Abdullah Radwan - DIGM806 - A1 -

Give Nothing to Racism

The Campaign: 

(Frances Cooke, n.d.)

A campaign under the title of “Give nothing to racism” was collaboratively developed
by the Teaching Council and the Human Rights Commission of New Zealand to fight
the old and growing issue of racism in the country. The campaign aimed to starve
out the casually subtle racist thoughts, actions and comments from the current and
upcoming generations. 

On the 15th of June 2017, the campaign launched with the New Zealander of the
year, Taika Waititi, asking “ What will you give to racism?”

 
https://www.dropbox.com/s/i732ag26hnfj7bd/givenothing-about.mp4?dl=0

(givenothing, 2017)
 Feeding racism and laughing it off, tolerating it and allowing it to grow was
communicated as unacceptable. In its stead, a commitment to give racism no
laughs, no smiles, no positive reactions, and no support. The main focus of the
campaign was the fact that “Racism is unacceptable in New Zealand, no matter how
small.” - (Human Rights Commission, 2017)

With 1.7 million views on the Human Rights Commission’s Facebook page and
another 1.2 million on Taika Waititi’s, the campaign received global recognition so
much so that “The Telegraph” and “The Guardian” both covered the story. The
campaign was also voted by the Asia-Pacific Communications Awards in 2017 as the
best campaign by an institution, NGO or association.

Influential individuals, businesses, organizations, and cities were the first to show
their support.

(The AWARD Awards, n.d.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=ZUCfA35r26Y 

The Campaign undoubtedly managed to reach the masses with both local and
international support all with the help of dressing the campaign with the matching
narrative theory, structure, and format across all the utilized mediums of which the
following report will analyse. 

Narrative Theories: 

There are several theorists that put forward their thoughts on how a narrative can be
constructed. The most famous of these theorists include Tzvetan Todorov, Valdimir
Propp, Roland Barthes, and Claude Levi-Strauss. In a genius effort, the campaign
made use of all of their theories as we will showcase below. 

Starting with Tzvetan Todrov, whose theory states that most plot lines follow a path
that consists of five stages, the Equilibrium, Disruption, Recognition, Repair, and
New Equilibrium. This narrative theory was brilliantly applied to the campaign’s
primary message which was Taika Waititi’s video. Within the first few seconds of it,
the narrative showcases a state of equilibrium where everything is calm and appears
to be fine as Taika introduces himself and asks the audience for support on a cause.
The classical music used concurrently conveys peace and serenity taking the
audience away from any other negative assumptions to what will indeed be coming
next. Just 8 seconds into the 1:50 minute video, something happens that disrupts
the calm situation, or what Todorov conveniently coins as the disruption stage of the
narrative. Viewers are disrupted as Taika is requesting support for racism “Racism
needs your help to survive”. As the video continues while Taika explains how small
gestures and actions give the impression that it is ok to be racist, and follows by
answering the frequently asked questions about racism, the audience start to realize
the sarcasm of the statements and more importantly that someone they know or
even they themselves are contributing to racism without even meaning or
recognizing it. Next, Taika informs the audience that the people, us, help racism
flourish and we keep it alive. This stage of the narrative is called by Todorov,
Recognition. After the audience finally understands the full message and how
crucial they are to both the problem and solution, Taika puts forward a question to all
viewers “What will you give to racism?”. The answer to this question is the headline
of the whole campaign, I will “Give nothing to racism”. At this stage of the narrative,
Todorov’s Repair stage is apparent where people either try to correct their wrongs or
help in preventing the issue from happening. Finally the last stage of the narrative
includes a New Equilibrium, where a new calm is set, an absence of racism or more
realistically a drastic decrease due to the following actions of the audience. 

As the campaign made use of other tools to deliver its unified message, other
narrative theories were applied. To showcase this, we look at the campaign’s
collaboration with local and international influencers where they each participated in
their own video that showcased them laughing hysterically at first followed by
presenting a very serious and disapproving face.
  https://twitter.com/KarlUrban/status/875 https://twitter.com/NeilFinn/status/8751
308179151757312 89457825091585

(Urban, 2017) (Finn, 2017)

These short clips brilliantly employ Claude Levi-Strauss’s theory of Binary Opposites
where narratives are organised around conflicts between opposing poles. In this
case, the two opposites of Egalitarianism vs. Racism, or as the clips simplify it as the
one side of “it is ok to laugh at racist jokes” (Hysterical laughter) vs. “it is definitely
not ok” (Disapproving look).

Interestingly, both Taika’s video and the short user-generated clips serve yet another
narrative theory proposed by Roland Barthes that states one or more of his 5 codes
can describe the meaning of a narrative. The Hermeneutic or ‘Engima’ Code,
Proairetic or ‘Action’, Semantic, Symbolic,  and finally the Cultural code. Both the
Semantic and Symbolic codes are present in the clips and video as both stories
contain aspects that provide connotation to the broader theme and feeling of the
narrative. 

