Cherie Ong Kai Ni, 16

School: Chung Cheng High School (Yishun)

Topic: Can social media make a positive impact on organ donation?

Award: Third Place, Senior Category, 2023

The slow beeps of the heart electrocardiogram machine pierce your ears. It is the sound of a barely beating heart begging for help; it is the resounding crisis call of deteriorating cardiac muscles. As the heart rapidly deteriorates towards failure, the option is clear - a transplant represents the patient's greatest chance of survival. In this gruelling battle for life, our warriors, the brave doctors in our healthcare system, engage in a last-ditch attempt to secure victory. Yet, as they scour the hospitals looking for a suitable donor heart, their efforts fall futile. The supply lines have run dry. A final battle cry reverberates throughout the ICU as the body surrenders. As exhausting as this war may sound, it is waged and lost a whopping 17 times a day. Evidently, organ donation is a gift of life which must be encouraged to prevent the loss of even more lives. With the urgent need to meet the growing demand for transplanted organs, campaign efforts by relevant healthcare organisations must keep pace. As technology continues on its meteoric ascent, modern media platforms are rapidly outstripping traditional forms of mass media such as television and radio in terms of their outreach capabilities. Hence, organisations must wield the power of social media, and I strongly concur that it has the power to spark a positive effect on organ donation.

The engaging nature of social media platforms provides organisations with a competitive edge in encouraging people to become organ donors. Traditional media is more often than not bogged down by its characteristic unidirectional and non-directed messaging, akin to casting a wide net and reeling in a handful of fish. Conversely, with social media platforms offering users the chance to interact with posts such as by sharing and commenting on them, two-way communication between publishers of organ donation content and the targeted audience can be achieved, making the content posted more personalised and relatable to users. Additionally, with past donors being able to share their own organ donation experience, more perspectives are included, thereby making the messaging more personal and relevant, which may sway the viewer's decision-making regarding organ donation positively and to a larger extent. Social media acts as a catalyst too. The Don't Hold Back campaign, organised by Singapore's NTU aimed to encourage frank discussions about organ donation and featured YouTube and Facebook videos of young adults aged 21-29 conversing with their kin regarding their decision to be deceased organ donors. It successfully obtained 371 pledges from young adults to have similar conversations with their loved ones, demonstrating the campaign's success in encouraging discussions revolving around organ donation. Evidently, social media enables organisations to include users in the campaigning process and have the power to significantly influence organ donation rates. Furthermore, although critics point out that social media fails to bring the nuances of such a sensitive topic, publicity campaigns so far have successfully approached the topic respectfully and empathetically. Instead of delivering content in a one-size-fits-all manner which would neglect cultural and contextual differences between various households and individuals, it leaves the conversations to be held between family members, allowing them to make their own informed decisions based on respective unique familial contexts.

In addition, social media allows for increasingly tailored content to be geared towards target groups, providing organisations with a powerful tool to reach out to various communities by tapping on their unique characteristics. As mentioned earlier, social media platforms provide opportunities for two-way communication between the page and the user. These interactions are fed into the platform's algorithm and subsequently translated into user analytics, which can be used as feedback for the organisation to tailor more focused messaging to the intended demographics. For instance, Twitter collects data on user profiles and the overall receptiveness of the audience based on their interactions with the post. Such interpretations of data aid organisations in identifying information gaps, allowing them to tweak and modify their messaging accordingly to boost the efficacy of their campaigns. By leveraging the algorithms and functions of social media platforms, publishers of organ donation content can make speedy changes to their uploads to suit the ever-changing preferences of their growing audience. Tailor-made content can be geared towards different demographics, ranging from young adults to families with those nearing end of life. From 2008 to 2010, Gift of Life Michigan experimented with various Facebook advertising techniques, ranging from fan pages and widgets targeted at students ages between 18-24 and the campaign saw donor registrations spike from 224 to 1,755. Meanwhile, the 2009-2010 AMASaveslives campaign by the American Marketing Association student organisation featured Facebook pages and videos aimed at increasing organ donation and reducing myths surrounding organ donation, resulting in 9,000 registrations. Surveys demonstrated a sharp rise in familiarity and social support for organ donation. By catering to the preferences of each group, the content created can become more relatable and engaging, bettering the campaign's chances of boosting organ donation rates.

