#CarryThatWeight vs. #It'sOnUs Campaigns

Over the past two months, a huge, viral campaign started that was inspired by one University of Columbia art student's senior thesis project. Her project requires her to carry around her mattress for as long as her rapist remains at the University of Columbia, symbolizing the weight and burden rape victims bear when they are denied justice. Here is a video of Emma's story and project: 

As mentioned earlier, her project has inspired a huge campaign, sparking collective mattress carries all across the globe, on hundreds of high school and college campuses. There is even a website: http://www.carryingtheweighttogether.com/, where the first thing viewers see is: 

"WE ALL CARRY THE WEIGHT. PLEDGE HERE TO JOIN US AND STAND WITH SURVIVORS AND ALLIES CARRYING THE WEIGHT TO END SEXUAL AND DOMESTIC VIOLENCE." 

One thing I find interesting about this campaign is that it coincides with the start and is somewhat similar to the the government launched "It's On Us" campaign that began in early September to address the necessity of changing the culture around sexual assault.

 What is notably different about these campaigns is the attention and popularity they received. While the It's On US campaign is star-studded and well-intended, it has been met with skepticism and critique for "de-politicizing and de-gendering sexual assault, portraying it as an easy-to-avoid problem solely between individuals, and making perpetrators out to be vague “someones” who do “something” to other “someones" (Bolger, 2014). The campaign is making rape and sexual assault sound like an easy-to-fix problem. This critique has especially been voiced here, at the University of Michigan, where one student, and rape survivor, elegantly addresses how the It's On US campaign at U of M is being enacted by white, privileged, cisgender men who do not care to listen to the viewpoints of survivors like her. She writes, "Our leaders do not care about truly addressing the issue at hand or centering the voices of survivors and experts" at the forefront of their actions and plans (Palle, 2014). 

What is really interesting is that the It's On Us campaign is not incredibly different from the Carry That Weight campaign in intent and end goals. Both want to address how we are all responsible for changing the culture surrounding sexual assault and rape and for supporting survivors of these horrible crimes. Both began around the same time. Both have used social media as a platform for discussion and change. Then why is it that they have been met with such different responses? 

Researchers Nick Joyce and Jake Harwood might have provided some insight in their article, “Context and Identification in Persuasive Mass Communication." What Joyce and Harwood found is that the context of a message, specifically messages in PSA's and viral videos, can change the way we evaluate them. They found these differences by showing the same anti-sexting message in a PSA context and viewer made, viral video context, like what someone would find on Youtube. The results of their study demonstrate that the context of who the message is coming from changes the way we evaluate the message. The researchers describe how PSAs were less effective in persuading and changing viewers' opinions on sexting than viral videos made by a "normal" person. They describe that these differences might be because, "PSAs are expected to be pushier, and made by outsiders trying to enforce their opinions. User-generated viral videos on the other hand are expected to be entertaining and made by the same types of people as the audience" (Joyce & Harwood, 2014). 

I think these findings are very applicable to why the It's on Us campaign and the Carry That Weight campaign have been met with different reception. The It's On US campaign is clearly a government initiated PSA, whereas the Carry That Weight campaign was inspired by a "normal" person, who is similar to the people who have decided to take the pledge and join the campaign.  To return to my question about why these campaigns have been met with such different responses when their messages and intent are very similar, I think Joyce and Harwood demonstrate that it likely comes down to the context in which these campaigns have been presented. The It's On Us campaign could be seen as "pushy and made by outsiders" which is demonstrated by the U of M's student's experience with It's On US campaign on campus and elite white men planning how to enact the campaign on campus. Whereas the Carry That Weight campaign truly was inspired by someone relatable to the cause, hence why thousands of people felt inspired to get involved.

While I think both campaigns are very needed and equally important, this research does shed some light on how campaigns for prevention of sexual assault and rape can be dealt with in the future in order to be effective and actually initiate change. 

References: 

Bolger, D. (2014, October 1). It's on us to go beyond "It's On Us"Feministing. accessed at: http://feministing.com/2014/09/22/its-on-us-to-go-beyond-its-on-us/. 

Joyce, N., & Harwood, J. (2014). Context and identification in persuasive mass communication. Journal of Media Psychology: Theories, Methods, and Applications, 26(1), 50-57. 

Palle, S. (2014, October 8). Viewpoint: Horrible leadership at the University, starring Dishell and Schlissel- A hilariously painful tragicomedy in four parts. The Michigan Daily. accessed at: http://www.michigandaily.com/opinion/10viewpoint-horrible-leadership-university-starring-dishell-schlissel-and-pretty-much-everyone10