About UsThe ALS challenge took the nation by storm a couple years ago and has become an annual event ever since. The origin of the ALS challenge was at first an unknown fact, until people did some digging and realized that a man name Pete Frates started it. Frates is a former college baseball player who was diagnosed with ALS in 2011. ALS or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. There is an estimated 20,000 americans diagnosed with ALS at anytime in the United States. The challenge itself is interesting because it was a social media phenomenon and over 10 billion people watched the challenge through social media. Through Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter the challenge spread like wildfire through out the United States. The Association that has kept alive and made it an annual event is the ALS association. The ALS association was established in 1985 and is a non-profit organization that actively looks for a cure and enhances the quality of life for people with ALS, unfortunately there is no known cure for ALS . This particular picture was produced to give a sense of togetherness while completing the challenge. The idea was to raise as much awareness for ALS as possible because the disease was not commonly known to the general public. As I mentioned earlier the campaign was wildly successful in both raising money and raising awareness.
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Who We Are |
The purpose of this propaganda was to raise awareness and to show a large group go people doing it all together. This type of scene was not untypical during the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, people used to gather large groups of people to get as many people as they could to participate. Propaganda usually gets a bad wrap as a ploy for governments to manipulate the masses but propaganda like this is positive. It is being used to bring people together around people who have contracted ALS to support them. The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge was a very wide net for who it targeted, at the beginning it was people who held the disease close to them and eventually was done by celebrities such as Tom Brady and Matt Ryan. This particular propaganda was made to influence younger people, it shows a large group of younger people participating. It is trying to get other younger people to participate because older people were participating mostly individually. The main thing the propaganda is trying to Draw attention with is the timing of the photo. The photo is taken at the exact moment that the people dump the buckets on there heads of ice cold water. You can see some of there reactions and see them all together in the moment. The act being portrayed as 'togetherness' is the largest persuasive appeal. The fact that there was such a heavy influence on social media allowed people to be persuaded quite easily. I do not think that you could find someone that did not see at least one of these challenges. Another persuasive tactic this used was the 'lifestyle' you could portray by participating. The propaganda was so effective that so many people felt obligated to participate and seem generous. The lifestyle you could portray publicly was that you were a good genuine person.The idea the book portrays about ideas when it says" Ideas and phrases can now be given an effectiveness greater than the effectiveness of any personality and stronger than any sectional interest.(Bernays,13)", ideas such as the ice bucket challenge can take a nation by storm. I could understand how if a younger person saw this today or an older person they may not know what the ice bucket challenge. They may just assume it is a bunch of people just pouring water on there heads. That is what is truly ommitted in this propaganda because there is no words. It is not like there is anything truly explaining what is going on, so someone could become confused. This is a particular type of propaganda where you honestly can not see this as negative unless you are probably the grinch. It is meant to build awareness for a disease people truly struggle with and it gives them hope for a better life. This is not what people consider propaganda normally but in this case it is an incredibly positive message.
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Our History |
- CITATIONS
- “About Us.” ALSA.org, www.alsa.org/about-us/. - Levin, Josh, and Josh Levin. “Who Invented the Ice Bucket Challenge? A Slate Investigation.” Slate Magazine, Slate, 22 Aug. 2014, slate.com/technology/2014/08/who-i Invented-the-ice-bucket-challenge-a-slate-investigation.html - Bernays, E. (n.d.). Propaganda. Retrieved from http://www.historyisaweapon.org/defcon1/bernprop.html |