WHOLE SCHOOL APPROACH AND GENDER VIOLENCE-BASED

 

Introduction

Fundamentally, all children deserve a school environment that is tranquil and safe. The environment will permit them to grow, express their potential and take full advantage of their skills and abilities. However, a reasonable number of students are facing a different day-to-day basis exposure to gender-based violence.  The exposure is via both explicit and implicit forms that enormously affect children’s social interests and academic endeavors. This study, therefore, sought to explore gender-based violence using the evidence-based mechanism, the whole school approach. A whole school approach refers to mitigating strategies that work at multiple tiers, at the school and community, for preventing and responding to gender-based violence. In the narrow view, effective whole-school approaches deal with a range of spheres simultaneously. They include but are not limited to the school environment, culture and pedagogical mechanisms.

The study premise is engulfed in eight minimum standards elements to establish a safe, gender-responsive and all-inclusive school environment. These are 1) top-notch school leadership and community engagement; 2) creation and implementation of a code of conduct; 3) capacity building of the teachers and teaching staff; 4) creating children's awareness on knowledge of child rights, participation and dealing with gender inequality; 5) enhancing reporting, managing and accountability; 6) Dealing with incidents; 7) improving conditions of the physical environment and 8) improving engagement with parents.  The report further uses whole-school approach evidence-based based on the four perspectives: comprehensive-health, three-tier model, social-ecological and strength-based perspective.

The paper is divided into five parts. The first part is the introduction. The second part expounds more on gender-based violence with the support of data. The third part is the rationale underpins of the whole approach and its prevention strategies.  The implications of school responses to gender-based violence constitute the fourth part. Part five and the concluding part is the report conclusion.

 Gender based violence

GBV can be defined “as acts or threats of sexual, physical, or psychological violence occurring in and around school, perpetrated as a result of gender norms and stereotypes, and enforced by unequal power dynamic” (Unesco et al.,  2016). The phenomenon impacts negatively on the lives of millions of children globally.  Although the research on school-based gender based violence is limited, data indicates that the students and teachers experience extensive physical, sexual and emotional abuse within the school surrounding. Precisely, genders, teachers and students can be victims and the perpetrators of this phenomenon and it can result in serious and long-term consequences (Unesco, 2016).  Gender based violence wears many faces. They include but are not limited to gang undertakings, personal items theft, bullying and intimidation, use of dangerous objects and guns and verbally abuse.

Although much of the scale and scope of the GBV in schools remain concealed, the available data on violence against students that include but are not limited to bullying and physical violence, allow this report to build a partial, despite fragmented, picture of the pervasive nature of GBV in learning’s institutions. According to research by Plan International (2013), nearly 0.25 billion children world wise are suffering from school-based violence yearly. In some European countries such as France, 40% of the students have complained of cyber bullying (Menesini et al., 2014).   Another research indicates in Zambia, 61% of the children have reported bullying on the monthly basis (Fleming and Jacobsen, 2010). Unesco (2016) reports that more than one million children in school suffer from physical violence under the pretext of discipline: 50% of all children globally live in countries where there is weak or no legal protection from corporal punishment.

Research has indicated gender-based violence is promoted by numerous factors. To begin with, schools located longer distance serves as disincentives to schooling and catalyst GBV. According to Suleman et al. (2013) distance from the school in most cases is affecting girls' schooling. Furthermore, they are more cases of school girls being raped by their male counterparts, or members of the community and even cases of disappearing (Small et al., 1993).  The second factor is media which is associated with students’ exposure to a violent culture. Notably, most young people learn violent behaviors through observation.  Media also provide a dimension that exposes students to sexual behavior mostly through pornographic. Therefore, it has an impact on increasing the cases of rape and other forms of gender-based violence.

 Evidence-informed responses

The prevention of gender-based violence in the community and school-based is through the provision of the impetus to develop the guidance premises at strengthening gender responsiveness to make the learning environment safe. Furthermore, it provides an evidence-based framework for action that guides policymakers and practitioners to design the best mitigation strategies. We have learned a great deal about the integration of an evidence-based whole school approach in responding to gender-based violence.  The monitoring, evaluation and learning strategy applies to a gender transformative approach in paradigm shifts in attitudes and behaviors among all stakeholders.

