Purposes and impacts

1. Purposes and impact of social
action campaigns
Ben Huyton

2. Barack Obama Hope Poster
Purposes:
To change attitudes
To raise awareness
To create or strengthen community ties
To campaign
To change voting behavior
To build relationships with subjects
Aims: The aim of this campaign is to change attitudes and to raise awareness about
the election. The artist behind this poster is trying to change voting behavior by
trying to alter peoples views about the presidential candidates. The obvious aim of
this is to try and get people to lean towards Obamas campaign and therefore
’Hope’ that he is the new president. That could be the reasoning behind this word
but I have another meaning for it in the techniques section. Another aim of this
poster is to try and forget what race he is by not incorporating his skin color in the
poster by ultimately representing America as a whole by using the colors of the
flag.

3. Barack Obama Hope Poster
Techniques: The aim of this poster is to raise awareness about the election and to
change voting behavior. There are many different techniques that are used for this
poster that are there to catch peoples attention. For a start the colors on this
represent the American flag with the red, white and blue but it also worth pointing
out that the white is Obamas face. This can be portrayed as being a signal that race
does not matter, and that Obama would just as good a president if he were white
but it would be easier for many people to vote for him if he was.
The choice of putting ’Hope’ on the poster seems to have been chose to give with
Obamas facial expressions and that his eyes and mouth convey the feeling that he
is ready to lead the country to a better future and that he is confident about his
plans. It is also worth pointing out that he was not wearing the pin on the original
picture so the artist has put it in for a certain purpose. In my opinion I think it has
been put there to show his patriotism and to represent America in a good and
positive way. Overall I believe that this poster is well thought out and it conveys
many different ideas about the president and the way he works for our country.

4. Barack Obama Hope Poster
Impacts: The obvious impact of the poster is that it did manage to raise awareness
and change peoples voting behavior because of the fact that Obama won the
election and became the first black president of the United States. As it turned out
Obama beat John McCain with a percentage of 52.9% to 45.7%. This poster is
deemed as ‘Iconic’ so that word alone signals that this poster could have had a
huge impact on the results and the whole idea that ‘race does not matter’ and
offering ‘hope’ to the nation. Throughput the years this had led to a huge impact
on healthcare, social security and drugs and crime among other things. This has all
lead from the impact of the election back in 2008 and a lot of it stems from the
huge impact that this poster has had.

5. Oceans – Save My Oceans Tour
Purposes:
To raise awareness
To provide information
To campaign
To create or strengthen community ties
To build relationships with subjects
Aims: The main of this poster is to promote ’OCEANS’ which is a documentary film that
explores the depths of the ocean and its inhabitants. However beyond the beautiful
imagery of the film is the harsh realization that this environment is fragile and it is up to
us to protect it for ourselves and future generations. Whether you live next to the
beach, on a lake or a river or thousands of miles from a body of water, your everyday
activities have an impact on our oceans. Another aim of this poster is that provides a
link to the website where you can learn about the threats to our oceans, what you can
do to protect them and how to take the pledge.

6. Oceans – Save My Oceans Tour
Techniques: There are lots of interesting techniques displayed on this poster. First of all
the use of the heart made of fish tries to bring a connection to its audience an to show
that the fish in our sea are ‘loved’. This is also made a focal point of the poster and this
is proven even more by the outer glow placed on the heart to bring more attention to
it. A second technique used is the fact that ’My oceans’ is displayed I a different color to
make it stand out from the rest of the text. This could be done to further underline
what this topic is about and the use of the word save also emphasizes that this a
campaign that needs help. A third technique used is how the word ‘Oceans’ is
underlined to emphasize what this topic is and what the project is about. The fact that
the whole poster is dominated by different shades of blue confirms this. Although not a
major technique the graphic of the waves at the top of the page proves that this image
is underwater to further deploy the Save My Oceans Tour.

7. Oceans – Save My Oceans Tour
Impacts: The impacts of this poster have been relatively positive as since this was
published in 2010, 7 years on we have seen an improvement in ending ocean
exploitation and to ensure a healthy ocean future. Due to information take from green
peace there has been a 16% decrease in ocean exploitation since 2009 which shows
that this poster promoting the documentary film ‘Oceans’ has had a good influence on
our society. Another impact of this poster is that it has increased peoples awareness
about the documentary film and has helped increase viewing counts as a result. A third
and final impact of this poster s that it has crucially made people take action on this
matter whether it be through learning about the threats to our oceans or reading how
to protect them. Overall this poster has gone down to be a huge success and one that
has positively influenced the threats that our oceans have had in the past.

8. Bullying Poster
Purposes:
To bring about local, national or global change
To change attitudes
To raise awareness
To provide information
To campaign
To infiltrate mainstream media
Aims: The obvious aim of this poster is to help stop bullying. They have listed
plenty of different actions that can be classed as bullying which should raise
awareness to the audience. They have provided this information to try and change
attitudes for what people think about the subject and the whole idea the bullying
is wrong and should not be tolerated.

9. Bullying Poster
Techniques: A first technique that is used on this poster is how each fact is
displayed in different colors and that it is not stuck to one color scheme. This is
done to make every fact stand out and for it to be shown that every piece of
writing is important and that one bit of information is not seen bigger than
another. A second technique is that ’bullying’ and bullying is’ is shown in red and
yellow. These colors are arguably the best to represent warning or danger which
represents bullying perfectly. It is essentially warning everyone how had bullying is
and how there is a danger that It could easily get out of hand. It is also worth
pointing out that there is a huge dash of purple hidden behind the text but tis is
most likely thee for show rather than just having a meaning behind it. One
potential reason for this however could be to represent females. The color purple
is most naturally attached to this sex and could therefore show that females are
the biggest victims of bullying. This however is hugely stereotypical and there is
nothing to prove that this is what the designer was thinking when producing this
poster.

10. Bullying Poster
Impacts: Finally in terms of the impact of this poster it can only have had a positive
influence on the plea to stop bullying. Obviously it won’t have stopped it
completely but it will certainly have made people more aware about the issue and
hopefully have changed a few attitudes on the way too. Like i have previously
mentioned this was the clear aim of the poster in the first place and is really the
sole purpose of the campaign. This is proven as due to new data found in 2016
there has been a decrease in school based bullying and has been described as
‘much welcome news’ In 2006 around 27% of students claimed to have been
bullied in school whereas that has dropped to 19% ten years on. Although this has
shown a drop off, it is still not seen good enough by most people and campaigns
like this will continue until we get the percentage as close to 0 as possible. There
are three types of bullying which are physical, relational and verbal. All these
topics are covered on the poster and this new study also shows that each one of
the three has decreased over the last ten years and this poster otr posters similar
to this one will have played a major role in this.