Youth, technology and mental health organisation Young and Well Cooperative Research Centre has unveiled a wide-scale online campaign to stamp out cyber-bullying among young people.
The campaign, called 'Keep it Tame', is targeted at people aged 12 to 18-years old and it's estimated 80% of the group will be exposed to it. It's designed to highlight the consequences and harm derived from hurtful online interactions, especially in social media.
The campaign will guide young people through a collection of mock social media posts which turns nasty. An animated creature which accompanies the posts turns increasingly grotesque as the level of animosity in the posts rises.
As part of the initiative, a digital tracking methodology will be able to measure the impact of the campaign on behaviour change. 'Keep it Tame' forms part of Young and Well CRC's five year study, Safe and Well Online Project, which looks at effective strategies to develop online social marketing campaigns and will be a snapshot of how young people interact in a digital space.
Digital agency Zuni was the digital strategy partner on the project while Soap Creative developed the creative elements. Datalicious is the tracking partner while Mindbox is working on the media.
Young and Well CRC chief executive Associate Professor Jane Burns said: “The great thing about this project is the fact that 130 young people had such a big say in how it works. Added to this, the incredible support of this campaign by Australia's top 20 youth websites will help us reach out to such a broad cross section of society and give them the knowledge and confidence to take control and act respectfully online."
Young and Well CRC Research Program leader Dr. Philippa Colin said: “Many people unfortunately experience hurtful behaviour online at some stage, and it's crucial that this generation of Australians doesn't grow up thinking this is the natural way to communicate online, because it isn't.
“The reality is there are lots of young people who don't think it's okay to make fun, tease or bully someone online and this campaign is all about empowering young people to take advantage of the tools and techniques that are already available to them to take control of ugly situations and use mobile phones, computers and tablets positively to interact with each other.”
Zuni managing director Mike Zeederberg said: “Whilst there have been a range of campaigns around cyber-bullying, including SOSO which we were previously involved in, most of them measure the impact of the campaign purely by reach or reported intention to change. We will be able to track actual behavioural change over time based on exposure to the campaign, through the utlisation of a combination of research techniques and some innovative tracking technologies.”
Working with Young and Well CRC are University of South Australia, University of Western Australia and the Queensland University of Technology.
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