Grants:Project/Rapid/Promoting dissemination of cross-cultural mental health resources using Squid Game
Promoting dissemination of cross-cultural mental health resources using Squid Game
The Squid Game project originated with the goal of linking a socially prevalent, widely-viewed Netflix show to the goal of Helping Give Away Psychological Science (HGAPS), making mental health education and resources accessible for free. A second goal was to expose a larger public to Wiki platforms, showing them ways that these could be used to share credible resources and information, potentially shifting lingering suspicions and biases against Wiki.
The project process and format, derived from the HGAPS project based on 13 Reasons Why, included the organization of mental health and other various resources in episodic order. Each section, which represents an individual episode, contains sub-categories, which reflect the various trigger warnings found within that episode.
Squid Game quickly became notorious for graphic depictions of violence as well as surprisingly poignant representation of mental health struggles such as suicidality. Concerned with the impact that such content may have on viewers, especially considering the lack of true age restriction Netflix imposes, our team hoped to provide links to and descriptions of resources specifically tailored to the content of each episode. Our hope was that should a viewer find themselves upset or triggered by the content of a particular episode, they could easily find applicable resources to support them.
The concept for the rapid grant originated with students and alumni at the oldest and largest affiliated student service club affiliated with HGAPS, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill club. All of the core team are fluent in English, with a large subset having significant connections or interest in Korean and Korean culture. However, none of the project originators grew up in Korea, nor do they read Hangul or speak Korean fluently. Due to the cultural and linguistic makeup of our team, the project was constrained to a focus primarily on the English-speaking, United States audience with its primary products. As such, our earliest work was based on trigger warnings from the show that are culturally relevant to such a population, and the resources compiled are predominantly U.S.-based and in English (such as U.S. government sites). However, once our initial efforts gained traction, we also made efforts to expand the project to support the Korean-speaking, South Korean audience. While our core team was unable to contribute due to cultural awareness and linguistic barriers, we soon sought out Korean team members who could contribute research in order to expand the project and add a Korean iteration of the Squid Game resources Wikiversity page. This would include an emphasis on triggers that are most culturally relevant to the South Korean audience, as well as resources that are both in the Korean language and that are from Korean organizations.
The Squid Game team’s long-term goal was to provide fully realized resource pages for both American and South Korean viewers, as well as to continue adding onto the page(s) once further seasons are released. While the HGAPS team was unable to do extensive work on the Korean page, an edit-a-thon was held in South Korea with Korea University students to develop the page. HGAPS held its first edit-a-thon in Korea, led by UNC’s Dr. Eric Youngstrom and engaging 14 participants, which included 11 new editors. This team consisted of students studying abroad at Korea University, Korean psychologists, and interns at an NGO based in Seoul called PSCORE. Participants in this edit-a-thon came from many different places, including the United States of America, South Korea, and Hungary.
The participants gathered more resources and began assembling the Wikipedia page. A few Korean-speaking students collaborated with the Korean psychologists to add information to the Squid Game page in Korean (Hangul); other participants edited the English site while others uploaded media. Since the majority of participants had not edited Wiki pages before, skills the attendees learned during the edit-a-thon include:
- Editing a Wikipedia page
- Formatting tables on the site
- Uploading media to Wiki Commons
Our workplace for the day was a classroom furnished with stadium-style seating, a computer, LCD projector, whiteboards, chalkboards, and strong WiFi. Despite starting the permissions process several days earlier, we did not have guest access for the WiFi for our volunteers who did not already have a Korea University affiliation, so we improvised by using a hotspot and organizing small groups so that those who had WiFi access could implement the edits.
Once we had the resources organized on Wikiversity, we also used a variety of means to share them with others. These include tools like creating a QR Code that brings users to the Wikiversity resource. The QR code and screenshots of the Wiki page also got included in Powerpoint and Google Slides decks to share the work with students in classrooms or attendees at professional society meetings and workshops where HGAPS and dissemination work were discussed.
Goals
Did you meet your goals? Are you happy with how the project went?
We did meet our goals and are very happy with how the project went. Specifically:
Our goals for this project can be summarized as follows:
- Recruitment new editors: We successfully recruited new editors, including 23 members on our Slack channel in Spring 2022 and 15 attendees at the UNC Edit-A-Thon, some of whom were indirectly editing.
- Increase skills for existing editors: We created 14 new editing accounts in Korea, with 11 new editors. Existing editors increased their skills through various activities, such as:
- Completing the WikiAdventure and WikiEdu Training Modules.
- Working with pictures and uploading to Commons.
- Learning how to use tables, categories, and templates effectively.
- Using the Dashboard.
- Add or improve content:
- Linked to mental health resources.
- Created a grant template for others to engage with Wiki.
- Added a "making of" section with more pictures and reflections on the project process.
- Engage audiences not familiar with the "inner workings" of Wiki: Students at UNC, students at Korea University, and interns at an NGO in Seoul.
- Reduce skepticism and bias against Wiki through exposure and continued engagement:
- Provided an overview of the project.
- Explained the importance of Wikipedia as a tool for information dissemination and introduced new editors to the platform.
- Editors completed WikiAdventure.
- Educated viewers about credible sources (e.g., .org, .gov).
Outcome
Please report on your original project targets. Please be sure to review and provide metrics required for Rapid Grants.
| Target outcome | Achieved outcome | Explanation |
Learning
Projects do not always go according to plan. Sharing what you learned can help you and others plan similar projects in the future. Help the movement learn from your experience by answering the following questions:
- What worked well?
- What did not work so well?
- What would you do differently next time?
Finances
Grant funds spent
Please describe how much grant money you spent for approved expenses, and tell us what you spent it on.
Remaining funds
Do you have any remaining grant funds?
Anything else
Anything else you want to share about your project?