final blog

I first came across the anti-bullying world when I was working on my research paper. I came to the realization that bullying is much more prevalent in our school systems than I was aware, and was shocked to learn the impact it had on both successfully graduating and suicide rates. Because of this I choose to address bullying as much exigence, particularly bullying within the schooling systems. I have found many people, like I previously was, are ignorant of the magnitude of which this is taking place.

 Ultimately I had two intended goals through my video, to create a call for action and to change the perceptions of reality. By creating a call for action, I would be creating an army so to speak willing to fight against bullying. This is important because without people willing to fight to stop bullying it will never end. My other intended goal was to change perceptions of reality. Often people feel bullying is not such a big deal, apart of growing up they may feel, but through my video I hope to change this view. I hope my video shows the viewer that bullying can lead to violence, and maybe worse, death.

The three main tactics I used were story telling, polarization, and slogan. My video follows a girl who gets bullied and debates ending her life. Through this “story” I intended for the audience to grasp the significance of bullying and thus contribute to the changing of perception. My next two tactics were used collectively; my slogan was “ARE YOU READY”.  You are either ready to end bullying or you are not, thus making two distinct groups. Those willing to fight for the cause and those who are not, and by doing so establishing those called to action. Another quote from the video is “its up to us”; this quote creates an “us” identity, and therefore creates a “them” as well thus uses polarization.

For my genre I choose to create a PSA video that would be published on the YouTube website. YouTube I felt would be the best way to get the message out to the most amounts of people. People of all ages go on YouTube just browsing random videos. What is also great about YouTube is that you can link it on other social media websites. The link can be put on Facebook twitter and ever tumblr, thus having the potential to reach a lot of individuals.

As a public service announcement I knew I would have to reach the public to alert and inform them of a matter of importance. PSAs are presented through the media for free, so I knew whatever outlet I choose to put it on would I have to be costless for my viewers, thus YouTube seemed like the best location. Location is free for its viewers, and reaches a large audience. PSA videos are also typically pretty short, so like the free of charge convention I choose to stick with the short convention and make my video just less than two minutes.