Aims and Considerations sheet

Existing Products:How many existing artefacts do you feel you will need to look at? To obtain a valid scope of the existing artefact currently circulating I should look at three or more different and varied approaches to animal welfare campaigns. The artefacts do not necessarily need to be in specific relation to horse racing.

What kinds of artefacts are you expecting to look at?Often present in animal based campaigns is a theme of “what if it was happen-ing to you” I should capitalise this idea due to its obvious success. Other re-search i should mirror and/or take inspiration from cover the dramatic and hard hitting approach. All are realistic ideas, I should research a diverse range of techniques.What elements will you look at to help you with your research?I should look into posters, websites, printed media, funding, marketing tech-niques and demographics related to each campaign. More in depth research and documentation can be done to specific and more relevant assets of a cam-paign. For example a poster should be examined in detail in terms of aesthetics. Colour scheme, tone, graphic style, font and space awareness are all important factors.

Primary Research:How many people would you hope to question as part of your primary research? My aim to the consult as many people as possible with various types of re-search. Ideally I will receive 25 plus responses in my online questionnaire alone, the questionnaire is not biased towards a particular group of people. In fact I would welcome a larger demographic as it allows for more statistics to be ob-tained and to greater degree accuracy. My target audience is everyone, ethical issues should concern everyone although it will be beneficial to learn who is against/for horse racing and who is uninformed, and once I have found this in-formation I can then tailor my campaign towards this group of people. In turn al-lowing me to distribute my project appropriately. What methods will you use?I will produce a questionnaire designed to find out how many people are cur-rently informed of the danger presented to horses in horse racing, I will also de-termine if people generally oppose horse racing or do not a significant enough reason to ban the sport. Crucially I must find my target audience therefore I re-quire a large demographic. A questionnaire is one methods that is useful for gathering mainly statistics and quantitative research although I will get less of an idea of personal opinions, qualitative will also be included. Therefore it is best to combine this method of research with a method that allows people to express feeling and have a prolonged time to allow me to document them. I plan to document first-hand information from what people tell me in a focus group type approach. Interviewing a handful of people on the subject is a good way to balance out the statistics and qualitative research. Could there be issues in getting access to people affected by your chosen social issue?

As a major and well-known part of English culture there should be no difficulty in finding people to take part in my research. People with a neutral point of view on the sport have an equally important opinion as enthusiasts. The key to my research is to find out if ordinary people are aware of the cruelty horses suffer from, and if they are if they allow it to put them off making contact with the races through betting or other means of funding them. Most communities are very accessible through the internet meaning that there will be little difficulty in posting an online questionnaire to various forums. Facebook and twitter is a quick and easy way to access people of all ages and interests. The issue is not a delicate one currently meaning that people will not shy away from answering questions on the matter, of course the survey will be anonymous. I require a large variety of results for a successful online survey therefore I will address pro horse racing communities as well as animal rights communities such as “Peta” or “WWF”. Amongst these opposite ends of the spectrum I intend to get results from less connected groups, to do this I will post my survey on disconnected pages and forums such as political pages, others sports pages, shop or business pages etc. Gaining detailed qualitative research in person will be simple as the issue concerns everyone, or at least everyone is informed as to what the races as and may be shocked by facts. How will you know if your research has been successful?I will consider my research successful if I gain a large number of detailed results from a large demographic of people. Patterns in opinions related to groups of people will really help me know who I should be targeting my campaign towards and who is already in a position where they agree with my campaign’s purpose.

Considerations:Why might you need to be sensitive when carrying out research on social action issues?Social issues in general can be a sensitive issue and therefore are rarely openly discussed. Some issues more than others as people may have conflicting views, which can be held strongly. The topic of animal cruelty however is one that is easier to talk about. People are generally relaxed about discussion on the sub-ject although conflicting views can definitely be a source for confrontation. Anonymous online surveys are a sure way to hear full non-withdrawn opinions as people feel safe from judgment. When gaining person to person qualative re-search it would be best to gain some sort of discussion between two parties. This has the potential to get heated therefore I should be careful who I question and what topics are off limits. Could you face any problems when trying to research social action issues? If so, is there a way to overcome these?

Animal cruelty is already a heavily debated topic with celebrities and public fig-ures getting involved. Existing research would not be difficult to find in large va-riety. Where would you expect your finished pieces to be displayed and distributed?This will depend greatly on how the results of my research comes out. I will be able to target who is seems to be the least concerned about the issue and who is unaware of the issue. After I will distribute posters appropriately. Public places is always a good start. Similarly to how drink driving adverts are distrib-uted, the issue should concern everyone so I will place posters with the same approach. Public buildings and notice boards are often used for social action, NHS, council buildings, swimming pools, bus stops, shop windows etc.. What funding issues might a social action organisation face?Funding my particular project will be easier than most. Clients for animal rights are common as large groups of people do tend to care about animals, especially when the topic is human related or induced. Being an issue that is taking place in the UK and widely considered acceptable the right organisation will love the opportunity to get involved. PETA is the perfect client for this project. As a non-profit campaign finding alternative backers would be difficult and would need to work more like a charity with single time donations although if someone wealth is passionate enough about the issue they may decide to fund it alone. Another benefit of an animal based campaign is that it can present backers or anyone in-volved in a good light from the communities point of view. This means that un-related businesses may want to play a part in it in exchange for some good pub-licity, this would work both ways as they may advertise our campaign alongside their product. As a global issue it does not suffer from what local campaigns might in that there will be too few people involved for it to be worth anyone’s time. What ethical considerations might you need to think about?Ethically it could be problematic if the campaign was very successful causing re-dundancy for people working it the industry. Although the horse racing industry is vast and successful, the idea of the campaign is to change individuals opin-ions rather than to close down the sports existence. This would be the ultimate goal although not possible with the current status of the sport. It may be offen-sive for religious or cultural reasons to show graphic imagery of injured horses. If the posters are too gory or generally hard hitting young children might be-come scared or upset of the though of what is happening. For these reasons se-lect assets of the finished campaign should be strategically placed away from the eyes of young children. This can be done by avoiding locations where they often spend time. This includes swimming pools, cinemas, sports centres etc..It would also be immoral to portray horse owners in general in a negative light as there is a large community of horse owners who love and take care of their pets. These people should not be swept up in the negative publicity I intend in-cite within the specific part of horse racing.

How could social, personal and political issues affect your research?Socially the dominant view is that horse racing is acceptable. Some people are very passionate about it and will defend their favourite pastime. More impor-tantly my campaign may put people out of a job if the campaign is very suc-cessful, including people directly related. For example bar staff at the track, doormen etc.. Horse racing is a massive part of UK culture, historically when ev-

erything was more socially acceptable the idea of an anti-horse racing move-ment would have been laughable. Today people are more informed due to the internet and closer communication so there will be little to no issue or shock in razing the subject. People may complain that it is too major a part of culture and should not be impeded by social movements. How could the community characteristics and their resources affect your re-search?The horse racing community is a strong, popular and historic one. This will pro-vide a challenge as to challenge an industry of this scale and proportion. People may take this kind of campaign as an assault to their livelihood they have the influence and money to challenge aspects of the campaign. The way to deal with this is to be realistic with statistics and interpretation, for example do not present fact in a way that can be seen as false. This could result in bad publicity for the campaign.