Category: Uncategorized

Once I created the branding style and the posters, I was ready to move onto the creating the website mock up to show how the people can access the exhibition. The exhibition will be a link on Twitter and also a website. Once the user clicks on the link they will be directed to this page you can see below on the left. The screen will in style of the brand, the logo and the date, time the exhibition will be live. The next step is for the user to sign up which you can see the layout on the right. I used very simple minimal design. All black and white with boxes as guidelines. The user signs up to the exhibition by their name, user name and just what they think about immigration. These are very easy steps to follow and I wanted to keep the design very simple. The next step is a crucial part of the exhibition where I tackle fake account issue of Twitter.

Fake Account filter

The filter I created is once the suer signs up with their name they have to go onto this stage where we verify the authentic accounts that belongs to real people. I have decided to do this by using the phone number and sending them codes as most websites use this method. I thought Twitter already has the email confirmation which people can make several emails which is not the best method.So, I decided to go with phone number, the reason is it’s way more safer and everyone only have 1 phone number it would be hard to find new ones. By this way I will be filtering out fake accounts, bots and other accounts. Once the user recieves the code they enter automaticaly they are verified. I also added the black tick feature, this will work as an e-ticket as well as raise awareness to the exhibition. People will be intrgied to why some accounts have black ticks nd they can drawn to the exhibition. The black tick would be the ticket to show you have visited but also verification is a issue and funny thing peopel always want on their account. Some peopel buy twitter following so they can recieve an verify tick. I thought this would be a good way to play with the Twitter feature and make it work for my exhibition.

Once the account is verified they can enter the exhibition once it is live. The first room they will view is the Room 1, the page will have a information box that tells why they are viewing the room. The space is created from their Twitter feed and that also it gives them information about how they can use the hashtag to tweet about it. I also added the feature racist comments will be deleted as I thought it could defeat the point if people share negative things again so the horrible comments will be filtered out. The information box will then disappear and the under can zoom on and move around the room to read the tweets. I just think if this was in real life it would be so much more impactful, i can see this project being in real life and creating a chill atmosphere where a targeted exhibition to focus on immigration. Imagine a massive room with high walls, covered with things you have said about other people on social media, you don’t think people actually see it but it could be like as if they are being told to you, you are surrounded by the negativity you have created. I believe this project would work in real life really well.

Once the user can move onto the second room, this will be by the arrow that will appear after some time, it will be a one way system to the user will need to go to the next room. They can click on the arrow, then will shift into the second room.

The second room is dedicated to celebrate immigration and migrants living in UK. The information feature at the bottom once the user clicks it comes up with something created for the immigrants and they can add their names or relatives so we can create a billboard full of peoples names. I thought about this idea towards the end I thought I need to do something more than names on walls in the exhibition it needs to be something visible to everyone who didn’t visit or like it needs media attention to it can raise awareness. I thought about imagine seeing your mums or dads name on a billboard where you surprise them, it can be thank you and it can celebrate their existing. I believe sometimes they are unnoticed how our dads and mums migrated to a different country, left their home friends to create a better life for us. I think it would be a nice thing to add onto the campaign and it would create a positive image for the immigrants and aimed at them to make them appreciated. Once the user adds names they will receive an email, they can then carry on looking at the exhibition space. When they exist the room they will move to the next page they are given more information about twitter and how much misinformation is shared on Twitter. I thought if I finish off like this it will also be educational with facts and a moving shocking factor.

I realised I need a section where it gives information about the second room like it did with the first one as users can be confused to what are these names on the walls. I added a info box which tells them who are the names belong to and why are they there. I think people could understand from the contrast and the poem on the wall. You can see the change of mood and the styles which is very clear for the user. Overall I am very happy with the result I thought I wouldn’t be able to create something that looked realistic on XD but with the transition features and auto animate you can literally move it look like it’s moving. You can watch the website video below I have attached the youtube link. I used very simple design system to allow the user to easily follow the guides and move about in the exhibition. I think there is only two rooms which makes it a bit short but if I had time I would create a bigger space with more art work and even more installations which reflect what it means to be a migrant in UK.

Verified User Mockup

24/11/2020

This week I really struggled with my brief and moving my idea forward, I had the idea what I wanted to focus on and communicate but I was just struggling deciding on how to move it forward, what to make out of it how could I create this into social media movement. I had a meeting with Sean, however I didn’t find him very useful as I was overthinking each idea and I needed someone to give me clear guide lines. The next day I had a short meeting with David to discuss my ideas, he told me I’m trying and thinking of too many things at the same time he said you have the idea the concept just research on it and focus on one area. From our chat, I felt more confident and he gave me few things I should research on that would develop my idea. I focused more on the misconceptions and researched into what are the publics assumptions and misconceptions (see the post named ‘immigration and misconceptions‘) vs the reality. I realised I was too early on and the reason I wasn’t moving forward because I wasn’t doing enough research. However, after more research into my concept and social media I have more knowledge on the causes of these misconceptions and general knowledge about how social media works such as algorithms.

