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Essay AC 2.1 and 2.2 - Campaign for change
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2.1Aims
I will be looking at 6 different campaigns including my own. Campaigns for change can have different
aims such as change in funding, change or the creation of a law, change in policy or change in
attitude or just to raise awareness. There are many campaigns that aim to change or create a law
such as Sarah’s Law, Finn’s law, Dignity in Dying, Brexit and Stephen Lawrence. Sarah’s law aimed to
create a law to make information about sex offenders public. Finn’s law aimed to change the law to
abolish excuses of ‘self-defence’ and ‘fear’ against hurting a police animal. They also want to change
the law of ‘damage to property’ to actual bodily harm (ABH) so the person gets a longer sentence.
Dignity in dying aim to change the law so the person who assists the person who wants die doesn’t
get prosecuted. Stephen Lawrence’s parents got the double jeopardy law abolished meaning that
people can be tried more than once for a crime. Brexit is another campaign which will change
immigration laws meaning that it will be harder for U.K citizens to travel around Europe. These
campaigns are all similar in aims as they want to change the law, but they are all for different
reasons. It could be argued that Brexit is also trying to change attitudes as a lot of people are still
against Brexit. Dignity in dying is another campaign trying to change attitudes but for more personal
reasons than political ones. Stephen Lawrence’s case also wanted to change policies within the
police force. They wanted more diverse police to eliminate racial bias in cases. My own campaign,
Healthy Minds, aims to raise awareness, change attitudes and change funding while also supporting
people that are suffering from a form of mental illness. It aims to raise awareness to the public that
mental health is a real problem in society and is doing a lot of damage to society driving people to
commit suicide. It also aims to change the attitude towards mental health. It aims to help get rid of
the stigma around mental health and make people realise it is more common than they think. My
final aim is to change funding in mental health services as a lot of people are struggling with no
support. Another campaign who’s aim is it to raise awareness is #MeToo. It is to raise awareness
against sexual abuse in the work place.
Purpose
Campaign all have different purposes whether it is through protecting people all the way to personal
reasons. A lot of campaigns are made for the sole purpose of protecting the public. An example of
this is Sarah’s Law which was previously mentioned. Sarah’s Law’s purpose was to protect innocent
children from convicted sex offenders. Stephen Lawrence’s case was to protect people of ethnic
minorities to have a fair trial and not be judged based on their skin colour. These campaigns are
similar in the way they want to protect people. My campaign is about saving lives, through giving
emotional support, within the community as it is predicted 800,000 people die per year due to
suicide. These campaigns are similar but different to assisted dying. It is different as it wants to
legalise suicide under conditions but also similar as it wants to protect the people that actually assist
in the process, so they do not face prosecution. Finn’s Law is also about protection, but protection of
police of animals as they want these police animals to be seen as actual animals and not just police
property. My campaign therefore overlaps with all of these as by trying to prevent suicide I am
protecting them from dying or harm to their bodies. #MeToo’s purpose was different to all of these
campaigns. The purpose was to show people sexual assault in a workplace is common and
something has to be done about this issue. Like #MeToo Brexit has a completely different purpose to
the others. The purpose is to leave the European Union which affects the whole country and other
countries that are involved with the U.K through trade deals etc. Whereas campaigns like Finn’s Law
and Sarah’s Law only affect a proportion of people. Finn’s law only affects police dogs and Sarah’s
Law affects parents and registered sex offenders.
, Driving Force
For these campaigns to be a success they need a driving force which pushes and helps them towards
these aims they have created. The driving force for Sarah’s Law was essentially her parents. Her
parents said that if they knew there was a convicted paedophile in their area then they wouldn’t let
their daughter out alone. Another key driving force was News of the World. News of the World led
the campaign and gained all the publicity it needed for the public to become aware of the proposal.
For assisted dying a key campaigner was Tony Nicklinson and his wife. Even after he died his wife
carried on his campaign. With assisted dying the driving forces were the people that actually wanted
to commit suicide, whereas in the other cases it was the parents or the police force. In the Stephen
Lawrence case, his parents were the driving force just like Sarah’s Law. For my campaign the main
driving force will be me as I am passionate about this topic as I know many people affected. The
main thing these 4 campaigns have in common in terms of the driving force. It is driven by people
personally affected by the situation. It can be argued that is what makes campaigns successful as
they can put their emotions into something for the better. In terms of Finn’s Law, it has 2 driving
forces. One being his owner but also the public. This is because Finn was on Britain’s Got Talent and
therefore received sympathy from the British public. The last campaign #MeToo had a massive
driving force from the public as well. #MeToo went viral quickly due to all the celebrities that have
tweeted #MeToo like Alyssa Milano who created the initial tweet saying, ‘If you have been sexually
assaulted reply to this tweet saying me too.’ This tweet quickly became viral and ended trending on
twitter in the matter of hours. The driving force for Brexit are the politicians such as Boris Johnson
and Nigel Farage. Brexit’s driving force is different as it is being driven by already well-known people
who already have some sort of public and political backing. They did not need to earn all the
publicity, their status got it for them.
Methods and Media
One factor that is very important to create publicity for their campaign and they do this through the
use of different methods and media. If the media don’t recognise the campaign and support it, it will
be hard for the campaigns to actually make a proper change in society. Sarah’s Law’s method of
raising awareness for its campaign was through News of the World. News of the World got very
involved with Sarah’s Law and put petitions on their front page to make it visible to a widespread
audience even if they are not reading the paper people will walk by and see it. From all the
signatures on the petition it became aware to the government that this may be a beneficial change.
Similarly, Finn’s law used petitions and wanted to gain 100,000 signatures so they could propose
their amendment of the law regarding violence toward police animals to the government. Finn’s
owner Dave and Sarah’s parents both made T.V appearances. Dave went on the well-known talent
show Britain’s Got Talent which gained a mass amount of media coverage and public attention. As
Finn’s story was so sad many of the public sympathised with Dave. This was mainly targeted at dog
owners or pet owners and they would mainly sympathise with his owner. Like Dave, Sarah’s parents
made appearances at press conferences to spread their aim of their campaign even further. The
target audience for this would be parents as they would be able to empathise with her parents and
would want to ensure safety for their own kids. #MeToo took a different approach through social
media. It first started on the old website my space in 2006 but went viral on twitter 11 years later
when all the Harvey Weinstein allegations came out. Alyssa Milano started the initial tweet to start it
off going viral. The use of social media meant it could be shared easily and quickly spreading the
message as quick as possible. At the Golden Globes majority of those who attended wore black to
raise awareness for it. As the Golden Globes is a big event it also spread the message to a mass
audience. The media had a big involvement in the Stephen Lawrence case, particularly newspapers.
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