Beyond increased engagement and focus, social media broadens the reach of organ donation information to people. In stark contrast to the localised nature of traditional media such as regional newspapers and radio broadcasts, the global reach of social media platforms means that they can transcend physical and geographical boundaries, and content posted on them can be viewed by billions of users across the globe. These social media campaigns deliver information regarding organ donation in a casual manner to people, making it more accessible to people, allowing them to gain knowledge and therefore make informed decisions about becoming an organ donor. Hence, they aid in boosting awareness of the cause, eliminating wrongful misconceptions about the procedure and galvanising more people to sign up as organ donors. Moreover, due to the sheer scarcity of organs, and the urgent nature of transplant operations, desperate patients and their families may upload pleas for donor organs onto social media in a bid to secure a suitable replacement. Such online appeals have proven effective, with a study conducted by Singapore's NUH in 2022 found that the social media effect has resulted in seven liver transplants between living donors and people they did not know, whereas only two similar occurrences happened in the preceding 18 years before social media was used in aiding the search of organ donors. It was also revealed that each online appeal can result in up to 10 potential donors reaching out to donate their livers. Given the exponential outreach of social media campaigns and its ability to boost matches between donors and recipients, overall, social media is an excellent means of spreading information regarding organ donation and has the potential to bring about a significant impact.

Despite the plethora of possibilities brought about by modern forms of media, detractors may argue that its Achilles heel lies in the potential spread of misinformation and falsehoods regarding organ donation, and its risk of birthing scams. While the massive scale of social media platforms enables them to massively increase outreach to audiences, the sheer number of users increases the risk of bad actors who may jeopardise the work of legitimate organ donation groups; the broad user base also renders it nearly impossible to regulate every single post. Due to the domino effect, posts containing misinformation regarding organ donation uploaded onto social media may be rapidly reposted by fellow users, especially in communities with little awareness of scientific processes. This effect is intensified by the virulent nature of fake news, with falsehoods spreading six times as fast as truthful articles on Twitter, according to a study by MIT. Even though social media is a double-edged sword, this does not negate its possibilities. Organ donation organisations must actively respond to such hoaxes and readily react to misinformation campaigns. They must work on building the foundations right by boosting awareness of the organ donation process and eliminating any preexisting misconceptions which may weave their way into people's consciousness when they are uninformed. In order to further contain any falsehoods from spreading, these groups must stay abreast of the latest discussions, and step in to correct any rumours or unfounded falsehoods that are circulating. While these efforts may appear arduous, by overcoming such seemingly daunting obstacles, organisations can prevent fabrications from tainting the public's perception of organ donation, ultimately painting it in a positive light to encourage more to step forward.

Social media may be the panacea to the crises faced by healthcare systems worldwide with its ability to engage audiences, focus advertising and broadcast messaging almost instantaneously. It can be our most useful weapon in the crucial battle of life and death; it can be the turning point of the struggle, reversing the tides of war by bringing hope to patients and doctors; it can be the peace treaty which ends the war, with the patient emerging victorious. These platforms are our ultimate weapon which must be wielded, but we must remain cautious to their risks and respond to them accordingly. Only then can we realise social media's potential to make a powerfully positive impact on organ donation.

Disclaimer: Please note that the views and opinions expressed in the essays for the Live On Festival 2023 are those of the participants and are not endorsed by the National Organ Transplant Unit (Ministry of Health). To learn more about organ donation and organ transplantation in Singapore, please visit www.liveon.gov.sg