The perspective includes comprehensive school health, strength-based, social-ecological systems and three-tiered planning.

Figure 1 evidence based

Prevention from the minimum standards

 Based on the eight minimum standards, the prevention is executed in the following ways.

 

Strengthening of the school and community leadership

The support and leadership of school and community governing organs are imperative in encouraging undertakings that create a culture of non-violence and respect in society. Strong leadership in all dimensions plays a vital role in ensuring all the codes of conduct are implemented, reporting and the incidents response mechanisms are seamlessly monitored and execution of the appropriate and necessary actions are. An effective code of conduct forms the fertile ground that creates a sense of shared ownership and responsibility for ensuring a non-violence learning environment. Also, it increases accountability and indicates the approach to reporting and addressing misconduct.

School leadership is responsible for coordinating with community authority on the monitoring and budget-based issues within the school vicinity, and is an important part of the implementation of a whole school approach (UN women, 2016). Precisely, successful policy implementation in school requires full support from all the stakeholders such as the education authorities, community leaders and the teachers receiving training. In other words, school principals, teachers, students and even parents work collectively to develop the approach and respond to cases of gender-based violence. Consequently, local entities such as the police and other organizations partner with the school to develop and respond to incidents of gender-based violence. Furthermore, these engagements are associated with the creation of referral paths and the promotion of safe schools.

Engagement with parents and communities 

Ensuring the success of the whole school approach to gender-based violence requires robust practices of consulting with the stakeholders, Involvement of the school community is salient for gaining their support. The aspect is particularly significant for responding to intense abuse and violence to safeguard the students against gender-based violence. (UNICEF, 2009), making parents and the school community part of the discussion against gender-based violence has the ripple effect of creating opportunities to directly address the disdain issues embedded in GBV. Therefore, the parents and community are involved in school to keep the students safe. The discussion on the role of social norms and societal inequality forms the ground for understanding violence (Parkes, 2020). According to Crabble et al. (2012), although schools may be creating a safe learning environment, gendered attitudes in the community need to be accounted for. Therefore, school-building alliances with members of the communities help broaden the salient dialogue on students’ wellbeing.

Furthermore, to prevent gender-based violence, parents are expected to use positive parenting and discipline techniques. Corporal punishment is a challenging space that requires drastic changes. Phiri et al. (2015), there is need to review the sphere of corporal changes, since the school may be supporting child-friendly values, and parents and the communities may be regarding corporal punishment as a discipline instilling mechanism. Thus positive disciplinary methods are achievable through discussions between the school and the community meetings. These meetings avail platforms where the parents and teachers provide their perspectives on both corporal punishment and positive discipline. According to Mugadza et al. (2019), it is important to have forums to discuss the reasons fuelling corporal punishment is widespread in the community. These forums also should form the ground for the community to be encouraged to contribute to the development of positive discipline practices in the community.

Evidence based-responses
 the paper focuses on two perspectives.  To begin with, the comprehensive school health backbone is on the planning of the student's well-being and school safety.  It recognizes that healthy young people are well designed to achieve, especially academically. The whole school curriculum approach to addressing gender-based violence; takes appropriate action in all junctures of students’ schooling.  Therefore, creating awareness of gender-based violence through cumulative lessons helps students in their quest to identify, discuss, report and address the incidents of violence against their peers and friends (Wilson, 2015). Among the approaches is the integration of children's rights into the curricula.  Through teaching and learning, children understand to have inherent capabilities as well as rights and responsibilities which should be respected and promoted. In a nutshell, the school curriculum discusses the rights and responsibilities of students and educators for the protection and to promote non-violence learning environments.

