Executive Summary
This is one of the major assignments of the course that enables an understanding of historic and contemporary communication theories and praxes via the polemics of media use and media effects.
The Media Impact (MCM 220) class in the summer term of the academic year 2018/2019 of the Canadian University of Dubai, mobilizing our integrated communication and media studies, was responsible for organizing and publicly presenting the relationship between social media and mental disorders in today’s youth. Consequently, this objective has been fulfilled in the form of an on-campus debate promoting awareness of mental health in the United Arab Emirates.
The event was organized entirely by a class made up of 21 students and divided into five groups: the debate, the event planning and management, the research, the situation analysis and the branding group.
This report consists of five main sections: the course and campaign description, research, strategic focus and plan, situation analysis and the debate.
The first part includes a brief explanation of the Media Impact course and of its major assignment, Mental Health Awareness Campaign.
In the research section, we refer to some research conducted in the past years (in particular in the UAE) to discuss about mental health and its disorders, the factors that lead to these issues, mental health in the UAE and the usage of social networks.
Indeed, with an average of 3.484 billion social media (Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, etc.) users worldwide (S. Kemp, 2019), we focus on analyzing the relationship between social media and mental health. Mental health refers to a person’s condition with regard to their emotional, psychological, and social well-being (Mentalhealth.gov, 2019).
Consequently, mental health disorders are health conditions that affect our emotion, thinking or behavior (R. Parekh, 2018).
In particular, the major mental illnesses in the United Arab Emirates are depression and anxiety caused by the exhausting lifestyles (Zaman, 2018). In the Middle East, people find it wrong or embarrassing to visit a psychiatric for seeking help, due to its conflict and contrast to traditions and culture; thus, we decided to organize a campaign to spread awareness and encourage individuals to seek medical attention if needed.
After it, the strategic focus and plan deals with the mission, vision, goals and the core competency and sustainable competitive advantage; while, the situation analysis includes the SWOT of the campaign and the creative platform of the campaign.
In the debate section, it is reported how the event was organized and the for/against the motion arguments about the relationship between social media and mental health issues that were discussed during the debate.
In fact, in today’s society social media has been steadily increasing in terms of popularity. Recently, mental disorders among young adults have become more common; however, this does not prove that social media and mental illness are correlated (E. Mir, C. Novas, 2018).
Research is still ongoing regarding the relationship between social media and mental health disorders which makes it implausible for one to ultimately give his or her verdict to whether this relationship exists or not. Thus, the main purpose of this campaign is not to answer, but to discuss the question “Prevalence of Mental Health disorders in the Youth: to what Extent is Social Media to Blame?”