Shawn “Op-Ed” Carter

Visually, this NY Times op-ed by Jay-Z, is communicating its message by using a gifted cartoonist to illustrate Jay-Z’s central talking points. The pictures are so concise and purposeful that if you were to watch the whole video on mute, you would still have a rough idea of what Jay is saying. We see people drawn in different colors who get treated differently, and we see a power and punishment imbalance. The people who get punished are almost always on the right side of the screen, illustrating how there is a divide.

Aurally, the soundtrack boosts the storyline. As soon as Jay says “drugs were bad” the drawing of the city street starts getting condemned, and city chaos noises take over the soundtrack. There are frying, chemical noises when the molecular structure of cocaine appears on screen. If you only watch the video once, you might not even notice the soundtrack, which is good — that means it aids the story without getting in its way.

Making this op-ed a video gets the views in it to the right audience. If it were just an ink-and-paper opinions piece, a tiny fraction of millenials would read it, even if it was made readily apparent that Jay-Z was attached to it. By making it a video, especially one done in the time-lapse style of popular newsfodder, makes this piece almost an instant hit with a younger audience. We millennials are more likely have the capability — and what’s more, the desire — to watch a short video, especially once we see that it’s trending, than our older counterparts. And like Lee said, we are the audience most likely to be moved by what we see. People from other generations may not think there’s a worthwhile appeal to ethos in this piece at all. By making the op-ed a video, it appeals more readily to its targeted demographic.