The Battle Against Shark-fin Soup
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Running head: THE EFFECTIVENESS OF SOCIAL MEDIA AGAINST SHARK-FIN
CONSUMPTION
1
The Effectiveness of Social Media Against Shark-Fin Consumption:
The Battle Against Shark-Fin Soup
Cai Yiming
U1130827K
CS2008 Term Paper
Nanyang Technological University
16th
April 2012
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Abstract
This paper seeks to examine if social media campaigns against the consumption of shark-fin
soup are truly effective in persuading the general public to stop consuming shark-fin soup.
With regards to the growing demand of shark-fin for consumption (Clarke, Milner-Gulland, &
Bjorndal, 2007), the shark finning industry have been increasing shark finning efforts (Clarke,
Milner-Gulland, & Bjorndal, 2007), which in turn has endangered the marine ecological system
and the threatened shark species to possible extinction (Ng, 2009).
However, Non-profit Organisations (NPOs) and wildlife conservation groups have taken to
campaigning for the banning of shark-fin soup in hope of curbing the demand for shark-fins in
the interest of dampening the shark finning trade. In addition, such groups and activist have also
targeted raising the awareness amongst general consumers of shark-fin soup to cull the demand
of shark-fin soup by consumers.
Through quantitative analysis of a designed field experiment, this study seeks to evaluate if
exposure to such campaigns targeted directly at consumers are effective in persuading them to:
1. Stop purchasing shark-fin soup for consumption2. Not consume shark-fin soup should the situation presents itself to the consumer.
Keywords: social media, effectiveness, persuasion, shark-fin
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Introduction
Considered a popular modern day delicacy of Chinese cuisine, shark-fin soup symbolises
wealth and societal status in Chinese communities around the world (Clarke, Milner-Gulland, &
Bjorndal, 2007). The rise of the Chinese economy over the past decade has brought about an
increasing demand for sharks soup (Clarke, Milner-Gulland, & Bjorndal, 2007), which as a
result, has inflated the demand for shark-fins in the global shark finning industry.
With the demand for shark-fin surging, shark finning is seen by fishermen as an
extremely lucrative and profitable trade; which has led to the exploitation of shark finning
(Clarke, Milner-Gulland, & Bjorndal, 2007). This exploitation of shark finning has led to the
critical endangerment of certain shark species and brought about negative implications to the
global marine ecosystem (Ng, 2010).
With the up to 73 million sharks being killed annually (Clarke, Milner-Gulland, &
Bjorndal, 2007), scientists predict that sharks may be hunted to extinction by the end of the next
decade1. In addition, the decline in the shark population would bring about an imbalance to the
marine ecosystem as sharks act as regulators of the marine ecosystem by controlling the
populations of other predatory species lower down the food chain.2
In retaliation to the rampant shark finning industry, NPOs, marine life conservation
groups and wildlife activist such as Shark savers, WildAid,Stop shark finningand Shark trust;
have taken their messages against the consumption of shark-fin to campaign, in the hope that the
ban of shark-fin soup in Chinese restaurants alongside raising the awareness amongst the general
public would effectively curb the demand for shark finning, and return the balance to the marine
ecosystem. NPOs and Activist around the world have adopted various campaigning styles,
ranging from hosting talks and events, staging peaceful demonstrations, broadcasting
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documentaries over mass media and most recently, through the use of social media defined as
user generated content; which has enabled them to converge their campaigning efforts whilst
catapulting their reach to a wider audience. For example Shark Savers uses its website and
Facebook page to share news, rally petition support, coordinate events, spread documented
videos to raise awareness and garner feedback from its audience.
Although certain campaigns have reaped tangible rewards for its cause Shark Baita
documentary by British chef Gordon Ramsey had successfully convinced Chinese restaurant
owners to stop selling shark-fin; this study will highlight certain conceptual flaws of such social
media campaigns, and will question if campaigning against shark-fin consumption through social
media is truly effective in getting the public to stop consuming shark-fin soup.