This is one of my mind maps focused on visuals and potential outcomes for the brief. The mind map focuses on how to visualise the message but also the outcome such as social media campaign or an app. The main concept was ‘myth vs reality ‘ as I was focusing on misconceptions that was the myth and the reality was the factual information that shows those misconceptions are just myth that is created by people. It was aimed at vocalising these misconceptions but then educating the users to change their opinions. I thought I could create this with strong typographical visuals it’s all focused on words, I thought about visual language focused on blurs and clarity, with typography or potential photographs for more powerful visuals as I liked the project Humans of New York that was so powerful and influential. I then thought how can these visuals elements have a place on social media, if I was goung to make something social media related a movement etc I would need a hashtag as then it will spread quickly. As seen on examples such as #metoo and black lives matter. I found examples such as VSCO and Groupon. They created campaigns such as #blackjoymatters where young users submitted photographs on VSCO and shared them on official page to raise awareness and show off the modern black essence. This was good campaign which I believe works really well it raises awareness and shows off talents that lacks voice. I also found Groupons campaign called #PassTheMic, this campaign included lives on Instagram stories and Podcasts with Black powerful people to give them power a voice talk about black lives matter and also other issues that are significant in the society.

I was also thinking about what to include in the social media campaign, I thought about billboards, human stories again to focus on lack of empathy on social media. to execute this i would do photographs and stories of immigrants lives. Then these can be shared via a hashtag, other users can share their story either about themselves or relatives. I also thougtha bout an app which gives answered to misconceptions this idea was influenced by one of the projects focused on migrants in America . The project focused on diversity and called whatdiversitygivesus.com I will be focusing more on this project on later post but basicllay the idea is the question is what has the …. done fo America anyway? the blank bits can be filled with muslims. mexicans, africans or any other ethicnity you have which then the website gives you information of your question. The question it self reminds of a misconception such as like they do nothing for our country so it breaks it by using facts and information on related question. I believe this is educational but also very easy way and clear way to educate someone with an assumption. The design is so simple and clear to the point. So I had the idea I could do an app which answered assumptions and misconceptions related to immigrants in Uk. This app could be used in school students as well, they could share their findings on social media.

The concept:

After a lot of research and mind maps I decided what I wanted to do for this project, since the first day I knew I was strongly aiming towards anti immigration and how since Brexit there has been a divide between groups in society. I want to focus on misconceptions aimed at immigrants in UK. From my earlier posts, I did in depth research to what are people assuming about immigrants and how their assumptions are very exaggerated compared to the real figures. I saw one of the key researches these misconceptions are circulating aorund social media is throigh spread of misinformation. It creates a negative image of asylum seekers and immigrants in UK. I saw spread of these misconceptions divides the society creating tense and hatred. To answer this brief I decided to create a virtual exhibition, it was on one my ideas on earlier mind maps but I moved away from the idea as I thought I needed have a plug in or a platform design for this brief. But after a lot of thinking, I realised I want to answer this brief in my own my style I don’t have much experience with algorith designs or plug in designs so I thought I could answer it through my way and I believe it works in many different ways.

I want to create an exhibition because I believe in a world were there is a pandemic, people are leaning more towards exhibitions and design to get there mind off things. The exhibition will attract both sides of the divide focusing on them in each section. I want to also develop this virtual exhibition into a social media campaign involving Twitter. In addition, it could be something real one day, as I have read that Twitter does want to work on the spread of misinformation and hatred on their platform. Also, using a hashtag As many people believe hashtag movements are not useful as it doesn’t give direct results or changes as it just creates a lot of engagement however I believe with the examples I listed before it can be very powerful and it’s now a key part of our life as we are as users expected to raise awareness to things and share when we see it. It gets people talking which is the first step for an issue to rise to the ground. It needs to be talked about so something could be done. As you can see I already started to visualise the idea below on the mind map.

Exhibition : The exhibition will focus on the idea of misconceptions related to immigrants. I will be using Twitter as my main social media platform. Below you can see a mind map which I created about the exhibition, I was thinking about how the exhibition will look visually but also what will be included in it. How can I show these misconceptions and horrible tweets are effecting peoples lives and spreads hatred on social media. I belive this idea will work because an exhibition is something both groups will be interested in, it will attract more audience as it doesn’t have to relate to one group of people. You can be members of any divide but still enjoy seeing an exhibition. In addition, I believe in a Pandemic we are currently living in, people are looking to do more things to fill their time at home and leaning towards art and design. This is help the accessibility as more people can join.

For this exhibition my intial outcomes were:

Moving posters with information.

Posters

Billboard posters

Exhibition Layout

Exhibition artwork inside – Photographs.

Branding materials – logo, colours, typefaces

The exhibition I wanted to design had 3 rooms 3 sections which focuses on different divides. The first room is focused at anti immigration users with their misconceptions, it will be a room full of typography a twitter room, tweets covered on walls aimed at the one side of the divide like eco chambers. The second room will be aimed at the immigrants, how these words on twitter effect and have an impact on their life, how it dehumanized a certain group in society, I could show this by photography and people stories. Then room 3 will focus on information and the reality, real facts about the living conditions of asylum seekers and immigrants in society. It will be a like a one way system where each room connects from start to finish. I believe this will be interesting and people can see the impact of their words on peoples lives and finish off with the real facts which they could leave with questions about their opinions. This was the initial idea which needs to be developed with visuals and I need to look at the brief go through the criteria.

