This question is mainly for people who consider the stereotypes to be natural or normal and ‘anything out of is weird’. Facial hair was considered the most stereotypically male/masculine, which shows to suggest if people see a woman with facial hair they may automatically make possible harmful assumptions/comments. This is one of the things I hope to stop/prevent with my campaign.

Long hairMakeup

Skirts/dressesAccessories

9.4 9.8 10.2

10.6 11

What do you consider to be the most stereotypically

female characteristic out of the following?

Stereotypes(Female)

This question is mainly for people who consider the stereotypes to be natural or normal and ‘anything out of is weird’. Wearing skirts/dresses was considered the most stereotypically female/feminine, which shows to suggest if people see a characteristically masculine figure wearing either a skirt or dress they may automatically make possible harmful assumptions/comments. This is what I hope to prevent/stop with my campaign.

These questions are used to get more information on what people know, how they feel etc.

Qualitative questions to get a grasp of people’s opinions on certain subjects

Transgenderrepresentations(in the media)

This question was to see how people initially reacted to seeing specific transgender/gender-nonconforming celebrities in the media, with popular examples for them to relate to if unsure.Mostly, people weren’t sure on the subjects as they don’t think that they had enough coverage for people to know about it in the first place.Otherwise than that people were either uninterested, claiming that it was ‘good for them’ etc.Yet the people who were trans out of this category said they were neutral, stating things such as the media covering only the rich or popular over a realistic representation of transgender people.

What do you think about transgender representation in the medai? E.g. Caitlyn Jenner,

Ruby Rose Not enough coverageIt's goodNeutralDon't care

LGBT groups

This shows the severity of how unaware people are of the trans community and the fact that they form this groups to help people. For example, if they are going through gender Dysphoria and are getting support nowhere else.The results shocked me to how many people didn’t know of any LGBT groups around them and if they did, it was mainly because it effected them and they felt the need to. But it important to stress this issue as LGBT communities also have cisgender heterosexual people volunteering and helping out. People just seem to think that maybe because they aren’t trans or a homosexual that maybe they aren’t welcome. LGBT communities constantly state that this is not true.

Do you know of any LGBT support centers/organizations around your local area? If, no. Do you feel that you should?Yes

No and I don't think I need toNo and I think I shouldNo and I don't know if I should

Media coveringDiscriminationof trans people

Here the results were quite mixed, at first I only expected to have two categories. Either yes or no but I have had to add an additional category because of how strongly some of my responders felt on the subject of discrimination in general.There were many interesting, detailed responses on this subject such as stating that people should be taught that there are more than two genders in school so it becomes less of an uncommon occurrence that people are being bullied for not being cis. A second issue is that people stated that maybe it isn’t as well known as there aren’t any major organizations discussing the impact of discrimination against transsexuals and non-binary genders, which is why I though of it as an important issue to discuss.

Finally, do you feel that the im-pact of discrimination towards

transsexuals is not spoken about enough?

Yes

All types of dis-crimination need to be discussed

No

For this part of my audience research, I really wanted to uncover my target audience amongst the many responses I received on my questionnaire. As these tend to be the people who cares the most about this particular social action (people affected by it).

Specification (Target Audience)

A variety of people belonging to different age groups answered my questionnaire and this helped to see who this particular social action issue affected the most.

Age comparison

This particular responder is considered a stereotypical person to be transgender.

This is because he is a youth and most people believe the stereotype that most people that consider themselves transgender are merely going through what they consider to be a ’phase’. Which is wrong and very harming if this opinion spread/became a popular aspect on the situation

As a youth they typically know enough about what's going on in social media about trans people, to give a detailed response to Q8. This is helpful as it is a really good response to to get a youths opinion on how trans are being represented.

Stereotypical audience (Youth)

I felt that it was quite important to involve this audience type as it is one that most people don’t expect to see or one that they lack knowledge on the most.

This is because they are on the older end of the spectrum and goes against the stereotype that people have conceived for the trans community.

The trans representations in the media for instance don’t even fit this stereotype, which is why people either consider it as weird (Caitlyn Jenner) or just recognize them as the gender they consider them to be not what they are (Ruby Rose)

Unexpected audience type

There were quite a lot of people that answered my survey that didn’t have too much knowledge on the subject, which is what I expected. As it is not as well covered as other components of the LGBT+ community.

Knowledge Comparison

Though transphobia and gender discriminations some people not belonging to that particular community still have some knowledge on the subject.

They may learn this from platforms such as the news, social media or friends that have gone through these particular issues.

I want to make people as aware, if not more than represented here.

Cisgender (Informed)

It is definitely a goal of mine to make people (such as seen here) more aware of how much discrimination and abuse of both a verbal and physical matter that trans people have to go through in order to be themselves

As they are so unsure of how much discrimination that they face that they didn’t even know how to give a through answer on the subject because they didn’t know enough.

Cisgender (Uninformed)

The client: GIRES

Overview of the clientGIRES (Gender Identity Research and Education Society) has the overall aim as a non-profit organization to ‘improve sustainably the environment in which gender non-conforming people live’(according to their website).http://www.gires.org.uk/GIRES was founded in 1997 as a UK organisation. I have also discovered information provided by another organization they have worked closely with since 2000 (mermaids.org) that their primary mission is to improve the circumstances in which trans people live, by changing the way that society treats them. The charity combines the expertise of a vast voluntary team of trans and non trans people, many of them have had direct experience of the issues involved. GIRES is supported by 366 individual and 76 Corporate Members, making annual subscriptions, one-off donations and payments for services that the organization provides on a daily basis.GIRES also upholds the right of all those who do not fit into the typical boy/girl, man/woman categories including those people who wish to change gender role entirely.

The issues: Gender Dysphoria/Gender discrimination/Transphobia

What issues does your client campaign on?My client covers a wide range of issues varying from Gender Dysphoria (Being unhappy recognizing as the gender you were assigned to at birth) all the way to everyday discrimination in the workplace etc.

What are some of the impacts they have managed to achieve?GIRES along with mermaids.org have been campaigning since 2000 for NHS to make puberty suspending medication available to non-conforming young people, the NHS adopted their policy in 2011 and then agreed and pursued this action fully in 2014.

What are they still hoping to achieve?The next goal is to achieve a more caring approach regarding cross-sex hormones and care for young people who have obtained medication from the internet (which can be dangerous in many different ways).The founders of GIRES said in a trailer about mermaids.org that everybody should challenge the restriction of tradition and society revolving around the gender topic.https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsDRRuhpz3oCi5PABiiY5kA

Facts and figures: Transphobia and Gender discrimination

- 73% of trans people have experienced some form of harassment ranging from comments to physical abuse and violence- 46% of trans people have experienced harassment within their own neighbourhood- 28% of trans people have had to move due to harassment- 17% of trans people were refused (non trans related) healthcare- The number of children aged 10 or under who have been referred to

NHS because of transgender feelings has more than quadrupled in five years

- It is estimated that 41% of trans people have attempted suicide at some point in their lives

- According to ‘press for change’ there is an estimated amount of 5,000 post-operative people in the UK

- GIRES found that in 2011 there were 650,000 people in the UK that experience some degree of gender non-conformity, this is around 1% of the population.