“The asset is a series of text messages in a group chat of friends from different parts of the world discussing their experiences with COVID-19. The key objective is to emphasise the importance of looking at the effects of pandemics on individuals, as it is so easy to see people as merely numbers in a data set rather than human beings. This was made apparent at the start of the pandemic with bulk buying of products such as pasta and toilet roll, raising questions like to what extent do people put self-gain over humanitarian actions?
The intended audience is mainly the younger generation who may have minimal knowledge on factors such as COVID through the lenses of history and gender. Being a series of text messages, it is engaging with young adults/teenagers through relatability – an effective way of appealing to a specific audience – being both visually stimulating and relevant. Giving lived experiences can also allow the audience to sympathise and tangibly affect them emotionally. The potential legacy of the asset is its potential use as a resource for schools and wellbeing departments, for example, put in the frame of a poster to give knowledge about different aspects of the pandemic itself.
In contrary to this, the asset will give the reader a chance to reflect on their own morality and the role that they played in maintaining social respectability. As John Rawls describes ‘a theory of justice,’ being the ways in which we can be better people. It is important to give the audience lasting thoughts in hopes that they then can apply this to their everyday life. In addition to this, the inclusion of statistical, quantitative information will be included in order to equip the audience with the necessary information to inform others in the wider community, thus creating more long-term effects.”
Rhea Willson
Social Anthropology
Undergraduate
Essex, England
Currents 2020
Click here to see Rhea Willson’s creative asset, a fictional series of text messages in a group chat.
Featured Image: Wear a face mask 2/3 by A day before us – LICO
Note: When assets did not have an obvious image available to represent them, and where the student did not wish to have their image included as part of the showcase, we have often selected images from the extraordinary collection in the official United Nations COVID-19 Response Creative Content Hub, for which we are very grateful.
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