Hence, this study seeks to examine the effectiveness of social media campaigns against
shark-fin consumption; and attempts to identify the strengths and weaknesses of such campaigns,
in the interest of improving future campaigns and efforts in the cause.
This study will first review current literature on social medias effectiveness under
Synthesis of scholarship, followed by evaluating the findings with respect to this research topic
to define a working research question and hypothesis underEvaluation of current scholarship.
Following which, the research method will be introduced and evaluated in the Research design
section. A short Discussion segment will conclude the paper with suggestions for future studies.
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Synthesis of scholarship
With the movement against consuming shark-fin soup through social media only gaining
significance in the recent years, there has not been many published studies evaluating the
effectiveness of such campaigns in achieving its goals.
However the availability of studies evaluating the effectiveness of social media
(including other media platforms, such as the internet) in audience persuasion, advertising and
perception changing for social causes has rendered it selves valuable, by allowing the author to
draw the similarities to this research topic, providing insight and understanding potentially
similar situations and obstacles that this research might face. These studies proved useful in
shedding light on the current capabilities and set backs of social media as a campaigning tool,
and paved the way for the author to critically consider if the findings of the studies could be
applicable for the context of this research topic.
Hence the objective for this research behind the research topic was largely done to
intuitively analyse the results of previous studies that evaluated effectiveness on Internet
campaigning for social causes.
The advantages of social media
Giving a good background understand of the context, Miller (2010) states that social
networking sites represent a new medium through which people and organisations interact with
each other (p. 34). Amongst most Non-Profit Organisations (NPOs) and business today, social
media is seen as a tool providing a cost-effective means to promote and market your messages
as highlighted in a study by Miliana (2009). Post, messages, graphic advertisement and other
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multimedia means can be publically shared and made available for mass audience consumption,
thus spreading the campaign message of the NPOs.
A prevailing advantage that social media possess is that NPOs can look for similar
organizations on Facebook to connect with the people following them (Miller, 2010, p. 38)
where the value of social media lies in providing NPOs with a direct connection to their target
audience valuable for various reasons such as: direct interaction with the audience when
soliciting donations, recruiting members, publishing notifications or updates, spreading message
awareness, events support etc. On top of providing a platform to better present itself to the
public, the internet can also provide as a means for NPOs to reach out to like-minded groups,
gathering resources together to increase efficiency and effectiveness of their messages.
The persuasion effects of social media
Firstly, social media has to ability to persuade and convince audience through media
exposure and sharing of interpersonal experience. In a study done by Jong, Hyung, & Jae (2009),
it is stated that media exposure and interpersonal experiences are factors determining risk
perceptions, which translates into determining a consumers purchase intention. Inversely, it
could be hypothesised that should the media exposure and interpersonal experience be of
discouraging content, in turn increasing audience risk perceptions, it may lead to a fall in the
audiences purchase intention. Questioning if this argument would be applicable to the context of
the research topic, it can be noted that social media inherently possessed both qualities of media
exposure and interpersonal experiences - from its user generated content and capability to allow
interactivity between producers to consumers and amongst consumers. Therefore it would be
seemingly applicable to this research topic.
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The importance of interpersonal experience sharing in effectively persuading an audience
is also echoed in the study by Li & Zhan (2011), where the study states the strength of word-of-
mouth (WOM) as a marketing tool. In the context of social media, WOM generated by audiences
can exist not only offline (interpersonal communication) but online as well through the means
of sharing and recommendations (through the likes of Facebook and twitter). This increase in
channels through the use of social media allows WOM messages a greater extent of spreading
and in turn, positively affecting the persuasion levels of social campaigns. This was seconded in
Colliander & Dahlen (2011) calling Para-social interaction defined as interaction between
two parties with one party knowing more about the other party, a leveller for persuasion
effectiveness.
Another form of interpersonal experience in social media is for NPOs and activists to
have credible sources endorse their causes, as Colliander & Dahlen, (2011) terms it writer-
brand relationship where the audience associates the credibility of the source endorsing the
cause to the actual cause. Ultimately, such endorsement would also account for further publicity
effectiveness (Colliander & Dahlen, 2011)
Is it really working?
