Lesson Report:
# Title
**Final Project Workshop: Audience Personas, Emotional Triggers, and Toolkit Format Selection**
This session was a hands-on workshop for the final **Digital Hygiene Toolkit** project. The class moved from analyzing real audience anxieties found in social-media comments to refining target audience personas and then selecting the most appropriate communication format and distribution channel for each group’s toolkit. The instructor’s main objective was for each group to leave class with a clearer project structure, a more specific audience, and an initial decision about what kind of product they will create.
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# Attendance
– **Students explicitly mentioned absent: 3**
– **Joro Danek**
– **Lim Aleksei Vladimirovich**
– **Mar Lar Seinn**
– **Attendance/continuity issue noted**
– **Kendirbaeva Kanykei Oskonovna** — appeared to have left or become unavailable during breakout-room regrouping; status unclear from transcript.
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# Topics Covered
## 1. Opening framing: session goals and preview of next class
– The instructor opened by explaining that this class was designed to help students leave with **at least a draft structure for their final projects**.
– He previewed **Wednesday’s upcoming lesson**, which will examine the **future of propaganda technologies** and how evolving tools may change the way students’ toolkits would need to function in the future.
– As an example of rapid technological change, he referenced the release of **“Seedance 2,”** a video-generation model that makes **cheap, increasingly lifelike AI video production** easier and more accessible.
– The instructor tied this preview to the course theme: as AI-generated media becomes more realistic and easier to produce, **propaganda distribution and persuasion strategies will also change**, which is relevant to the final project.
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## 2. Homework debrief: collecting audience comments that reveal lived anxieties
– The instructor reminded students of the previous homework:
– Go onto a social-media platform of their choice.
– Find **one comment/quotation** from a person who plausibly belongs to the target audience for the group’s final project.
– The comment should reveal **an anxiety or fear about everyday life**.
– It did **not** have to mention the group’s propaganda campaign directly, but it **did** need to reveal something meaningful about the person themselves.
– The instructor emphasized that this exercise was meant to help groups see the audience not as an abstract category, but as a **real person with concrete fears, pressures, and motivations**.
– Students were asked to paste their comments into the chat **without context**, allowing the class to view a “waterfall” of raw examples.
– The instructor also asked that any non-English comments be translated into English for accessibility.
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## 3. Whole-class analysis of the emotional subtext behind audience comments
– Because attendance was lower than expected, the instructor modified the planned exercise and instead asked students to:
– choose one comment from the chat,
– reply to it,
– identify the **underlying fear/anxiety** expressed in the comment.
– The instructor repeatedly redirected students away from surface-level readings and toward **deeper emotional logic**: not just *what* is being said, but *what fear is motivating it*.
### Student contributions during comment analysis
– **Nazbike Turgunalieva** posted a comment about immigration/ICE (“I love ICE because it is a salvation”).
– The instructor interpreted this as reflecting **fear of lawlessness, instability, danger, and threats to family/community safety**.
– Nazbike later identified the deeper fear as **loss of control**.
– **Khadija Yousufzai** contributed immigration-related examples, including:
– a comment distinguishing “legal immigrants” from those perceived as “stealing from” the country,
– and a second comment about minimum-wage labor, farm work, and immigration’s effect on wage growth.
– These examples were used to discuss fears of **economic insecurity, competition, and job displacement**.
– **Uncertain student name, possibly Suslov Ivan** (transcribed as “Yvonne”) contributed two points:
– identified **fear of poverty** and **fear of being left out** as a core emotional driver in anti-immigration narratives;
– shared a long comment about displaced Azerbaijanis and Karabakh, which the instructor read as expressing **fear, grievance, historical injustice, and the emotional weight of displacement**.
– **Chynara Kasymova** shared the comment **“Why can’t they just stay where they are,”** which the instructor described as a broad exclusionary sentiment that could apply across many contexts.
– **Kamilla Ismailova** added that one of the comments reflected a **feeling of threat and insecurity**.
– **Amina Akylbekova** suggested **fear of misinformation and bias**, and also **fear of injustice and historical erasure**.
– The instructor pushed this further by asking whether ordinary users are truly afraid of “misinformation” in the abstract, or whether the deeper fear is about **what the information implies for their group, identity, or future**.
