In this blog post I will work through Project 3, including author, audience, purpose, genre, and setting. A thorough understanding of the rhetorical situation will help tremendously in the finished product. For Project 3 I am considering addressing the problem of the drug war in America. I am not sure if I should negatively analyze the solutions being tried today or propose another solution. Also, I don't know if I should focus on a specific drug.
Author
I have been researching and generally been interested in the drug war since my sophomore year in high school. Ever since I found out about the medicinal properties of psychedelic drugs, I became very interested in why this information is being suppressed and how these drugs could help people. This lead me down a rabbit hole as I began to peek behind the curtain of the government, main stream media, and other sources of authority and influence. In the new generation of young adults, and anyone that can effectively use the internet, people are now able to expose these powerful organizations. I believe the drug war has an expiration date, now that the internet continues to expose and educate people. There is simply no turning back now that the cat is out of the bag.
The drug war is something that can affect really anyone. There are not too many personal biases that influence my perspective on the issue. The ways in which I grew up would make me more pro drug war than anything. I am an upper middle class, white-looking male that grew up with schools teaching me that drugs are horrible. In fact, I did think drugs were just as bad for someone until my sophomore year in high school. I had no idea about the actual forces behind the drug war and the moral injustices that happen regularly. I am probably biased mostly with my political views. I don't consider myself a republican or a democratic but I would say I lean more to the left because of issues like abortion and gay rights. I believe addiction is a mental health problem, not a criminal one. For this reason I cannot help but to be somewhat of a socialist when it comes to the problem of drugs and addiction because I think we need to help these people instead of punish them. All the research on addiction indicates that addicts use addiction because of a troubled past or present. Most people do not experience traumatic childhoods or have predispositions for addictive behavior, making it extremely hard to understand the psychology behind an addicts behavior. There is enough punishment involved in the experiences these people went through and might still be going to; prison is not the right solution to help these people.
Audience
My target audience in this project will be people who have not investigated the drug war. If you have never been affected by drugs it is easy to accept the system already put in place. Also, if you don't use the internet, it would be hard to see the problems with the drug war. These people don't necessarily have to be anti-drug because this project is going to focus more on the injustices of the current system put in place rather than the effects of the actual drugs.
The dominant view of drugs is that they are bad. Most of the people today grew up being taught that drugs are the reason for an addicts problems or that the illegal drugs are only bad and the pharmaceutical drugs are only good. This is the view I had for most of my life. My strategy to fight this manipulated belief is to present as many facts as I can. There truly is a large amount of contradictions and fallacies in the government and system involved in the drug war.
Initially, the audience might assume I am just another drug user wanting to use drugs. This is probably the reason most people ignore the problem of the drug war.
Once I talk more about the actual drug user and the reasons behind their suffering, I think a lot of people will gain a new perspective on why people take drugs. There is also a tremendous amount of research that shows how certain illegal drugs like marijuana, MDMA, psilocybin, iboga, and other drugs can help people with issues like addiction, depression, and other mental health problems. My goal is to try to show people that the drug war is doing more harm than good and there is a large opportunity to increase the quality of life of millions of people around the world.
My neighbors are a good example of my target audience. They are the nicest, catholic family that care tremendously for others. Because of their upbringing, religious beliefs, and lack of internet use, they accept the actions of our government without question. I think if they watched my video for project 3 they would feel sympathetic and hopefully acknowledge the issues of the current system put in place.
Purpose
I want my audience to feel like they have a better understanding of a drug user, the injustices of the laws put in place, and the potential benefits of change. I think the more people are informed, the more people will demand change. Overall, I want to address the source of the problem and expose the solution in place.
Since the drug war has been going on for several decades now, there are a lot of perspectives and components that have been analyzed and covered. I would say the areas that need more focus are possible solutions and education. There is no doubt that drug use can be harmful to the user and others. I think that we should focus more on education of these drugs so people have more trust in these authority figures. For example, America was able to reduce the use of cigarettes drastically by educating the public. It's not that people don't belief that the public should be educated, it's the rules put in place that prohibit the ability to do research.
Genre
I am doing a video project for the topic. The video must be visually entertaining and has some sort of audio component. It should be well organized and flow well. I have never really edited a video before. The extent of my video experience is filming and submitting an unedited version. I am nervous for this project because of my unfamiliarity with the genre. I think for my topic, the most important conventions will be making it look appealing and sourcing facts as I go. With such a controversial topic, I feel like I could make an equally effective video trying to support the other side without sourcing as I go. If I do not, the audience will not take what I have to say seriously. Also, since the project is more visual, the aesthetics are very important, in order to keep the audience engaged.
When
There is a very long history that shaped what the drug war is today. The history involves different presidents, branches of government, economic situations, departments of government, scientific research, and societal changes. There are a lot of different areas that affect this huge policy America has but not all of it is crucial to proving my point. In an ideal situation, I would love to include all of it but that would probably require a Netflix series of some sort of prolonged show, not a short video.
Here are four different platforms the topic is being discussed:
Reddit
Ted Talks
Youtube/ documentary
Washington Post
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