arwenmccaffrey.files.wordpress.com · Web viewDespite social progress in other areas, women in...

Running head: EMPOWERING ADOLESCENT GIRLS 1

Strategic Connectivity Plan

The Efficacy of Twitter Activism in Empowering Adolescent Girls

Arwen E. McCaffrey

Queens University of Charlotte

August 20, 2014

EMPOWERING ADOLESCENT GIRLS 2

I. Introduction

The purpose of this strategic connectivity plan is to analyze female empowerment

messages on the Twitter platform and to determine what audience is receiving them.

Specifically, this plan will ascertain whether the messages are being received by the girls

directly through the Twitter platform, or indirectly by way of adult Twitter users that

work with, and have influence over, adolescent girls. The end goal for this project is to

increase connectivity between groups on Twitter who are interested in, and advocate for,

issues of gender equality, confidence building, and female empowerment in adolescent

girls.

II. Project Description & Goals

a. Project Description

This strategic connectivity plan is designed to analyze the efficacy of

organizations that craft messages of female empowerment in reaching the

adolescent girl demographic that said messages are tailored to. This project was

specifically inspired by the recent social media campaign launched by Always.

Always created a commercial that explored how young girls lose confidence

during the early teen years, in part through the societal implication that doing

things ‘like a girl’ carries an inferior, negative connotation. The commercial

encourages girls to hold fast to their fierceness and give everything their all.

Always created the hashtag #LikeAGirl for Twitter users to dialogue about the


concept. I was inspired by the commercial’s message, but I’m curious about

whether the teen girls who need to hear the message are receiving it.

b. Intended Audience

I aim to build connectivity on Twitter between various individuals and interest

groups that are focused on gender equality and female empowerment, as well as

those who have a degree of pop culture influence over adolescent Twitter users.

This includes parents, educators, and volunteers who work with girls;

organizations such as GSUSA, Girls Inc., YWCA, and the Coalition for

Adolescent Girls; corporate brand names that created empowering social media

campaigns similar to Always, such as Cover Girl and Pantene Pro-V; pop culture

figures that have large adolescent Twitter followings, such as Katy Perry; between

women and men who are jointly interested in gender equality; and lastly, between

the aforementioned individuals and groups and the adolescent girls themselves.

This connectivity plan will be written for the adults who exercise influence over

adolescent girls, since adolescent girls are unlikely to read the plan for

themselves.

c. Rationale

Despite social progress in other areas, women in the United States and abroad are

still vastly underrepresented in business, finance, politics, and science and

technology. Dollar for dollar, women are paid less than men earn doing the same

work. Negative attitudes about women, supported by patriarchal cultural

tendencies, contribute to a lack of confidence in young girls. Today’s adolescents


have grown up continuously connected through technology and are insatiable

social media consumers. Social media provides an abundance of opportunities for

networking around specific societal issues. Harnessing the profound networking

potential of social media to share encouragement and positive messages could

potentially result in an increase in young girls’ confidence, their presence in

leadership positions, and ultimately, increased gender equality.

d. Goals

The ultimate goal of this strategic connectivity plan is to ensure that the

empowering messages are reaching the adolescent girls as effectively as possible.

Ideally, the messages should reach the girls directly, but enabling the

dissemination of the messages through influential adult channels is also desirable.

Bringing together parties interested in gender equality and female empowerment

who are not currently networking together could potentially increase efficiency

with which the messages are delivered to the girls.

III. Community Analysis

a. Values

The community in focus demonstrates a few key values through their content.

Female users are excited about uplifting themselves and each other, and they are

motivated to share that excitement with each other. Messages such as the Always

“Like A Girl” commercial spread rapidly and generate excited replies and

retweets. In this instance, users will reference an activity they do “like a girl” and


stress that their followers watch the video, which they embed in their content.

Education about current issues affecting young girls, and females in general, is

also important, as is sharing inspiring case studies of girls who have either

overcome adversity or are doing activities outside normal gender constructs.

Overall, the community exhibits a positive attitude, focused on encouragement,

unity, progress, appreciating female contributions to society, advocacy for

women’s rights, and a celebration of womanhood.

b. Central Discussions

An initial analysis of the target community highlights several themes commonly

present in shared content on the Twitter platform. With some exceptions, these

themes tend to vary between organizations based in the United States and those

based internationally. Content from domestically-based organizations often

focuses on healthy body image, increasing confidence and self-esteem, female

media representation, and embracing one’s uniqueness. Some domestic

organizations also highlight examples of women in history and involvement in

STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) fields. For example,

GSUSA places a strong emphasis on this type of content. Organizations centered

in other countries have a greater focus on entrepreneurial skills, birth control

information and access, ending poverty, autonomy, and political involvement.