This is second mind map which is more like a guide to what I need to do for my project. I know I want to create an exhibition so I need to research into exhibitions aimed at diveristy and immigration in the past. Typographt installations and plitical exhibitionjs which can givem mea new idea. I had a short meeting with Katie today who is a graphics post graduate, she designed a similar project las year focused on efffects of social media so David recommended we shoud speak to her. Speaking to her was very beneficial because she has so much knowledge on social media and algorithms. She recommneded we do lots of research on social media so we understand what is already done and needs to be done. I also had a second meeting with her about myexhibition ideas as she said shell willing to chat again if we needed which is so nice as she can also understand how stressful it is to work in a pandemic through online tutorials. We had a chat about how I was struggling as i feel like I don’t feel connected to university and lack of motivation. She was understanding and she gave me loads of tops as she had to do their major project last year in lockdown. I believe it is very challenging times for everyone and especially if you are doing a creative course it is hard to feel inspired and motivated.

As we were chatting she asked which group of immigrants I would focus on and I said I’m Turkish so I have more knowledge on Turkish immigrants stories and experiences. So i would focus on them and she said ti would be good to research Turkish design culture. It could give me ideas for the visuals too. I thought this was such a good idea as initially since the day I had this idea on immigrants I knew I wanted to focus on Turkish immigrants as thats my background but it got lost in the way. The next stage I believe in my process is research exhibitions focused on immigrants and any projects that target migrants experiences. I believe this would be a good to see what approach people take.

However, after some thought I realised I don’t want this exhibition to divide immigrants as this is not the purpose of this exhibition. All the things tweeted about them is usually just directed at all of us unless there is specific event. It is always directed at all of us rather than a small group of ethnicity, generally all immigrants are seen as one and it doesn’t matter where you come from. So in my exhibition I wanted to focus on all immigrants, so they can all connect to it in some way with the things they see. As I was looking at colour schemes and types focused on Turkish culture in UK but something didn’t fit in to the project. I decided I want to keep the colour scheme black and white. As there is two sides, the divide is between black and white, the black is the myths, hateful comments, misconceptions whereas the white is the other side. It is the most clearer way to communicates two sides.

27/11/2020 Group Tutorials

This week we had a group tutorial with Sean, to show our visual ideas and the progress we made. I felt like at this stage I was very sure of my concept but lacked the visual development which was very stressful. However, David said we should turn up to the tutorials with whatever we have. I explained Sean about my concept and my ideas and he was positive about it, he suggested how will the exhibition look and how will people access it which is something I need to think about in. The next stage I think is to start thinking about the visual development but also decide on how would the exhibition accessed.

I wanted to research more into empathy as I believe it could be a key cause for the increased hatred and division in society. We can see this clearly on social media and being stuck in our echo chambers. I wanted to explore both sides and learn more about them. The anti immigration users are using hatred words to spread the idealogy that the UK should closee the borders and shouldn’t let refugees in to the country as they believe they are a damage to the economy and society. The idea that they are a damage stems from the thought of the receive loads of money whereas the other groups in society such as veterans are homeless. It’s like if you help them then you can’t also help the other group which is a common idea, I could see this in my own culture as well in Turkey there are a lot of societal divisions and daily I can see it on social media. Political divisions allows people to loose their empathy to the other group, it creates them as the enemy as they don’t agree with the thoughts and beliefs. I thought the brief is asking me to increase social collectiveness and bring people together using social media. I could create this by increasing empathy, if people stop seeing the other side as the enemy or the ‘others’ ‘terrorists’ it could improve their connection. In one of the articles, I found a project called “Humans of New York” Humans of New York began as a photography project in 2010.  The initial goal was to photograph 10,000 New Yorkers on the street, and create an exhaustive catalogue of the city’s inhabitants.” The project focused on public and sharing there stories and enhancing the diversity of the city how we all live together. The project was so big that it expanded to other countries such as Iran, Kenya , Ukraine, Mexico and more. The series has photographs and small paragraph of their either their life story or something that they want to share.

I decided to create a project that focused on increasing peoples empathy by sharing stories of immigrants but also allowing the anti immigrant users to understand and realise how hurtful their comments, tweets can be. The next step is to decide how I will create this whether an app, or social media campaign etc.

“One can reduce empathy, but one can also promote it, learning positive associations with another group,” 

References:

https://www.livescience.com/51392-will-tech-bring-humanity-together-or-tear-it-apart.html

https://www.livescience.com/8299-feel-pain-race.html

https://www.humansofnewyork.com/countries

https://www.humansofnewyork.com/post/127410037831/its-taken-a-lot-of-time-to-fit-together-like

In this post, I want to research and find an answer to what is the root cause of this societal divide, what is making people have these misconceptions towards migrants in UK. For this, I first looked at Twitter, searched acocunts, looking through comments on certain tweets who are againsnt immihrantions, what are people thinking what are the reasons they are against ot hating on these people. Spending some time investigating and trying to understand users was actually beneficial as I was starting to see some patterns in behaviours and opinions. First of all, I know misinformation is one of the biggest reaons why people have certain opnions about other groups in society. I believe social media is like our little rooms of all the people we like and agree with, we follow them, like their tweets retweet as we agree with it. However, we never follow people who don’t think like we do, this is Eco chambers. We see the world from our perspective and we want to because thats what we believe in. So the first thing I did was look at Nigel Farage’s twitter account. I don’t follow him as I don’t agree with his political views but maybe I should come out of my chamber as well. I saw that he tweets a lot of about immigration. But one post really caught my eye. There are screenshots below.

