Evolving Ideas Essay: Rough Draft

Introduction:

When you think of societal artifacts portraying mental health struggles, what do you think of? You probably think of the movies: “One Flew Over the Coocoo’s Nest” or “Good Will Hunting”. These are impactful movies which obviously bring a lot of awareness to the severity of mental health issues. But, you probably don’t realize the drastic difference between the types of treatment in both films, and how this reflects society’s approach to mental health treatment over the years. As recently as 80 years ago, mentally ill patients were forced to live in asylums (like One Flew Over the CooCoo’s Nest) in which the treatment was often inhumane. But today, we know that most people struggling with mental health are typically treated in an outpatient capacity  (like Good Will Hunting ) through medication and consistent therapy. So, how did our country arrive at this drastically less severe and judged method of treatment for mental health when it used to be so different? Many factors contributed to this drastic change and all are equally important to consider when considering this evolution. Political and social reform movements (as well as the advocates within each movement), and the creation of new medication with the growing knowledge in medical fields through new technology influenced this evolution. 

Analysis Point: 

  • address 3 reform movement eras, along with reformers
    • the moral treatment era
    • community support reform era
    • community mental health movement and deinstitutionalization
  • discovery/development of new medications to regulate mental health
    • lithium was first medicine and gateway to inspire more to be developed
    • discuss how development led to more outpatient treatment
  • development of new technologies
    • MRIs, fMRIs*, EEGs
    • discuss fMRIs more in depth, allowed for insight into patient’s psychological effects from their mental illness as they perform certain tasks, seeing which area of the brain each task stimulates

Conclusion: 

These factors have all had a major influence in shifting the ideology surrounding mental health struggles, which has been especially important in recent years during and after Covid. The options for outpatient mental health treatment (through therapy and medication) allowed people to still receive treatment, despite the restrictions our country experienced during the height of this disease. The forced and unexpected isolation caused by Covid sent many people into a severe mental health decline. Without the advancements made through these major advances in mindset, movements, and technologies there is no way to tell how many individuals would be silently struggling. Positive mental health is crucial now in the aftermath of Covid since our country cannot afford to move backwards, with people struggling now more than ever.  Yet regardless of the incredible strides we have made, there is still so much more that needs to be done to get our country to a completely unstigmatized view of mental health. Suicide rates are still increasing yearly in our country, and people are still scared to find help for their struggles. So how can we fully rid society of this stigma, which can become deadly if not cured,? Or the better question may be: if we don’t keep moving forward, don’t we run the risk of moving backwards? As history has shown us, that is something we just can’t afford.

Evolving Ideas Outline: Thesis and Literature

Working Thesis: Political and social reform movements (as well as the advocates within each movement), and the creation of new medication with the growing knowledge in medical fields through new technology influenced the evolution of mental health treatment.

Literature/History/Theory Review:

The literature that I am focusing on for this project are a number of articles from reputable websites, providing valuable insight into this evolution. One website I have found includes the specific medications developed over time for mental health struggles, and how this influenced the overall accessibility and standard of treatment. I additionally found another website which goes into detail describing which eras in history were geared toward changing mental health treatment, which is providing me with a lot of valuable insight into how influencers in specific time periods encouraged a given change. Finally, I found a third article giving me detailed descriptions of case studies and experiments which helped them develop new technologies over time to examine psychological evidence of mental illness. It also explains that as time goes on, these scientists continue to expand their knowledge to ensure these technological tests continue evolving. All of these pieces of literature will be very useful as research for my essay in providing me with vast pieces of information to compile from.

The history that went into initiating this revolution was the realization that the treatment in place for mental health at the time was inhumane to say the least. Prior to movements and developments in technologies or medications, individuals who suffered from mental illness were thought of to be “possessed”. In an effort to rid these “possessions” that individuals in power perceived mental health struggles as, they would perform awful, cruel and even lethal methods of treatment. These methods included ice water immersions, beatings, and even the drilling of holes in patients skulls, all because they thought the individuals were possessed, not in need of medical attention. Once reformers were introduced to this inhumane treatment, they ignited an immediate spark to initiate this change.

