By Kathryn Northcut, Lora Arduser, T. Kenny Fountain, Maria Gigante, and Candice Welhausen
Because billboards are predominantly visual and designed to convey succinct messages for passers-by, they allow viewers to create a quick first impression. Even the most elaborate and thoughtful design choices can be immediately digested and evaluated, making the credibility (ethos) of the messenger and the message vulnerable to quick dismissal. This article analyzes an anti-drug design (see Figure 1) found on a billboard, from a multi-faceted rhetorical perspective.
The “Drugs Destroy Lives” Campaign
Law enforcement agencies in rural Missouri perennially face dismal statistics representing human tragedy where drugs are concerned. In Rolla, Missouri, the home of the “Drugs Destroy Lives” billboard and other anti-drug messages, the toll of heroin and methamphetamine addiction, alcoholism, and prescription painkiller abuse is serious and documented (Hackbarth). We commend law enforcement agencies for all efforts that succeed in reducing the amount or severity of drug-related crime in their communities. But when their efforts to reduce crime move from police action into the realm of public discourse, the artifacts that they create become subject to analysis and critique. Such discursive artifacts are a rhetorical display, competing for our attention, demonstrating a version of reality, and asserting claims about the world (Prelli). This article evaluates rhetorical choices made by the producers of the “Drugs Destroy Lives” message. We argue that greater attention to best practices in public health, document design, and rhetoric can yield better documents. We encourage law enforcement agencies to work with technical and health communication programs in their areas to maximize the impact of their rhetorical displays. Their messages can be ethical with respect to meeting professional obligations, while simultaneously enhancing their credibility or ethos.
Responses to “Drugs Destroy Lives”
During a discussion of visual document design, Kathryn Northcut brought the Drugs Destroy Lives billboard to the attention of her undergraduate class at Missouri S&T in Rolla, Missouri. After observing negative student reactions to the design, she started to consider the rhetorical mechanisms and effects of the design. With its haunting depiction of a blue face against a high-contrast red background, and strident proclamation that “Drugs Destroy Lives,” the message seemed overdone in tone, yet lacking in appeal. Recognizing the limited value of one single response to a single artifact, Northcut and four other rhetoric scholars (Arduser, Fountain, Gigante, and Welhausen) wrote independent analyses that we collaboratively compiled to represent an expert point of view on both the billboard and the challenges of creating documents to reach at-risk drug users.
In short, our responses to the billboard were universally negative. We were neither alone nor first in that assessment. Buzzfeed author Matt Stopera summed up the design with sarcasm: “Brilliant. An ad campaign that could save a generation.” As one of us reported, the design scares, which it was perhaps intended to do. Our responses were not focused on addiction or drugs, but rather criticism of the design, in terms that included “visual disaster,” “shocking,” and “an abomination.” As scholars, we examined those judgments using our arsenal of critical rhetorical tools. We focus our evaluation on three areas: the face, the message, and the design.
Characterization of “the Face” by Monty Guy
The most provocative element in the design is the surrealistic image of the face. Described as “blue,” “distraught,” “extraterrestrial,” “human,” and “inhuman,” the face comes from a painting called “Schism” by artist Monty Guy (Saincome). The face is so odd that the image technology (its type, or genre) is not clear; while it is a painting, it is also mis-identified as a photograph. Guy's hyperrealistic style blurs distinctions between paintings and photographs. Rhetorically, hyperrealism conveys an overwhelming presence and immediacy of the surreal image through both placement in the billboard design and through the medium of illustration itself. Guy's oeuvre is typified by hyperrealistic counter-culture imagery. A portrait of a person holding a gun to his head is currently Guy's Facebook cover photo; tattooed babies and a portrait titled “Let's Be Blunt,” depicting a woman smoking a marijuana cigarette, are available for purchase on the montyguycreates.com website.
Through his depiction of the human-like yet not-quite-human face, Guy offers us a version of reality that has a more intense effect than an actual photograph or realistic painting of a human. Jean Baudrillard, a postmodern critic, identifies such representations as copies without originals; Umberto Eco warns of a false reality that we consume as if it is real. Guy's painting provides a sensational, shocking image, replacing any actual-yet-mundane images we might associate with drug use, rendering reality pointless. The use of the image by law enforcement agencies supplants the reality of drug use with an altogether different narrative. Their story offers a haggard face, destroyed by drugs, juxtaposed to symbols of compassionate yet faceless agencies.
Whole-Message Interpretations
As rhetoricians, we fixate on questions of audience and message. Audiences are persuaded when they identify with a message, perceiving that their concerns are the rhetor's concerns. This billboard forges a sense of identification not with the potential or current drug user who may need the help, but between law enforcement and the community concerned with drug abuse. The caption “Drugs Destroy Lives” is so overblown (hyperbole) that it seems to oversimplify the reality of the community's drug issues in the same way as other platitudes: “A stitch in time saves nine!” True, perhaps, but not all stitches, not all times, and not necessarily nine. The reality is that not all drugs destroy all lives, but this design asserts that the damage from drugs is absolute and irreversible.
Similar critiques of the ineffectiveness of national anti-drug campaigns have been published in the public health literature (for example, see Fishbein et al. and Kelder et al.). The consensus is that testing of public health messages for effects on target audiences is essential; the process can include expert review, focus groups, and both experimental and quasi-experimental studies (Kelder et al.). National campaigns ideally employ testing of large numbers of participants, and they examine metrics such as perceived realism, learning of message, and negative and positive emotional responses (Fishbein et al.).
