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Social Action and Community Media

Existing Product Research

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Case Study: Smokefree NHS

Creative Media Production 2012

Background: Smokefree is a campaign by the National Health Service to convince people to quit smoking and to help people who are trying to quit. It is a well known campaign that has helped many people quit smoking in the UK.

Purpose: I would identify the primary purposes of Smokefree NHS is to bring about national change to the attitudes towards smoking, to raise awareness of the health implications of smoking and to build relationships with subjects who are trying to quit.

Aims: To save money in the NHS by stopping people from smoking meaning that there are less smoking related health issues each year.

The purposes that can be applied to smoke free are: • To bring about local, national or global

change• To change attitudes• To raise awareness• To provide information• To campaign• To build relationships with subjects

3Creative Media Production 2012


Techniques:Online: Smokefree have a good website that helps people learn about why they should quit smoking. Quit Kit: Quit Kit is a kit that Public Health England send out in the post for people who have signed up online to Smokefree. Social Media: Smokefree is very active on social media such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. They use video advertisements on YouTube to try and persuade more people to quite. TV: Smokefree also use a lot of video adverts on TV. These are often quite morbid and show the real health effects associated with smoking.

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Impact: It’s hard to judge the impact of the Smokefree NHS campaign as smoking is such as widespread thing globally. On their website, Smokefree have a large number of success stories about people quitting smoking and how it has changed their life. • Smokefree is a campaign by the National

Health Service which means it is the official campaign surrounding smoking in the UK. It is likely that it has helped many thousands of people attempt to stop smoking.



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Case Study: Talk To Frank

Background: Talk To Frank is a drug awareness campaign in the UK. They provide extensive information into the effects of all kinds of drugs from stimulants to legal highs. They primarily use TV and social media such as Facebook and Youtube to connect with their audience.

Purpose: The purpose of this campaign is to raise awareness of the effects of drugs and to change attitudes of people that feel pressured into taking drugs. Talk To Frank also offer ‘contact Frank’ which offers support to drug users including a live chat and a 24 hour advice line.

Aims: The aim is to reduce the amount of illegal drugs that are being sold and used in the UK.

The purposes that can be applied to Talk To Frank are:• To bring about local, national or global

change• To raise awareness• To create access to media production for

non-traditional groups• To challenge dominant representations and

agendas• To provide information• To build relationships with subjects


Case Study: Talk To FrankTechniques:Social Media: Talk To Frank are on all forms of social media. On their Youtube account, they have videos detailing the effects that drugs have on your brain and your body. They have over 1,000,000 views in total.

Advertisement: Talk To Frank run an extensive advertisement campaign that are often on at popular times of TV. They are impactful and hard-hitting, and often tug on the emotions of the audience as well as raising the awareness of particular drugs/legal highs.

Promotion: Talk To Frank are often promoting their call/chat line which anyone can call and advises about the effects of drugs and offers a support network to quitting them.

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Impact: Similar to Smokefree NHS, there is no solid evidence or data to reveal that Talk To Frank has had a significant impact in helping people with drug addiction. However, based on their advertisement campaigns and the fact that it is a wide-spread issue in the UK (around 2.7 million people aged 16-59 had taken a drug in the last year), it is very likely that Talk To Frank have helped a number of people in drug addiction. This can be justified in the success stories part of their website.


Case Study: Talk To Frank

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Case Study: Salvation Army Homelessness


Background: Salvation Army are a Christian church and charity that do work to help and prevent homelessness, poverty and modern slavery. Purpose: Their purpose is to help the people that are in need or people at the bottom of society that face daily struggles of living. The people that our government leaves out and doesn’t care about. Their primary purposes outside of homelessness are: “the advancement of the Christian religion, of education, the relief of poverty, and other charitable objects beneficial to society or the community of mankind as a whole.Aims:• To break the cycle of homelessness.• To support people who have suffered

issues such as human trafficking, domestic abuse or poverty.

• “Save souls, grow saints and serve suffering humanity”

Purposes that can be applied to Salvation Army are: • To bring about local, national or global

change• To change attitudes• To create or strengthen community• To campaign• To build relationships with subjects


Case Study: Salvation Army HomelessnessTechniques:The religious side of things:Above all else, The Salvation Army are a church and religious organisation and so indoctrinate the sheep incapable or unable to think critically to join their cause. This is how they have a membership of 1,150,666.Charity work: The Salvation army do lots of charity work such as charity shops, operating shelters for the homeless and disaster relief/humanitarian aid to developing countries.Support networks:Salvation Army offers help and support for many victims of social issues. They provide practical assistance and access to psychological, medical and legal services where needed.Safehouses: They offer a safe and supportive environments for those in need to begin to heal or recover.