According to Millers study (2010), over 93% of the surveys respondents indicated that
they hold at least some interest in environmental issue and More than 36% of all the
respondents indicated that they follow an NPO through social media; which is loosely
applicable to NPOs and activities against the consumption of sharks fin, meaning that NPOs and
activist against the consumption of shark-fin have a potential to draw support for their cause
through social media campaigning.
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However there are views critical of findings that deem social media campaigning
effective. A study by Lavrakas, Mane, & Laszlo (2010) states that there are troubling aspects to
Internet advertising effectiveness (IAE) research, putting the validity of the findings of most
the studies question. This mainly comes from research companies settling for research methods
that have uncertain reliability and validity due to the unwillingness of clients to fund the
deployment of the superior research methods (Lavrakas, Mane, & Laszlo, 2010, p. 355). Such
critique serves to remind that conclusions and predictions of the effectiveness of social media
campaigning cannot be drawn solely from study findings especially in cross-context of research
topics. It would be best for this author to conduct a specific data collection to analyse the
effectiveness of anti-shark-fin consumption campaigns.
Room for improvement for NPOs using social media
Another insight that was highlighted in Millers (2010) study was that there were barriers
NPOs faced in embracing social media as a campaigning platform and that in some cases, NPOs
did not fully utilise social media to the best of its capability; and that there is still room for
improvement. This could imply that previous research and study on the effectiveness of
campaigning through social media could have been untrue reflections of the effectiveness it
could bring; again highlighting the inaccuracy of drawing conclusion of the effectiveness of
social media campaigning from previous studies.
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Relevance to study
With regards to the comprehensive review of current studies on the use of social media
by NPOs and activists, there is still a need to draw a deeper contextual understanding for the
context of this study. This is because shark-fin consumption, unlike the context of the other
studies reviewed, is largely brought about and influenced by traditions and customs. The practice
and modern day custom of consuming shark-fin soup in Chinese culture today has its unique
consumption patterns and habits that does not allow parallel comparisons to be made across the
other studies reviewed, in addition to the general analysis of the use social media for
campaigning purposes. The consumption patterns and habit unique to the context of shark-fin
soup will be discussed in the following section.
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Evaluation of current scholarship
From the review of current literature studied, it can be evaluated that social media
comprises of elements that are effective in persuading audiences to its cause. However the
specific level of effectiveness of social media campaigns cannot be concluded; especially so for
the topic of campaigns against shark-fin consumption, as none to the reviewed scholarly articles
had evaluated this specific topic. As such, this study has the opportunity of contributing to a field
of research that has yet been explicitly covered.
As also explained by the reviewed literature, NPOs and activists in some cases were not
fully utilising social media to the best of its capability. This provides the current study the option
of further examining how NPOs and activist use social media for their campaigning efforts and
understanding the possible reasons, should this study find that such social media campaigns have
been ineffective in it is objective.
More importantly, it would be crucial to also examine and evaluate social media
campaigns against shark-fin consumption directly. Considering the reach of social media to be
more extensive amongst the younger population then the older ones (Assael, 2005) whilst the
tradition of consuming shark-fin soup is stronger amongst the older population (Clarke, Milner-
Gulland, & Bjorndal, 2007), it would be interesting to question if such social media campaigns
against shark-fin consumption are tackling the root of the issue.
Another point to note is that there may be a flaw in social media campaigns directly
relating an individuals personal intention to consume shark-fin products and the demand for
shark-fin soup. It is more complex in truth to link the two variables with a direct cause and effect
relationship as the custom of eating shark-fin soup, practiced during celebratory events such as
marriages and birthday celebrations (Clarke, Milner-Gulland, & Bjorndal, 2007), is to have the
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event host cater the dining course for all of his or her guests - usually the extended family. As
such, it can be argued that a large percentage of the demand for shark-fin soup does not arise
from an individuals personal consumption, but from bulk orders during celebratory events
(Clarke, Milner-Gulland, & Bjorndal, 2007).What this means is that, even if an individual is
exposed and convinced by campaigns against purchasing and consuming shark-fin soup, he or
she may still be presented with the situation of being offered shark-fin soup in a family
gathering. This gives rise to the problem of individuals who may believe in the cause against
consuming shark-fin soup may continue to consume it because the environment continues to
present such situations to them.