This is a video that was shared about the conditions in the migrants camps in Kents. It was between the police and the migrants. Nigel Farage, tweeted this video wihtout any credit to the real source and used the title as ‘they all want four-star hotels and a trip to Anfield”. This is a unrealistic and false image created about the sitation that is happenin in Kent. As we can see this from the account who has the origical source tweetd back explaining that his portrayal was false. This thread made me think about how these things spread on social media. The video Farage tweeted has thousands of retweets which means thousands of people will watch he idoe and believe that those migrants are acting the way hes making it out and will neevr know the real situation. He was spreading hate and untrue story without any evidence himself. Some else had to tweet back and fact check his tweet. This is a very simple example of how misinformaton spreads, people can word things differently as it fits their ideaology and release it on social media. I then looked through comments on Farage’s tweet.

The images above are screenshots of the comment section from Farages tweet. Most of the tweets are from his supporters, replying back to him saying horrible things about the migrants in the camps. The one that caught my eye was the ‘we have enough scroungers and potential terrorisits’. These people who are leaving their home and coming into a country for a safer life are seen as terrorists. I realised that the account tweeted this was a fake accoint with name actual name. It tweets racist tweets about anything that they see on social media. As you can see from the account name, it doesn’t show any real person. With a tweet that has misinformation you can see the hate tweets and people haven’t even checked whether that video actual is what hes saying.

This made me question, why are people hating on other people on social media or feel the need to tweet these horrible and some inhumane things about group of people are in danger. Is it the media portrayal of these people or is it directly about the social media users? I started to question the lack of empathy on social media, empathy means as the ability to sense other people’s emotions, coupled with the ability to imagine what someone else might be thinking or feeling. Are we as social media users losing our empathy skills because of social media?

I found an article that focuses on technology and empathy, in the article it says  that Emile Bruneau, a neuroscientist at MIT, has demonstrated, people especially fail if the larger group embodies an ideology or cultural trait they disagree with. In fact, you might empathize well with your friends, but if you have particularly strong associations with your “in group,” you will have decreased empathy for those you feel are not in your group. So this means, if a group of people who have different opinions to us we usually lose our empathy skills, as they don’t think like us. This is very interesting as again

“There is also too much information for us to take in. Our brains can’t handle the barrage of emotionally draining stories told to us, and this leads to a negation or suppression of emotion that destroys empathy. The natural response is to shut down our compassion , because we are emotionally exhausted.”

I believe lack of empathy is a big deal and a potential reason for all the hate speeches on social media, bullying and trolling. As people forget that they are commenting on a real persons life, which is why the comment section is seen so negative and some people choose to close theirs. Focused on my topic, immigrants can be seen as the enemy due to the politicians making them out to be so people feel the need to show their opinions on the comments section. However, one thing I have noticed is the comments who are very cruel and hateful are usually right wing fake accounts which you can see examples above, they are focused on nationalism and they are always posting anti immigrant posts.

I think focusing on fake accounts on my project would be beneficial as it feeds the divide, these fake accounts could be run by group of people, politicians etc, they attract peoples attention from both sides means they get more engagement and they circulate around the feeds. Engagement is a huge issue about Twitters algorithm, the more clicks and likes a post gets it will appear on top of peoples feeds. This is a way most news accounts such as The Sun, always use exaggerated misleading titles on their posts as by this way it catches peoples eye, they click on the link to read the article. This increases their engagement on social media and articles are more popular. As there is competition between accounts as well. This causes misinformation or people retweeting posts without even reading just because of the title. However, the actual content could be not what the title is saying. This feeds into the misinformation circulating on Twitter.

On one of the articles I read, it said you can create empathy by sharing stories, if people can connect to your life then maybe they can feel empathy towards you or towards a group. This gave me ideas of maybe I could include immigrant stories or experiences which will make the other side learn more about them and maybe develop some empathy. As maybe the issue is we don’t realise how much we have in common, we ‘re always told about how different we are, our culture, the language, life style etc but we must have common interests, ideas, hobbies even. If both sides of the division realise they are similar in some way this could bring them together. I want to focus on the lack of empathy and also find ways to bring the two sides together.m

I think I want to to more research on fake accounts on Twitter to see if I was incorporate that into my project as I’m still trying to figure out what to do and develop my idea on immigration.

