Social Marketing against Homophobia in Lithuania. A Way to the Behaviour Change?

Tautkeviciute, Aiste

4. term

Culture, Communication and Globalization, Master

2015

This thesis examines how social marketing can be used to address homophobia, focusing on Lithuania, one of the most homophobic countries in the EU. It aims to understand the cultural images that sustain resistance to sexual minorities, how current pro-LGBT efforts are constructed, and how established social marketing models can be adapted to promote voluntary behavior change. The study combines netnography of Lithuanian online homophobic discourse, qualitative interviews with representatives of Lithuanian pro-LGBT NGOs, and content analysis of their social marketing initiatives. Theoretical grounding draws on social marketing (e.g., Andreasen, Gordon, Lefebvre) and the Theory of Normative Social Behavior to target social norms and their cognitive moderators. Findings indicate that anti-homophobia initiatives should be applied both upstream to policymakers and downstream to the public, be designed around clear audience benefits, address cognitive moderators (injunctive norms, outcome expectations, group identity, and ego-involvement), and counter or reconstruct the cultural images that feed homophobia. The approach may be transferable to other national settings if country-specific cultural images are carefully identified.

Dette speciale undersøger, hvordan social markedsføring kan bruges til at imødegå homofobi, med fokus på Litauen, som er blandt de mest homofobiske lande i EU. Formålet er at forstå, hvilke kulturelle forestillinger om homoseksualitet præger modstanden, hvordan eksisterende pro-LGBT-indsatser er opbygget, og hvordan velafprøvede socialmarkedsføringsmodeller kan tilpasses for at fremme frivillig adfærdsændring. Empirisk bygger studiet på netnografi af litauisk online homofobisk diskurs, kvalitative interviews med repræsentanter for litauiske pro-LGBT NGO’er og indholdsanalyse af deres sociale marketinginitiativer. Teoretisk kombineres social markedsføring (bl.a. Andreasen, Gordon, Lefebvre) med teorien om normativ social adfærd for at målrette indsatser mod sociale normer og deres kognitive moderatorer. Resultaterne peger på, at anti-homofobiske indsatser bør rettes både opstrøms mod beslutningstagere og nedstrøms mod befolkningen, udformes med tydeligt fokus på målgruppens oplevede gevinster, adressere kognitive moderatorer (injunktive normer, forventede konsekvenser, gruppeidentitet og ego-involvering) og udfordre eller omforme de kulturelle forestillinger, der understøtter homofobi. Tilgangen kan potentielt overføres til andre nationale kontekster, hvis landespecifikke kulturelle forestillinger identificeres grundigt.

[This apstract has been generated with the help of AI directly from the project full text]

social marketing ; homophobia ; cultural images ; behaviour change ; Lithuania

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