[Teen/VVP] Is it unachievable?
Thursday, we spent most of the time accumulating and gathering information on a topic that we were interesting in making our Public Service Announcements (PSA’s) about. For me personally, and I think Joe would agree with this as well, I have trouble choosing just one issue; its just that there are so many its hard to just choose one—but I can understand how its important to choose one issue since we have such a limited amount of time. I think the phrase ‘curiosity kills a cat’—best fits this situation; we’re interesting in so many things it’s hard to choose one and enjoy just doing that one. Well, maybe I shouldn’t speak for everyone when I say that but it is true for me; I guess, I’m just too spoiled and that’s why I have problems choosing. But nonetheless, I chose to stick with Globalization.
So yes, Globalization is my issue—and I’m having my fair share of issues with it. I can research, on the internet or just look back into that library of memories that I have in my head, information about globalization…and I can understand but the problem is I am not sure what my message would be. A public service announcement is supposed to have some kind of message, and I’m having trouble finding my message. The problem with me is that, the more I learn about a subject, the more neutral I become—and that’s being media literate, no? But, if I can see both sides of the story, how can I argue that one side is more right than the other—or maybe I can, and maybe it is merely my lack of want that is keeping me from doing so.
I really do not know what exactly I want; at first, I wanted to send the message of being media literate or just aware of the subject and seeing things through a more objective point of view—but now that I think about it, it does not seem as though I can depict that in a strong PSA. Most commercials manipulate the viewers’ minds into believing a certain point of view, and that works pretty effectively for most people [unless…they are very cynical and picky I guess]. For example, it is easy to show that education is good for you without putting it in literal words—anyone can show a person getting an education and then going on to having a great career and life, but it’s harder to argue that it can be good and bad.
Personally, I do think that education can be bad, not all types of education are good, and although the word is generally used in a good context it does not eliminate the fact that there is bad education. Education is merely acquiring and processing information or knowledge to develop reasoning and judgment—but that does not specify that it is good education; a parent or any adult figure can “educate” a child into being racist or you can be “educated” to be militaristic or power-hungry or greedy—but does that mean those are good things? In that case, I can also easily prove that education is bad for you in a commercial—but how do I incorporate both? How can I say that something like globalization is good and bad for you so you have to just be media literate when you’re learning about it? How do you make a neutral argument strong—or even phrase it without using direct words? How do you depict something neutral—or rather, how do you depict it in a strong and convincing manner?
I wanted to relate it to a human right—but I can’t think of how I would do that without making it seem as though it either emphasizes or violates a human right. It would be easy to say that Globalization violates a person’s right to have freedom of religion because some conservative pious individuals may view digital media as a bad thing. Or, it can be argued that the freedom of speech/opinion clashes with globalization because freedom of opinion may emphasize subjective views over objective ones. But either way, it’s not what I want, I want people to see that not all the things they hear are true—and not all the things they read are true. Writers can manipulate words to make a different meaning come out of it, which is a example of self-expression, not an objective point of view. Although some things like the news are expected to be shown through an objective point of view—they sometimes aren’t. That’s the simple truth, and that’s why media literacy is essential when it comes down to issues that have a various range in opinions—unfortunately, in this case, it is easier to write a 1,000 words based on a picture than make a picture based on those 1,000 words. Now let’s see, in a second you see about 25 images? And the PSA will be about 30 seconds long? So that’s about 750 images, which means it would take about 750,000 thousand words to describe it. I guess this makes me wonder…which would be easier? This blog is probably ABOUT 1,000 words, so it would take 750 blogs like this one to make 750,000 words…but then again…-.-; sometimes images are more effective than words. But yes, to sum up the last [goes to word count] 903 words for you—I simply don’t know what to do, but of course, suggestions are welcome…and needed. Is making an effective PSA that encourages people to see a issue at hand through an object point of view unachievable? All I can do now is wonder, is a dream achievable--after all, once a dream comes true it cannot be a dream any longer...