References:

https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2189&context=etd

https://www.livescience.com/51392-will-tech-bring-humanity-together-or-tear-it-apart.html

https://www.livescience.com/8299-feel-pain-race.html

After thinking about all my ideas and brain storming I decided I want to go with immigration as the societal divide in society I want to base my project. I believe it is something I have been witnessing on social media and in real life a lot and there is a rising tension due to the brexit campaigns in 2016. Since then, I believe the publics eye is turned on the immigrants and also asymlum- seekers at borders in a very negative and hateful way. I want to research reaons and causes for this and dive into ways I can solve or find ways to change the perception of immigrants in publics eye. I believe politicians have a huge role in this matter, the people we vote for who have our ideaologiy we tend to support them in everything as we know they think and believe in the sam ethings as we do. So, many people don’t question things politicians say as we believe they are true and they are on our side. I think this was the way for Brexit in 2016. The election was heavily focused on immigrants and the impact they have on UK. Politicians such as Nigel Farage who have strong opinions on imimgrants created a false and hateful image on immigrants in UK you can see the billboard below, This was my starting point, the poster below made me question and realise the society is now divided and you can clearly see this in our daily life now. I started to research what did people think of this billboard, what were peoples reactions and I found an article how the anti migarnt poster was reported to the police hours after the photo of Nigel posing in front of the billboard was released. It’s the article there are peoples reactions from Twitter which describe the billboard as ‘Nazi’ like propaganda.

Even many politicians in the same party as Nigel Farage declared that they don’t agree with the propaganda he’s doing. Since then, we started to hear many more things about immigrants and they’ve become the hot topic in many articles. The way Brexit campaign showed immigrants as people who are risking the security of the British people and that they are a damage to the society and economy. So, the image politicians created on immigrants was negative and hateful so this started people to talk on social media, there was a lot of negative things circulating on platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. It was creating a misconception. As there as never a fact or information about the impact of immigrants in UK or whether it is negative or positive. So, this was my next step I want to research whether immigrants do have a negative impact on UK economy and society, are the misconceptions circulating on social media true, the memes and videos that people are sharing on immigrants stealing our jobs are they really stealing them?

Misconceptions

There are many misconceptions circulating on social media about immigrants, these misconceptions are usually very negative and hateful. They are creating an image of people who are damaging the society. I did some research on misconceptions on immigrants in UK, and I was shocked at some of the results. There are many articles and websites which give you information and focus on this issue. These misconceptions are spreading across twitter with people just retweeting as it fits their ideology and political views. The more a tweet or post is retweeted the Twitter algorithm places it on the feed and more people can see it and share it as it’s popular and mainstream.

One of the main misconception about immigrants is that “they are everywhere”, many people believe there are huge population of immigrants living in Britain. However, the surveys show people hugely overestimate the proportion of immigrants in Britain with an average guess of 24% when the actual figure is around half that it is 13%. Another misconception is muslim immigrants, Britons are very wrong about the percentage of Muslims in Britain. The average guess is more than four times the actual figure (17% vs the 4% reality).

The government claims that its new “points-based” migration system, introduced through the recently announced immigration bill, will “attract high-skilled workers”. But the proposals actually amount to a two-tier system which makes judgements on income, treats people as economic commodities and makes it impossible for anyone to live in the UK unless they are rich or have a PhD.

The government’s own estimate puts the cost of deliberate misuse of the NHS by overseas visitors at 0.3 per cent of the NHS budget – the majority of this is actually British expats living overseas, who are not “ordinarily resident” in the UK and return to the UK solely to use the NHS outside of the rules.

In fact, most people who come to live in the UK have “no recourse to public funds”, meaning they are not eligible for benefits. Even asylum-seekers, who are barred from working, are left to live on just £5.39 per day, and struggle to support themselves and their families. What’s more, the “hostile environment” denies anyone without documentation the right to benefits, banking, driving licences and employment.

“Far from being soft, our hard border regime already means that many people die on entry to the UK, or are left to the hands of those willing to exploit them.“

The available research also shows that any declines in wages are likely to be greatest for resident workers who are themselves migrants. This is because the skills of new immigrants are likely to be more similar to the skills of migrants already employed in the UK than for those of UK-born workers.

Fullfact.org

This is a website I found when I was reearching abou timmigration and misconceptions, they are a group of independent fact checkers on variety of issues from Coronavirus to immigration. I found a page on immigration and wages, such as how does immigrants effect the wages in UK etc. The website is very easy to follow as it starts with the ‘claim’ which is ithe misconception and then the verdict to either agree or disagree. I believe this is a great way to deal with misconceptions as there are so many misinformation spreading around social media, no one really knows the truth anymore but with organisations like this people can research and get educated very easily.

“The available research also shows that any declines in wages are likely to be greatest for resident workers who are themselves migrants. This is because the skills of new immigrants are likely to be more similar to the skills of migrants already employed in the UK than for those of UK-born workers.”

The evidence show that with the increase of immigration it usually effects the low skill level workers which is the migrant themselves. It proves that their claim is untrue and it has no evidence behind it.

Migration Observatory

Work and study are the most common reasons for moving to the UK – together making up 71% of long-term immigration in 2018 – while asylum is the least common reason. Students and workers with definite jobs make up most of the entry visas into the country.The family migration make up the very small amount, the evidence show that the image portrayed as the migrants flooding the country it in reality not true, most of them are students who are playing their tuition fees and also workers who are in jobs.

The British public focused more on the immigartion on 2016 as the coversation was at it’s peak and most politicians were using as reason to leave the EU. The conversation of borders and other issues were raised. However, it decreased over the ages as now the NHS and EU is more the hot topic in the news.

