Alliance: 'Know When to Use Your Pausebutton: Sexual Assault is Not a Game’ Poster Campaign
'Know When to Use Your Pausebutton: Sexual Assault is Not a Game’ Poster Campaign
The Alliance created the Pause Button campaign to address the issue of sexual violence among youth in New York City. The Pause Button campaign is a sexual assault awareness-raising poster that targets middle-school boys between 11–13 years old, with the goal of eliciting discussion on how to change attitudes that could contribute to sexual assault perpetration as boys mature.[1] Visit the Pausebutton section of our site, which contains information for teens and resources for educatorss.
Initial Research
In order to develop an improved understanding of the situations and issues a teenage boy is confronted with, as well as his attitudes, behaviors, daily influences and media preferences, the media project began with a thorough examination of the appropriate research in three key areas, looking in particular at how they relate to the problems of sexual violence:
- Research literature on key developmental issues for boys in the target age group
- Focus groups involving boys in the target age group across New York State
- Review of other anti-sexual campaigns developed by other programs and coalitions across the US and Canada.
[[2] Read the background report (pdf)]
Message Development
In order to assist in the development of the anti-sexual violence messages, the New York City Alliance Against Sexual Assault contracted The Michael Cohen Group to conduct a multi-phase research project. Phase one of the project examined the context within which boys understand the concept of sexual assault, as well as investigating the types of public service/behavioral messages that resonate with them. [[3] Read the Phase I report (pdf)]
Phase two of the research explored boy's reactions to iterations of sample messages in the interest of refining a final version. The poster designs were developed by Yoe! Studios. [[4] Read the testing report (pdf)] [[5] Read the 2nd round message testing report (pdf)]
Evaluation
In order to evaluate the poster's impact, the Alliance conducted pre-poster and post-poster surveys with youth and a focus group with youth service providers. The results of the survey indicate that the poster is memorable and effective. In the post-poster survey:- Recall of the poster is over 50% for both boys and girls, revealing that the poster definitely made an impression and children remember seeing it.
- Of the children who remembered seeing the poster, 91% of boys and 94% of girls said that it made them think about the issue.
- There are shifts in children's descriptions of their decision-making styles, and more children would ask someone else what to do in a situation about which they felt uncertain.
- The number of boys who say that they stop to think before making a decision rises from 76% to 92%
[[6] Read the sumary of findings (pdf)] [[7] Read the full report (pdf)] [[8] Read the focus group report (pdf)]
To get copies of the Poster
Please send your mailing information to [9] contact-us@nycagainstrape.org
[1]: http://www.nycagainstrape.org/pause.html
[2]: http://www.nycagainstrape.org/media/research/communications_2_background.pdf
[3]: http://www.nycagainstrape.org/media/research/communications_2_phase1.pdf
[4]: http://www.nycagainstrape.org/media/research/communications_2_testing.pdf
[5]: http://www.nycagainstrape.org/media/research/communications_2_testing2.pdf
[6]: http://www.nycagainstrape.org/media/research/communications_2_execsummary.pdf
[7]: http://www.nycagainstrape.org/media/research/communications_2_full.pdf
[8]: http://www.nycagainstrape.org/media/research/communications_2_focusgroup.pdf
[9]: mailto:contact-us@nycagainstrape.org
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