Banned Books — Jenna-Rose Oosterman
As a visual, you will see that I chose to create an infographic for my topic, which was banned books. I chose to do this first LEAP Project on banned books because this is actually a really important topic to me. A lot of the books that are being challenged and the copious amount of already-banned books are stories that taught us about life and what goes on outside of the walls we are confined to, especially at such a young age. I remember reading To Kill A Mockingbird in my Sophomore year of high school. It was a great book that opened my eyes to the world, while also making me realize that that style of living and society really wasn’t that far behind us, and it still isn’t all these years later. 1984 by George Orwell taught us about dystopian societies and what it would be like to live in one. Besides all of that, 1984 also teaches us about human nature and the dangers of totalitarian communism. For my senior year of high school, that was the first year they had offered us a list of books to choose from rather than forcing one upon us, and I chose The Hate U Give from that list. This was the first book I had ever picked up and was unable to put down until I finished, so to see this book banned and challenged in many states is extremely upsetting, especially because the plot lies around a very real, and often common situation for people of color even in the year of 2023.
This whole aspect of creating propaganda to me seemed kind of odd at first because I guess I just never thought that would be something asked of me, but I really liked the freedom of this assignment. I liked that even though this was meant to be an unusual or uncomfortable assignment for most students, we were given the ability to choose a topic and our preferred medium as well. I will say that I liked the experience of making the propaganda infographic, I think mainly because I enjoy designing online and on platforms but also because it forced me to step outside of my comfort zone and I chose a topic that I am against, so making something for the opposing perspective was kind of interesting.
In terms of my creative strategy, I was aiming to keep the infographic lighter in color, organized but neat, following the direction the eyes naturally would, and short, sweet, and simple. I chose to keep the colors on the lighter side because I know they are typically perceived as happier, less angry colors and I felt as though purple is the perfect middle ground between a sad blue and an angry red. When looking at the Infographic, you can see I kind of did a gradient in font color — hues of purple — as I got to the bottom because I wanted to give it a monochromatic flow while still using a neutral tone. I also chose to put limited information about why the books are banned because the more writing there is on something, the less likely we are to read it. I also chose to only list the reasons why these books are banned because it is just the right amount of information to make a parent upset and not want their children to read them or to not allow their child to read them.
My goal for the infographic was to trigger an emotional response through a sense of name-calling, and card stacking. The reading defined name-calling as, “using labels with a negative connotation to simplify information and evoke strong emotion in ways that favor the agenda” and I used name-calling in a sense of the way I described why the books were banned. Blatantly pointing out all of these “terrible things” that these books are offering is enough to make parents think twice about letting their children consume that type of literature, meaning they are feeding into the agenda at hand. Though the books that I included are already banned, I believe that they should not be, and I know a lot of other people agree with my stance on the matter, but that clearly won’t change a whole lot, and this is why I used the card stacking technique as well. The reading defines card stacking as, “using omission, distortion, lies, or false testimony to create an unreal reality that deceives people through the presentation of information”, and this is exactly what I believe is being done to these books, so I just figured I would take all of that and create one big piece of my own. These crucially important books are being rained down upon because we have people in high places who do not like them and what they have to offer.
I figured creating a piece of propaganda on this topic could actually be really impactful for the public because people care about children more than they do many other things. There is always something in the news having to do with children in danger or people who have new ways to keep children out of danger — and this type of “danger” is no different. Parents don’t want their children reading things or consuming information they do not believe in themselves, so oftentimes their children are neglected from having those experiences, and this poster aims to continue that neglect toward the children and prevent them from being exposed to this kind of literature.
From my perspective, I know it may sound a little out of touch, but banning books really makes me think of the Nazis and how they burned all of the Jewish people’s books because they did not want them to consume any of their own literature or media. It is pure censorship and it should not be allowed. These books were once taught for many many years and for great reasons — they mattered and were relevant and most of them still are to this day. I also thoroughly believe that not having these books in schools and libraries anymore is a crime. Not having these books means that children and young adults are no longer being exposed to the real-world issues that many people around us face, for example, racism, mistreatment of women, sexual violence, police violence, and censorship. It is crucial for young adults to be made aware of their surroundings and even though a great majority of these characters didn’t actually exist, some young people find comfort in these vulnerable characters and it helps them to grow up or gives them another perspective about life and what is to come.
“Top 100 Most Banned and Challenged Books: 2010–2019”, American Library Association, September 9, 2020. http://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/decade2019 (Accessed February 13, 2023) Document ID: ed7826dc-f0a5–4e0b-80cc-5d2d0d448986