Virtually all of the organizations observed in the initial analysis listed advocacy

for gender equality as a primary organizational goal. Some corporate brands have

established social media campaigns encouraging girls to be strong and confident,


such as Always, but their Twitter content is almost exclusively limited to

interactions about the brands and their respective products.

Links to news articles from various sources such as BBC News and the

Huffington Post appear to be the most commonly shared media, as are links to

inspiring girl narratives and recommendations for relevant resources. Videos are

also shared; the Always “Like A Girl” commercial was shared in almost every

organization surveyed, but very few other videos were observed in the

organizations’ recently shared content.

c. Network Map

Conversations and information sharing tend to follow clear divisions. Female-

centered groups usually link or post to each other; the male-centered groups

likewise link or post to each other. The male-centered groups will sometimes link

to a female-centered group, but I rarely observed female-centered groups linking

to male groups. All groups tend to share the same news articles, inspiring case

studies, and resources. Observations were made on Twitter discussions only, but

all groups appear to have Facebook presences as well. Virtually every group

observed shared the Always “Like A Girl” video, indicating a strong corporate

influence over social media discussions. Several organizations expressed

excitement about the message in the video, but I observed little to no speculation

about its efficacy in the conversations, or any further exploration of related issues.


Network connectivity map.

d. Key Influencers

Organizations focused on female empowerment include Lean In, Women in the

World, Geena Davis Institute for Women in the Media, Gender & Society,

YWCA, and Sociologists for Women in Society. Organizations specifically

focused on empowering girls include GSUSA, WAGGGS, Girls Inc., The Girl

Effect, Girl Rising, Toward the Stars, Smart Girls Group, ToGetHerThere, She’s


The First, Half the Sky, and Coalition for Adolescent Girls. Organizations of men

who support gender equality include HeForShe, Ring the Bell, Man Up, YM4GE,

and Men Engage. The number of followers of these groups varies widely –

anywhere from 295 to 78,000 - but the female-centered groups have a much

stronger Twitter presence than the male-centered groups. Brand names such as

Always, Cover Girl, and Pantene Pro-V not only have the largest Twitter audience

among the organizations surveyed – with Cover Girl having 402,000 followers -

but their content is shared more rapidly and often among others in the community.

IV. Strengths and Challenges

My previous involvement with GSUSA provides me with an advantageous networking

position, through which I can talk to adults who can help provide me with information

about the girls they work with and their social media use. Several of my friends share a

similar interest in female leadership and gender equality, and I will be able to pursue

research leads through them. My sociology background allows me to examine the

organizations within the target community, and their current networks, through a lens of

social construction, which will influence my particular communication choices when

trying to foster interaction between organizations that are not presently networking.

The biggest challenge in this connectivity plan is directly observing the social media use

of teenage girls. My preteen daughter is not allowed to use social media, and she doesn’t

presently have a network of friends into which I can inquire. My preliminary research

into adolescent social media use indicates that adolescents use Facebook, Instagram, and

Snapchat far more than Twitter, which will make observing social media interactions


within Twitter difficult. I am hoping to harness my existing social networks on other

platforms, such as Facebook, as well as learning to use adolescent-preferred platforms,

such as Instagram, to get leads, contacts, and insight into teen girls’ social media

behavior.

V. Theoretical Framework

This strategic connectivity plan will be centered on Robert Putnam’s Theory of Social

Capital. Putnam’s research focuses on the decline of community and civic engagement in

recent years, which hinders collaboration and networking. Putnam posits that building

trust between individuals on a micro level will enable trust-building at a macro level.

The key component of this gradual process is what Putnam and other theorists refer to as

social capital. Social capital is defined by Putnam as “features of social organization,

such as trust, norms, and networks that can improve the efficiency of society by

facilitating coordinated actions” (Luoma-aho, 2009, p. 233). Reciprocity is an important

result of social relations, and builds the framework of the social network. Establishing

trust and reciprocity allows network participants “to act together more effectively to

pursue shared objectives” (p. 234). Putnam describes two types of social capital: bonding

and bridging. Bonding social capital is created within groups, often occurring naturally,

strengthening both the identities of those within the group and a sense of group cohesion.

Bridging social capital occurs between diverse social groups, encouraging collaboration

and networking with groups that may otherwise not communicate. Bridging social

capital is more difficult to develop, but benefits society by increasing collaboration


between dissimilar social groups. Notably, Putnam argues that “social capital is usually

developed in pursuit of a particular goal or set of goals and not for its own sake” (p. 235).