Coupled with the preceding argument that social media has a wider outreach with
younger audiences, it could be seen that perhaps such social media campaigns might have been
advertising their messages to an audience that:
1) Are not the focal audience that are generating the demand for shark-fin consumption2) Will continually be presented the situation of having shark-fin soup served to themduring celebratory events
Hence this study will also attempt to examine if individuals who are convinced by social
media campaigns against shark-fin consumption would continue to consume shark-fin soup
should they be presented the situation.
Although it can be argued that the individuals intention to consume shark-fin when
presented with the situation may be independent of the true objective of such anti-shark-fin
consumption campaigns; the objective for this study is to simply test if the general public would
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continue to consume shark-fin soup when exposed to social media campaigns against shark-fin
consumption, with regards to the common social practices, and not to test if such social media
campaigns have been effective in saving sharks in the wild from rampant finning practices. The
findings could then signal to NPOs and activists whether they have been right to assume that
efforts in persuading consumers to ditch shark-fin soup will directly lead to a decline in demand
for shark-fin soup.
As such, the following research objectives have been defined:
Research Question:
Is exposure to campaigns against the consumption of shark-fin soup on social media effective in
getting the general public to stop consuming shark-fin soup?
Independent Variable:
Exposure to campaigns against the consumption of shark-fin soup on social media
Dependent Variable:
1. The intention to purchase shark-fin soup for consumption2. The intention to consume shark-fin soup when provided
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H1:
Exposure to social media campaigns against the consumption of shark-fin soup is effective in
persuading the general public against the purchasing of shark-fin soup for consumption.
H2:
Exposure to social media campaigns against the consumption of shark-fin soup is effective in
persuading the general public against the consumption of shark-fin soup should the situation
present itself to them.
H0:
Exposure to social media campaigns against the consumption of shark-fin soup is not effective in
persuading the general public against the consumption of shark-fin soup.
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Research Design
Method
As the crux of this study lies in the focus of quantitatively finding out whether social
media content is causing people to avoid shark-fin soup?, there is a need to explore the possible
casual relationship between social media and the intention to consume shark-fin soup. As
highlighted by Treadwell (2011), the need to explain casual relationships would be best reflected
in the use of an experiment to test the correlation between IV and DV. Hence, it would best serve
this study to design and conduct an experiment on randomly selected sample units representing
the general population to fulfil the research objectives as defined in the RQ, H1 and H2.
The use of surveys would be sufficient in collecting data from participants, however it is
of the criteria of this study to ensure that all participants are exposed (per-experiment or during
the experiment itself), such that participants would be possess competent understanding of the
subject matter. As such, instead of limiting the sample universe to participants who have been
previously exposed to social media content against the consumption of shark-fin soup; a
experiment will be conduct to expose all participants to such social media content, in the interest
of sampling from a wider and more accessible sample universe.
Alternative methods of research, such as interviews, provide in-depth insight into why
people would react to either avoiding sharks-fin soup or not. Although this would serve as a
good understanding and supplement insights to the effectiveness of social media in achieving its
goal, it is secondary to the question are people avoiding shark-fin soup.
Experiment details.
For the purpose of this study, a one-group field experiment will be designed as followed:
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R X D1
Where R denotes the random assignment of sample units chosen, X denotes the exposure
to IV and D1 denotes the data collection to be carried out after the exposure of IV to the
participants. Although a field experiment design is considerable less comprehensive than other
experiment methods available (Treadwell, 2011), such as the Solomon Four-Group design, Time
Series Analysis orFactorialdesigns (p. 151); it can be argued that a field experiment would be
sufficient as the post exposure action of data collection through the use of a survey would be
sufficiently effective in accumulating data to support or reject H1 and H2. This is because the
survey questions (refer to Appendix A) would directly question participants if their opinions on
DV1 and DV2 were caused by the IV; this differs from the post exposure methods as mentioned
by Treadwell (2011), whereby observations are conducted, which encompasses the consideration
for new and external IVs.
