Stop the shame, end the scam: fighting stigma against job scam victims with social support

• Main Authors: Leong, Dana Yuan Xin, Tian, Helene Wei Yi, Ng, Sean Ming Xuan, Seck, Li-Lyn
• Other Authors: Kay (Hye Kyung) Kim
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2023
• Subjects: Social sciences::Communication
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/165295
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Stop the Shame, End the Scam is a communications campaign with the target audience (TA) of Singaporeans aged 21 to 39 years old that aims to address the issue of shame experienced by job scam victims and underreporting by improving social support through promoted behaviours: sharing resources surrounding the issue of job scams and writing support messages for victims. Guided by the Knowledge-Attitudes-Behaviour model, the campaign seeks to do the following for its TA: improve knowledge surrounding job scams, change attitudes surrounding their own susceptibility and of job scam victims, and increase behaviours that provide social support. The campaign used both online and offline engagement tactics to convey our campaign messages. Campaign strategies include “Hear My Story”, a video interview series featuring the stories of Singaporean job scam victims, as well as “Dear victims”, an activity encouraging the writing of support messages for job scam victims. The campaign’s outcome evaluation results found that TA exposed to the campaign showed an increase in (a) knowledge about resources surrounding job scams and the impact of job scams, (b) perception towards victims and their own susceptibility, (c) willingness to share news and resources on job scams with loved ones and (d) willingness to provide support to job scam victims. Stop the Shame, End the Scam emphasised the importance of social support in addressing shame experienced by job scam victims and underreporting. Future campaigns can expand on this by addressing shame and stigma as experienced by victims of other scam types.