I want to focus on social media as well, I want to do some research on how are peoples attitudes on immigrants on social media, who are the users, how does social media effect the divide?

https://theconversation.com/what-britons-get-wrong-about-immigration-and-why-politicians-need-to-tell-them-the-truth-109306

https://fullfact.org/immigration/immigration-wages/

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/immigration-bill-home-office-priti-patel-asylum-trafficking-a9358296.html

https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/who-migrates-to-the-uk-and-why/

https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/uk-public-opinion-toward-immigration-overall-attitudes-and-level-of-concern/

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/16/nigel-farage-defends-ukip-breaking-point-poster-queue-of-migrants

https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/perils-perception-2018

https://theconversation.com/what-britons-get-wrong-about-immigration-and-why-politicians-need-to-tell-them-the-truth-109306

Once I read through the brief, the next stage was to create a mind map of all of my potential ideas for the brief. I started off with reading a ‘how to approach’ section in the brief which guides us on how to start off, it says the first thing you should do is identify a societal divide. For this, I started doing a mind map noting down everything I thought is a potential divide that I see in society or social media. There were few key topics which I was always interested in and that has happened in the recently in society. The main is the political divide in UK and generally across the world with the Trump and Biden election. The political division seems to be the main thing in society which creates hate and tension in society. You can clearly see this on social media, Twitter is always heavy with information and opinions of both sides arguing. If I was to focus on a political divide it would most likely be the Brexit Election in 2016. Or the impact of social media such as the Facebook case focused on data collection and Cambridge Analytica. However, I already made a project on Facebook and data second year, ‘Terms and Conditions’ Exhibition. So I wanted to stay away from the data collection aspect. However, I knew one of the main outcomes from the Brexit election was the tension on between immigrants and the general society. I remember last year, in one of Wendy’s lecturers she showed us the Nigel Farafe Billboard Poster, you can see the image below. This billboard causes many people to report the billboard and it was removed after the public showed so reaction. The billboard was focused on immigrants, a photo was used from a big crowd of immigrants and the title was ‘breaking point’. The billboard was accused of having Nazi like langauge to create hate on immigrants. It showed immigrants as people rushing into the country. I realised when I looked at this iimage was that this billboard was created for an audience in society so they can vote leave, they wanted people to believe that immigarnts are breaking into their country, a false and hateful image of these people. It was later found that the image was not even taken in UK border, which also shows that spread of the fake information in politics to draw voters in. In the end, Brexit did happen and half of the ocuntry voted leave. However, this resulted in UK showing how racist it is, people were tweeting, posting horrible things about immigrants. One of the main lines were ‘ They are stealing our jobs’. I knew there was loads of potential ideas if I focus on immigration. I also thought about racism especially after Black Lives Matter protests in April 2020 during lockdown. I knew this is also a divide in society and racism is a huge problem in society. However, immigration is something close to my heart I am a Turkish immigrant who is living in this society so I could connect with the project using my experience and knowledge I felt like I could create something strong.

There was also the idea of misinformation especially on facebook, from my research on data collection from last year i knew that Facebook was used to psychologically effect peoples voting habits with fake posts and news. I did small research earlier to find out things on Facebook users and instantly it showed that 61% of users aged between 65+ do not understand why certain posts are included in their news feed. 53% of general Facebook users do not understand why they see certain posts on their feed. I believe there is a users lack general knowledge eom social media especially older generation, They don’t understand the algorithm which makes them believe everything they see on social media is true however most of the time is it not. Sometimes I read the comments on some posts, you can clearly see the post is created with exaggerated titles, very misleading and the content is problem is not that severe but the comment section is full of older users commenting hate or arguing with each other about issues. This is a potential idea which is also included in the brief as it is the main issue of social media recently especially with political elections misinformation is a huge deal where even Facebook and Twitter are now taking actions.

I have few ideas which can potentially be developed into a the project for this brief however i am still deciding and we have a group tutorial where have to show our 3 strong approaches I can decide later after some feed back.

I wanted to do another mind map with potential outcomes like things I could create focused on different topics. As I realised there are few topics which interests me and I instantly had few ideas about them.

Misinformation – Digital Workshop

As I was thinking about many users don’t understand why they see certain posts on their feed, they don’t know about algorithms so I thought about a digital workshop with questions and information which tells them with examples things they should avoid doing or be aware when they on social media. This would mainly focus on Facebook as user age is usually higher and parents usually lack knowledge on social media. The workshop is aimed at explaining briefly algorithms and if people are educated on social media and how they should be using it then maybe the misinformation will be decreased people won’t share it without reading or they can identify when they are reading it. It’s similar to like gyms, when you are a member before your first session you should usually have an introduction session so you know how to use the equipments. I don’t know how it would look as visually whether it will be a separate app or a plug in on facebook. It can also work with Twitter as well and misinformation is an issue they have dealing with and especially in election periods it can be a very dark negative chaotic platform from both sides. Also, in the workshop it would have like posts where it would deconstruct it self to give the user an idea on how fake posts are created things they should look out for. I thought visually it would be really good as the user can see and understand different types of posts created for certain users. This idea focuses on education the users and bringing people together from all sides so they can use social media in a positive way.