 

The second perspective is the three-tier model that offers a framework to identify evidence regarding the strengths, needs and priorities. The framework should offer both proactive and responsive practices.  They are divided into three tiers: primary, secondary and tertiary.   Since the report is dealing with a high level of gender-based violence; the emphasis will be on the secondary and tertiary tiers.  In the secondary, the implementation of the response and prevent gender-based violence is through the provision of early intervention and support.  The intervention is executed collectively to take less time, lessen the impact and enable sustainability in coordinated programs. On the tertiary tier, the execution is through focusing on minimizing the immediate effect of gender-based violence on the victims. For instance, building the capacity of teachers and the community to the point stakeholders feel more equipped to take the risk needed in handling sensitive issues such as gender-based violence (Parkes, 2020). In particular, it is significant in engaging with students and communicating with the community about sticky topics such as bullying and sexual harassment.   

 The social ecological emphasizes the importance of connection and the community.

Therefore, schools under this pretext create a sense of belonging and help to develop students' social, emotional and physiological well-being.  Therefore, the concept is integral to prevention of the gender-based violence since it builds the foundation of caring that will support the problem-solving process in case of GBV. Furthermore, connection creates a sense of belonging hence developing positive relationships and communicating support to resolve incidents of GBV.

 

 

 

Figure 2 Social-ecological system perspective

 Finally, it is the strength-based practices perspectives confined to a belief system with partnership processes and as well practices that empower individuals by building on their potential and provision of a supportive environment.   Responding with restorative rather than harsh disciplinary practices such as corporal punishment is ideal for creating a positive learning environment free from violence. Furthermore, integration of the positive behavior supports creates a calm and safe environment.

 

Implications of the research

 Sustain a positive school environment in most cases is driven by the school authorities and it can be disrupted by job transfers or inadequate resources.  Therefore, for effective implementation of the whole schooling approach is salient for the school administrator to lobby for enough resources from the authorities for successful projects. Some of the resources are prerequisites for hiring school counselors and psychologists, organizing meetings with the community and building more facilities.  Through strength-based practices, there is the integration of social and emotional learning.  Thus, the stakeholders can have emotional competencies in terms of self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship skills.  According to Lisandra et al. (2016) social-based strength improves students' behavioral adjustment in terms of increased social behaviors and improves overall academic performance.  Therefore, this paper, recommends that school administrators have worked closely with the education authorities at all levels to ensure that the school-level project has enough resources and is monitored.

Monitoring undertakings and evaluation of the effectiveness of the whole school approaches can be a challenge since there are multiple pathways of change occurring. In effect, it has resulted in limited evidence based on the implementation of the approaches.  According to Belot et al. (2018), it is recommended that learning institutions develop a robust and long-term prevention plan that addresses the issue of gender-based violence. Furthermore, the three-tiered health framework provides the framework to address gender-based violence within the set of behavioral and academic concerns. Therefore, this paper recommends that the school and the community should invest in the monitoring, accountability methods and collection of the relevant data on the approach that is contributing to the reduction of violence and it is sustained.

The whole school approach model requires many stakeholders and activities.  This nature makes it complex to implement and hence requires a sophisticated process to ensure its success.  Therefore, it should be routine for all these stakeholders to work together within management committees and other groups involving parents and teachers.  Working together as per comprehensive healthy perspectives fosters a healthy relationship. Therefore, this paper recommends that the implementation of a whole school approach should be tailored to the needs and priorities identified by the school and the community. Research has suggested that rather than having a sole focus on ending just one gender-based violence, it is imperative to create a caring and respectful school environment and positive results that include but are not limited to emotional well-being and social wellbeing. Furthermore, these environments are attributed to the provision of the critical context for shaping students’ self-esteem, self-efficacy and high level of self-control over their lives. Furthermore, there should be strengthening of the school system to prevent and respond to gender-based violence. Therefore, the identification of students needs mental and other helpful services to help them plus their families to find the appropriate services.