Especially in the absence of such pre-distribution research, messages risk miscommunication. Drug users may fail to identify with the words “Drugs Destroy Lives” and “We care” as much as with the painted image in the picture. Attempts to reach drug users themselves (ostensibly, a logical target audience) would need to be couched in the needs, experiences, and viewpoints of that audience. A call to action should exist; such a statement would clarify the message by pointing directly to the drug user or addict as the primary audience. In stasis theory terms, a call to action is a higher order stasis than stating of facts and purporting consequences. For example, the reader might be exhorted to “call 555-DRUG for help now!” Perhaps, because of the realities of drug-related convictions and sentencing, amnesty or protection from prosecution could be offered as an enticement to seek help. Such information would provide a clearer answer to the question, “care about what?”
Ultimately, the message that law enforcement cares about the drug user is damaged by the image and the platitude “We care.” Coming below such an incredulous message, the assertion that “law enforcement cares” risks trivializing both the drug user and the law enforcement agencies. While the agencies may profess to care about a drug addict, their concern will not help the fictional subject depicted; public audiences might reasonably expect law enforcement personnel to take specific and direct action benefitting real people in the community.
The prominence of the “We care” message before the list of badges centralizes the law enforcement agencies' roles in the message, and acts as a signature connoting authorship of the billboard message. The billboard's promotional purpose overshadows its altruistic public-health message; rather than reaching out to affected members of the community, the billboard employs the drug problem as a vehicle for self-promotion by the law enforcement agencies. Those agencies risk losing credibility if viewers perceive them as exploiting the drug problem for their own public relations purposes.
Visual Design Flaws
All authors commented on the document design strategies employed in the billboard. Garish colors, automatically generated effects such as gradients and blurred edges, and decorative fonts (one is outlined Papyrus) prompted a wide spectrum of negative comments. As instructors of document design, some of us went so far as to suggest that the design was slapped together, amateurish, and problematic even as a draft.
Simple, high-impact messages need both imagery and typography that contribute to gravitas, a sense of importance. While the gravitas-heavy Haettenschweiler would be an equally poor choice for different reasons, a professional, bold font could be chosen for the text once the problems with the phrasing were resolved. To convey a stronger sense of empathy, a concrete image that the law enforcement agencies actually do care about might be depicted. A carefully chosen photograph of a person rather than a hyperrealistic painting may be more effective.
Conclusion
Best practices for rhetorical display exist in the fields of public health, document design, and technical communication. While our interpretations are informed by our experience with similar artifacts and reports of anti-drug message testing (such as by Schriver), we would consider “Drugs Destroy Lives” to be an object lesson for the importance of tapping into the best practices of expert domains when developing literature for public display.
The Drugs Destroy Lives billboard represents a missed opportunity for local agencies to tap into local talent for improved outcomes. The opportunity, however, is not the responsibility of the police alone. Students and faculty at universities can actively seek partnerships in the community, and clearly law enforcement provides some high-stakes and highly visible challenges. We suggest several potential collaborative scenarios:
- Agency officials partner with students in communications courses to invent, test, and implement public service campaigns.
- Students in document design courses create prototypes of designs for review by agency officials.
- Students in research methods courses conduct interviews, focus groups, and surveys about public service announcements prior to release of final versions.
- Members of student STC chapters partner with municipal agencies to design, test, and implement public documents including websites and billboards.
- Local agencies, students, and professionals in the community team up to launch campaigns that effectively reach at-risk populations in their areas.
Especially in moments of increased tension between law enforcement and the public, and when hot-button topics like drug abuse are concerned, technical communicators have obvious and valuable contributions to make in the realm of public discourse.
This collaborative effort took root at the 2014 Rocky Mountain Writer's Retreat in Grand Lake, Colorado, organized by Amy Koerber. Editorial guidance from Derek Ross improved the article considerably.
KATHRYN NORTHCUT is associate professor at Missouri University of Science and Technology. LORA ARDUSER is assistant professor at the University of Cincinnati. T. KENNY FOUNTAIN is associate professor at Case Western Reserve. MARIA GIGANTE is assistant professor at Western Michigan University. CANDICE WELHAUSEN is assistant professor at the University of Delaware
References
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Eco, Umberto. 1986. Travels in Hyperreality. New York: Harcourt Brace & Company.
Fishbein, Martin, Kathleen Hall-Jamieson, Eric Zimmer, Ina von Haeften, and Robin Nabi. February 2002. “Avoiding the Boomerang: Testing the Relative Effectiveness of Antidrug Public Service Announcements Before a National Campaign.” American Journal of Public Health, 92.2: 238–245.
Hackbarth, Paul. 2012. “Law Enforcement Agencies Using Billboard for Anti-drug Campaign.” The Rolla Daily News, 18 October. Accessed 25 November 2014. www.therolladailynews.com/article/20121018/News/121018765.
Kelder, Steven H., Cornelia Pechmann, Michael D. Slate, John. K. Worden, and Alan Levitt. August 2002. “The National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign.” American Journal of Public Health, 92.8: 1211–1212.
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Saincome, Matt. 2012. “This Exhibition Goes to 11: Art Inspired by Metal Bands, Satan.” SF Weekly, 9 August. Accessed 25 November 2014. www.sfweekly.com/exhibitionist/2012/08/09/this-exhibition-goes-to-11-art-inspired-by-metal-bands-satan.
Schriver, Karen. 1997. Dynamics in Document Design. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Stopera, Matt. 2013. “The Rolla, Missouri, Police Department's Incredibly Effective Anti-Drug Campaign.” BuzzFeed, 4 March. Accessed 25 November 2 014. www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/the-rolla-missouris-police-departments-incredibly-effective.