Another idea is a focused on spreading positivity on social media, I think this focuses on Twitter or Instagram as these are platforms people share and post things regularly. The positivity charts are like a plug in, maybe weekly or monthly each user can get a graph, a chart of how much positive things they have posted on their account. This could be a good way to encourage people to spread more positive tweets or images as everything we share on social media effects other people as well. Instagram has like activity charts where it shows peoples interactions with your account etc so it can easily be a plug in that could be shared around as well. I had this idea from the Output Studio, mental health project.

Another idea is more of an experience and focused on the design aspect. A spacial virtual exhibition which is aimed at information and using design to showcase the impact of social media.

I believe I have few ideas which can potentially be the a good way to answer the brief as I think it is a difficult brief to handle as it wants direct solutions to issues using social media whereas sometimes social media is seen to be the issue creating the divisions but I want to use positive sides of it too. My next stage is to have the group tutorial get some feedback from go forward from there. I will need to do research on social media platforms, algorithms and how do users use social media.

WHY?

To answer this question I went through the brief, why is there a need for a brief like this, why is society increasing becoming polarized, how can social media improve this? What are the examples social media has positive impact? what is polarization? What are the divides in society that needs action? Which social media platforms play a huge role in division and which ones support? These are the type of questions I was thinking when I was reading the brief

Priority: Social media can be used to promote tolerance and inclusion instead of division and exclusion.

What is the purpose?

The purpose of this brief is to use social media as a positive platform to bring people together, to help the excluded groups in society, to identify a societal divide and draw attention to it, to promote inclusion and reduce polarisation. To promote the positive aspects of social media?

Why is it needed?

The reason I think this project would be beneficial and it is significant because the world we live in is becoming very toxic and polarized. With the events happening around the world, people, countries are hating on each other due to small reasons such as their culture, religion, way of life. There is a growing polarization between real life but also digitally on internet. There are several groups of people are divided either due to politics etc We can clearly see these arguments on our social media such as Twitter, Instagram. When something is trending on Twitter, you know something bad has happened somewhere around the world. it’s like the news, people find things out first on twitter rather than watching the TV or reading the newspaper like before. The communication is so fast, this is an advantage but also disadvantage, an information can be leaked and the world will find out in few minutes. The average session on Twitter is 3.39 minutes. It takes 3 minutes to go through your full feed and find out what’s happened around the world. You are updated in few minutes whereas no one can tell you if what you read is true or not. When I say polarized,

polarisation means

the act of dividing something, especially something that contains different people or opinions, into two completely opposing groups:

societal divides can be caused by many reasons, many people would say it is due to social media, it feeds us so much information that sometimes it’s not true, it allows people to argue and create a division between groups. People who are siding with the X and then theres people siding with Y. It grows bigger and bigger which then results in real life things such as crime, fights, social disruption. It effects the way behaviour and treat one another.

References:

https://www.oberlo.com/blog/twitter-statistics#:~:text=Here’s%20a%20summary%20of%20the,are%20between%2035%20and%2065.

https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/social-platforms-fuel-societal-divides-though-not-in-the-way-many-think/531676/

https://www.theverge.com/interface/2020/2/28/21153060/social-network-polarization-ezra-klein-why-were-polarized-q-a

Today we had a lecture with Sean Rees, a great designer who has worked with amazing big brands and it was great to listen to his knowledge and experiences. The lecture was focused on the word why?. It was aimed at branding and how can we create a brand, in the lecture Sean said branding is more than just a logo, colour palette or strap line. The brand is like the brain, if we lost our memory we would not remember anything about that brand. It’s the things that make us remember the brands that is essential, there was a small activity were parts of logos were missing and we had to guess what it is, most of the logo you know the split second you see it automatically our brain knows what it is. A truly iconic brand has a clear reason for being, is mission driven and stands for something bigger. We saw that iconic brands don’t lead with what they do, they lead with why they do it. As that was the key focus of the lecture to understand why things are done in brands. The next workshop focused on the word why but it was focused on our briefs. Sean wanted to us to answer few questions about our brief so we can figure out what we want to do. The three words are why, how, what?

Why: The Purpose

Why do you do what you do?

What’s your purpose?

What do you believe in?

How: The Process

How do you do what you do?

What makes you unique?

What? – The Result

What do you do?

Whats the end result/product?

Simon Sinek – Start with Why

Sean Rees suggested we should watch this short clip of a ted talk which focused on his lecture, it goes through each point of why, how and what using real life examples such as Apple. How do they manage to be the biggest when there are other products which have exactly the same feature even at cheaper prices. It was eye opening and interesting as it’s a different way of thinking and if I could apply this to my brief it would be a good start.

The next step is to apply these questions to my brief so I can start to figure out what am I trying to make and how can I respond to it.

The next step was a research task about RSA or D&AD winners, we were told to research winners and disect their perspective on the brief, how were they successful, what did they do that can also help our projects. What made the project so successful? How was the idea visualised? So I went through winners on D&AD and chose briefs which focused on social issues which is the topic of my brief.

New Blood Entry — What Does Your Heart Beat For?