Conclusion

In a nutshell implementation of the whole school approach in addressing gender-based violence, success is confirmed by the reduced number of victims of gender-based violence. In other words, there should be few cases of gender-based violence reported. This is achievable through a good relationship between the stakeholders. All the parties should actively contribute to strengthening initiatives and policies aiding to respond and preventing gender-based violence. Furthermore, a successful implementation means that there is an adaptation of initiatives that directly reduce gender-based violence such as using other disciplinary action rather than corporal punishment. These positive disciplinary methods ensure that students are availed easy schooling time without being subjected to any unwanted action.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Exploring Resistance in Modern Consumer Culture: Advertising, Promotional Culture, and the Limits of Consumer Autonomy | Analysis & Insights

 Introduction

Businesses in various realms of the economy are increasingly becoming global.  The development is attributed to the advancement of the technology.  Technology has changed the dynamics of the world, where it has made it smaller. Therefore, it is not only accessible to international companies but also the small and medium companies that are taking advantage of the new business opportunities.  However, for these businesses to enter new markets and be competitive, they need to formulate a firm and good advertising strategy.  Well for starters, if an organization aims to become successful, it is a prerequisite to adapt to a new social culture environment. Consequently, an organization must manage to maintain its visibility and efforts to prosper as a profit-making enterprise. In other words, organizations should have profound insights regarding different cultures. The context is achievable through well-planned advertising and promotional culture.

The cultural values are the fundamentals of the consumer's understanding of consumption. Since advertising is passed through various forms of communication, it is expected to reflect the culture of the intended recipients. Research has indicated that culture is a weapon that defines the success or failure of a business brand. The advertising and promotional personalities must adopt suitable methodologies in their line of duty, with deep knowledge of cultural influences on consumption, preferences and tastes.  The paper through the lens of theoretical perspectives, evidence and use of relevant examples, explores the possibilities and limitations of resistance confined to the argument of modern consumer culture.

 The paper has been divided into four main segments.   Segment one entails the definition of advertising and promotional culture using various theoretical frameworks such as the consumer culture theory and programmatic advertising.  The second major is on various forms of resistance such as activism and consumer boycotting of exploitative products with the use of relevant brands as examples.

 Segment three explores the delimitations that are causing resistance. Also, the segment looks into t the future of resistance.   The research on challenges will focus on components, structural constraints and commodification.  The future resistance will be based on both the modern and traditional approaches.

 The fourth and the last segment is the conclusion. The segment briefly highlights the key aforementioned points. It uses the findings to conclude the call for action and underlining future directions.

 

Adverting and promotional culture Theoretical frameworks

Promotional culture's nexus is on the observation of how advertising specialists and strategies are framed and their general influence on societies. Therefore, promotional culture can be defined as advertising that shapes not only the culture’s symbols and ideological context but also its ethos, texture and composition (Jackson, 2013).  Also, it can be defined as a system where advertising and marketing are dominating and structuring conditions in terms of political expression and power relations. 

Advertising is considered ideological irrespective of the domain.  In other words, all kinds of advertising such as the most acceptable or informative are ideological. An efficient and effective advertising must be integrated into a culture, and use the local language and values of the local audiences (Okonkwo et al. 2013). The strategy is not only to choose the sparkling international creative strategy but also employs an approach that factors in the needs of the locals, motivates and integrates habits that strongly are correlated to local buying motives even though times it does not meet the minimum international standards.   According to Demangeot et al., (2015), cross-cultural advertising purports an act of marketing a product or service to various cultures simultaneously. Donthu et al., (2021) stated that international advertising is akin to cross-cultural advertising.  Advertising on a global scale is created and coordinated from a centralized point for dissemination with or without local adaptations across many countries in the world. 

