Imagined Audiences and Cultural Ombudsmen: Cultural Entropy and HIV/AIDS Campaign Production

• In Event: 228 - Section on Sociology of Culture Paper Session. Cultural Production, Old and New

Abstract

This paper draws on a production of culture approach to examine how institutional practices, contexts, and commitments shape the design of AIDS campaigns. It shows how the production of campaign process is shaped by the data designers use to imagine audiences and the incorporation of input of cultural ombudsmen, the local authorities who are tasked with shepherding campaigns to the community. Commitments to the best practices of formative research and securing buy-in from community leaders come into conflict, forcing designers to compromise on their principles and resulting in campaigns that sacrifice persuasiveness to satisfy stakeholders. In effect, the best practices of design that purport to produce effective campaigns that are clear and culturally sensitive actually undermine those goals, undergoing a process of “cultural entropy.”

Author

• Terence Emmett McDonnell, University of Notre Dame