research

1. Subject Area Research
Target Audience:
Who is the target audience? - According to the brief we were given the target audience for this
piece of work should be aimed at young people specifically between the ages of sixteen and
twenty-four. The reason for this being the target audience is that the BBC wants to encourage
young people to begin thinking about the impact that the digital age has had on culture as well
as modern society as a whole. From my own research I can then narrow down my audience to
specifically young people between the ages of sixteen and eighteen seeing as I did a survey to
find out what my target audience specifically so that when it came to narrowing down my
ideas, I had a more specific view of who I should aimit towards. I feel like this age group would
be easy for me to work with as I myself am in this age range so therefore my own views
towards my work fit in with those within my target audience. For me, I feel like the issues I plan
to touch on in my work are important issues in modern society as I feel the younger generation
need to be educated on the activismthat takes place in culture as well as what had taken place
in the past before the digital age took over.
How do you know who the target audience is? - I feel I know the target audience well as the
brief tells us that we need to create a documentary with people within the age range of 16-24
but as well as this I had also done my own survey into the target audience, and I found that the
majority of people who had done my survey were within the ages of sixteen and eighteen.
Are there any issues you have to consider for yourtarget audience? - Seeing as the brief for
the target audience we have been given is so broad, it makes it hard to name the specifics of
what issues we may have to consider for the audience. We would need to think about the
target audience as a collective instead of each specific person. If I were to speak generally
about the issues, I would consider in regards to my client, then I feel like I am going to have to

2. do research into what colour schemes and fonts appeal to my target audience as well as
keeping in mind that these things also need to be appropriate for a documentary. I feel like I
also must keep the content in the documentary more light-hearted than serious as I am aware
that a younger audience is less likely to enjoy something that is just forcing information at
them, being someone within my target audience gives me an advantage as I have an inside look
into what appeals to a teenager my age, making this question a lot easier to think about.
Research
Activism through social media, also known as slacktivism is what I will be focusing on so
therefore my research will most likely revolve around that theme, however I will look into other
articles based on other ideas I had so that I do not only have one idea I can rely on given I
change my mind later on.
There are pros and cons to social media and activismgoing together as there have been so
many cases (such as the cases of #MeToo, #BlackLivesMatter and #LoveWins which have all
been all over social media since the pandemic started) Slacktivismcertainly had become a
bigger thing over the lockdown period as the lockdown gave people the opportunity to educate
themselves on some of the big issues going on in the world such as the #BlackLivesMatter
movement which begun in America due to the death of George Floyd. When the situation came
to light all over the world almost overnight the issue was trending all over social media which
shows just how powerful social media can be when it comes to activismhowever it also gives
people the power to then begin spreading false facts about activismcases which can be
extremely dangerous, as false information can lead to unnecessary actions being taken. An
example of false information being spread could be the case of pizzagate.
Pizzagate was a case where a fake news story came out saying that there was a pizza joint in
Washington DC in America called Comet Ping Pong which allegedly had a hidden paedophilia
trafficking ring led by Hillary Clinton and her campaign crew. Due to this fake news story a man
had then went to the pizzeria and had ended up shooting the place up. A fake news had
influenced a man to go and begin firing shots in a restaurant, almost taking the lives of innocent
people, surely this means that fake news is an issue that should be taken seriously however to
this day it is still not taken as seriously as it should be, which is one of the things I feel should be
mentioned in my documentary as it is a huge issue which is glossed over, especially be the
younger generation (especially in the north east of England, I have found my peers are very
uneducated on important issues such as this one.)
Pros of online activism:

3.  Online activismdemonstrated the transformational impact that the internet has on
society are there are many examples of online petitions or campaigns that have worked
or improved the society we live in.
 Online activismis time efficient for supporters as well as allowing people from all over
the world to campaign for a cause without actually physically being there to protest.
 Online activismgenerates a significant amount of debate amongst people about
important issues which then also helps spread the word to others about the issues itself.
 As well as all of the issues I mentioned above, online activism(also known as clicktivism)
is an extremely effective way of raising funds for a cause.
Cons of online activism:
 Online activismcan be extremely misleading as a campaign can have a large number of
supporters online however despite the large amount of supports in a lot of cases this
doesn’t spark any actual change outside of the internet.
 Online activismcan be seen as hypocritical in a way as people feel at peace after
supporting something online however they are not actually doing anything substantial
to help the cause they want to contribute to.
 Due to the boom of activismon social media, this had caused the way social and
political campaigners communicate their message and now there is a rise in cases where
the messages that people are sharing are overly simplified meaning there is less room
for public deliberation in comparison to traditional activism.
 Clicktivists/Slacktivists are more passive than actual protestors and activisms and often
they demonstrate a poor understand of the cause itself and the issue at hand, only
joining the cause due to the ‘hype’ of it across social media.
#StopFundingHate

4. #StopFundingHate isanactivismmovementwhichcallsoncompaniestostopadvertisingincertain
Britishnewspapers(SuchasThe Sun,DailyMail and The DailyExpress) The campaignwasestablishedin
mid2016 by a man namesRichardWilsonandwithinthe firstthree daysof itsactivitythe campaign’s
Facebookpage hadover 70,000 likes.Aswell asthis,the campaignslaunchvideohadoversix million
views.
In Februaryof 2017 the campaignlauncheda fundraisertoraise funds,raisingover£100,000 intotal.
The campaigntargetedbrandssuch as VirginMedia,statingthatthe companywere participatinginthe
Sun’strack record of misleadingreportingfollowingthe coverage of the Novembercoverage of Brexit.
As well asthis,duringthe time of Brexitanyone whoadvertisedinthe DailyMail were targetbythe
campaign.
The latestbigthingthat the campaignhad done was thatin Februaryof 2021, the campaignannounced
theywouldbe boycottingthe tvchannel GB Newsdue tospeculationaboutwhatthe station
represented.
Companiesthatjoinedthe campaign:
 Specsavers
 Walkers
 Lego
 Plusnet
 The Body Shop
 Paperchase
#HeForShe

5. Theirlogoismeantto representthe unionof womenandmenworkingtogethertoachieve gender
equality.
#HeForShe isa solidaritymovementwhichfocusesonthe advancementof genderequality.The
campaignwas initiatedbythe UnitedStatesinlate 2014 andit focusedonthe issue of genderinequality
that theystatedwasan issue thataffectseverybodysocially,politicallyandeconomically.Itencouraged
menand boysto involve themself inthe cause byactingagainstsociety’stoxicmasculinityandthe
negative genderstereotypesputonmen.
The main thingstonote about whatHeForShe hasdone isthat on the day the movementwasfounded
there wasan eventhostedatthe headquartersof the UnitedNationshostedbyEmmaWatsonwho is
the UN WomenGoodwill Ambassador.AtthiseventEmmaWatsongave an iconicspeechpromoting
genderequality.A videoof thisspeechwaswidelysharedonsocial media,gatheringover11 million
online viewsaswell asthe fact thatthe campaignhadreceivedsupportfromover750,000 different
userswithinitsfirsttwoweeks.

6. Initiativesbythe campaign:
 Global Leadersas Role Models
 ParityinGlobal Leadership
 EmergingSolutionsforGenderEquality
 Male AlliesGuide
 Promotingthe campaigninsports
 Allianceswithcompanies(SuchasVodafone,DaBeersGroup,Chairmanof Havas Group)
Initiativesbythe supporters:
 #MorePowerfulTogether
 #YearOfMaleAllyshio
 #HeForSheAtHome
 Country-LevelInitiatives(suchas#GetFree)
Supportersof the campaign:
 Barack Obama
 Matt Damon
 Harry Styles
 AntonioGuterres
 ElizabethNyamayaro
 Edward Wageni
What data or articles can you find about online activism? -
https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/2021/social-media-and-modern-activism
This is an article, written with the intention of educating, which speaks about how social media
and how it had made such an impact towards the new age of modern activism. In the article
Tambur explores the link between how modern activist movements and social media platforms.
Tambur begins the article by touching on the subject of Covid-19 and how the pandemic has
thrown the world into chaos, however it has also given the world the chance to begin
conversations on a vast number of important social issues surrounding different things such as
the Criminal Justic System as well as things such as domestic violence and sexismwhich are all
prominent issues in modern society however they were rarely touched on to the extent that
they were during the pandemic. She first brings up the first huge movement that happened at
the beginning of the pandemic which was the reignition of the #BlackLivesMatter movement.
The death of a man named George Floyd sparked a discussion about the racismthat is