 One approach to understanding the promotional culture and advertising is by employing consumer culture theory. The theoretical framework is built on a culturally sensitive and reflective mechanism (Arnould et al., 2005). The Consumer cultural theory is further divided into various explorations. The first exploration is on consumer identity activities.  It majors on how consumers integrate and create numerous cultural resources into their original identity (Rokka, 2021). The resources play a role in the negotiation of a sense of role and spur the narrative of identification of goals. Therefore, based on the theory there is a shift in the perception of the consumers as the shapers of the cultural meanings.  However, neither the brands nor the consumers are in full control of the cultural identifications being produced.  Rokka (2021) states that for the brand to be relevant culturally, it needs to assess its role in helping consumers work through playing a central role in offering consumers resonant identity myths.   Precisely, the brands are managed to offer convincing narratives and tales of powerful negotiation of desires such as gender-based cards.  The second exploration is on the marketplace’s cultures.  It impacts the contemporary social-cultural context and surroundings within the context of consumption (Hungara et al., 2021).   The assumption is on the local cultural formations within a small-scale environment and their role in the market re-creation, consumption practices and many more practices. The role of consumer cultural theory in marketplace cultures is to conceptualize and theorize the aspect of brand community.

 The cultural consumer theory also has an exploration of the ‘sociohistorical patterning of consumption’.  The exploration of the ways macro-level frameworks and history shape the consumption and the consumer's sense of identities (Witkowski et al., 2021).  This CCT stream has resulted in more scholarly studies about social stratification such as class and gender.  The exploration of promotional culture has aided in understanding why the consumer's interaction in consumption is communal rather than being in an individual framework.  The key lessons from this CCT stream are the profound understanding of product proliferation, socially sharable practices value creation and the influence on social value.

 The last cultural customer theory exploration is the “mass-mediated marketplace ideologies and consumers interpretive strategies”.  Globalization and technology have led to the high-speed circulation of news and information (Bak et al., 2023).  Therefore, the stream sought to unpack the approaches in which the consumers consume information that includes sometimes resistance to marketing messages.   Consumers are “interpretive agents” with the ability to criticize, execute resistance, boycott and even use the available avenues to launch attacks on brands as a way of protesting or showing their dissatisfaction (Rokka, 2021). Therefore, CCT is contributing to the ongoing marketing debates that include but are not limited to standardization or localization of advertising and communication approaches.

 

 In the contemporary consumer culture amongst the important strategies is the dynamic landscape of digital advertising.  It is the effort to engage diverse audiences within different cultural backgrounds. The navigation of the intricate spectrum of programmatic advertising has revealed the desire to have a tailored culture (Kaden et al., 2023).   With promotional culture being a pressing topic in the realm of advertising, the unearthed critical ethics as such price efficiency and exploration of the roles of creatives. These subjects illuminate the multifaceted facets of programmatic advertising within a cultural set-up (Samuel et al., 2021).  In other words, the programmatic advertising landscape since is technology-driven is evolving rapidly. The advertising agency is embracing the changes by integrating AI, and first and third-party data that are central to developing a more effective and engaging campaign (Cooper et al., 2023).  Therefore, with globalization and technology advancements the future of pragmatic in promotional culture looks promising. The growth underscores the emergence of new opportunities for reaching and engaging with a target customer base in a private confidential world.

Notably, targeting and interaction with the customers are some of the major aspects of this framework. Unlike in the traditional media, where the targeting of the customer base faces the challenges of lacking specificity, programmatic advertising capitalizes on the power of customer data to show certain users without having the wrong precision (Kiran et al., 2020).  The data-driven is confined to both first and third-party data in the process of empowering advertising agencies to disseminate their message to the target audiences at the most appropriate time. In effect, it improves the relevance and positive impact on the entire process.

 Delving deeper into programmatic advertising within the context of promotional culture helps in understanding some of the key points that define and reveal its impactful nature. Audience segmentation ensures the advertising is confined to the right audience. Programmatic advertising uses data and insights to select the right segment based on key metrics that include demographics and any other metrics that guarantee effective engagement (Tiet, 2020).  The selection of the right audience segmentation is not possible without the utilization of the relevant data.  Therefore, data accuracy is central to this campaign. Brands need to employ qualified personnel and use reliable data sources that can correctly inform them of the targeting and bidding approaches.