Forming bridging social capital between groups that share an interest in gender equality

and building confidence in teen girls will be the primary focus of this strategic

connectivity plan. Increasing content sharing and dialogue on the Twitter platform,

thereby strengthening the social network of interested parties, can help these interested

parties bring their unique resources together and work toward their common goal.

Putnam’s Theory of Social Capital illuminates the presence of bonding social capital

along gender lines. That is, female-centered organizations almost exclusively network

with each other, male-centered organizations almost exclusively network with each other,

and only rarely do interactions occur across this gender division. Other separations

within the female empowerment network are made visible through this theoretical lens.

With few exceptions, celebrities with ample pop culture presence and large Twitter

followings only engage organizations that they are corporately sponsored by or formally

affiliated with – for example, singer Katy Perry is a spokesperson for Cover Girl, and

actress Emma Watson is a Goodwill Ambassador for UN Women. Putnam’s Theory of

Social Capital highlights these existing gaps in the conversation, and efforts to create

bridging social capital can be focused accordingly.


VI. Content Curation and Message Experimentation

a. Communication Tactics

Throughout the data collection period, I experimented with a variety of content

that the preliminary data indicated would achieve the most engagement with my

target community – photos, links to news articles, videos, questions to my

followers, encouragement, and inspirational case studies. Consistent with my

research, links to news articles that highlighted female achievements, visuals,

questions, and videos received the most engagement in the form of favorites,

retweets, and replies. Retweets with my own comments attached comprised the

majority of my content, with original content used sparingly.

In each tweet, I used various combinations of hashtags and tweeted at different

organizations in order to see what topics would receive the most engagement, and

who would be most likely to interact with me. Analytics indicate that the most

frequent hashtags used, in descending order, were: #likeagirl, #seejane, #girlscan,

#soshedid, #investingirls, #shinestrong, and #girlswhoinspire. Organizations

most commonly mentioned in tweets were, in descending order: GSUSA, The

Girl Effect, Half the Sky Movement, A Mighty Girl, Man Up Campaign, Geena

Davis Institute for Gender in Media, Girls Who Code, and Cover Girl. I tweeted

19.7% of my tweets on Mondays, followed closely by Tuesdays and Wednesdays

with 15.5% of my tweets, and I most often tweeted at night, between the hours of

9pm and 5am (64.1% of my tweets were produced during this time frame).

Research into the Twitter platform indicates that tweets that include visuals or

questions receive far more engagement than those without, and my initial study of


the female empowerment-focused Twitter community indicated that articles that

discuss inspirational women receive a great deal of interaction, which likely

explains the amount of engagement success I experienced when utilizing this type

of content.

b. Analytics

Since beginning my research into this community, I averaged one new follower a

day, acquiring 44 new followers over the course of approximately six weeks.

Once the absence of networking between male-centered organizations and

female-centered organizations became apparent, I chose to focus primarily on

exploring the networking potential of these two groups. Despite the lack of

discussion between men and women in this community, male participants are an

eager part of the conversation. A question posed to my followers about their

favorite movie heroine, along with a retweet of an article about female movie

characters, garnered four replies, three of which were from an individual male

follower. A Forbes article link that I directly tweeted to two male-focused groups

was immediately retweeted by one of the groups, Men Engage. Another tweet

sent directly to a male-centered group, Man Up Campaign, resulted in two replies

and a follow from the group, and this group sent another reply to an additional

tweet one week later. Despite the fact that most of the groups present in this

Twitter community are female-centered, with much larger Twitter presences, I

received engagement at this level only from male-centered groups. Despite their

smaller numbers, male-centered organizations demonstrate a dynamic level of

interaction that could be greatly beneficial to the gender equality conversation.


c. Learning

The successful engagement that resulted from the use of visuals, questions, and

news links stresses the importance of engaging a community through the type of

content that they prefer. Additionally, the lack of dialogue between these varied

influential groups – male-centered and female-centered organizations, influential

individuals, corporations, and the target demographic of the curated messages – is

not inherently negative. Each party communicates with a specific goal set in

mind (to sell, to inform, to advocate, or to entertain), and while increasing the

level of networking between these parties benefits the success of the content

dispersion, the unique goals and tactics of each party should be respected.

According to Luoma-aho (2009), Putnam explains bridging social capital as a

social lubricant that “smoothes relations between groups and individuals” (p.

235), building bridges across social divides as the involved parties work toward a

shared objective. Suggesting that an individual or group alter its communication

method or content type is counterproductive, because it implies a lack of trust in

that individual or group’s goals and/or abilities. Putnam advocates that

trustworthiness is a core component of building social capital.

