CONSTRUING THE CRITICISM

Moving beyond our presentation today, we believe that it is important to discuss Fiona’s input and criticisms.

Our major concern regards the narrowing down of our target audience. We understand and appreciate the need to have a more acutely defined audience demographic and thus we have chosen to focus on offering our site as the first point of call for political dissidents.

These “marginalised” individuals are looking to communicate their beliefs, ideas and concerns, without fear of persecution (well not in Australia at least), stigmatisation or further marginalisation. Our website provides guidance and support related to online anonymity and ways in which this mode of communication can assist the cause of political dissent.

It is important to accurately define all terms we engage with, and so below is an explanation of how we have defined our target audience.

A political dissident is a dissenter from political orthodoxy. They protest, object or contest established policy and prescriptions, henceforth sidelining them from the mainstream. 

In order to effectively communicate with our target audience, we have further narrowed down the demographic scope to focus on dissidents residing to the left of centre. Commonly, such dissenters are fighting for the rights of the masses, the working class and the under privileged.

The GGs support this left-wing fight and wish to support the communicative strategies and safety of these political dissidents through providing them with an interactive and educational online point of call for maintaining online anonymity, so as to ensure their future success and efficiency.

Prominent and admirable left wing dissidents include Karl Marx, famed Indian author and activist Arundhati Roy and of course, Nelson Mandela.

In light of the renewed specificity of our target audience, GG has taken on a new stance. We recognise the influence of context in the current technological era and wish to act as an advocacy group that supports the right to free speech as well as communicative anonymity and puts up a damn good fight against all forms of censorship, particularly regarding the internet which is the ‘freest’ mode of mass communication available to each and every citizen.

In short, we hope to preserve and promote the communicative power of marginalised political dissidents, to fight censorship and preserve our democratic right to free speech.  

With the influx of social media and the unlimited potential of Web 3.0 (thank you MECO peers), we are striving to promote the rights of all people and to give the voiceless a voice. We are hoping to do so by staying abreast of the technological evolution in which anonymity is being challenged.

We predict our target audience to be technologically astute, between the ages of 18 and 55 years of age. There is a tendency for the older portion of this demographic, from 38 years and above, to be more concerned with technological advances and issues of privacy, simply given their shorter exposure to the potential of online communication. The entire group is defined by an interest in politics and are classed as adults (+18) for legal purposes and the fact that in Australia this is the age that political advocacy is lawfully recognised and legitimised.

In all, we are seeking to advocate free speech through linking the communicative methods of political dissenters with ANONYMITY.

*** As an aside, we are looking to further incorporate social media into our communication strategy. We hope to organise events for our “anonymous” followership. This isn’t so easy however, as of course these people wish to maintain their anonymity. One way we thought we could by pass this hurdle was to respect their anonymity by hosting a masquerade ball, where we invite GG followers, supports and creators to an event at which we encourage mask wearing as a pre-requisite. The mystery and strangeness of the event would likely attract media attention which is a positive motion for our cause, in using the media as a vessel for promotion.

Facebook and Twitter would be the major forms of communication of such events and also provide GG users/followers to create communication portals under the guise of a pseudonym, which as discussed in other posts, is one strategy that we endorse.