689 “Internet memes for a safer road: evaluating the impact of Uttarakhand police’s Facebook posts on road safety awareness”

<h3>Background</h3> Road safety is a key development issue, a public health concern, and a leading source of death and injury worldwide. According to the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways in India, the number of traffic accidents in 2021 increased by an average of 12.6 percent compared to the previous year. Despite multiple initiatives by various sectors to raise awareness, there’s a pressing need for innovative, scalable technological solutions. In recent times, police departments in India have adopted a strategic approach to engaging with the public on social media platforms, specifically through the use of internet memes and other comical posts, to effectively communicate and raise awareness about various social and public issues including road safety. <h3>Objective</h3> The study aims to focus on how the Uttarakhand police department designs and implement internet memes related to develop awareness towards traffic rules through social media platforms. It also looks into the extent to investigate the degree of engagement with the audience about road safety and how these posts differ from other posts or non-meme posts in terms of their insights. <h3>Methodology</h3> A survey is employed as a method of investigation. As primary data, a questionnaire survey was conducted with 55 respondents aged 23 to 43 years (64%male, 36% female) who interacted in any form- reactions, shares, comments, and saves on the posts on the Uttarakhand police Facebook page. Convenience sampling was used to select respondents. Furthermore, five visual arts experts (experience of more than 10 years) evaluated internet meme posts and non-meme posts according to several criteria concerning their content, verbal constituent element, and visual characteristics. Secondary data, extracted from the social media metrics were measures of exposure to the post (no. of unique users reached and total count of impressions), frequency (an average number of times each person saw a post), and engagement (reactions, shares, comments, and saves) from the 25 posts regarding road safety, of which 16 were internet meme posts and 9 were non-meme posts from January 2023 to December 2023. Descriptive statistics (frequency, percentage, mean, and standard deviation (SD) were used to analyse questionnaire survey responses. An independent sample t-test was conducted, to compare the reach, impressions, and engagements for meme posts and non-meme posts. Additionally, a point biserial correlation analysis was conducted to determine the relationship between posts (internet meme posts and non-meme posts) and the posts’ reach, impressions, and engagements. <h3>Results</h3> The questionnaire results revealed that the majority of the respondents reported that the road safety campaign initiated by the Uttarakhand police through internet memes creates awareness related to road safety, changes your attitude or behavior towards road safety, and believes the campaign has made you more responsible while driving on the road. From the statistical analysis, it was found that internet memes significantly received more reach, impressions, and engagement than non-meme posts (P&lt;.05), and the correlation test showed a significant result. The correlation coefficient between posts (meme posts and non-meme posts) and the reach was -.518 indicating a large effect size. Similarly, the correlation coefficient between posts and impressions was -.526 indicating a large effect size. In contrast, the correlation coefficient between posts and the engagements of the posts was -.460 indicating a moderate effect size. The visual design of memes plays a significant role in communication and brings the audience back to the page and the same finding was observed from the questionnaire analysis. In addition, the responses from the visual designers in the form of mean scores are higher than non-meme posts. They may contribute to reducing accidents in terms of reportable and non-reportable accidents. Despite lower exposure and engagement, non-meme posts, however, providing information to users regarding road safety remains important. <h3>Conclusion</h3> So, we can conclude that internet memes act as a strong communication tool, due to their concise, relatable, and often humorous nature, are highly shareable and effective as an innovative and useful technique for raising social awareness on various social media platforms by addressing public and societal issues.