Finally the narrative theory of Vladimir Propp also had a share in this campaign
through one particular instructional call-to-action poster.
 

(New Zealand Human Rights Commission, 2018)

As illustrated, the poster communicates 3 out of Propp’s 31 functions that describe

the meaning of a narrative and they are Villainy & lack, Reaction, and Punishment.
As their names state, the first function of villainy is shown when a racist incident
takes place in front of someone and a need for action is created. The second
function of reaction is present when the viewer responds by supporting the victim,
recording and reporting the villain. At last, the punishment function is clearly when
the offender gets prosecuted accordingly. 
 Narrative Structure:

As well as relating to a variation of theories, the campaign’s narrative (Syuzhet) also

employs a number of different structures in its stories (Fabula) across all used
mediums to create a coherent campaign transnarrative.

To start with the video clips, the narrative clearly uses one of Kurt Vonnegut’s story
structures, the “Old Testament”. To better explain it, we first need to note that
Vonnegut believed all stories have shapes that can be drawn based on the main
character’s changing fortune as the story unfolds. With a vertical axis signifying the
“Good vs. ill fortune” of the character, and a horizontal axis representing the timeline
of the story from “Beginning till End” as shown below. 
 

(The Writing Cooperative, 2019) (The Writing

Cooperative, 2019)

That in mind, when we analyse the video clips in the campaign we can clearly see a
narrative structure that resembles Vonnegut’s “Old Testament” where the individual,
who happens to be the hero of the story, hysterically laughing in euphoric enjoyment
then suddenly plunges into a momentous state of serious unrest.

 
https://www.dropbox.com/s/h1mzlmjimsnou6j/baeeb8c5-f284-4166-bd2f-d1b94cabf7e1.
mp4?dl=0

(givenothing, 2017)
Moving on to the main campaign video of Taika
Waititi, we notice an application of a narrative  
structure that closely resembles a modern version of
the German novelist Gustav Freytag’s “Dramatic
Structure”. As illustrated, the Modern Dramatic
Structure consists of one additional act “conflict”
compared to Freytag’s original 5-act pyramid. 
(Narratives
In translation, the exposition part of the introduction CONSTRUCTIONS &

is where Taika introduces himself at the start, giving TOPOLOGIES, 2019)

us background information about who he is and
what he wants “… as New Zealander of the year, I am calling on everyone…”

The second act of conflict starts at the moment Taika mentions that he is asking for
support with what he describes as “a very important cause” racism, which is a
definite shock to viewers as it is on its own a conflict of values, morality, and even
human nature, at least to the vast majority of viewers. 

Immediately after the conflict, the audience is taken into “rising action” a series of
events that build up to the climax. Taika sets up the climax by describing how the
viewer can contribute to racism, even answers some frequently asked questions
about racism. All this buildup leads to the “climax” were Taika reveals a turning point
in the narrative asking “what if everyone stopped giving to racism?”. Here viewers
after realizing that they themselves or someone they know were willingly or
unconsciously fueling the problem, do have another choice. At this moment, the
audience start drawing in on their inner feelings towards the issue making the
climax the act where emotions (whatever their nature be) peak resulting in one of
the most crucial parts of the story. 

Following the climax, the narrative enters the final part, the ending, with what is
called the “falling actions” where the conflict unravels. During this act viewers are
considering the implication of Taika’s questions, they are thinking to themselves
“what if everyone stopped giving to racism?”, “how do I show my support?” and
genuinely considering their own input to the overall solution as Taika mentions  “it
will add up, it will be noticed”.
Finally, the “Resolution” or Dénouement closes the narrative by resolving the
conflicts and creating a sense of catharsis for the audience. Here is where Taika
reinforces the idea that the viewer can be either the problem “will you help it
flourish?” or solution “what will you give to racism?” concluding with a call-to-action
answer which the viewer needs to convincingly arrive to, the tagline of the whole
campaign, I will Give nothing to racism. 

Narrative Formats 

To successfully reach the targeted audience with a properly unified message, the
campaign needed to be launched across many channels and mediums of which
each have their limitations creating the necessity for different combinations of
narrative formats.

