Students start road safety campaign

Students start road safety campaign

Pune: As many as 40 budding journalists, who are students of Department of Communication & Journalism, Savitribai Phule Pune University (classes held at Ranade Institute), took up a road safety campaign on social media on January 27 from 10 am till 12 midnight.
 
All the students posted at least 10 posts on different social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, throughout the day highlighting the traffic rules. These students are using videos, graphics and images as social media post and using hashtags such as #roadsafety, #sppu, #DOC studentinitiative, #RoarTrafficcampaign to create awareness. 

Adarsh Chaurasia said, “We have started this campaign under the guidance of our online journalism teacher Akshay Upadhyay. We were asked to start a social media campaign and traffic is one of the most burning issues in the city, as the list of traffic violators are increasing. Thus, we thought of running a campaign that can bring positive awareness about traffic.”

Nikhil Borkar, a student of PG diploma in mass media, who was a part of this campaign, said, “Recently, there was a lot of opposition when helmets became compulsory for two-wheelers in Pune and it acted as a trigger since we felt that it was very important to create a positive awareness around road safety and it was important for people to follow traffic norms for their safety.” He added, “With this campaign, we are not only creating awareness regarding the importance of helmets but also about other road safety rules such as zebra crossing, speed limit, etc.”

Prachi Korpad, another student of PG diploma in mass media, said, “Social media is a very strong medium to create awareness, as it has a wide reach. Thus, it is important to use such platforms for creating positive awareness about road safety. We are also tagging Pune traffic police and other groups on social media so that our message can reach to wider audience. I also posted my photo wearing a helmet and nominated a few more people to do the same. In this way, I was able to reach out to a lot of people apart from students.”

Akshay Upadhyay, Visiting Faculty at the Department for Online Journalism and New Media, said, “I was teaching them about social media activism and wanted them to do one such campaign on social media. I asked them to do a local campaign, which the people can relate to. They came up with this road safety campaign and I feel it is the need of the hour. Thus, we did research for at least six days and discussed all road safety issues and decided to start it on Jan 27. Whenever there is a new idea and we want to reach a lot of people, social media is the best platform. It is easier, cost-effective and also understands the mood of the people better. It is a platform that gives voice to the voiceless and also enables in voicing your agenda in an effective manner.”

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