Sampling
Ideally, the sample should be reflective of the general public (with respect to Singapore).
As such, the ideal sample demographic would be to include participants of various ages, gender
and ethic background that would be similar to the population demographics of Singapore. Hence,
stratified random sampling would be preferred; with 16.8% of participants under the age of 15
years, 73.9% of participants within the age category of 15-64 years old and 9.3% of participants
of the age 65 years or older (Singstat, 2011). In addition, to improve external validity, there
should be 974 male participants for every 1000 female participants studied (Singstat, 2011), also
the ethnic composition of the sample would be made out of 74.1% Chinese, 13.4% Malays, 9.2
% Indians and a remaining 3.3% of other races (Singstat, 2011). The ideal sample profile should
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contain sample units with history of shark-fin soup consumption; and in addition, diverse
backgrounds such as education level and living location.
However, due to the limitations of resources (manpower, time available and remuneration
incentive for participants) for this study, systematic sampling will be employed. Participants
will be randomly selected from a list of the student population of the Wee Kim Wee School of
Communication and Information (WKWSCI), NTU. Such a list of students along with their
email contact information can be requested from the WKWSCI administrative office, subjected
to the approval the authorities of the school. All participants will receive a $2 remuneration for
participating in the study. The use of systematic sampling allows for efficient and random
selection of sample units (Treadwell, 2011), and will be further elaborated in segment pertaining
to data collection.
The ideal ethnic composition will be followed as closely as possible; because it can be
argued to be the most important demographics amongst the rest; since a huge majority of the
demand for shark-fin soup is generated by Chinese patrons (Clarke, Milner-Gulland, & Bjorndal,
2007). Although the sampling method differs in margin form the ideal, this study would accept
the data collected to reflect the general public while acknowledging a lower level of confidence
in the data collected.
Hence, to explicitly state the selection criteria for the study:
1. Participants invited will be students from WKWSCI2. Participants can be of any age and race3. Participants may or may not have previously viewed social media content against
the consumption of shark-fin soup
4. Participants must be new to the study
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Data collection
Participants will be randomly selected through a systematic categorisation of selecting
every nth person from categories of different ethnicities. E-mail invitation will be sent two weeks
in advance to selected participants to participate in a survey in WKWSCI. The study will be
conducted over a window of 3 days to allow participants the flexibility of attending the study
when they are available. The study will be conducted electronically in the computer labs of
WKWSCI and will take approximately 15 minutes to complete. The use of computer as the data
collection platform would directly allow this study to expose the participant to content on social
media that is against the consumption of shark-fin soup. Hence, participants will be directed to a
online social media website for content viewing before proceeding with the rest of the survey.
A cross-sectional survey will be conducted to capture the participants results at the point
of time when the study is conducted. Although the use of a cross-sectional survey may be less
reflective then longitudinal survey methods, it can be decided that this study does not view time
as a variable influencing the participants opinion. As such, the use of a cross-sectional data can
be justified (Treadwell, 2011).
The survey will be constructed in a funnel format, starting from general questions to
specific questions. Question types would include dichotomous questions, filter questions and
Likert scale questions.
For the use of this study, the social media content used will be Shark Savers Facebook
page (www.facebook.com/sharksavers). Participants viewing the content will be asked to view
short clips and articles pertaining to Shark Savers campaign message.
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Measurement
The levels of measurement that will be used in the survey are Nominal when
questioning participants background, and Interval through the use of the Likert scale in
questions asking the extent at which participants agree with the statements proposed in the
survey so as to measure DV1 and DV2.
Referring to Survey sample in Appendix A,
Survey question with nominal measurements are: 1, 2, 2.2, 5
Survey questions with ordinal measurements are: 2.1
Survey question with interval measurements are: 3, 8, 9, 10 & 11
Identifying the levels of measurement will help to define how the collected data can be
analysed to satisfy H1 and H2. Convergent construct validity was also achieve is the survey
questions by correlating the intention against consuming shark-fin soup with the consumption of
shark-fin soup harming marine ecosystems.
