This blog examines the website for Conspiracy For Good (CFG), an advocacy
website. I will be evaluating the
website based on the user experience of the immersive media offered by the
website, its strengths, weaknesses and areas for improvement and discussion. I will also propose a new advocacy campaign
with a selected target audience.
CFG: A Case Study
The
CFG website is a user participation website whose goal is to use user generated
content to shape an advocacy campaign that “empowers its audience to take real-life
action and create positive change in the world,” ("Conspiracy For
Good", n.d.). This is done
primarily in two ways: one allows you to participate in the story by sharing
your experience with a “Conspiracy For Good,” on the website in order to
generate an online grass-roots type of crowd-sourcing, the second is using the
website as a resource to direct you to where you can participate in real life
where users can “...follow the story and build a community that focuses on
changing the world for the better, one person and one action at a time,” ("Conspiracy
For Good", n.d.).
I would have to say
that I do believe the CFG campaign is a piece of immersive media. I believe so because it involves the participation
of the end user, because it also involves more than one of the senses, i.e.
vision, audio, and tactile, and because the content does not remain
static. Also, the CFG campaign asks
users to interact with and expand the original narrative. This is definitely what Rose (2011) indicates
immersive media should be. As Rose points out, immersion is not just what is
happening but what has happened and what will happen (Rose, 2011).
CFG has utilized many tools that give it
great potential to drive user generated content, primarily the website. For
example the initial splash page is media friendly, is aimed at a younger
audience which I find to be appropriate as the younger audience is more likely
to be familiar with the technology and process of user-generated content. Also,
the initial page urges participation by providing only a few choices on the
home page – which drives traffic to its user-generated content areas and
instructions for participation. Another strength
is a solid mission statement; I believe it is important to have a clear
attainable goal when being involved in advocacy. The mission statement is very clear and
attainable, “As part of The Conspiracy For Good you will join a collective of
thinkers, artists, musicians, and causes, creating a unified voice to fight the
forces of social and environmental injustice,” ("Conspiracy For
Good", n.d.).
This
well though-out mission statement lays the foundation for the narrative that
underlies the CFG campaign. I mean who
wouldn’t want to join a collective of thinkers, artists, musicians, and causes,
creating a unified voice to fight the forces of social and environmental
injustice? The mission statement also
closely aligns with, for example, the “London Experience,” action campaign in
which people of all walks of life are asked to participate in solving a social
injustice – ultimately with both online and offline activities.
The
CFG campaign also did a great job of seamlessly integrating immersive and AR
technologies, like the snap-picture identification in the London Experience, to
assist the members in achieving their goals.
This provides a close tie-in to the participant’s online activities
closing the gap that separates online and offline activities that are the
hallmark of traditional online advocacy campaigns.
The
CFG campaign does have some weaknesses.
For example, it does require internet access, a smart phone, transportation
and time and a willingness to participate – all at the expense of the user – so
in a sense its market is limited (albeit not by much these days). Also the
website does have some weaknesses – while the splash page is nice to look at
and is good at driving traffic to different channels but it also obscures the
overall goal of the project. When I
looked at the splash page I thought it was going to be more along the lines of
a fancy fan fiction website, and it took me while to figure out what the aim of
the project was and how to get involved and I took it more as being designed
like a game making it seem less serious than their stated goal. It is also lengthy to setup and become a
contributing member.
If I had to work on the next iteration of
this project, I would choose to add and focus on a section where people can
nominate themselves or others for awards or badges given out by the website as
recognition for action in social advocacy.
These awards and badges can become part of the story. I would also want to encourage more user
interaction and would post achievements and other ways to connect through the
CFG website and your profile rather than directing traffic to other social
media sites.
The production would primarily be to
establish a timeline of “conspiracies,” for good to show forward progression of
achievements by users, and a way to look back at others past “conspiracies,”
and comment on them. Also, by adding a
nomination system and awards we are providing an altruistic motivation to get
involved while also creating more interaction between users, which will improve
the overall content on the site. This
type of reciprocal acknowledgement has been proven to work well, LinkedIn for
example allows you to endorse other people’s skills, and
in return people endorse your skills – this creates an atmosphere online that
mimics real life interaction.
The target audience for this iteration
would be an older audience, perhaps ages 30-55, people who either have money or
time to donate to social advocacy. Also,
the process of recognition through awards is more appealing to an older
audience than just being part of a viral advocacy story which is what is offered
now. I think the improvement would be in
increasing the age group that is being targeted. While there is a digital divide that exists
between older and younger audiences proper targeting of media can help close
this gap and expand the reach of this advocacy campaign.
References
Rose, F. (2011). The art of immersion: how the
digital generation is remaking Hollywood, Madison Avenue, and the way we tell
stories. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.
In my recent work with big box retailers like Amazon, Walmart and Target, I have really seen how these big box retailers have begun to embrace the idea that video and other forms of rich media do a better job of explaining what a product is and thus selling it. In fact, in the document I was reading, most of the text that was recommended was aimed at giving the customer "additional detailed information,' about the product - so basically, anything that video or images can't quite capture. In addition to this most of the content has moved lower, and lower, below the rich media content as if it is an afterthought - and it very well may be. Check out these product pages here and here to get an idea of what I am talking about. 
