Model Answer for WJEC Criminology Unit 1: Changing Awareness of Crime, AC2.2. In my Unit 1 exam I got full marks. Please put into your own words to avoid being penalised/use to help you understand what the question requires or to plan your own answer. Any mention to the brief needs to be adjusted t...
The four types of media that I will be evaluating their use of in campaigns for change is public
appearances, blogs, social networking sites, and TV advertisements.
Public appearances involve the promotes or any supporters of a campaign giving talks at events to raise
awareness of the aims of its campaign. There are many things needed to give a public appearance,
including a venue, a microphone, a sound system and the means to write a speech. One major strength
of using public appearances to support a campaign is that they provide a personal approach and a
realistic touch to the campaign, which is likely to put things into perspective for audiences and make
them sympathise with any victims and their families. In addition, it is likely to be the most informative
media used to promote campaigns as the speeches are given from people who are significantly involved
with campaign, or the person who created it themselves. Public appearances also have the potential to
generate huge amounts of public interest and support, especially if they are televised on a news
programme or streamed to a social networking site such as Facebook or Instagram. However, many
people are reluctant to speak or appear in the public eye, especially in front of a crowd of what could
potentially be thousands of people depending on the size of the campaign. In addition, the people
attending might not be very supportive of the speaker and their campaign, and may even be disruptive.
While this may create sympathy for the promoter and their campaign, it is more likely to hinder the
amount of awareness they raise about the campaign itself as people may only focus on the disruption,
especially if the speaker does not handle it well. An example of a campaign that has successfully used
public appearances to promote itself is Sarah’s Law. Sarah’s parents, especially her mother, gave many
talks at conferences and other fundraising events that publicised the campaign and its importance. Sara,
Sarah’s mother, was awarded the MBE in 2008 for her efforts in giving these talks. This method of
raising awareness can therefore argued to be highly successful due to it helping the Sarah’s Law
campaign achieving its aims as the Child Sex Offender Disclosure Scheme was piloted in 2008 and by
2013, roughly 5,000 applications had been put to the police seeking the disclosure of sex offenders living
in their local areas and more than 700 paedophiles had been identified.
Blogs are regularly updated websites or web pages that are either ran by individuals or small groups. The
style of writing in the majority of blogs is quite informal and conversational. For someone to use this
method of media in a campaign for change, all they need is a device with access to the internet and the
knowledge of how to create their own website (though there are many free tutorials on the internet of
how to do this). A significant strength of using a blog is that anyone can set one up completely free of
charge. This makes them a very cost-effective method of promotion. Blogs are also a place where people
can express their views and opinions. They are also a place where people can anonymously agree with a
campaign’s purpose when they may not feel able to do so publicly. The information posted on blogs is
up-to-date and many use statistics as well ad videos and pictures to keep their content fresh and visually
appealing. Many also contain links to other websites and social network pages that allow readers to find
out more and have a deeper understanding of a campaign as well as the ability to make donations. On
the other hand, writing a blog is difficult to keep up-to-date and is very time-consuming for the author,
with the average blog post taking a total of 4 hours to research, plan, draft, write and publish. Blogs are
also becoming an out-dated way of learning information and have become significantly less appealing to
may people and so their audience is very limited. Greenpeace is an example of a campaign that runs a
very effective blog containing videos, images and article links that report on their current work and how
people can join in and help them. Some of their blog posts have been shared on other social networking
platforms over 1000 times, which has helped to widen their audience and raise more awareness of their
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