In any situation, think of who your target audience is.
From SusoSight
| Number: | 106 |
| Date created: | 2004-02-16 23:36:55 |
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There is a lot of activism and cases where a group of people are trying to relay information to other people. But a lot of times, they pick the people who are already on their side or know what the information.
The first example that comes to mind is at a Linux OS users group meeting. Almost every such meeting I've been to in Bloomington has simply been a install fest. About 8 people would show up for a meeting. Then someone would go through and install Linux on a machine in front of everyone, going through every little nuance. The problem with this is, most everyone there already knows about Linux and how to install it. We're too polite to say stop, but it's painful to sit there and watch. The time would be much better spent going over what kinds of applications the person uses or having a little tutorial on something else.
Wrong target audience. If you want to show how to install Linux, hold a seperate venue for it.
Recently I watched the Michael Moore movie "Bowling for Columbine". Back in 1994 I saw his first film "Roger & Me", which was more of a documentary that was fun to watch and a docuvist style film geared towards making people question our gun policy in the U.S. "Roger & Me", being a documentary for entertainment purposes more than activism, is appropriate for most people. However, "Bowling for Columbine" is more of an activism movie, trying to make us think more about how we run the country. This becomes more apparent if you watch the extras disc in the DVD version. He gives a speech at the University of Denver where he asks everyone to become more involved in government and questions our policies and ideals as a society. I'm not opposed to what he says, but I feel that all this is being watched by the wrong people. Most everyone watching the movie already has a certain mindset, they know that the movie is controversial. These people are most likely not the gun wielding type. So what's the point? Anti-gun people will watch this movie and reaffirm what they believe to be right, while pro gun folks, some politicians and most of the people who control our society will go on supporting guns.
Wrong target audience.
What Michael Moore should do, it go to the areas where most people support the ownership of guns and hand out his movie for free to those who might not watch it. That would stir things up and get people thinking.