7. prominent is society as well as the Criminal Justice System. The police were known to be doing
things such as racial profiling for specific offences, victimising people through systemic violence,
etc. Thanks to the movement becoming so big on social media it gave people from the black
community the chance to share their life experiences as well as what they feel that allies should
do to progress the movement. This movement, thanks to social media, gave marginalised voices
a chance to be heard. To share their grievances to those who were willing to lend an ear. At the
peak of the movement's popularity, the hashtag itself (#BlackLivesMatter or #BLM) was being
used 3.7 million times a day on average. This itself shows just how powerful the power of social
media can be and how much of an impact it can actually make. Tambur makes a good point in
saying that social media grants people easier and more accessible ways to access resources and
information on prominent issues which I too feel is an important point in the argument about
how online activismis in comparison to offline activism. Sure, there are arguments that online
activismcould be viewed as lazy seeing as people aren’t physically there to protest a cause
however even at the least, small things such as hashtags, likes and views can at least help
critical issues receive more visibility than any physical movement could do, to the point where
pressure is pit onto those in power to make the changes that the people so obviously desire. In
fact, when it comes to the matter of the #BLM movement those who had been involved in the
death of George Floyd had been arrested as well as other police reforms being put into place
due to other issues that had occurred within the force. In the UK as this movement was
occurring, there also had been a movement about issues such as ‘Little Britain’ which had finally
been removed from television after many conversations about the problematic character
representations that were featured in the show.
Any articles you can find about the younger generation’s impact on activism? -
https://www.ypulse.com/article/2020/07/14/this-is-how-gen-z-millennials-have-changed-
activism/
This is an article written by the website YPulse to educate the reader on how the writer feels
that GenZ and Millennials have changed activismas a whole. The older generation seemed to
have created a stereotype for the two generations mentioned above stating that they are
apathetic which the members of the two generations have continuously challenged for years
through the way they approach activism. The two generations have been planning and
participating in large scale protests both online and offline about huge issues such as global
warming, The Sunrise Movement, Black Lives Matter and many others. The writer gives the
reader statistics to exaggerate their point such as the stats they give to show the severity of the
BLM case in which they state that 55% of 13–18-year-olds had participated in some way
towards the movement that begun at the beginning of the pandemic despite the dangers of the
virus.
The article touches on the movement based around global warming that occurred during the
pandemic led by activist Greta Thunberg. They give us another statistic for this movement,

8. saying that over 70% of thirteen- to thirty-nine-year-olds agreed that climate change poses an
immediate threat to human life as we know it. Thunberg had originally arranged a massive in
person climate change strike however she had moved it online due to the beginning of COVID,
encouraging her followers to join a digital strike by posting imaged with #DigitalStrike or even
#ClimateChangeStrike to raise awareness for the cause she continuously fights for. As well as
Thunberg’s movement, there was another movement focusing on climate changed called The
Sunrise Movement which was a political organization who were fighting to address the issue of
climate change and spark a change or a larger movement who could possibly put pressure on
those in power to improve the way we treat the world.
What have you learned from this research? How does it help you with your ideas for
production? - From this research I have learned what I feel is extremely useful information for
my documentary as I can include my research into the documentary itself. It also gave me some
statistics I can use in my work to make it look more professional than it would without. This
research helps me with my ideas for my production as I now have a lot more information on
social media activism, enhancing my excitement for this project as well as I feel more interested
in this than I had before in the initial thinking stage.
Sources:
https://rampages.us/annafitzgerald/2016/12/03/the-pros-and-cons-of-social-media-activism/
https://netivist.org/debate/online-activism-pros-and-cons
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeForShe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Funding_Hate