The Virtual Humanitarian: The virality of humanitarian video campaigns

Abstract

Viral marketing has been around for decades, but as social networking sites have grown explosively in popularity over recent years viral video campaigns have too. This thesis studies the viral potential of online video campaigns of a humanitarian nature, looking specifically at the persuasive and motivational factors in the videos which stimulate forwarding and sharing behaviour. Academic literature studying online video virality is often focused on video campaigns for commercial organisations, with little attention being paid to humanitarian organisations - despite viral marketing being a popular tool within both sectors. To bridge this gap I will analyse the persuasive elements in humanitarian video campaigns. To do so and to answer the research question, I will combine a literature analysis with the analysis of three case study videos. There are several themes which are identified as being crucial to the instigation of forwarding behaviour, which are the source (ethos), the message (logos and pathos) and the audience. Key to humanitarian videos is the recurrent Western saviour complex, as the content and context of these videos are heavily influenced by postcolonial concepts of the ‘other’ being in need of rescue from Western countries. These concepts are further explored in the literature analysis and provide a structure through which the case study videos are analysed.