Ethics
To ensure that ethical considerations have been made to protect the participants of the
study, all participants will be briefed of the nature of the study and its objective before taking
part in the survey. Participants will be notified of the expected duration of the survey as part of
appropriately informing the participants of the study they will take part in.
Participants will also be tasked to sign a consent form before taking part in the survey, which
will highlight that their identity will remain anonymous in the publishing of the data and
findings. Should any participant feel uncomfortable when viewing content pertaining to shark
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finning or at any point of time during the survey, he or she may choose to opt out and not
complete the rest of the survey. Should they have any questions during or after the survey, they
may seek to clarify at any point of time.
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Discussion
Possibilities for data collected
Based on the questions from the survey form that participants will complete, the possible
outcomes of the data collected will emphasise the following trends:
1. Participants feel social media campaigns against the consumption of shark-fin soup willpersuade them against the consumption of shark-fin soup. (Survey QN 9, 10, 11)
This would go to show that social media has an undefined level of effectiveness in the
campaigning against shark-fin consumption. Data collected will further determine if H1
and H2 are supported. In addition, there would exist the opportunity for scholars to
critically examine the possibly flaws and perhaps individual components of social media
in future studies.
2. Participants do not feel that social media campaigns against the consumption of shark-finsoup will persuade you against the consumption of shark-fin soup (Survey QN 9, 10, 11).
This would indicated that H0 is supported, as a result, future studies could examine the
possibilities for the ineffectiveness of the use social media against shark-fin soup
consumption.
Personal predictions
This author predicts that data collected will reflect the disparity between the data
collected from participants who are Chinese or non-Chinese, based on his intuitive understanding
of the sample profile and cultural customs practiced.Should this be true, it would reflect that the
focus of social media campaigns at the society at large has been ineffective towards dampening
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the consumption of shark-fin soup. Future studies could perhaps look into the possibility of
streamlining social media efforts towards the global Chinese community.
Conclusion
Although this study can quantitatively define the effectiveness of social media against the
consumption of shark-fin soup, such a finding still remains distantly off tangent to visions of
NPOs and activists around the world. Much room remains in between the efforts of dampening
the demand for shark-fin and bringing about a fall in shark-finning activities. However,
continuous and consistent research and studying would play an integral part in bridging the gap.
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http://www.singstat.gov.sg/pubn/popn/population2011.pdf
Treadwell, D. (2011).Introducing communication research: Paths of inquiry. Sage Publications,
Inc.
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Other References
1: Fight shark finning. Retrieved from: http://www.fightsharkfinning.com/#/fast-
facts/4530711658
2: Ocean sentry. Retrieved from: http://www.fightsharkfinning.com/#/fast-facts/4530711658
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Appendix A
Data collection survey form (electronic)
1. What is your race?
__ Chinese__ Malay__ Indian__ Others
2. Have you eaten shark-fin soup before__Yes__No
If yes, please answer the following 2 questions:
2.1 How frequently do you consume shark-fin soup__1-3 times a month__3-6 times a month__More than 6 times a month
2.2 During the occasion of consuming shark-fin soup, which of the following occurs morefrequently?
__a. Purchase shark-fin soup (cooked or uncooked) for own consumption__b. Consuming shark-fin soup that was not purchased by yourself
3. How far do you agree that the consumption of shark-fin soup is harmful to maintaining a
balanced marine ecosystem?
| Strongly disagree | Disagree | Somewhat Disagree | Neutral | Somewhat Agree | Agree | Strongly Agree |
4. The high demand for shark-fin soup has brought about an alarming rate of shark finning thathas resulted in the endangering of many shark species, are you aware of this?