The theory behind this revolution, is that if these individuals struggling with mental illness were treated in a much safer and more peaceful setting, that the patient’s therefore would improve much faster in contrast to when they endure the inhumane treatment they had been experiencing.

 

Evolving Ideas Essay Introduction

For my essay, I am wanting to pursue the topic of evaluating how and why the treatment of mental health has evolved over time.I have discovered in preliminary research that many aspects went into this change, but the main one that stands out are the political and social reforms made through the advocates of each time. The other points of analysis that I will focus on are the technological developments made over time, and advancements in the medical community. My main point of change that will be emphasized will be the three major eras introduced in my introduction to frame my essay, and show the reader that it was a long process to arrive at the treatment we see today, and that each era impacted the evolution differently.

The Theory For Visual Rhetoric

The article that specifically intrigued me was the one titled “Images in Advertising- The Need For a Theory of Visual Rhetoric.” This article was interesting due to the vast detail they gave of common mistakes made by advertisements, and how they are avoided by those who wrote them. Most of these were very useful in providing me with useful insight for analyzing my own advertisement of choice through the specific stylistic choices noted in the analysis of the multiple advertisements provided.

The section that really stood out to me in particular though was the section titled “The Case Against Copy Theory” which provides the reader with multiple seemingly minute but truly significant examples of the types of effects our vision can have on our cognitive perception of a given ad. The author explains “The Cultural Bias for Seeing” as an example as the idea that seeing is something that is learned by an individual over time through the social environment they are exposed to, or the experiences they’ve had. When visualizing an advertisement our eyes automatically transmit the image we see into our brains, and an automatic association is made with that image based on our past exposure and experiences, which overall affects how the individual interprets the information within that artifact. This was very insightful for me to learn, since it shows the thought that goes into advertisements, and also provides me with the knowledge all visuals are made to intentionally appeal to a specific audience. This gives me more information to go off in my future analysis of artifacts.

 

Another section that stood out was the one titled “Cameras and Convection”. This section focuses on the realization by the audience that some images represent reality and some are just manufactured to mirror reality. They use the example of a video of a tiger running across a screen not invoking the same danger as an x-ray scan, and this is largely due to context. This was very intriguing to me because again, this proves how much our visual interpretation is connected to our cognitive perception of a given image, and is definitely also thoroughly considered by those creating advertisements. This also provides me with more knowledge of what to analyze when it comes to visual artifacts in the future.

Overall, the information in this article was very insightful and I look forward to putting the knowledge I learned to use.

Rhetorical Analysis Introduction:

 

Link To Civic Artifact : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2T-Rh838GA&themeRefresh=1

What’s the first thing you notice when you see a photo that was just taken of you? Most of you probably gravitate towards focusing on your imperfections, and not your beauty. “My forehead’s too big. My eyes look improportionate. I look awkward.” All of these thoughts and more are constantly going through our mind as humans, but what we don’t realize is how much of an increase social media adds to this self-criticism. Now, instead of keeping our photos to oursleves we have to decide weather or not to share them with the public eye for approval. This approval can come through likes, comments or shares, and the growing accesibility of this judgement for the younger generation can be damaging to their self-esteem and mental health. Following covid, the use of technology and media increased rapidly leading to this issue only getting larger. Certain campaigns chose to call attention to this issue in connection to their products in their advertizements. Dove has done this for example through their  “Reverse Selfie” commercial. This commercial shows an end result of the girl’s selfie, but that’s just the beginning of the story. This civic artifact then goes through the reversed process of this girl getting ready, and through this visual rhetoric it is emphasized how much teens self-esteem is linked to how they appear on social media. This artifact is also very impactful in regards to kairos since it was released at the height of covid, where this issue was most prevalent in children. Dove features a child in this ad to relate to both the teen and older audience, using their platform to truly call attention to this issue. This artifact is very impactful civically and can be further examined.  

One major analysis point:

The use of a child as the protagonist to convey urgency of message to both older and younger audience.

Reflection: Civil Artifact Speech

Overall, while I definitely think there are areas within the performance of my speech that need improvement, I overall am very happy with the content and delivery of evidence within my speech.  

