Social/culture norm

Create a social/cultural norm
address a social problem and create a social or cultural norm. The problem can be as serious or silly as you wish. This is not about manipulation or conformity, but investigating how social norms are created in the everyday.

No, you cannot describe an existing process (see the example at the end of this page) you need to create your own example.

you need to incorporate a minimum of three course concepts.

1. Contextualize the issue: what is it, what are the tools used to carry it out (material or non material objects), how often does it occur?, is it consistent in its form and function, if so how, etc.

2. Describe who is involved (either as audience or participant). Who is more likely to participate in both the existing and new norm? why? What makes the new norm appealing to the population?

3. What kinds of tools (material and nonmaterial cultural objects) would you require to create the new norm? Are there steps or stages that would need to be implemented? Describe them and the variation in the tools or objects that would be required.

4. What kinds of indicators would you need to know when the new norm has become part of the society? What will indicate saturation? What kinds of outcomes are you hoping to see? How will the norm be reinforced?

For example, creating the norm of recycling there were a number of precipitating events including a change in the environmental movement, the status of landfill sites and the change in technology associated with garbage processing. There were a number of types of campaigns (such as blue bag/blue box) including educational programming at a number of levels (schools, households, community, etc.) and other incentives employed to create a change in language, behaviour and awareness of the issue. Saturation was apparent when it became part of the everyday practice, for example garbage sorting, waste management, etc.

This also an example:

https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/opinion/2015/07/14/designing-new-social-norm

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