The Gender Term Project: September 2011

As the semester closes, HOT Love concludes the first phase of its project after a one-month campaign, which yielded promising results. Take note, it says first phase, not the project as a whole. My co-administrators and I feel that we should not let our efforts go down the drain; we can definitely do more. As I texted Grace and Mia the other day, I want to treat HOT Love as my personal social responsibility, another advocacy under World of Womanity. (And my groupmates can pursue their own initiatives unless we will have the time to converge once again.)

So, just to fulfill the last of DEVC208's requirements, I am sharing the abstract of our group's final report, as well as some of my reflections on the project.

Abstract

Helping Our Teens (HOT) Love is a social marketing and social mobilization project with the aim of increasing awareness on dating violence as a form of Violence Against Women (VAW) among 18 to 24 year-old males and females. The idea espoused by the project was to positively reinforce the good reasons young people engage into relationships with the opposite sex. The project utilized Facebook as a focal point for its audiences but, at the same time, supplemented its online efforts with other online social marketing and social mobilization activities involving “informal” marketing partners such as local government councils and offices, non-government organizations, schools, and media. Essentially, these partners consist the campaign’s secondary audience helping the project multiply its reach. Statistical analysis show that HOT Love had 11,214 views, 192 fans, and 86 post feedbacks at the end of its one-month campaign, indicating the number of people reached and made to become interested. Most importantly, HOT Love brought together people to rally behind eliminating dating violence thereby, demonstrating the strong potential of Facebook in conducting social marketing and social mobilization projects.

HOT Love can be accessed at URL: http://www.facebook.com/stopdatingviolence.

Reflections

1. On Implementing a Social Marketing and Social Mobilization Program
I have always thought that social marketing and social mobilization are two of the most exciting development communication applications. That is why I was more than eager to embark on this group term project. Realizing that the project allows me to test science in a real-life (or should I say more virtual) setting, I took the bold move of coming up with my own topic--one that I feel passionate about--and selling it on the DEVC208 kapihan forum in the moodle. Thankfully, more passionate and able people got attracted to WOMEN.

2. On the application of social marketing and social mobilization frameworks in the virtual world/context
Being a firm believer of the wise use of social media, I found the rules of the term project very timely and relevant. I have noticed how two-faced social media can be. On one side, it can be very useful in generating awareness, mobilizing volunteers and combating abuses as in the case of the Para Kay Jan-Jan campaign, among others. On the other hand, social media can be very harmful as it has the capability of propagating hatred over the most trivial matters.

I thought of coming up with this blog, after consulting Dr. Bandalaria, as my own simple way of telling people that, hey, social media ain't that evil at all!

Technically speaking, I saw no significant differences in the application of social marketing and social mobilization frameworks to a virtual context. Although I believe that activities implemented on a virtual or online platform must be complemented and/or supplemented by activities in the actual setting. What do I mean by this? For HOT Love, we complemented our online strategies with actual ones that include tapping our real-world connections and presenting the campaign to forums where either our primary or secondary audiences are present. In fact, we have tapped "informal" marketing partners (who were actually our secondary audience) such as local government councils and media to help us increase viewership, participation and action.

While our real-world engagements mostly had social marketing as purpose, it would definitely be more effective if these will be supplemented by additional activities that bring together more groups and more people to rally behind the cause. This is with the aim of creating a direct impact on eliminating dating violence among our young people.

3. On online collaboration to do course requirements such as this term project; problems encountered and solutions
Please view my post on Teamwork.

4. On what I enjoyed the most in this online collaboration
Do I need to say more?

Doing a social marketing and social mobilization project as a team has its ups and downs.

Advantages include a network that is at least four times the size of my own, which is vital to the success of the project, especially since it relies on numbers (viewership, interest, etc.) for its success indicators. Aside from this, more people means more heads and less tasks than having to go solo although this advantage takes me to the other side of the coin . . .

There is a tendency for brainstorming to remain unfocused, especially when discussions are 99 percent of the time made online. E-groups, while useful, cannot suffice for face-to-face meetings. Video conference (Skype, YM or Facebook Chat) may be a good option but apparently, nothing in real-time complements the schedule of team members who are balancing the demands of work, home and school since all of us in the team have child(ren). We rely on mobile phone calls and short messaging service for real-time / urgent correspondences.

Nonetheless, I am extremely pleased to know that our group is blessed with talents and connections. We have a graphic artist, a couple of writers and editors, and a team with the gift of gab to promote, promote, promote!

The Gender Term Project

Friday, September 30, 2011

Abstract Reflections

Saturday, September 3, 2011

Let's spread "HOT Love"

Teamwork