 Forms of resistance

Activism

Cultural branding offers an approach in advertising in which an organization does not brand itself as a brand of customer associations but also shapes the cultural resources within a specific cultural background.    Furthermore, brand activism is an aspect of corporate social responsibility     (Moorman, 2020).  The brands create decisions that can create undertakings that are consequential and beneficial to the targeted customer base. Within the context of CSR, brands increase their visibility by focusing their effort towards a certain cause.  Precisely, within the advertising and promotional culture the focus is on the social-cultural issues.  According to Monteverde et al., (2024), brand activism entails business efforts that prevent or promote social issues to promote or curtail improvements in the communities. Therefore, social activism will target variables such as gender equality and cultural backgrounds.  The spectrum does not only intend to grab the attention and engagement of its salient key target market but works on improvements around it. In effect, it helps the brand to become competitive and profitable within a local market set-up.  Furthermore, the emotional connection and ties go beyond the price and quality of goods and services.  It is important to mention that in a situation where the activism of the brands is not in complete synchronization and matches its key metrics; it may be seen as mere advertising and public relations (Vredenburg et al., 2020).  The outcome would be customers disassociating themselves from the brand. The failed initiatives may lead to a backlash and more importantly, the customers within a particular market boycotting the product. According to Coelho et al., (2023), the outcome will be a decrease in profits and turnover, eventually, hurt the brand image and reputation.  Therefore, activism offers resistance to advertising and culture in two forms: anti-consumerist movements and counter-consumption practices. 

Over the years cultural activism has been within different doctrines such as gender movements.  It is advocating to be incorporated when formulation of the advertising decisions.  For example, when the feminist movements are fighting against the use of slender female models as the yardstick of women in advertising. Such groups can air their concern regarding sexism.  Consequently, the feminist movements have in the past been able to raise their concerns against several magazines or newspapers that have portrayed sexist adverts in the pretext of persuading more male audiences or those who prefer women who are putting more effort into maintaining a perfect body that looks attractive.  Interestingly, the resistance within the culture activism purports that individuals should be incorporated in the decision-making regarding the nature of advertisement they are likely to be affected with so that they can make a choice (Goggin et al., 2020). Furthermore, cultural activism underscores that cooperate need to consider the opinion of the public before exposing them to various advertisements.  It views marketing as socially unacceptable as the result of it interfering with public space without the consent of the public audience.  Therefore, it looks for an opportunity to change messages that are passed in numerous types of adverts.

Cultural activism aims to promote an environment that is not corporate-culture-dominated.  It is also against the concept of capitalism. In regards to this context, it purports that capitalism promotes unfairness in social stratification. Therefore, it perceives capitalism to be a hindering factor that creates discrimination in advertising and not positively enabling promotional culture. According to Rauschnabel et al.,  (2023), there is a wide utilization of inhuman behaviors and a lack of promotional culture during the promotion of advertisements.  The desire to generate more profits has resulted in the wrong formulation of advertisements to the public.

Increased competition due to globalization has forced companies to create survival strategies to remain relevant. Amongst the survival strategies is the utilization of subverts; where one of the organizations may look for approaches to disrupt the advert of the rival organization (Sandova, 2020).  It is an illegal practice where the potential customers of a particular product are misled and misinformed about the true nature of the advert. Pranking is amongst the approaches employed by the anti-consumerist movements to reduce information in international advertising (Lekakis, 2021). Therefore, the subverting objective is to draw the attention of the potential customer base to some information that may be far from the accuracy of the products advertised by a particular organization.  In nutshell, the practice purpose is to reveal the weakness of a specific organization to influence negatively purchasing decisions of a given product. For instance, a company may interfere with the advertising of a competitive company to persuade consumers to purchase its products.  

 A case study of Adbusters magazine to show activism

 One of the latest displays of cultural activism was by Adbusters magazine. The magazine came up with a signature brand of subversive lack Spot Sneaker. Nevertheless, the campaign was mainly inserted into mainstream consumerism instead of the promotion of the cultural activism movement (Ciurel, 2020). For the Adbusters magazine, they were fighting for mental environmentalism as opposed to advocating for the rights of the general public.  They were castigated for the utilization of the notion of the environmentalist. In other words, instead of fighting against external environmental pollution, the company focuses on fighting internal pollution. They operate on the notion that the minds of the citizens are polluted by the information toxin as the result of information in the public domain courtesy of advertising.  Some quarters of the public argue that their act was ‘unruly corruption. On their side, Busters that witnessed in ballooning of cases of mental illness may be caused by the many adverts that were released in the public domain. 