Taika’s video which presented the main asset of the campaign falls into the long
linear narrative format as the video is around two minutes with a clear sequence of
events. The video as well as all materials produced were multi-device friendly
adhering to each carrier’s set frames. 
  https://twitter.com/NZHumanRights/status/8750932303
95817984

(NZ Human Rights Commission, 2017)

(givenothing, 2019)

All remaining material used including still images, the user generated clips, and even
the campaign hashtag fall into the short and linear format as they also communicate
through a sequenced uncurled Syuzhet while having a very short form be it a still
image or a 10 second clip. 

  https://www.instagram.co https://www.instagram.co
m/p/BhaLvR-lwJ4/?utm_so m/p/BVVwQX0g-lK/?utm_s
urce=ig_web_copy_link ource=ig_web_copy_link
www.instagram.com www.instagram.com

(nzhumanrightss, 2018) (msholliesmith, 2017)

(NZ Human Rights

Commission, 2018)
 Stepping away from the digital space, the campaign also gave a way for businesses
to align themselves with the cause by creating a Partnership Guideline booklet
available on the campaign’s main website. Along with having the traditional brand
guidelines, the guide includes ideas on how to align the business’s brand with the
cause. Ideas ranged from shopping bags, badges, to welcome mats in a well put
display of how even spaces can be employed as a communication medium. 

  https://www.dropbox.co https://www.dropbox.co https://www.dropbox.co

m/s/r5xhb1tq2lf7yvx/737 m/s/qwkmlxob3ki05ai/4. m/s/fux36bbtev1dsr6/3.p
87.pdf?dl=0 pdf?dl=0 df?dl=0

  https://www.dropbox.co https://www.dropbox.co https://www.dropbox.co

m/s/rxanfy22otfgtqa/2.pd m/s/8a34e0a3mi1qn3p/ m/s/43zrfz01mehvhn5/6.
f?dl=0 5%20%281%29.pdf?dl=0 pdf?dl=0

References

Finn, N. [Neil Mullane Finn]. (2017, June 1) Racist commens are not funny.
Ever.#givenothingtoracism [Tweet]. Retrieved from
https://twitter.com/NeilFinn/status/875189457825091585?
ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpap
erusercontent.com%2Fintegrations%2Fembed%2Fiframe%2Ftweet%3Fid%3D875
189457825091585
 
Frances Cooke. Retrieved from http://frankiecooke.com/give-nothing
 
Givenothing. (2017). Retrieved from https://givenothing.co.nz/video/about
 
Givenothing. (2017). Retrieved from https://givenothing.co.nz/video/baeeb8c5-
f284-4166-bd2f-d1b94cabf7e1
 
GiveNothing_BrandMaterial. (n.d.). Retrieved from
https://givenothing.co.nz/download
Human Rights Commission, GiveNothing to Racism, Brand Partnership Guidelines,
p.4, 2017
 
Matthews. J [Justin Matthews]. (2019)Narratives CONSTRUCTIONS &
TOPOLOGIES. Retrieved on August, 2019
 
New Zealand Human Rights Commission. (2018, October 30). If a racist attack
happens to you or in front of you here is what to do. #SupportRecordReport.
Retrieved from
https://www.facebook.com/NZHumanRightsCommission/photos/a.1015082931091
8843/10156161584118843/?type=3&theater
 
NZ Human Rights Comission [NZHumanRights]. (2017, June 15). We hope all Kiwis
will get on board this very important casue. #GiveNothingToRacism
https://givenothing.co.nz/ [Tweet]. Retrieved from
https://twitter.com/NZHumanRights/status/875093230395817984?
ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpap
erusercontent.com%2Fintegrations%2Fembed%2Fiframe%2Ftweet%3Fid%3D875
093230395817984
 
New Zealand Human Rights Commission. (2018, September 14). his Māori Language
Week #GiveNothingToRacism.E kore e ngāwari. E kore e kata. E kore e rata. E kore e
aro. E kore e pōwhiri. E kore e whakamana. E kore e whakaae. E kore e tautoko. E
kore e āki. E kore e whai kaha. E kore e whai nohanga.No tolerance. No laughs. No
likes. No attention. No welcome. No respect. No agreement. No support. No
encouragement. No power. No home.#TeWikioteReoMāori. Retrieved from
https://www.facebook.com/NZHumanRightsCommission/photos/a.1015082931091
8843/10156062125063843/?type=3&theater
 
Racism starts small. But so does hope. (2017, December 14). Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUCfA35r26Y

The Writing Cooperative. (2019, July 4). Kurt Vonnegut’s Shapes to writing or Finding
Cinderella in the New Testament. Retrieved from
https://writingcooperative.com/kurt-vonneguts-shapes-to-writing-or-finding-
cinderlla-in-the-new-testament-7b4259621461
 
The AWARD Awards. (n.d.). Retrieved from
https://awardcfe.awardsplatform.com/gallery/xnMeQMnA/DbDarXWx?
search=655c14f476afeaba-147
 
Urban, K. [Karl Urban]. (2017, June 15) Racism Is no joke .#givenothingtoracism
[Tweet]. Retrieved from
https://twitter.com/KarlUrban/status/875308179151757312?
ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpap
erusercontent.com%2Fintegrations%2Fembed%2Fiframe%2Ftweet%3Fid%3D875
308179151757312