麻豆约拍

For more than a decade, 麻豆约拍 Media Action has worked to support young people in Cambodia – on issues including sexual and reproductive health, and job-hunting skills in a difficult labour market. We’ve done this through our brands Loy9, Love9 and more recently Klahan9 (Brave 9) – engaging young people where they are, through reality TV, social media and in road shows.

In 2020 we wanted to focus on how to engage more young people in civic life. We knew that people were hesitant to participate in public life, didn’t discuss politics and civic issues with others, and were fearful of doing so. When we had conducted research on this topic before, people were very reluctant to talk to our researchers, too.

We wanted to develop a deeper understanding of different groups of young people, exploring what they know about how they can participate, whether they discuss civic issues, what attitudes and norms affect their participation, and who influences their actions. We also wanted to understand the online behaviour of young people, as social media is an important platform for our project.

We realised we had much to learn! We used this opportunity to try out some new research methods alongside more traditional methodologies that could help us develop insights on these issues, to understand how to support 15-30-year-old Cambodians to engage in civic life, all through media and our programming.

How we responded to our research challenge

We conducted a face-to-face, nationally representative survey, to understand the youth media information ecosystem and civic engagement and to generate a national picture of the issues.

We followed up the survey with some qualitative work, conducted face to face and online. For this study we talked to young people and other stakeholders – including parents and community gatekeepers - to contextualise and validate the quantitative data.

Our research tools were carefully attuned to the context and sensitivities about discussing these issues. We moved any questions that might be sensitive to the back of the survey, and we used role-storming and projective techniques in the focus group discussions to encourage people to speak up.

We commissioned a study to help us understand young people’s digital information ecosystems, using an artificial intelligence (AI) machine learning semiotics study (the Discover AI platform and Accelerate Drivers model) with more than 100 online sources to identify different youth archetypes.  There were two dominant groups that emerged – ‘transparency seekers’ and ‘political micro-activists'. We felt that these groups were more likely to talk and discuss these sensitive issues, so we conducted more qualitative research with these  groups to understand what they care about, and how they engage and behave with information online.

We also wanted to understand marginalised people, including those identifying as LGBTQI+, young people with disabilities, and people with limited access to the internet such as indigenous groups. To reach these people during COVID-19, when face-to-face research was difficult, we  set up a number of online community discussion groups through Facebook chat, and telephone interviews and remote focus group discussions using  Zoom - meeting people virtually in the way that they felt most comfortable.

How did we analyse and share the data?

We used data immersion and analysis workshops to reflect, analyse, triangulate and validate the data, before developing our reporting on emerging insights and trends.

Our research showed that young Cambodians have significant differences in their interests, capacity, and attitudes to civic engagement, and face different barriers. For this reason, a segmentation analysis – a process of dividing people into groups based on their similarities – was used to identify different groups of young Cambodians, based on their attitudes, actions, and discussion linked to civic participation and engagement. We used the survey data to split people into five segments with distinct media and communication needs, ranging from those who are disengaged and do not feel it is their place to be involved, to those who are actively participating in civic life.

Understanding the demographic composition of each segment – gender, sexual orientation, disability, location and so on – helped us to define each group’s communication needs, and so to support civic engagement.

How have the research insights been used?

The research insights contributed significantly to the framing and development of a project proposal for work on youth civic engagement, supported the development of the project Theory of Change, and are now being used by 麻豆约拍 Media Action’s project and production teams to support the design of media and communication outputs which are tailored to different target audiences.

For example, our new TV drama series “” has been designed to reach and engage young people from the ‘disadvantaged’, ‘unbothered’ and ‘motivated’ groups identified by the segmentation analysis. Our qualitative research has helped to provide rich detail on the lives and experiences of young people in Cambodia, so that storylines and characters in the drama reflect the reality of young people’s lives and frame content on civic engagement in a sensitive but engaging way.

We organized two virtual dissemination workshops to share and discuss the key research findings, and shared short summaries of key insights and data presented in infographics – useful to others in the sector, including NGOs and media partners, particularly during COVID-19 lockdowns.

What have we learned and what next?

As a researcher, it has been good to see how instrumental the research has been in informing the project approach, and how insights from the research have been used by the project and production teams. We have learned from trying new methods, and have been able to share this learning with other research teams in 麻豆约拍 Media Action.

Now our focus is turning to the evaluation of the project. Again, we are looking at what new and innovative approaches we can try, such as a/b testing of our digital media content to understand what works best in engaging youth audiences on social media, and online experimental research to test the impact of our digital content. We don’t want to stand still!

I’m also very proud that our efforts have been recognised by the ESOMAR Foundation. It is encouraging to see our work recognised internationally.

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麻豆约拍 Media Action's work in Cambodia has been awarded a Making A Difference Award by the , presented during the  in Toronto, 18-21 September 2022.

Learn more about our work in Cambodia - Sok San Family and Klahan9

Read the research summaries:

-        Understanding how young Cambodians (15-30 year olds) use media and information

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For more information, please contact Sao Vichheka, Research Manager, 麻豆约拍 Media Action Cambodia on sao.vichheka@kh.bbcmediaaction.org