– **Nilufar Silmonova** described one example as showing **fear, defensive anxiety, and fear of misrepresentation**.
– The instructor suggested that this idea could be strong if grounded in a context such as **marginalization** or social threat.
– **Timur Musaev** interpreted one immigration-related comment as showing worry that **immigrants are taking jobs from citizens**.
– The instructor expanded this to the deeper fear: not only job competition, but the sense that **one’s family, economic future, and social standing may be pushed to the margins**.
### Conceptual takeaway from discussion
– The instructor emphasized that students need to identify **root anxieties** rather than stop at abstract categories like “bias” or “misinformation.”
– Useful fear categories discussed included:
– loss of control,
– threat/insecurity,
– scarcity/resource loss,
– economic displacement,
– fear for family/community,
– unfairness/injustice,
– historical erasure,
– defensive anxiety around identity.
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## 4. Full walkthrough of the final project structure using the syllabus
– Students were directed to **page 9 of the syllabus** to review the **Digital Hygiene Toolkit** assignment in full.
– The instructor restated the overall assignment:
– identify a **specific audience** targeted by a real propaganda campaign;
– explain **why this audience is being targeted**;
– explain **what the propaganda threatens them with / what they stand to lose**;
– design materials that can help them **resist, manage, or overcome** the threat.
### 4A. Part 1: Audience Persona
– The first deliverable is a **1–2 page audience persona**.
– This persona should explain:
– who the audience is,
– what the “average person” in that audience looks like,
– why that audience is being targeted,
– how they are affected.
– The instructor described this as an exercise in **stepping into the shoes of a real person**, rather than speaking only at a high level about campaigns or ideologies.
### 4B. Part 2: Justification Memo
– The second deliverable is a **2–3 page professional justification memo**.
– The memo should document the group’s **strategic thinking**:
– why they selected a given format,
– how course concepts informed their decisions,
– how their creative choices connect to the needs of the audience.
– The instructor acknowledged this would be the driest part of the assignment, but clarified that it is the necessary **academic/analytical component**.
### 4C. Part 3: Toolkit
– The toolkit is the creative centerpiece of the assignment.
– The instructor stressed that a **bad toolkit** would simply tell people things like:
– “don’t become radicalized,”
– “think critically,”
– “check your sources.”
– Instead, the materials must be **accessible, engaging, audience-specific, and packaged in a format that the audience would actually consume**.
### 4D. Possible toolkit formats explained in detail
The instructor offered several example formats, while leaving room for flexibility:
– **Short-form videos / TikToks / Reels**
– Should feel engaging and internet-native.
– Should not just be students standing in front of a wall reading a script.
– Ideally should be the kind of content that could plausibly circulate or get picked up algorithmically.
– **Website / blog / digital page**
– Suggested platforms included **Substack, WordPress, Tumblr**, etc.
– The instructor cautioned against simply turning an essay into HTML.
– The site should attract attention and make users want to keep reading.
– **Infographics / PDF posters**
– Appropriate for students comfortable with visual design tools like **Canva**.
– Could be a single polished piece or a series, depending on scope.
– Should be imagined as something that could realistically be distributed in a relevant environment, such as a campus or social-media feed.
– **Instagram carousel / story highlight format**
– Compared to how modern news organizations distribute information in slide form.
– Students were encouraged to think about whether they could create a **series of carousels**, since one carousel may not contain enough information on its own.
– **Podcast / YouTube video**
– Suggested as accessible for groups working at a distance.
– The instructor noted that the logistics are easier, but quality still matters.
– He warned against a product that sounds like “four people reading separate ChatGPT scripts into a microphone on a Zoom call.”
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## 5. Breakout activity 1: finalize group communication and refine the audience persona
– Students were placed into breakout rooms and given a structured task sequence.
### Instructions given
1. **Create a communication channel outside class**
– WhatsApp, Telegram, Google group, etc.
– The goal was to ensure that groups can communicate about progress between Zoom sessions.
2. **Refine the specific audience**
– Move from a broad population to the **granular level of an actual person**.
3. **Build a more concrete persona**
– Give the audience member:
– a plausible name,
– an age,
– an occupation.
