Dunk You Very Much Propaganda Poster by Matthew Voutsinos
Above is the propaganda I made, below this is the written part!
For this first project where we had to create our propaganda based on a Do Something cause, I decided to do a cause titled Dunk You Very Much. Honestly, when I read the title and saw the funny image that was associated with it, I was hooked. The basic premise of the cause is that we as people do not recycle nearly enough as we should. A lot of the recyclables end up in landfills and end up in turn hurting the environment. So, to raise awareness they would like people to video themselves slamming recyclables into a bin and post it on social media. The ultimate goal of the cause is to try and raise awareness about the lack of recycling that is going on in America, and they are using the popular event March Madness to try and get people to recycle in a fun way. I thought it was an easy way to associate basketball with recycling, and thought it was smart.
As a sports fan, I fell in love with the idea. After knowing what topic to do, my mind went right to what I wanted to do. I decided to try and use this website called Canva and make a poster/infographic. On the poster, I created specific sections and arrows guiding the reader through the poster. I wanted to start by talking about landfills and the issues that can come from them, then once the issue is established, I can tie in a way for people to help the cause. In other words, I knew that I wanted to start with the issue and then go to the cause. I then decided to use background colors that were earth themed, blue and green, which seemed appropriate because it is after all about the earth. I then started to create the sections and create a basic layout of what I wanted to do and what tactics I wanted to use. This was the production process for me!
The overall idea of trying to keep the audience interested was a really important thing I took away from the readings. I wanted my target audience to be somewhat broad. I wanted to target people that care about the earth and who want to do something to help it. I also targeted sports fans, as the campaign is centered around basketball/March Madness. I knew that composition was something I wanted to keep in mind. I tried to establish a pattern with the format of the poster that helps keep the audience's attention. Repetition was also something that I relied on. I kept trying to stress the importance of how landfills are an issue and lack of recycling overall is an issue. Repeating this idea, makes the reader accept this idea and hopefully makes them want to help. Something else from the reading that I tried to incorporate in my poster was the personalized wording. It is something that honestly impacts me and makes me feel I have a connection with the propaganda. The war propaganda that we read about highlighted the importance of personalized language and was huge in my poster. Something else that I tried to do with my poster was to make there be an enemy of sorts. While this related to more war propaganda I tried to incorporate the us verse them mentality by trying to make landfills and those who don’t recycle as the enemy. Something that I also incorporated in my poster was testimonials from NBA player Lebron James. Lebron did not actually support this cause, but I wanted to try and use the tactics of band wagoning and testimonial. Because Lebron is a big-time celebrity in the basketball world that many respect and want to follow, I thought he would be the perfect type of person to get an imaginary endorsement from.
Something that I also really wanted to try was making the information on the poster as simple as possible. This was one tactic that I took away from the readings and it makes total sense. Making the information on my poster simple, makes it easier for most to understand and makes it somewhat believable. When thinking of simplicity, something I thought of was a fake QR code. If this were an actual poster, it would make it a lot easier for people to go to social media and do the actual challenge. This also ties into how propaganda takes on many different forms through different media. This is an easy way to take the physical thing and help it grow online. Also, when focusing on the information on the poster, something that I did was cite the sources that I used for information. I think being transparent with the audience is important to me and can be a useful tactic. In the readings, I remember how some also utilized this tactic of being trustworthy, and I think in a world where many question sources this can be a useful tool for me. I will say that at times I twisted the trust with the poster, specifically when mentioning how millions do this trend when that's not true. Also, something to increase the trust was incorporating the March Madness logo. Similar to the Lebron James idea, March Madness is a big-time event with a large following. If the organization shows support for the cause, then it makes it seem trustworthy. They actually did not support this cause but thought it would be a good idea. I tried to keep most of the info accurate but if I wanted to incorporate some of the tactics, we learned about I had to make some things up. Overall, these were the main rhetorical concepts and tactics that I learned from the course, and how I incorporated them into my work.
Overall, I am not the most artistic person, so the design part of my propaganda was not super enjoyable for me. The color of the texts was something I tried to make look good but also readable. That is why it goes from blue to white. I tried my best to make it look presentable while incorporating what we have learned so far. I enjoyed coming up with a plan and deciding what tactics to use. That part of the project was pretty fun. I felt like I was able to put myself in the shoes of someone consuming my content and enjoyed that. It made me think more outside of the box! The most difficult thing though was the amount of info I used. I think I did more of an infographic then a poster because of all the info I used. I felt that I need to include a lot of information to accomplish what I wanted to do which was difficult at times. Overall, I enjoyed this project and tried to hit every check point!
Work Cited
Cassella, Carly. “Turns Out All That Plastic Currently Sitting in US Landfills Is Worth BILLIONS of Dollars.” ScienceAlert, 3 May 2022, https://www.sciencealert.com/all-that-plastic-that-ends-up-in-landfill-is-worth-billions-scientists-say.
Loria, Kevin. “What’s Gone Wrong with Plastic Recycling.” Consumer Reports, 30 Apr. 2020, https://www.consumerreports.org/recycling/whats-gone-wrong-with-plastic-recycling/.
National Geographic Society. “Landfills.” National Geographic , 20 May 2022, https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/landfills.
(Wasn't sure if you would want this but here is the link to the cause: Dunk You Very Much | DoSomething.org)