 

I really took my time in examining the reasoning behind the artifact since I was so passionate about the message it was reflecting to the audience and was genuinely curious why it was created and enforced in the way it was. I researched many different sources and websites advocating for this Green Ribbon Campaign, and in doing this I feel as though I gained many discovered and discussed many different aspects that make this ribbon overall so impactful and categorizes it as a civic arifact. I did make a large effort to connect my points, and really appreciated my reviewer noticing that aspect of my speech and complimenting me for it. While this was difficult since the different aspects of this artifact invoke different types of emotions and commonplaces within the audience, but I do believe it was impactful to show how these points all connected to show the true civic engagement behind this artifact.  

 

I did need to improve on the delivery of my speech though (as suggested by my reviewer as well). This was due to the fact that I let my nerves become too apparent not only in my voice, but in my stature as well during certain parts of the speech such as various points where I had lack of connection with my audience. In the future I do believe there will be many ways in which I can improve on this though. The main change I think I need to make in the future is providing myself with more information in my notecards rather than heavily paraphrasing and focusing primarily on my memory. When watching other speakers, most of the best ones were not afraid to look down at their notecards and take a breath at the beginning of each new thought, which ended up being highly effective in keeping their point focused, and keeping themselves on track. These are the speakers that I noticed were most impactful in convincing the audience how their speech was impactful, which is why I believe this would be a useful skill for me to inhibit in the future.  

 

So while I am happy with my speech, there are definitely many areas where I could improve and I look forward to using this experince to help me with my public speaking further in the future.  

Civic Artifact Speech Progress:

First Draft:

Did you know that 46% of Americans will meet the criteria for a diagnosable mental health condition sometime in their life, and half those people will develop these conditions by the age of 14? Most of you were probably unaware of this eye-opening statistic just like so many of the individuals plagued by any of these mental illnesses are unaware they have it at all. That means that more likely than not, statistically speaking almost half of our university is struggling mentally, whether they realize it or not.

Yet, there is still an enormous amount of negative stigma attached to mental health issues, so the green ribbon campaign was created to address this. They created this green ribbon to encourage people to discuss mental health more openly, creating safe spaces for people to share their struggles. Although, the National Mental Health Association declared May as Mental Health Month in 1949, there was no visual reminder associated with this month until 2007 when the Green Ribbon was introduced. This symbol has great significance from its design to its outreach and purpose.

The main aspect that makes this artifact stand out in my opinion is the compelling and intentional visual rhetoric within the symbol itself. To emphasize the purpose of eliminating stigma surrounding mental health this ribbon was assigned the color green. This was done because back in the 1800s, the color green was used in hospitals and other medical institutions to label someone as “insane” when they had a mental issue to any degree. This symbol was created to flip this bias and make the audience realize that green can symbolize feeling safe with your thoughts, and not ashamed by your feelings in contrast to how those individuals labeled with the color green felt judged. This component of visual rhetoric is incredibly impactful to the reader in specifying what individuals should think of when they see green, and to switch the common intuition that whoever is wearing a ribbon this color is not insane, but rather healing.

Another effective aspect of visual rhetoric within this artifact was the choice to design this artifact in shape as a simple ribbon. As Americans, one of the main symbols we recognize when it comes to health are the various ribbons assigned to represent various physical health conditions, whether they are chronic or short-term diseases. These ribbons also invoke a lot of emotion due to the common knowledge that whenever a group is assigned a ribbon they are struggling in some way. So through the creation of this artifact in the shape of a ribbon, anyone who sees it will have the automatic association not only that the issue the individual supports is of importance but that it is necessary to bring awareness to. The strong emotion evoked by this ribbon is an example of this artifact reaching the audience through pathos as well, since this is a relevant issue currently in our population. This I believe was impactful in emphasizing the true possible severity of these mental health conditions, and in further eliminating the stigma of mental health since these ribbons can be easily placed in any area, since its shape is so distinctive, and size is so small both of which invoke a major amount of common emotion.

How can these tiny ribbons really be enforced as important enough to the public though that they will participate in wearing it? The purpose behind the ribbon, and the way members of the campaign enforce the importance of wearing it to raise awareness is the main way the artifact is impactful. Many of the main advocates for this artifact are expanding their outreach through handing these ribbons out with small notes attached in many companies, and schools across the country throughout the year especially through mental health month. The encouragement and easy accessibility of these ribbons in the everyday places they associate with heightens the likelihood of individuals paying attention to the symbol and going on to read the message. The growing accessibility also helps to further instill within our population that mental health is not something an individual should feel the need to hide from others, but rather embrace it in order to get help and inevitably eliminate that stigma around mental health altogether.