Precisely, the information about the oil spill by the BP organization, increased the number of animals becoming non-existence and many may be the reason for a high population of the public suffering from mental health (March, 2022). Furthermore, Adbusters argued that the media was ideal for the promotion of ideas instead of employing other advertising avenues. Notably, good mental ethics should be the priority of all the adverts rather than sales motives as is the case with most of the adverts.

 

Alternative media and mainstream media

 The main media is perceived as the hub of hegemony and full of dominant power structures.  Therefore, by giving voice to the marginalized voices and stressing the issues overlooked by the established media, alternative media serves the purpose of representing of the will of the people (Nygaard, 2020). Fundamentally, it has been difficult to define alternative media due to the wide spectrum of its approach. Also, it uses an elongated divergent in the execution of its storytelling and reporting of the news.  However, according to Brooks et al., (2021) where that maybe defining media as an alternative within a specific stage of culture may be referred to as mainstream within another cultural time and background.  Within the advertising and promotional culture, the main media actors including the customers share a common argument of a press that is not meeting the minimum threshold and therefore perceive the mainstream media as an avenue that does not represent a sufficient diversity of viewpoints.  Consequently, the act of balancing or countering such claims of underserving of established media with culturally radical content is left to the alternative media.  Notably, resistance to mainstream advertising and promotional cultures is because the general public perceives the conveyed information as not a true representation of prevailing situations or values.  Therefore, alternative media platforms provide alternative narratives and perceptions that go against the dominant consumerist ideologies. Alternative media under the community media plays the role of promoting access to all the people in the surrounding settings.  The social-oriented activities in the alternative media can be central in breaking down barriers of social stratification that are dominant in the established media.  In the recent past, many religious communities have employed alternative media to engage their subscribed members with their larger community’s set-up (Müller et al., 2-021). These media can be seen as factors with the ability to influence or maintain s specific traditions. Precisely, they inform the general public by giving descriptions of what transpired or ways to execute certain things in contemporary societies. The media has been painted as a channel that broadcasts one-point information or ideologies without resulting in activism.  Many of these kinds of media have a common purpose in the communities. They tend to empower the locals by providing means to access communication and voice for local people.  

 Media literacy

  The current digital era has witnessed increase in the advertising and promotional culture as a means of improving sales and turnover by targeting a particular market segment.    However, these activities have been facing a myriad of challenges (Breves et al., 2021).  Businesses are using advertising and promotional culture to broadcast millions of adverts daily. Therefore, the people must have advertising literacy.  Advertising literacy refers to the ability of a person to properly evaluate and comprehend persuasive information presented in the adverts (Sweeney et al., 2022).  Notably, technical all the adverts have been designed with an agenda of manipulating individuals’ emotions and beliefs.  In this review, it can result in a lack of critical thinking. Also, it can lead to a deficiency in media literacy skills among the buyers.  Thus, in this argument, individuals need to have the knowledge and understanding of the content messages that businesses pass in the adverts.  The frequent bombardment of adverts can result in desensitization of its outcome, thus increasing the degree of hardness for individuals to recognize and question the disseminated information mounted on advertisements (Segijn et al., 2022). The level of media literacy is dependent on individual knowledge and skills. According to Jones-Jang et al., (2021) an individual with scarce media literacy is considered to not have enough understanding of meanings in the media. Therefore, they tend to accept surface values without raising more questions.  On the other hand, individuals with sophisticated levels of media literacy have a deep understating of the dynamics of the media, a high level of awareness of the advert's intention and profound insights into the media industry.  Therefore, to deal with advertising and promotional culture resistance, individuals should develop media locus knowledge (Jiménez-Martínez et al., 2023). Furthermore, real-world knowledge will be effective when making decisions.  The personal locus consists of objectives and drives dimensions.  Therefore, at this level, there should be a deep understanding and analysis of strengths, limitations and options for activities integrated with the information sources spectrum to facilitate the appropriate decisions (Khalil et al., 2022). Consequently, competency and skills are classified as tools prerequisite for people to deal with varieties of media information.  Therefore, threatening media knowledge and increased awareness of media exposure will help to deal with the resistance and influence of the media.     

