A Comparative Analysis of Social Media Campaigns: Gender and Society

This assignment analyzes three hashtag campaigns: #MeToo, #HowIWillChange, and #NotOkay, focusing on their initiatives, goals, target audiences, and effectiveness in addressing sexual violence and gender-based issues. The #MeToo campaign provided a platform for survivors of sexual abuse to share their stories, while #HowIWillChange engaged men in discussions about sexual harassment and rape culture. #NotOkay encouraged women to share their first experiences of sexual assault. The assignment evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of each campaign, highlighting their roles in raising awareness, fostering empathy, and promoting social change. The analysis draws on academic research to understand the campaigns' impact on gender norms and the fight against sexual violence. The assignment explores the campaigns' use of social media tools like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, and emphasizes the role of these campaigns in empowering survivors and mitigating the prevalence of sexual assault.

HASHTAG CAMPAIGNS
Name of the student:
Name of the University:

CAMPAIGN 1: #MeToo
 Details about the initiative:
It gave the opportunity for
public to reveal their personal
stories of sexual abuse. It was
a movement against all types
of sexual assault and it gave
the public the opportunity to
identify victims of sexual
abuse.
 Goals:
1.To achieve empowerment
through empathy for sexual
abuse survivors.
2. To create a community of
survivors where all can move
together (O'Neil et al., 2018).

CAMPAIGN 1: #MeToo
 Target audience:
The target audience
for this campaign
included women who
have experienced
sexual abuse in any
form in their life
(O'Neil et al. 2018).
 Media tool to
present in class:
Instagram and
Facebook
Effectiveness of the campaign:
I think the campaign is effective
because it is providing victims the
opportunity to reveal their stories and
explore views of many other people
who have been abuses. This would
contribute towards empowerment of
victims as they campaign is providing
all resource for welfare of survivors
(Rodrigues, 2016).
The main strength of the campaign is
that it is giving message to survivors
that they are not alone. Mathews and
Collin-Vézina (2016) support that
raising awareness and empathy are
two strategies to reduce sexual
violence. Empathy encourages
adapting behaviour that is specific to
the needs of the people.

Campaign2:#HowIWillChange
 Details about the initiative:
#HowIWillChange is a twitter-
based social media campaign or
movement that encourages
men to come up and express
their view on sexual
harassment. It was created by
Benjamin Law.
 Goals: The main goal of this
campaign was to include men in
the sexual violence discussion
and find out how their view on
the topic to understand the
factors contributing to the rape
culture.
 Target audience: Males

Campaign2:#HowIWillChange
 Effectiveness of the campaign:
The campaign is considered effective
as it is an appropriate response to the
#MeToo movement and it can help to
understand the social factors in
society that leads to event of sexual
harassment. Certain gender based
norms such as promotion of traditional
gender roles, sexist beliefs and
hostility towards women contribute to
the rape culture. #MeToo has played a
role in intentionally engaging men in
the discusson and find ways to
dismantle rape culture and promote
egalitarianism. It encourages
participation of men in ending sexaul
violence (PettyJohn et al., 2018).
 Media tool to present in class:
Twitter

Campaign 3: #NotOkay
 Details about the initiative:
#NotOkay was a movement
started by Kelly Oxford which
encouraged women to share
their first experience of a sexual
assault on twitter. This
campaign unleashed account of
innumerous number of women
who have been assaulted in the
world.
 Goal: The main goal of the
campaign was to understand the
prevalence of sexual assault
case and shed light on the
unspoken truth of the rape
culture (Safron Hon, 2016).
 Target audience: Females

Campaign 3: #NotOkay
 Effectiveness of the campaign:
1. The effectiveness of the campaign is
understood from the fact that it can have
profound impact on the victims of abuse
as the campaign gives the message that
they are not alone.
2. There are many others who have
experienced such assault. By encouraging
public to narrate their first sexual assault
experience, it uses an important tactic to
understand the grave reality of sexual
abuse.
3. Such campaigns can open new pathway to
mitigate the rape culture that exist in
society today. As sexual violence is a
human generated crisis, hashtag
campaigns are effective source in getting
attention towards social issue from a large
section of the population (Karuna et al.,
2016).
 Media tool to present in class: Twitter

REFERENCES
Karuna, P., Purohit, H., Stabile, B., & Hattery, A. (2016). On the Dynamics of
Local to Global Campaigns for Curbing Gender-based Violence. arXiv
preprint arXiv:1608.01648.
Mathews, B., & Collin-Vézina, D. (2016). Child sexual abuse: Raising
awareness and empathy is essential to promote new public health
responses. Journal of public health policy, 37(3), 304-314.
O'Neil, A., Sojo, V., Fileborn, B., Scovelle, A. J., & Milner, A. (2018). The# MeToo
movement: an opportunity in public health?. The Lancet, 391(10140),
2587-2589.
PettyJohn, M. E., Muzzey, F. K., Maas, M. K., & McCauley, H. L. (2018). #
HowIWillChange: Engaging men and boys in the# MeToo
movement. Psychology of Men & Masculinity.
Rodrigues, R. A. (2016). Femvertising: empowering women through the
hashtag? A comparative analysis of consumers' reaction to feminist
advertising on twitter (Doctoral dissertation, Instituto Superior de Economia
e Gestão).
Safron Hon, N., (2016). #NotOkay And the many reasons why. Retrieved from:
https://rover.whoistheo.com/notokay-d536a3d96424