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Impact: Because of the elusive and unmonitored nature of homelessness, it is very hard to measure how much of an impact the Salvation Army Homelessness campaign has had. It can be said for certain that in particular cases and in lots of cities across the UK, the Salvation Army has helped homeless people have shelter, get a warm meal and get back into normal life with a stable home and job. To the side and below are some general graphs that lead to and measure the extent of homelessness.


Case Study: Salvation Army Homelessness

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Case Study: 2015 Conservative Campaign


Background: After 5 years in power with a coalition with the Lib-Dems since 2010, the blood-sucking conservatives needed to get back into power so that they could continue to dismantle society and serve themselves. This campaign was led by prime minister David Cameron. The Conservatives won a majority of seats in the Commons and formed a single-party government.

In march 2017, the party was fined £70,000, the largest fine of this sort in British political history, after an Electoral Commission investigation found “significant failures” by the party to report its 2015 General Election campaign spending.

Purpose: The primary purpose of this material is to try to convince people to vote conservative in order to obtain a majority vote in the First Past The Post (FPTP) system.

Purposes that can be applied to 2015 Conservative Campaign are:• To change attitudes• To bring about national change• To raise awareness• To provide information• To campaign• To change voting behavior• To build relationships with subjects

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Case Study: 2015 Conservative CampaignTechniques:• Propaganda and advertisement: Political parties use a range of media and

internet to get their print-posters/leaflets out there. Mediums include social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, video manifesto adverts on TV, billboards, touring vehicle adverts etc. This means that their message is widespread and gets press coverage.

• Door knocking: local conservative candidates will go around knocking on people’s doors and getting people’s votes.

• They also held conferences for the public that outlined the policies for their manifesto and their promises if they are elected.

• Public speeches: Numerous Conservative figures such as David Cameron, George Osbourne and Theresa May did public speeches in major cities in the UK to try and gain publicity and get votes.

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Case Study: 2015 Conservative CampaignImpacts:• The Conservative content of the

2015 campaign election had to have some level of effectiveness as they were voted into government for another 5 years. This also could be down to a lack of effectiveness by the opposition.

• There was also a lot of backlash and parodies of the conservative material. The policies and claims that were made were criticised by opposing parties and by press such as the posters to the right, that went viral on social media. The liberal democrats also use this particular poster to their advantage and criticised the policies.

• The photograph that’s used in the background was also revealed to be a German road in Weimar, Central Germany taken by Alexander Burzik (original to the right).

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Case Study: A Smile For A Child


Background: The charity was founded by Chris Read after he was made redundant and runs the charity on a part-time basis, his drive and enthusiasm has driven the charity forward with the help of the Read family to start and later with help from many of their many friends. The charity relies on volunteer collectors to support this great work, without them the charity could not have helped so many children.

Purpose: The charity is a small grant giving charity, that helps disabled and disadvantaged children in the UK to participate and progress in sport. This is done via mainly small grants to help buy much needed equipment.

Aims: To help disabled and disadvantaged children participate in sports.

Purposes that can be applied to A Smile For A Child are:• To bring about local change• To change attitudes• To raise awareness• To campaign• To create or strengthen community

ties• To infiltrate mainstream media• To build relationships with subjects

http://www.asmileforachild.org

http://www.asmileforachild.org/

http://www.asmileforachild.org/


Case Study: A Smile For A ChildTechniques: A Smile For A Child have a range of techniques they use both to gain support from the public and to help children. • Their main technique to get people involved in

their campaign is to fundraise through events such as the Great North Run and a series of walks/sporting events. They get people to sign up and have other people sponsor them to raise money for A Smile For A Child as they rely solely on donations and volunteers.

• Social media: A Smile For A Child are on social media such as Facebook and Twitter, which helps them promote the awareness of their events. This might encourage people to sign up and volunteer and encourages the sharing of events.

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Impact: http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/14728415.Success_for_wheelchair_appeal/ A Smile For A Child has partially succeeded to get coverage in the mainstream news. This means that they will get more support for their charity as their cause has been publicised. This completes the objective to infiltrate mainstream media.

A Smile For A Child website has a section called ‘Children Helped’ in which they have stories and images of the children they have given help and support to.


Case Study: A Smile For A Child

http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/14728415.Success_for_wheelchair_appeal/



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