The Use Of Berger’s Contagious in Our Campaign

Our campaign is about student loneliness, and it is not recognised as much as it is for other social issues. In our group, we had experienced loneliness one way or another so it was something we could take about and relate our personal experiences too. The question that is asked within Berger’s Contagious Book is why are things talked about. He outlines 6 main factors that should be thought about during the making of a campaign, they are known as STEPPS;

• Social Currency
• Triggers
• Emotion
• Public
• Practical Value
• Stories

When it comes to social currency, this refers to how good or important something makes us look for sharing it. We want to look bright and knowledgeable so we are more likely to talk about those things that make us look good. This campaign is aimed at students as they may feel relief that a campaign has been set up to get everyone thinking about how students really feel. A minority may think that students have no problems, and they are happy all the time, they live on campus have loads of friends and go out all the time, when in reality it isn’t like that. We wanted to highlight the need to notice that students can feel lonely, which will affect their well-being and even their studies.

When it comes to triggers, this refers to association with something you have seen or head. For example, peanut butter is highly associated with jelly, and so the mention of the former often ‘triggers’ the thought of the latter. Increasing the chances that they will be both talked about and influence our behavior, and it will then trigger people to spread the word. So for example, in our campaign video it is a video walking near the bridge and into university where no one is around. So when students and others have seen this campaign, when they go into university for a lecture or sit down to do some work we hope that they will think of our video and our campaign in regards to student loneliness.

Emotion refers to videos, images, blogs, etc that bring out emotionally feelings that may be both positive and negative such as; excitement, anger or anxiety. Therefore through emotional attachment the campaign is more likely to be shared by others. The way we have tried to evoke emotion in our campaign is to show how it is sad that students are lonely, and there a misconception on how we are in a cohort. It needs more attention.

One of the factors identified is public, which refers to how important something is that is in the public eye. This triggers people to talk about it, so at the moment the Kardashians and the Jenners are constantly in the media and on their social networking sites. People have start to do something called ‘The Kylie Challenge’ were people are trying to get their lips as big as possible whether that be through fillers or using plastic bottles or glasses to such their lips in too for as long as possible. We have created a hastag for twitter (#saynotostudentloneliness) and used it on our blog, campaign video, facebook page and posters in order to spread the word, and let people know that if they want to talk about to use the hashtag. We have also contacted the university to spread the word. When I tweeted the hashtag with some facts, a speaker from the TED organisation retweeted it which was exciting, so I contacted him to help in the promotion of the campaign.

Practical value refers to the fact that people like to be helpful to others, and so anything that is particularly useful is more likely to be shared than that which is less so. This helps things go viral, when we share we care!

When it comes to stories, this refers to the fact that people tend to enjoy telling and hearing stories. Which is interpreted into a narrative and this means that it is more to be shared than those that are just presented as information. On our blog we have a few stories of how students have felt lonely and sometimes if it is made a little bit personal it helps people to relate to the campaign.

By using these main factors throughout the process of our campaign, we hope that it will be very successful.

Feminista

Feminitsta is a non-profit organisation that helps activists conduct a campaign, through varies resources they publish on their website. It was created in 2010 as they believed that men and women were not equal. Individuals who want to get involved can either create a campaign to suport equal opporunities for mean and women, or support them by donating. They use online tools such as;

• twitter (26.1k followers)
• facebook (11,756 likes)
• youtube (200 subscribers) and flikr.

The site is very simple and easy to natviate around it, with published stories of those involved with Feminista. As well as press realses, e-newletters, coverage and a message board. In the UK their statistics show that;

• Approximately 100,000 women are raped each year, and just 6% of reported rapes end in a conviction.
• Men outnumber women in parliament 4 to 1, and just 4 of the 23 cabinet members are women.
• Women working full-time earn 16% less than men, and two-thirds of low paid workers are women

Feminista believe “The creation of a world where women and men live equally won’t just ‘happen’. And it can’t be achieved solely by small groups of policy makers in closed meeting rooms. It takes all of us to stand up and be counted and take action for the world we want to live in”

The Fawcett society highlighted that women face a ‘triple jeopardy’ (The Fawcett society,2012:5) suggesting women are being hit in three ways due to the austerity measures; public sector jobs, benefit reduction and service withdrawal and as a result of this service withdrawal – women are left filling in the gaps (Fawcett society, 2012:36)

Feminista is important because it’s helps indivudals to create thier own campaigns in support of bring men and women together and making them equal. Campigns can be started in schools, and others in any envirmonment or from any backgroud. It gives people the opportaunities to come toegther and create social change, and campign for what they believe in. The more people are involved the more they are heard, the bigger the change.

