Social Tactic #3

Jerrod Goertzen

Soc 122

START

5/9/2014

 

Social Movement Tactic #3: Movie/Documentary Night

 

            The use of a movie and documentaries for a movement I feel can prove to be very useful in getting people on your side. I have used movies, clips and documentaries for many things and they can be very good at getting people emotionally driven and inspired. Much like the affects music can have on people.

            For our group movie night, we had two documentaries on the growing injustice of rising tuition and also the side affect it has with the growing student debt in the United States. Another short film on education itself and the growing market of online and privatized schools. How legitimate are these schools, their faculty and the affect of the cost and students getting a degree through them When they are simply about just making money. We had a short introduction discussion talking about our group START and a few of our issues, played both films, then had a good forty or so minute discussion about the films after wards. This overall took around two hours and I felt like we could have easily spent more time especially with the discussion portion. I believe we had seven to nine people show up for our movie night, which was a little disappointing but it was something too work with at least.

            This biggest thing I would have liked to change was finding a better time and date to do the movie night, especially for our group. Only two out of the five could show up but it was really difficult with everyone's contrasting schedules. It also made it tough being sort of late at night, I feel like that was a tough one too pull people too also. That we spent more time getting our movie flyers out in circulation as that might of drawn a few more people. The documentaries were good and were eye openers. Many student, probably even say the ones attending the movie have dealt with or are dealing with student loans. Might have like myself know people at least dealing with them or dealing with those online type schools. For a typical young student, nothing is ever taught or fully explained to us before we have to decide on these matters. Documentaries like those two I believe do well in getting out the message and making students think twice about this stuff and too take cautionary steps. Hopefully those that attended discussed the issue with other they know as our group wishes to see a decline in faulty student debt and education. While there were only a few people that showed up I felt they all learned something that altered there perception in a positive way seeing there is a large injustice going on.