This qualitative study adopts the Grounded Theory to better understand and explain the Egyptian youth’s perceptions and responses to the charity appeals conveyed through advertising videos streamed during the month of Ramdan 2018 either on TV channels or internet platforms. This holy month, with its unique spiritual atmosphere, frequently is the season of the highest number of viewership of TV broadcasting (Baseera 2018), meanwhile non profit advertisers increase their fundraising efforts by producing more charity videos.
According to a Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) official records released in February 2018, about 27.8 percent of the Egyptian population is currently living below the poverty line. The percentage jumps to be 66%, 65.8%, and 57% in the poorest Upper Egyptian governorates: Asiut, Sohag and Qena respectively. This fact has interpreted an initial finding of the exploratory qualitative analysis of the most popular charity videos televised in this month, conducted in the first phase of this study which has revealed that Upper Egyptian figures are the most utilized human subjects to make a vivid visualization of the problem of poverty in Egypt. More findings of this introductory study pointed out that those videos focus on feminizing the severe poverty, recruiting celebrities for endorsement, video-recording the scenes in genuine sites, and depicting the scantiness of the essential services. Those findings, which reflect more negative portrayals of the Upper Egyptian communities, have prompted the second phase of this research to examine subcultural impact of rural-urban classification combined with north-south residency , possibly correlated with the notion of collective identity especially in South Egypt where individual dignity sustained by group dignity,
Building on a new model developed from Witte’s Extended Parallel Process Model (1992) data have been collected from four student focus groups in an Egyptian University representing Rural Northerners, Urban Northerners, Rural Southerners, and Urban Southerners. The sample was 40 participants, 10 in each group. Various demographic variables have been considered. Participants have been asked to watch 15 minutes of the five advertising videos analyzed in the first phase of the study, then were asked to respond individually to a short, but mostly open ended questions survey before starting the recorded conversations in the focus group meetings conducted during the second week of March 2019.
Final results have shown that respondents especially those from upper Egypt,Southerners in both urban and rural areas, are highly annoyed by the visual framing of the poverty in their areas blaming it for using negative stereotypes adopted by Cairo centered mainstream media outlets and drama producers unlike the truth of their real daily life. Only one respondent living in an urban northern area of Egypt, identified herself as a feminist, pointed out that the videos are humiliating the Egyptian women in general. Respondents have suggested adding components in the videos which should regard the dignity of the small societies they are filming in.
The study concludes that ads makers need to consider the cultural aspect of perceiving messages targeting collectively identified audience as ethical and professional challenge.