4. **Write one representative quote**
– The quote should reflect what this person might say in response to the specific propaganda theme the group is studying.
– The instructor explicitly said that last class’s work had often been **too broad or generic**, and that this round should produce a more convincing single-person representation.
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## 6. Administrative interruption: breakout-room confusion and group reorganization
A significant portion of the middle of class was spent solving group-placement problems caused by absences and prior reshuffling.
### Notable issues and student contributions
– **Alikhan Zulumbekov** reported that he had been placed in the **wrong group**, and that **Danek** was absent. He also said he could not fully remember prior group composition and offered to contact Danek for clarification.
– **Suban Ibraimov** explained that he had **been absent in the previous lesson** and therefore did not have a group.
– The instructor initially referenced a previous placement with **Aleksei, Kanykei, and Seinn**, but noted that Aleksei and Seinn were both absent.
– Because of that, Suban was moved into **Room 1** with **Imat** and **Zamira**.
– **Amery Ainullah** was likely the student transcribed as **“Anula”**; he explained that his group had previously been changed at another student’s request, and that his name appeared in **Group 3** in the Google Doc.
– The instructor then reassigned him accordingly.
– The instructor also referenced **Nahida** and **Natalia** while resolving membership in **Room 5**.
– These exchanges show that group logistics were still in flux and needed final stabilization.
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## 7. Breakout activity 2: where the audience gets information and what toolkit format fits
– After breakout group 1, the instructor brought everyone back and introduced the next design step.
– Students were asked to determine:
1. **Where does the average audience member get their news/information?**
– Instagram,
– TikTok,
– a specific website,
– blogs,
– friends,
– newsletters,
– bulletin boards,
– newspapers, etc.
2. **Which sources do they inherently trust most?**
3. **Would the group commit to building their toolkit in that same format/environment?**
– The instructor emphasized that the audience’s media habits should guide the product decision.
– If the audience gets news on TikTok, a TikTok-style toolkit makes sense.
– If they rely on a particular site or style of publication, students should consider designing something with a similar look, feel, and delivery logic.
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## 8. Group report-outs: audience definition and proposed toolkit format
### Room 1 report: Nigeria-focused audience and infographic/PDF toolkit
**Reported by Imat Shoguniev / group including Suban Ibraimov and Zamira Sangmamadova**
– The group said that, following the instructor’s earlier advice, they had **narrowed their case from “Sub-Saharan Africa” to Nigeria**.
– Reasons for choosing Nigeria:
– evidence of **Russian propaganda activity** reported by local/international sources,
– **high social-media usage**.
– Their audience was described as:
– **Nigerian social-media users aged 18–30**,
– with attention to **three districts/locations** to be named later.
– Their proposed toolkit format:
– **PDF + infographics**,
– potentially including **graphs and user-number data** related to social-media use.
– The instructor pushed them to think beyond the format itself and specify:
– **where the infographic would actually be seen**,
– whether it would appear on **Instagram, Facebook, street banners, or elsewhere**,
– and what strategy would make that distribution realistic.
– The group responded that possible channels included:
– **Instagram**,
– **Facebook**,
– and even **street posting/banners**.
– **Imat** asked whether this full strategic reasoning needed to be included in the written paper.
– The instructor answered **yes**: the memo should explain **why** the group chose that format and distribution method.
### Room 2 report: U.S. native-born workers and social-media infographic distribution
**Reported by Kamilla Ismailova / group including Khadija Yousufzai and Nazbike Turgunalieva**
– The group identified its audience as:
– **native-born workers in the United States**
– who feel **economic insecurity**
– and fear **losing jobs to immigrants**.
– More specific audience characteristics:
– approximately **20–45/55 years old**,
– occupations such as **construction workers, factory workers, and warehouse workers**.
– Their proposed toolkit format:
– **infographic**.
– Proposed distribution:
– via **Instagram** and **Facebook**, because the group believes their audience is exposed to those platforms.
– The instructor accepted the general direction but asked for more specificity about:
– what kind of **account/page** would post the infographic,
– how the material would circulate,
– and how it would be made believable/reachable for that audience.
