Animal Planet 2013 Mermaid Documentary Series

 

Purpose of the site and series

The purpose of the programme and the series was to get people talking about the subject in all social mediums which would in turn lead a lot of people to the website thereby raising the Animal Planet’s viewer ratings. Ultimately the purpose was to educate, because when you get people talking, a lot of different ideas and views come up and some people learn new things they did not know prior to the discussion.

 

The process

In order for their idea to be successful, the Animal Planet went through the process of defining these 5As:

ASK:   they came up with questions like do the mermaids exist? Are they real? What do they look like?

 

ACQUIRE: they obtained as much information as they could from digital and non-digital sources

 

ANALYSE: they evaluated the information collected for truthiness or lack thereof

 

APPLY: from what they found, they then decided to apply it practically in the form of a programme, they described it as a ‘science fiction’ based on ‘scientific theory’.

 

ASSESS: this is where they measured the success of the process and programme and how they could have made it more effective.

http://cdn2.hubspot.net/hub/452492/file-2439733571-pdf/content/IF_handbook.pdf?t=1448305858640

 

 

The public’s response

The initial response was acceptance of the information based on the proof of videos and pictures given. However some people might have felt let down after they heard that it was actually a science fiction.

 

 

The veracity of the series (accuracy, reliability, authenticity)

The series of the documentaries are not authentic, they were created for the purpose of misleading people into believing that the creatures are real. Are mermaids real?

On their website, the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration state that “no evidence of aquatic humanoids has ever been found”

 

 

MY opinion of success or lack thereof of animal planet campaign

The Animal Planet campaign in my view was a great success in that they managed to get ratings record of 3.6 million viewers on it.

 

http://www.eonline.com/news/424537/mermaids-the-new-evidence-reels-in-huge-ratings-baits-viewers-for-more-sea-siren-specials

 

http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/tv/mermaids-do-exist-animal-planet-documentary-that-fooled-36m-viewers/story-e6frfmyi-1226654422578

 

http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/mermaids.html

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brenda-peterson/mermaids-on-animal-planet_b_3321506.html

 

 

Digital footprints

These are trails of records of online or digital activities that people leave online. This may be comments on social media, email records, online chatting, websites visited, these are a person’s online history and can possibly be seen by other people. This is therefore our ‘online’ reputation, and we chose to be seen as reliable, trustworthy, good or not, simply by how we behave online.

http://www.internetsociety.org/your-digital-footprint-matters