Ditch the Cigs
Propaganda Creation Reflection
The experience of creating propaganda to influence and persuade an audience was very enjoyable, and taught me new things about propaganda consumption myself. When beginning this project, I wanted to find a topic that is relevant to today, and one that is not unfamiliar amongst the majority of people. In narrowing down and settling on a topic, I also wanted to choose one that would be applicable and attainable to most age groups, and individuals of all different backgrounds. The topic of litter cleanup, specifically littered cigarette butts was a topic that I immediately took interest in, as environmental cleanups are very relevant and popular with society in the most recent years. This is a topic that a wide variety of age ranges are interested in as well, and are capable of actually doing.
The website dosomething.org that was provided offered a rich amount of information pertaining to cigarette butt litter, and how it impacts the earth, as well as society. The approach that the website took to displaying the information was also very appealing, as it was concise and straight to the point while still being very effective. For my own personal creation of propaganda, I also wanted to take this approach, so choosing the propaganda form of an infographic was ultimately my medium of choice. The infographic allowed me to display concise blocks of textual information, while still being aesthetically pleasing to the eye to draw the audience in. Ultimately, I decided I wanted to target my information at more younger audiences, or rather individuals that are used to the quickness of media consumption.
In creating the infographic for this form of propaganda, the choice of colors, images and text placement was something I wanted to focus on. As an avid media consumer myself and from the readings of evolved propaganda that have been provided in this course thus far, I know the importance that these elements have on audiences, and they can make or break whether someone views the information I am putting out. As this issue is essentially an environmental issue, I chose an eye-catching green color for the background, and light gray colors for the text. The images that I included in this infographic compliments the other colors, while still standing out and catching the eye without having to read the various blurbs of text. Along with the aesthetic elements of images and colors, the information in the texts was also an element that I carefully had to think about.
The title for the infographic, “Save Our Planet, Ditch the Cigs!”, was something I thought was concise, direct and grabs the attention of the reader. The information in the two sections directly below the title I knew was going to be very important, as it would determine if the audience would stay invested and keep reading the rest of the infographic. For the first two boxes of textual information, I decided to dive straight into the issue and inform readers why this is a topic that they should be invested in. In these two boxes, I provided short bullet points of what areas cigarette butt litter affects, and how it is killing animals and impacting natural resources essential to the preservation of human life. In the following box, I immediately provided information on what the reader can do, and how easy it is to get involved to make large impacts. Another important part of creating this propaganda piece that I have learned from this course so far is implementing easy and realistic actions that individuals would be most likely to take part in. For this piece, I included how the audience can keep small trash bags on them or in their vehicle for easy cleanup access anywhere they go. This action plan is easily attainable, as most people have leftover small plastic bags from places like supermarkets. These can easily be repurposed and used to clean up cigarette litter on the go, to then be discarded properly.
In the remaining two boxes of text in the infographic, I created a space to inform the reader specifically why they should care about this issue and take action, and also more ways to get started in the cigarette litter cleanup. In the “why” box, I chose to use some rhetorical tools such as pathos in discussing how taking part of this campaign would save thousands of animals. As discussed in prior lessons of the course, using rhetorical tools such as ethos provokes many people, and pushes them to take action that they may not have taken before. Involving the issue of wildlife is a commonly used tactic in propaganda, and often proves to be successful. In the following box, I then discussed more alternatives and options for where the reader can go and take action in cleaning up cigarette butt litter. Most individuals have local shopping plazas, parks, beaches, and neighborhoods that are littered with cigarette butts, and this was something I wanted to make as easily accessible and fool-proof as possible.
The parts that I enjoyed the most out of creating propaganda was the use of aesthetic elements. Personally, I see many forms of propaganda and brands everywhere that are simply just not attractive to the eye by any means. I personally feel it is so important to have propaganda that catches the eye, and sets itself apart from the thousands of other propaganda pieces that we see on a daily basis. One of the parts that I did not necessarily dislike about this project, but rather found more challenging was formulating what I was going to put as text in the infographic. This was a topic that I felt I could talk forever about, and include so much information, but from this class I understand how successful propaganda needs to be short and to the point. The infographic is a form of propaganda that you don’t want to flood with text and overwhelm the reader, or else they will quickly be disinterested in and stop reading. For the few and small boxes of text I was provided with, I aimed to make my messages concise and important to get the message across as effectively as possible.
