Meet the Worldview Audience Segments
Worldview provides a clear view of how the varying audience segments perceive and understand overseas development aid (ODA), their level of support, and their beliefs towards it.
You can explore the segments and their views below, on our Wave 6 ‘Segment Engagement Ladder’ below.
Purpose
At a time of instability, Worldview reveals more about the views of the Irish audience, not just on what they believe when it comes to international development, but why they believe it. Worldview enables us to connect with more people in Ireland about the relevance and importance of international development. We do this through audience segmentation.
Audience segmentation is the process of dividing a larger audience into smaller, more specific groups based on shared characteristics, behaviours, or interests.
But should we be dividing our public, when they are dividing themselves?
Benefits
Overall, audience segmentation is a critical tool for organisations looking to understand their audiences better and target them more effectively and efficiently. Worldview’s audience segmentation is a bespoke, scientifically rigorous process designed by experts. It is the only resource that segments the Irish public based on their attitudes and sentiments towards international development, and what informs these opinions.
The two main benefits of audience Segmentation are:
Overall, it can improve marketing effectiveness, drive engagement, and provide a competitive advantage.
Know Your Audience
Use the navigation tabs for a further breakdown of the six audience segments and discover more about who they are, their sociocultural profile, level of support, engagement, and how to reach them.
Global Citizens
Global Citizens are the most engaged and supportive of the international development sector. They are driven by a sense of justice and solidarity. They are well informed about what causes poverty, understanding the impact of the legacy of colonialism and continued structural and systemic inequality.
The Global Citizen believes that aid should be administered by the multilateral system, like the UN and EU, as well as overseas aid organisations. They understand that these organisations have the expertise and ability to support change in developing countries.
Demographics
From Wave 6 of Worldview data, we know the Global Citizen is a younger cohort, under 34 years of age, based mainly in Dublin or urban areas. They tend to hold a postgraduate qualification, and are single or in the pre-family stages. They represent 18% of the Irish public.
How to reach them
A multi-platform strategy is essential. Global Citizens over-index on social media and podcasts, with less reliance on traditional TV. Their priorities and concerns are around climate change, the rise of populism and fake news. They are one of the most socially active across all types of causes. Messaging should emphasise global citizenship and systemic inequality driven by colonialism and powerful countries.
Community Champions
Community Champions have very similar levels of support and awareness as the Global Citizens. They believe aid should be provided due to a shared humanity and empathy. They understand that continued exploitation and the role of colonialism in driving continued underdevelopment.
Community Champions put trust in the multilateral system and aid organisations, believing they are the most effective at delivering aid.
Demographics
Community Champions represent 8% of the Irish public. They mirror the general population demographically, but are more middle-class. Community Champions place have a particularly strong local community focus.
How to reach them
Community Champions have a preference for traditional media, like newspapers, TV, and radio. Podcasts are gaining traction with this segment. Due to their identity being embedded in their local community, grassroots influences are also important. They have the highest level of activism out of all Worldview segments. They are leading in climate change activism, worried about populism, but unconcerned with immigration. Solidarity messaging resonates best. Highlight rich countries’ exploitation and colonial legacies.
Multilateralists
The Multilateralists believe the provision of aid should be based on humanitarianism, shared humanity, and human rights. Their outlook mirrors the national viewpoint on why we should provide aid.
Aptly named the Multilateralists, they think that multilaterals like the EU and UN are best placed for coordinating and providing aid.
Demographics
The Multilateral segment is an older segment, generally 65 and over, based in Dublin and urban areas across Ireland. They represent 20% of the Irish public, making them the second largest Worldview audience segment.
How to reach them
This segment has balanced media consumption across all traditional platforms but lower social media reliance and less grassroots influence. Their identity is rooted in being European. They are particularly concerned about climate change, and they over-index on global poverty activism. Populism is also a concern.