VII. Communication Strategies

a. Recommendations

Several steps can be employed to increase networking and content distribution to

the target audience.


i. Establish and increase awareness of the presence of male-centered

organizations that advocate for gender equality with their female-

centered counterparts.

ii. Introduce networking potential between celebrities who have

already expressed an interest in feminist causes and have pop

culture influence over adolescent girls, and advocacy

organizations.

iii. Explore the content distribution potential of alternate social media

platforms with more adolescent users, such as Tumblr and

Instagram.

iv. Adjust the timing and structure of my Twitter messages to align

with current data-supported trends regarding the ideal times, days,

and content in order to maximize engagement.

b. Support for Recommendations

i. Most organizations working for gender equality and empowering

young women, such as GSUSA, A Mighty Girl, The Girl Effect,

Half the Sky Movement, and Girl Rising, are female-centered –

their content is feminist in nature and draws a predominantly

female following. Female-centered organizations also have much

larger Twitter followings than male-focused organizations such as

Men Engage, Man Up Campaign, HeForShe, and Ring the Bell.

(Of the groups researched within this community, the female

organization that has the most followers is The Girl Effect, with


95,000; conversely, Ring the Bell, the largest of the male

organizations, has 5073 followers.) Additionally, there appears to

be little engagement of the male-centered groups by the female-

centered groups. The male-centered groups engage the female-

centered groups more often, despite their smaller Twitter presence.

This absence of engagement on behalf of the female-based groups

could be attributed to a lack of awareness of the male-focused

groups. Introducing these organizations to one another through

Twitter content could help turn this gender-based social divide, or

“structural hole” (Luoma-aho, 2012, p. 235) into bridging social

capital.

ii. Preliminary research was done into celebrities who use Twitter and

have both substantial numbers of followers as well as pop culture

influence on adolescent girls, and who are also aligned with

organizations that have produced content with empowering

messages. Singer Katy Perry has 55.7 million followers and is a

spokesperson for Cover Girl, which has 402,000 Twitter followers,

and recently produced a social media campaign entitled “Girls

Can”. Actress Emma Watson, with 14.2 million followers,

recently became a Goodwill Ambassador for UN Women, an

organization with 456,000 followers. With rare exception, these

individuals engage on Twitter primarily with the organizations

they are affiliated with. The existing networks of celebrities and


their affiliate organizations represent an opportunity to reach an

incredibly large audience, especially within the target demographic

of adolescent girls. Raising awareness of other like-minded

individuals and organizations with celebrities such as these,

thereby expanding the networking potential of the community,

could increase both the efficacy with which the messages are

distributed and the size of the audience that receives them.

iii. According to NextAdvisor (VentureBeat, 2014), 61% of

adolescents use Tumblr, 55% use Facebook, and only 22% use

Twitter. Instagram, while only claiming about as many adolescent

followers as Twitter, has seen an increase in growth from this same

demographic. In 2013, 17% of teens claimed it as their most

important social network, up from 12% in 2012. Disseminating

content through the Twitter platform makes it unlikely that

adolescents will receive any targeted messages directly. Crafting

content that can be distributed across these alternative platforms,

especially Tumblr, increases the potential for adolescents to

directly engage the content.

iv. Research indicates that Twitter engagement is strongest on

Saturdays and Sundays, during the hours of 8am-7pm, and that

retweets containing 1-2 hashtags receive higher engagement than

tweets that use fewer or more hashtags (ClientBridge, 2013). My

Twitter content was disbursed most often on weekdays, after 9pm,


and often with 3-4 hashtags. Altering the timing and content of my

tweets to align with this data would increase the potential for

engagement.

c. Communication Tactics

Research into this community indicates a preference for content that includes

visuals such as photos and videos, inspiring stories, links to news articles, and

interaction through questions. Since increasing awareness of other like-minded

organizations is a primary recommendation in order to increase networking,

infographics may be a promising option. Infographics that organize names and

stories of other organizations, perhaps highlighting their specific goals or

accomplishments, could effectively combine a desire for visual content with the

distribution of information about other community members. Condensing this

information into a visual would also allow for cross-posting on platforms such as

Tumblr and Instagram, enabling more adolescents to engage the content directly.