 Cultural resistance 

The type of resistance towards advertising and promotional culture is more of opposition that is mounted against the dominant cultural values. For instance, opposition against the undergoing of the mainstream media.  The cultural resistance is executed by using a wide range of practices to indicate consumer dissatisfaction such as using various forms of activism (West et al., 2023). Fundamentally, the resistance is confined to the act of consumerism. The customer is against adverts focusing on other issues rather than the interest of the people.  Therefore, there are questions raised in the concentration on consumption rather than human relationships and the well-being of the target customers. The adverts are seen as a means for the companies to seek for material possessions and the well-being of the symbols.  Therefore, it is usually upon the cultural strategies to use the form of the subversive approaches (Malefyt et al., 2020). These approaches are used for the disruptions and challenging of the dominant factor of advertising and promotional culture. Some of the examples of the subverting used by the cultural resistance include but are not limited to changing the adverts o harbor different kinds of messages, identifying the exploitative approaches that are used the corporations to lure the consumers to increase their sales and eventually surge in profits. The aim of subverting is usually the reclamation of the public space. Also, it is usually too focused on challenging the way corporations are commercializing culture (Ferrucci et al., 2024). Therefore, the resistance groups ensure their success, they have to conduct a deep subverting of the advertising imagery and slogans.  Cultural resistance can be carried out both at the individual and collective levels. At the collective level, it involves the organization of activist interactions to challenge the dominant power of corporations. The activities target the promotion of social justice. Therefore, it is imperative to understand that cultural resistance activities are pushed towards creating awareness for the general public on corporate exploitation and ensuring there is affirmative action that is employed against the culture of commercialism (Airoldi et al., 2022).  For instance, they have been activist based on femininity against the issue of female representation.  In the advertising and promotional culture, the female gender for a long time has been against the stereotypes, favoring men and lack of objection, Therefore, the resistance is aimed at ensuring that there is equal inclusion and more objectives in promoting identities in the promotional culture. Therefore, it is important to note that cultural resistance is a wide and dynamic aspect that tries to combat the issues of dominance in the advertising and promotional culture.

A case study of subvertisers international

 In 2018, the organization was based in North America and part of Europe took action in 28 cities based in these nations.  Its groups globally increased visibility to one another and shared ideas based on actions. They lament how corporate power influences their lives in one way or another (Lekakis, 2021). The group further stated that advertisement goes beyond selling products to them to shape their expectations of the production of meaning in their lives.  Furthermore, they wanted to stop this advertising so that they could create a future beyond consumerism.  Some of their cause of action include advertising a backup where they advise their members to cover corporate advertising with unwritten and encourage people to write their dissatisfaction on them (Leal-Rico, 2024).  Another cause of action was taking a photo of an ad that they deemed offensive.  The members were advised to state their position and post it on social media platforms especially Twitter using the hashtag ‘#SubvertTheCity’. The group members were also encouraged to write a short article and push it to the local newspaper.

 

             

Conclusion

In conclusion, unlike advertising which entails practices aimed at boosting the performance of goods and services through promotion; promotional culture is the collection of activities such as marketing, and public relations inter alia purposely to promote society, ideas and companies. Notably, different cultures have unique value systems and languages.  The promotional and advertising must reflect the cultural attributes, social organization and the political well-being of a specific market. therefore, from the findings, it can be alluded that though the promotional culture and advertising have been perming exceptions there are also some levels of resistance based on various factors. The forms of resistance such as activism, cultural resistance and media literacy are seeking to end the dominance and consumerism that affect the general public.  The objective of the customers is to make sure corporate culture is curtailed and replaced with a consumer culture that respects the public space.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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