Blog Appearance

When I first found out that we would be making a blog on WordPress, I can’t say I was best pleased about it. I thought, great another thing to manage. I used to have Facebook, BBM, Viber, Whats App, Twitter and Instagram. I deleted the other social networking sites and kept two. Over time I have grown the like my blog, you can write more and people don’t seem to be as opinionated as they are on other sites. With a little help from Clive, my blog has started to get better in its appearance. I have pages, with pages underneath it, that are linked to it. Tags, Categories, embedded my twitter account into it. It feels like it’s all connected together. I also like making it a little personal with photos, for example the banner on the home page. On that day I went for a walk down the canal with my brother and my puppy after work, It was such a nice day! It seems to flow, it’s not cluttered. The only social networking site I have that is embedded into my blog is twitter, looks neat at the right hand side of the page! It is difficult trying to get used to all the tabs, and widgets and settings knowing what will work and what won’t so it takes a while but once you get the hang of it, you start to like it more. I will be posting on my blog even after the final year is complete.

Staying Safe Online

I am not a techy person, and I have only really used word, emails, and official sites for getting academic journals and books. I only use twitter and Instagram on my phone. I have two programmes on the laptop known as ‘CCleaner’ and ‘Mcafee’ to protect from viruses and hacking and deleting any unnecessary files. I use the CCleaner on a regular basis if I am shopping for anything and there is an option for paying via pay pal then that’s the best way to do it. It is so easy to gain other people’s details and set up instagram, facebook or twitter and pretend to be someone else, there is actually a programme called Catfish that is in America. They help people meet the person they say they have been in a relationship online with and then visit that person, the majority of the time it turns out to be someone else. It has been in the news recently in the UK that someone has been pretending to be a man, and he has had to speak out about it because so many women think they are in a relationship with him. I was watching ‘Keeping Up With The Kardashians’ the other day and someone had hacked into Kris Jenner’s icloud and gained access to her camera, she ended up being blackmailed for money, if she didn’t pay up then they threatened to release the footage of her changing in her room. I think there are so many apps, and sites that people can use and it can be difficult to manage. There is always someone hacking something like the PS3 years ago. Having programmes like Mcafee and CCleaner can help, because it shows you which website are legit and those of which will not harm the computer. It has a green, amber, and red system, which shows next to the links.

What Sparked Our Campaign?

Personally I have experienced loneliness a number of times during my time studying at university especially after a loved one had passed away, others can experience it if hey have moved away to another university away from their family home. It can be overwhelming going from college education to studying a degree. It was nothing like I expected. Many of the students were over the age of 20 plus, I remember being 18 at the time, the youngest one. I felt stupid because the other students had already had so much knowledge on the units, they had done access courses. When and If I asked for help, I felt like I should already know these things. In the end, some of the students from the first year didn’t seem to want to put the time in to explain or help me with something and I did drop out. I had never felt so lonely in the first term. I really doesn’t get much awareness, I guess when people think of going to university you think of living with friends, not doing much work, going to lectures, or missing them, and going out for drinks, and getting up late and being around people a lot. I feel that I can reach out to people because I have experienced so much already, so when a girl in the final year had been feeling lonely after losing someone close to her, I decided to reach out and let her know that she wasn’t alone and that I have two ears if she ever wanted to talk. I hope that helped, but it was something as a group we could all relate to for one reason or another. The main objective of the campaign is to let students know that they are not alone, there are people around they can talk to and they can get support from various places!

Working Together

Working together does have it’s advantages, but there can also be a few difficult aspects to it also. It does relieve the pressure of having to do so much work in a short space of time, and not feeling so alone while you’re doing it. Someone may struggle with one thing, but the other may have a solution to the task or situation.

Tuckman’s (1977) theory of team development outlined 5 stages that self-directed teams go through while working on a specific activity together. Those 5 stages are known as; Forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning. 

I think as a group we are probably at the fourth stage of performing because everyone is doing their bit. I seem to have more responsibility on the campaign blog. I like it, I think to do this on my own it would have probably got overwhelming with so many things to keep running. One person has been doing the posters, the other has been focusing on the video, another person to manage the facebook page and I think it has all worked out well.