Pragmatists
Pragmatists have a general support for the provision of aid, however are uninformed about the causes of poverty. They see the causes of poverty as largely emanating from within developing countries, citing poor governance, corruption, and internal institutional inefficiency. They are not aware of structural inequalities, legacies of colonialism, or the exploitation by developed countries.
However, Pragmatists are trusting of institutions. They believe in practical governance solutions and disaster relief.
Demographics
Pragmatists are more rurally located and tend to be 65+, empty nesters, and represent 14% of the public view. They are a more working class segment, with lower educational attainment.
How to reach them
They have a strong national identity, but see the benefits of growing diversity in Ireland. Concerns mirror their older age – health services and pensions, but they are cognisant of growing populism.
Pragmatists are heavy traditional media consumers with minimal social media presence or usage, or podcast consumption.
Empathetisers
Empathisers are the largest Worldview audience segment. They believe poverty stems from war, lack of services, and disease prevalence in developing countries. They lack the understanding of the main drivers of poverty. However, they believe that we should help people in developing countries out of charity and morality.
Empathisers are seen as the ‘moveable middle’. If we can reach them, with messages that resonate, they should be ripe for upward engagement. They tend to connect more with local country issues, rather than the framings of the entire global system.
Demographics
Empathisers are female, with young to teenage children. They tend to be based around Ireland, outside of Dublin, in more rural areas. They have a strong local community identity.
How to reach them
Social media is crucial to reach the Empathiser, and TV also remains important. Their opinions are also heavily influenced by their family, to a level higher than the norm.
Immigration is a dominant concern, as well as household bills and education. They hold negative views on growing diversity and low engagement in causes, especially around global poverty. Humanitarian appeals are key to engaging the Empathiser. Focus on immediate disaster relief. Global citizenship education is key for this segment to address their misconceptions around poverty. Try to engage with family and community-based messaging channels.
Disengaged
The Disengaged are completely unmoved and unsympathetic to the levels of poverty in developing countries. They are deeply mistrusting of all key institutions and many people.
Disengaged have severe misconceptions about the causes of poverty in developing countries, citing in-country corruption, inefficiency, laziness, and people having too many children. For them, immigration is a main concern.
Demographics
This cohort has a male skew, tending to be middle aged with families. They align with the local and national identity.
How to reach them
They are disengaged from mainstream media, predominantly getting their news and information from family and friends. Disengaged have lower traditional media consumption across all channels. Immigration dominates as a concern and they are the only segment that views diversity negatively. Economic pressures are prominent and they have the lowest levels of activism.
Overall, this is a highly challenging segment to reach and reverse their misconceptions. Focus on addressing misconceptions and avoid traditional institutional messaging channels, due to their distrust of institutions in general.
Where are each of the Worldview Segments?
From Worldview, we can also see where each of the Segments are located and spread out across Ireland. Below, there is a profile for the Provinces which gives a breakdown of the composition by Segments. There is also a breakdown of the Segments by whether they are more urban or rural-based.
We can see that Global Citizens, the most engaged and informed Segment, are typically an urban based cohort, highly concentrated in Dublin. The Empathisers, on the other hand, are a more rural-leaning segment, spread out across the island of Ireland, particularly in Connacht/Ulster and Munster. Multilateralists have a higher concentration in Dublin, but are less likely to be located in Connacht/Ulster. The Disengaged segment is well spread out across Ireland, with no higher or lower concentrations in any particular province or rural/urban location. Explore the rest of the geographic spread of the Segments on the map below.
Segment Trends 2020-2025
The Worldview audience segments are not static, but change year-on-year. The Disengaged cohort steadily rose from 2020 onwards, though Wave 6 saw the first slight decline since research began. Encouragingly, the Global Citizens have increased, nearly at the same levels of 2020. There has been quite some change in the Empathiser cohort, from being nearly a third of the population to now just under a quarter, although they remain the largest Worldview audience segment, followed by the Multilateralist cohort at 20% of the public.
