GAMIFICATION AND CROWDSOURCING AS ENGAGEMENT TECHNIQUES FOR HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIZATIONS

Abstract

Human Rights organizations have a history in fighting against violations and issues that are affecting the individuals, groups and nations worldwide, however, constant challenges faced by such organizations proved to delay effective advancement in access to human rights. The research aims at tackling the challenges from the standpoint of a necessary change in the organizational perception of campaigning systems to improve performance and achieve significant outcomes. The research proposes the inclusion of new technological trends of engagement that proved effective and resourceful in other sectors. The motivations underlying the behavior of human beings are influenced by the tendency to satisfy psychological needs, such as self-achievement, meaning, recognition, status and altruism. The research will discuss the psychological motivations behind people’s engagement in online activities and extend them to explain why gamification and crowdsourcing harnessed success and why such methods would be significant adaptations for campaigning in human rights. Case study methodology was adopted for this research to examine campaigns of human rights organizations that used gamification and crowdsourcing techniques, where data pertaining to the cases have been collected from the concerned websites and other reliable social media and networking online resources. The findings revealed a positive impact from applying gamification and crowdsourcing in the two selected cases, translated in the raised funds, awareness levels, contribution, participation and interaction. The outcome of this research will help identify what the expectations of people are when they logon into their social profiles and will consequently; assist human rights organizations in selecting the components of their campaigns and various engagement elements according to the interests of the targeted users of social platforms.