– The instructor also clarified the audience framing as specifically **American workers concerned about immigrant competition**.
### Room 3 report: French “great replacement” audience and possible short-form/traditional-media hybrid
**Reported by Amina Akylbekova / group including Chynara Kasymova**
– This group’s topic was tied to attitudes around the **“great replacement”** narrative in France.
– Based on polling, they identified the audience as overlapping groups that include:
– **far-right/National Rally supporters**,
– people already concerned about **immigration, national identity, and cultural change**,
– some **center-right** and even portions of the broader center.
– Their more concrete audience sketch included:
– **older generations** nostalgic for “traditional France,”
– **working- and middle-class citizens** feeling economic pressure,
– people living in areas where **demographic change is highly visible**,
– people with **nationalist, anti-immigration, and Eurosceptic** views.
– Their discussion of media channels suggested that this audience may consume:
– **traditional news channels**,
– **newspapers**,
– **radio**,
– but also possibly **Facebook, WhatsApp groups, Instagram, TikTok**, and **short videos**.
– The instructor responded that the first three descriptive categories were especially promising, but the group would need to narrow the center of that Venn diagram:
– Who exactly is the most representative audience member?
– How will they identify “nationalists” or “Eurosceptics” in practice?
– The instructor suggested that if they focus on older audiences and news habits, they might even consider creating a product styled like a **news segment/program**, rather than defaulting only to social-media clips.
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## 9. Closing directions and next steps
– Because time ran out, not all groups were able to report in full.
– The instructor asked all groups to use their newly created group chats to **finalize at least an idea for the format of their project before Wednesday**.
– Wednesday’s session will continue the workshop process and also connect to the upcoming discussion of **future propaganda technologies**.
– At the very end of class:
– **Suban** asked whether he should stay with the group he worked with during this session or return to a previous group.
– The instructor told him to **stay with Group 1**.
– One final group-membership clarification also confirmed that a student had been moved to **Group 5**.
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# Student Tracker
– **Turgunalieva Nazbike Baktybekovna** — shared an immigration-related audience comment and identified deeper fears such as loss of control, while also helping define her group’s U.S. worker audience and infographic plan.
– **Yousufzai Khadija** — contributed multiple immigration/wage-related example comments and helped outline a U.S. native-born worker target audience for the final project.
– **Kasymova Chynara Iusubzhonovna** — shared a broad exclusionary comment for class analysis and helped define the French audience affected by “great replacement” rhetoric.
– **Ismailova Kamilla Renatovna** — identified threat/insecurity as a core fear in class discussion and reported her group’s target audience, media habits, and infographic format.
– **Akylbekova Amina Batyrbekovna** — proposed fear categories such as misinformation, bias, injustice, and historical erasure, and later presented her group’s French audience analysis.
– **Silmonova Nilufar Sarvarovna** — characterized one example as showing fear, defensive anxiety, and misrepresentation.
– **Musaev Timur Arsenovich** — interpreted an immigration comment as reflecting fear that immigrants are taking citizens’ jobs.
– **Zulumbekov Alikhan Dastanbekovich** — raised a breakout-room/group-placement issue and helped clarify prior group arrangements.
– **Ibraimov Suban Kubanychevich** — explained that he had missed the previous class and lacked a group, then joined Room 1 and participated in the Nigeria project discussion.
– **Shoguniev Imat Imatovich** — reported Room 1’s narrowing from Sub-Saharan Africa to Nigeria and asked whether the distribution strategy must be explained in the written memo.
– **Sangmamadova Zamira Marodbekovna** — participated in Room 1’s Nigeria-focused project planning and group work.
– **Uncertain name, likely Suslov Ivan** — contributed chat analysis about poverty/being left out and shared a comment related to displacement and historical grievance; transcript renders the name as “Yvonne.”
– **Uncertain name, likely Amery Ainullah** — raised a question about earlier group reassignment and helped clarify his correct breakout room/group placement.
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# Actionable Items
## High Urgency: Before the next class
– **Each group should finalize a tentative toolkit format** before Wednesday.
– **Each group should maintain an active communication channel** outside class.
– **Audience personas need to be narrowed to a specific representative person**:
– name,
– age,
– occupation,
– one plausible quote tied to the propaganda issue.
