Campaigns must be careful not to frame survivors as helpless people waiting to be saved by the audience. Best practices dictate that survivors should be involved in the creation of the campaign, ensuring they have agency over how their story is told.
Social media has democratized who gets to be a survivor. Previously, only those with media connections or photogenic suffering made the evening news. Today, a TikTok video or an Instagram carousel can reach millions.
Platform-specific strategies have emerged:
The challenge: This digital landscape also invites performative trauma and the spread of unverified claims. Awareness campaigns must balance the need for open platforms with the responsibility to fact-check and provide resources (crisis hotlines) alongside every story.
Data points are easily dismissed. As the saying goes, "A death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic." Survivor stories reverse this trend.