The client for this project was Nike, the winner has created project which focuses on trying to bring the community together by using the Nike Run app they teenagers can make an impact on the issues that they care about. The campaign is called What does your heart beat for? I think the slogan is so intriguing and powerful it allows you to think about issues, problems you care about and gives you the opportunity to do something for those people or groups. The visual language is simple and powerful, the photographs and the clean type work really works and fits to the purpose of the project. It also fits the Nike branding which is contemporary and clean aesthetic style. The outcomes they designed is an app feature which converts peoples running distances which donations to certain organizations which they person (ambassador) chooses. I believe one of the reasons this protect was successful because it is personal, it allows the users, viewers to have an impact on something they believe in and feel that is important. The slogan is powerful, it’s directed at you personally, you have an individual voice and you can do something for it by just doing a simple act of running. It also encourages being active, if you feel like running is not your favourite activity or you don’t feel motivated, with this project you can find something that will motivate you or give you strength to over come the challenges whether it is lack of self confidence, lack of time etc.

The campaign visuals are like I said fits with Nike aesthetic, maybe if I saw this billboard in real life I would probably think it’s a Nike project. So, for that it works well with consistency and understand the clients identity. The posters on billboards also have powerful slogans such as ‘break a sweat for breast cancer’ which is again telling you to be active, to do something an act which is is running for an organization or an issue. The poster visuals are clean and structured through out the campaign so it is consistent. I think it’s the purpose and the campaign features which really makes the project stand out. It can really work on the outside world, as running distances turned into donations by these big organisations does sound really smart.

RSA- Platform of Joy – Hello Hampton!

This is the winner of one of the RSA projects which is the competition my brief is in. The brief in this project is focused on the question how might we unlock joy for people at the train stations? One of the winners of has created a project which involved community workshops in care homes. The process to co-design themed stained-glass windows to be displayed and fitted to the structures of Hampton Court Station whilst providing a unique sense of identity and joy. Each design is unique and created by individuals imaginations. I think this is a great way to involve community into the project as it should reflect the public and have representation. Through this opportunity, these groups were able to project their voices through colours, drawings. I think this project is really great as it’s so simple but so effective, the images are so nice and knowing it was created by individuals in the public really brings it together. They also created a social media page which all these drawings are posted regular. I thin it is very smart and unique it brings the individuals but also turns the station into a more positive and community feeling.

RSA – Nip it in the Boob

How might we use AI to support people to reach a happy, meaningful and productive one hundred year life?

This is also another project which I found really powerful and important as it focuses on breast cancer. Nip it in the Boob’ is an AI driven, interactive service which allows women to record monthly assessments in order to enable early detection of breast cancer at home. This is an issue in society which women usually ignore or avoid talking about. Most women don’t know how to check their breasts and this can really effect some people negatively if they should see the doctor. The project is focused on an app which is a way to record data and keep on track with the assessments. There is a booklet as well which comes to women’s house which has examples 3D shapes 3D shapes that mimic the texture and quality of the mammary gland tissue of a healthy breast and a lump, to help guide women through their checks with confidence. By this way they know how the breast should feel and how it shouldn’t feel as you can see on the image below. By this way, if they feel something abnormal they can immediately contact the doctor. The app allows women to create their unique account which they can track and assess daily. I think this project is very smart and focused on the issue. Home assessment is very important for breast cancer and with an app this makes it really easy to track the assessments. Maybe the app can send out notifications if they haven’t filled the track form in ages. As by this way, the app also reminds women to do it as many people forgot in their daily life routines. I like the visual language it is playful and positive colour palette makes it engaging and relaxing as it is a serious importance issue.

RSA- Platform of Joy – DOT -+ SUM

How might we unlock joy for people at the train stations?

DOT-+SUM is a way-finding system that uses responsive visuals which evolve with the station environment to provide passengers with real-time information about the transport service. This again focuses on how to make the train stations joyful and a positive area. The other project focuses on community workshops using Hampton Court residents however the response is focuses on more technological and data in the train station which can benefit the travelers as well as making the place more interesting. The two approaches work in different ways. This response is a way finding system that uses responsive visuals providing information to transport service. It makes the travelers experiences easier and run more smoothly.

“With a desire to make information on station platforms more engaging, less confusing and stress-free, DOT-+SUM is passenger information system and way finding strategy that evolves with the environment. It provides users of public transport with responsive visuals which correspond to real-time information about the transport service. ” I think this response it very useful and beneficial to the travelers and it didn’t just focus on making the space look pretty with colours or murals etc, the design is also aimed at making the information less confusing and easy for people to navigate around the station. It uses simple visual elements such as shapes and movement to communicate the information rather than words and times as it is in most stations with massive screens. By this way it is less information but it’s engaging. I think this was very inspirational to use a different language rather than words or images, using a different simple system can also be very effective.

References:

thersa.org/student-design-awards/winners/2020/hello-hampton

https://www.thersa.org/student-design-awards/winners/2020/dot-sum

https://www.dandad.org/awards/new-blood/2020/connect4climate/3672/blackout/

https://www.thersa.org/student-design-awards/winners/2020/nip-it-in-the-boob

https://www.dandad.org/awards/new-blood/2020/nike/3595/what-does-your-heart-beat-for/