Morgan Maleonskie
For this assignment, I decided to create a propaganda poster to convince people not to leave their pets in the hot car. According to the Do Something website, “a pet can experience a 40° rise in temperature and irreversible organ damage or death after spending an hour in a car.” most pet owners are not aware of how fatal and dangerous this can be for their pets. Personally, this is something I have always been aware of. However, it wasn’t until I read this statistic that I knew I needed to bring awareness to this topic. I decided to make an eye-catching piece of propaganda that will appeal to the viewer’s emotions and make people realize that their actions have consequences.
I decided to create a poster because I believe this is the best way to quickly portray a message. By creating an eye-catching, easy-to-read and bold poster, my viewers will pick up on the message and will be left with the memory of what it said. In addition, I would be able to print this poster and hang it in parking lots. Because of the bold writing and large picture, this reminder would be visible from the car and would hopefully prevent any furry friends from being left in the hot car. I think this would also be a great reminder to hang out in dog parks, vets and pet stores. Because pet owners are the main demographic of these areas, hanging the posters here would ensure that we are informing the right group of people.
When coming up with the content for my piece of propaganda, I took inspiration from Do Something’s title “Hot Dogs: Remind Pet Owners to Not Leave Their Furry Friends in Hot Cars.” This inspired me to compare dogs to hot dogs and a car to a hot oven. This comparison stemmed from the idea that just like you can cook a hot dog in an oven, you can accidentally “cook” your dog in a hot car. This wordplay is memorable and helps set in the reality of how hot a car can get. I also decided to format this poster like a meme. With the similarities of the black background, white text and large photo, one may think that this is going to be a funny poster. Because of how loved memes are and how much content we consume on social media, it would be like second nature to check this poster out. Seeing what this poster is actually about will add shock value to the message, as well.
Taking what I have learned in this class so far, I decided that the most effective way to spread this message would be to appeal to my viewers’ emotions. This is because, in the past, I learned that the use of pathos in persuasion is very effective. Pathos is considered a mode of persuasion that evokes feelings of pity or sadness. Using pathos in propaganda allows us to elicit feelings that will reside with the reader, and will hopefully move them in the way we would like. In this case, I appealed to the viewers’ emotions by asking a heart-wrenching question, “you wouldn’t cook him (the dog) in the oven, would you?” Because almost anybody would say no to this question, the fact that I would even ask this question is shocking. This is what will make my viewers want to read more, and figure out why we would ever ask such a scary, obvious question. This will cause them to associate their feelings of disgust with the message that reminds them not to leave their dogs in hot cars, making it a successful, memorable message.
By hanging this in areas where pet owners often find themselves, I would also be appealing to their needs. As pet owners, our most important job is to keep our pets safe and happy. This message is what pet owners need to hear, and they will realize this when they receive the message. In addition, the question “you wouldn’t cook him (the dog) in the oven, would you?” will make the viewer feel targeted. This question will make us hyper-aware of the fact that we may not be doing the best we can for our pets. It’s in our human nature to compare ourselves to others and to want to be the best. This phrase will make us feel insecure and make us want to do better. This is a similar tactic that was used in the iconic Uncle Sam “I Want You” poster that was used as propaganda in World War I. Speaking directly to the audience and using the word “you” will make the viewer feel like this poster was made specifically for them. This will make it so they cannot dissociate themselves from the message and will be forced to digest the propagandist’s views.
Overall, I enjoyed this assignment. I really enjoyed making this poster and I was happy I was able to do it on a topic I am passionate about. I am excited to look at everyone else’s work and I am curious to see if anyone else chose the same topic as me. I would love to receive feedback from my classmates and see if they digested the message quickly, or if it took them a moment to understand my message. In the future, I think it could be interesting to assign everyone the same topic and compare how we each view the subject. In addition, I think it would be interesting to make multiple different pieces of propaganda to see which piece is most effective. We would compare the different modes of propaganda and vote as a class which moved us the most. Lastly, the only other thing I would change is that I would’ve liked everyone to choose a topic, not from the website. This way we could see what everyone is actually passionate about and learn a little bit about everyone’s views.
I did not use any outside sources in this paper, all of the information written came from prior knowledge.
