As our TCG project blossomed into a professional product, I’ve been contemplating our extratextual materials do the same, like a social media website. As the one in charge of extratextual materials, I wanted to see if it would fit into our project scope, so I came across Charlesworth A’s An Introduction to Social Media Marketing chapter on ownership and measurement that highlights ‘without a single point of ownership, those initiatives are extremely difficult to control and manage – and so will be unlikely to succeed in their objectives,’ meaning a social media platform may be too out-of-our-scope considering we’re a team of two (Charlesworth 2015:55). The term ‘viral marketing’ came up as a researched, leading me to Petrescue M’s (2014:39) Viral Marketing and Social Networks outlining the effectiveness of ‘viral messages [that] need to have a certain something that makes them different and controversial,’ raising consumer communication. I wanted to exploit this ‘viral’ phenomena through traditional extratextual means, coming to realize that RMIT’s campus is plastered with posters calling for activism and seminars, making a great environment to weave our story into. A case study on ‘design-led activism’ published by RMIT summarizes the general motivations that I’d need to capture like wanting to ‘participate in something exciting and meaningful,’ and ‘to  be  a  part  of pushing things further’ (Franz, Gillet, Hannaford and Wright 2010:78). These motivations will be moulded into two posters fighting for/against animal experimentation, hidden in plain sight amongst actual activist posters, weaving reality and our fictional story together through politics.

Reference List

Charlesworth A (2015) An Introduction to Social Media Marketing, Routledge, London.

Franz J, Gillett C, Hannaford R, Wright N (January 2010) ‘Motivations and Intentions: A Case Study of Design-led Activism’ [Case Study], Alternative Practices in Design: The Collective – Past, Present & Future : Symposium Proceedings 2010, Melbourne, Accessed 21 May 2023, Informit.

Petrescue M (2014) Viral Marketing and Social Networks, Business Expert Press, New York.