It goes without saying that we as students have so much work to do complete in the final year and although it is all about how we manage our time and use it wisely, it is always going to feel like there is never enough time to get so much work finished. Personally I have so much time to focus on blogging and the campaign, and I have been asking what needs to be done, or is there anything that I could take part in but there doesn’t seem to be any direction as to what next… I seem to be getting confused and it’s not being made clear. Everyone has their part to play and so do I with managing the campaign blog and tweeting using the hashtag #saynotostudentloneliness , I just want to make sure we’ve done everything we can.

Connected

‘It’s not what you know, it’s who you know’

I have just been reading an article on ‘Connected’ and although I understand being connected through one person to another, I also agree with him when he states that there is a group of people that are influenced by other people’s choices, and less likely to make decisions for themselves independently. Personally if a friend of mine has a friend that I don’t know about, I won’t associate myself with that connection because I don’t know that person at all to call them a friend, unless I decide to build a friendship with the friend of a friend. In terms of making decisions, since leaving care I developed into a very headstrong person, and If and when I know what I want I go out and get it, and if there are any obstacles to overcome then I will whatever the situation.  Professional connections are very important to me as I hear that saying ‘It’s not what you know, it’s who you know’ so in terms of the leaving care ‘system’ I know people from social workers, support workers, their manager and their managers, as they deal with requests or situations that I have been involved with, and I have also had conversations at awards that I have been nominated for. So I understand the importance of building networks, so I know who to go to for what whatever reason.

I like that way he describes people coming together in the form of the bucket brigade, it involves a number of people running to and from the house with a bucket of water with some people getting lost on the way, tired, or spilling water but it is all about the way it is organised. It is more effective in a straight line with people passing down the bucket without spilling water, getting tires or getting lost to and from the house.

During my time at university I have made some great friends, and won’t forget the tutors that have rooted for me when I came back after failing my first year. I don’t see this as a failure, it shows the determination and motivation I had to not only do this for myself, my mum sue but also to the naysayers out there.

Contagious

Why are things talked about more than others? Any content, information or gossip can spread from one person to another. In a youtube clip, Jonah Berger talks about ‘STEPPS’ which stand for S – Social Currency, T – Triggers, E – Emotion, P – Public, P – Practical Value and S – Stories.  Social Currency means that when sharing information it is done for the purpose of making the person look good. Triggers are things in the environment that remind you to talk about stuff that you have found useful or interesting. Emotion in the form means that when you care about something you are more likely to share it. When content is made public because it is easier to see, it can be imitated. The value of information is the practical value and finally sharing a story in putting into the context of a broader narrative. Once these steps have been followed you are more likely to gain attention to it. An example of this is not so long ago, many people tweeted about a dress. Asking whether it was black and blue or white and gold. It was the most topic talked about via social media, and spread like wildfire. That evening there was a campaign made with the dress as the image showing two different colours, and the campaign was based on domestic violence. There are two images and two slogans..

‘Why is it so hard to see black and blue’ and ‘Because they cover it with white and gold’

Because the dress gained so much attention on it’s own, it is more than likely to gain attention in the form of a campaign.

Politics Shmolitics..

An advert came on the TV about the live battle for 10 downing street, against Ed Miliband and David Cameron/.. I think it’s safe to say I have no interest in watching it, would much rather be slapped in the face with a fish! I remember a few years ago when David Cameron was speaking to the public in order to get voted in, and he said he would do this and that.. for example.. Student fee’s.. and I thought what a nice guy.. Next thing you know once he was voted in, the fee’s went through the roof. You can’t really trust these people well I don’t think so anyway.. They say one thing and do another. Voting is around the corner, the adverts have also been on the TV and I haven’t enrolled to be able to vote, it is always said that one vote can make a difference.. Yes.. but for who?!

Mobile Phones

One thing that drives me insane is when my sister comes round to visit, she sits on her phone. Glued to it.. can’t seem to put it down for 5 minutes. So I think why come round if all you will do is stay on your phone. I do think that having a mobile phone with you is important, if anything goes wrong you can always phone your loved one. When my partner went away to Africa it was the first thing we decided to do, was make sure that there was a way we could communicate as there was little or no internet connection in Senegal where he stayed. I think I spent almost £25 to £30 a week just to have a phone with him that would be around 5 minutes a day. However, I don’t think it’s nessercary to have it all the time. There’s nothing wrong in leaving your phone at home and going for a walk, and putting it down for an hour while you doing something else, I think some people don’t know if they can live without a phone. Is there a need to stay connected all the time through applications like twitter and facebook, if you want to know what someone is doing go round for a chat and a brew now and again that’s what I think anyway!