During the research period, singer Colbie Caillat, who has 332,000 Twitter

followers, released a video for her song “Try” that deconstructs the usually-

extensive makeup and hair process she undergoes for public appearances, in an

effort to speak out against unrealistic societal expectations of female beauty and

excessive photoshopping of women in the media. She also expressed her activism

surrounding other causes in her Twitter feed. Her “Try” video was shared over 20

million times on YouTube, indicating that her voice and message content is both

influential and desirable. Colbie Caillat’s combination of celebrity, an interest in

activism - especially feminism, and her large Twitter audience, makes her a


community member who could add momentum to the gender equality

conversation.

d. Timeline for Implementation

Putnam states that social capital “is formed over long periods of time and as a

result of repeated interactions” (Luoma-aho, 2012, p. 235). He argues that

bridging social capital is especially difficult to create because it is contingent

upon relationships built on trust and reciprocity. Therefore, it is difficult to

determine how long it would take to see measurable networking increases.

Maximizing Twitter engagement by following recommended practices would lay

a foundation of trust, consistency, and reciprocity within the community, thereby

enabling the development of bridging social capital. These recommended

practices include tweeting 4-5 times daily, between the hours of 8am and 7pm,

including weekends, using links and photos whenever possible, limiting tweets to

approximately 100 characters, and employing no more than 2 hashtags per tweet.

Following recommended guidelines for maximizing engagement on other social

media platforms would likewise facilitate the growth of relationships on these

platforms in as timely a manner as possible.

e. Required Resources

In addition to Twitter, resources that would prove beneficial to the development

of bridging social capital and increasing content disbursement to the target

audience include access to, and working knowledge of, social media platforms

that adolescents frequent, such as Tumblr and Instagram, as well as access to

networks of adolescents either within or outside of these online platforms. These


adolescent networks can provide additional research opportunities into the type of

content they prefer, the language they employ, and the voices they are most

interested in listening to.

f. Metrics

For all suggested communication strategies, improved connectivity will be visible

on Twitter through an increase in interactions between these social groups:

follows, favorites, replies, retweets, and conversations surrounding the same

hashtags, all demonstrations of bridging social capital. If a female-centered

organizations began tweeting at, or retweeting content from, a male-centered

organization that was previously absent from their Twitter conversations, for

example, then an informal relationship has begun between the two parties.

Granovetter, as cited by Luoma-aho (2012), refers to these relationships as “weak

ties” (p. 235), and Putnam explains that they are essential to forming bridging

social capital. As these informal relationships become stronger, interactions may

also occur between the involved parties across multiple, alternate social media

and online platforms as well as offline.

VIII. Conclusion

The female empowerment community on Twitter shares a passion for feminist ideals and

supportive discussions. They value information, resources, uplifting stories,

encouragement, and advances in the feminist arena and distribute them primarily through

dynamic content including photos and other visuals, videos, links to news articles, and

interactive questions. Despite their collective enthusiasm, the community has significant


social divides among its primary members: between feminist advocacy organizations,

both female-centered and male-centered; celebrities; corporations; persons of influence,

such as parents, teachers, and volunteers, and notably, between these parties and the

adolescent girls themselves, for whom empowering messages such as Always’ “Like A

Girl” social media campaign are crafted.

Putnam’s Theory of Social Capital posits that facets of our social lives, such as networks,

enable interested community members to work together more effectively in pursuit of a

shared goal. In this instance, communication between these fragmented groups in the

female empowerment community is lacking, which inhibits their shared objective –

encouraging adolescent girls and advocating gender equality. Putnam explains that

bridging social capital can be created between divided social groups through long-term

relationships, built on trust and reciprocity. These relationships can be facilitated by

maximizing engagement and encouraging networking opportunities between these

interested parties on Twitter and other social media platforms.

While increased networking across Twitter between interested parties can expedite

content distribution to the target audience through indirect channels (in the form of the

interested, adult members of the community), there are specific challenges in reaching the

adolescent girls themselves because they favor social media platforms other than Twitter.

Learning the most effective ways to disseminate empowering content directly to

adolescents is an important area of future study beyond the scope of this project.


References

ClientBridge. (April 15, 2013). Maximize your tweets. [Infographic]. Retrieved from

http://www.client-bridge.com/blog/bid/83691/INFOGRAPHIC-Maximizing-Twitter-

Engagement

Luoma-aho, V. (2009). On Putnam: Bowling together – Applying Putnam’s theories of

community and social capital to public relations. In O. Ihlen, B. van Ruler, & M.

Fredriksson (Eds.), Public relations and social theory: Key figures and concepts (pp.

231-251). New York, NY: Routledge.

VentureBeat. (2014). Here’s the app teens use more than Facebook – and of course, it’s not

Twitter. [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://venturebeat.com/2013/09/25/heres-the-app-

teens-use-more-than-facebook-and-of-course-its-not-twitter/

Date post:	20-Sep-2020
Category:	Documents
Upload:	others
View:	1 times
Download:	0 times

arwenmccaffrey.files.wordpress.com · Web viewDespite social progress in other areas, women in...

Documents