Preventive digital security communication in online social networks
Together with our partners, including the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) and the Hochschule der Medien (HDM), we carried out the research project on "Preventive digital security communication in online social networks". The project was initiated by the Ministry of Education and Research. With "Civil Heroes", we developed an innovative platform that raises awareness of civil courage in a playful and informative way. Interactive videos are used to involve viewers in the action by allowing them to try out different alternative courses of action.
Civil courage is relevant in so many areas
The project initially focused on the topic of civil courage in violent situations, which was followed by the topics of radicalization and hate online. The topic is relevant in so many other areas. These three were selected due to their topicality and added to later in the project.
Violence
What is important when passers-by witness a violent situation? The 6 tips for civil courage were creatively presented in an interactive video in which users have to decide for themselves how the story continues. Within a very short time, users have to decide what they would do, just as they would in a real situation. The storyline changes depending on their decision.
In addition to the interactive presentation of the video, we also developed a quiz to match the civil courage tips, in which users' attention and knowledge are tested in line with the video. The quiz mechanics included classic questions with single answers, tasks for sorting story fragments, depicting people and much more.
Radicalization
A video was also made on the topic of radicalization and a quiz was created. The video is a music video in which users were once again able to help decide the outcome of the story. The rap that was written for the video has three different final verses. We changed the quiz methodology for this topic. Instead of asking a lot of questions on the topic, we focused on signs of radicalization and implemented this in a playful way in a search picture.
Hate on the net
The topic of online bullying is complex. The video highlights different aspects and points of view, representing the scope of this topic at least to some extent. Users have no influence on the plot of this video, but can change the perspective of the video. In order to make it possible to decide on a course of action, we have imitated a chat process in the accompanying quiz, to which users have to respond. Depending on the answer, a different storyline develops. With 4 possible answers in three steps, a story with a total of 64 chat sections was created, which are combined differently depending on the selection.