– **Groups must identify where their audience actually gets information** and choose a toolkit format that matches that media environment.
## High Urgency: Project design decisions still needing clarification
– Groups using **infographics/PDFs** need to specify:
– where those materials would appear,
– who/what account would distribute them,
– why the audience would encounter and trust them.
– Groups with broad audiences need to **reduce scope** and define the most representative overlap rather than describing multiple partially related categories.
## Medium Urgency: Written assignment preparation
– In the **justification memo**, groups should explain:
– why they selected their audience,
– why they selected their format,
– how course concepts informed those decisions,
– how the distribution strategy fits the audience’s habits.
– Students should avoid designing toolkits that are just **generic advice** (“think critically,” “check your sources”) without audience-appropriate packaging.
## Medium Urgency: Group logistics
– **Group membership should be stabilized**, since time was lost to room confusion.
– **Suban Ibraimov** was told to remain with **Group 1**.
– One student likely **Amery Ainullah** was confirmed as moved to **Group 5** by the end of class; this should be checked against the group document for consistency.
– Attendance continuity for **Kanykei** may need confirmation due to apparent disappearance during breakout organization.
## Looking Ahead
– Prepare for Wednesday’s continuation of project work and discussion of **future propaganda technologies**, including the implications of rapidly improving AI video tools.
Homework Instructions:
ASSIGNMENT #1: Finalize Your Digital Hygiene Toolkit Format
You should use the group work from class to settle on a clear preliminary format for your final project before Wednesday. The purpose of this assignment is to move your project from a general idea into a workable plan by connecting your target audience, their anxieties, and the way they actually receive information to the format of the toolkit you will create.
Instructions:
1. Meet with your group outside of class using the communication channel you created during class.
2. Review the audience you developed in class for your final project. Make sure you are all in agreement about:
1. who your specific target audience is,
2. what propaganda campaign or propaganda theme you are addressing,
3. what fear, anxiety, or vulnerability this audience is experiencing, and
4. what your “average person” in this audience looks like.
3. Revisit the audience persona details you discussed in class. Confirm the basic profile of this person, including:
1. a feasible name,
2. age,
3. occupation or social role,
4. the kind of everyday life they live, and
5. a representative quote that reflects how they think or feel in relation to your topic.
4. Ask the key question emphasized in class: where does this audience member actually get their information or news?
5. As a group, identify the sources your audience is most likely to trust. These may include, depending on your project:
1. TikTok or short-form videos,
2. Instagram,
3. Facebook,
4. websites or blogs,
5. YouTube,
6. podcasts,
7. newspapers,
8. radio,
9. friends or community networks, or
10. public printed materials.
6. Based on that answer, choose the format for your toolkit. Your format should match the media habits of the audience rather than simply the format that is easiest to make.
7. If helpful, choose from the example formats discussed in class:
1. a series of short-form videos such as TikToks or Reels,
2. a website,
3. infographics or a PDF-based visual toolkit,
4. Instagram carousel posts or story highlights,
5. a podcast or YouTube video.
8. If your group wants to use a different format, make sure you can clearly explain why that format is appropriate for your audience.
9. Do not choose a format in a vague way. Specify what the format would actually look like in practice. For example:
1. If you choose infographics, decide where they would be distributed and how your audience would realistically encounter them.
2. If you choose Instagram or Facebook, decide what kind of account would post the content and what that account’s style or purpose would be.
3. If you choose a website, think about what kind of site it is and how it would attract your audience.
4. If you choose video or podcast content, think about how to make it engaging and suited to the audience rather than sounding like a script being read aloud.
10. Write down a short group decision statement that answers these two questions clearly:
1. Where does your average audience member get their news or information?
2. What format will your group use for the toolkit?
11. Add a brief explanation of why your chosen format fits your audience. Connect your reasoning to the lesson’s main goal: creating materials that are accessible, persuasive, and realistically usable by the people you want to protect from propaganda.
12. Make sure every group member knows the final decision before Wednesday’s class so that your group can continue developing the project without losing time.
13. Come to Wednesday’s class prepared to discuss your chosen toolkit format and how it relates to the future development of your final project.