__Yes: proceed to Qn. 5__No: if no proceed to Qn. 7
5. If yes, from what sources did you find out about such information? You may choose morethan one
__Friends__Newspaper articles__TV documentaries__Radio advertisements__Social Media: Facebook/Twitter
6. Have you come across any social media campaigns against shark-fin consumption? E.G.Sharks savers Facebook page
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__Yes__No
7. Non-Profit Organisations (NPOs), wildlife activists and marine life conservation groups havebeen campaigning their messages through social media platforms in the hope of persuading
audiences to stop consuming shark-fin soup. Please proceed to view some of their social mediacampaign content by clicking on the link below and proceed on to the next question after you aredone.
www.facebook.com/sharksavers
8. How far you agree that social media campaigns are at effective at persuading its audience tostop consuming shark-fin soup?
| Strongly disagree | Disagree | Somewhat Disagree | Neutral | Somewhat Agree | Agree | Strongly Agree |
8.1 If yes or no, why?
9. How far do you think social media campaigns against the consumption of shark-fin soup willpersuade you against the consumption of shark-fin soup?
| Strongly disagree | Disagree | Somewhat Disagree | Neutral | Somewhat Agree | Agree | Strongly Agree |
10. How far do you think social media campaigns against the consumption of shark-fin soup willpersuade you against purchasing shark-fin soup?
| Strongly disagree | Disagree | Somewhat Disagree | Neutral | Somewhat Agree | Agree | Strongly Agree |
In Chinese tradition, it is customary to consume shark-fin soup at celebratory events such asweddings and birthday celebrations. During such events, it is traditional that shark-fin soup isserved to the event guests. As such, most guests are presented the situation of being servedshark-fin soup regardless of preference of consuming shark-fin soup.
11. How far do you think social media campaigns against the consumption of shark-fin soup willdeter you from consuming shark-fin soup, should you be presented with the situation of beingserved shark-fin soup?
| Strongly disagree | Disagree | Somewhat Disagree | Neutral | Somewhat Agree | Agree | Strongly Agree |
-End of survey-
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Appendix B
Participant consent form
Consent form
You are asked to participate in a research study conducted by Cai Yiming from the Wee KimWee School at Nanyang Technological University as part of an academic research study. Yourparticipation is voluntary and you may withdraw at any time without penalty.
PURPOSE OF THE STUDYThe primary objective of this study is to analysis the effectiveness of social media campaignsagainst the consumption of shark-fin soup.
PROCEDURESYou will be asked to participate in a research experiment that will take approximately 15
minutes. In the experiment, background information regarding your profile and demographicswill be asked. You will then be asked to proceed to view selected social media content related toanti shark-fin consumption. You will then be asked a few questions based on your personalopinion on shark-fin consumption. The entire experiment will be conducted through the use ofthe computer in the WKWSCI TSN computer lab.The experiment conductor for the session will brief you in person of the objective and procedureof the experiment.
POTENTIAL RISKS AND DISCOMFORTSYou will be asked to view content of anti shark-fin consumption campaigns, which will entailvideo footage of shark finning. If you are uncomfortable completing the experiment, you may
withdraw at any time.
POTENTIAL BENEFITS TO SUBJECTS AND/OR TO SOCIETYFor yourself: You will gain further insight on the impacts of rapid shark finning fromparticipating in this study.To others: Your participation is important to the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication andInformation and scholarly community, to develop a better understanding of the effectiveness ofsocial media as a tool for activists against the consumption of shark-fin soup.
PAYMENT/COMPENSATION FOR PARTICIPATIONThere is a $2 remuneration incentive for participation in this study, collectable on completion ofthe research study experiment.
PARTICIPANT ANONYMITYAny information that is obtained in connection with this study will remain anonymous. Whenthe results of the research are published or discussed in conferences, no information will betagged to your identity. Data will be reported only in aggregate form and will only includeparticipant demographics.
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IDENTIFICATION OF INVESTIGATORSIf you have any questions or concerns about the research, please feel free to contact Cai Yimingat 6790 5833.
CONSENT OF RESEARCH PARTICIPANT
I agree to participate in this study. I have been given a copy of this form to complete and submitelectronically.
Name of participant: __________________________Matric number: ______________________________ Date: ____________