The only criticism I do have in regard to this artifact’s outreach is that they do not focus much of it toward the younger, elementary level population. If the accessibility to the ribbon, and the enforcement was taught in school from a young age when children’s brains have the highest flexibility to absorb information, I think this would vastly reduce the risk of them developing undiagnosed mental illnesses in the future.

But with every artifact there are inevitable areas necessary for improvement. Yet, after examining this artifact in relation to other mental health symbols it is clear based on the pathos, commonplace, and visual rhetoric involved in this artifact’s outreach that makes it so impactful. So what would happen if everyone wore these ribbons? Would the stigma still be gone? Or would there still be work to be done?

MAIN CHANGES
The main aspect of my speech I knew I had to change was its length. In my second draft I purposely read through it out loud to know which areas I should shorten, and how to make my overall speech make more sense to the audience.

Final Draft:

Did you know that 46% of Americans will meet the criteria for a diagnosable mental health condition sometime in their life, and of that half will develop these conditions by the age of 14? That means that statistically, almost half of our university’s students are struggling mentally, whether they realize it or not. Most of you were probably unaware of this eye-opening statistic just like so many of the individuals plagued by any of these mental illnesses are unaware they have one at all.
Yet, there is still an enormous amount of negative stigma attached to mental health issues, so the green ribbon campaign was created to address this. They created this green ribbon to encourage people to discuss mental health more openly, creating safe spaces for people to share their struggles. Although the National Mental Health Association declared May as Mental Health Month in 1949, there was no visual reminder associated with this month until 2007 when the Green Ribbon was introduced. This symbol has great significance from its design to its outreach and purpose.

The main aspect that makes this artifact stand out in my opinion is the compelling, intentional visual rhetoric within the symbol itself. To emphasize the purpose of eliminating stigma surrounding mental health, this ribbon was assigned the color green. This was done because in the 1800s, the color green was used on charts in hospitals and other medical institutions to label someone “insane” when they had a mental issue of any kind. This green ribbon symbol was created in an effort to flip this bias and make the audience realize that green can symbolize feeling safe with your thoughts, and not ashamed by your feelings, as those individuals a century ago felt judged. This component of visual rhetoric is incredibly impactful to the reader in specifying what individuals should think of when they see green. It switches the common intuition related to health symbolism that green represents someone diagnosed “insane” but rather the half of our population that’s healing from any struggle.
Another effective aspect of visual rhetoric within this artifact is the shape being a simple ribbon. As Americans, we recognize that ribbons symbolize awareness of health issues, as various ribbons are assigned to represent physical health conditions, whether they are chronic or short-term diseases. These ribbons also invoke a lot of emotion due to the common knowledge that whenever a group is assigned a ribbon they are struggling in some way. So, through creating this artifact in the shape of a ribbon, anyone who sees it will automatically know that the issue is important and requires awareness. The strong emotion evoked by this ribbon and the commonplace of knowledge in association is an example of this artifact reaching the audience through pathos as well, since it’s currently affecting so many in our population. This was impactful in emphasizing the potential severity of these mental health conditions. The ribbon further eliminates the stigma of mental health since the shape is so distinctive, and the size is small, both of which invoke a major amount of common emotion.
But how can these tiny ribbons really communicate the incredible importance of the mental health awareness message to the public? The purpose behind the ribbon, and the way members of the campaign enforce the importance of wearing it to raise awareness, is the main way the artifact is impactful. Advocates for this artifact are expanding their outreach by handing these ribbons out with small notes attached. They are handed out in many companies, and schools across the country throughout the year and especially through the mental health month of May. The encouragement and easy accessibility of these ribbons in everyday places heightens the likelihood of individuals to pay attention to the symbol and to go on to read the message. The growing accessibility in itself also helps to further instill within our population that mental health is not something an individual should feel the need to hide from others, but rather embrace it in order to get help and inevitably eliminate that stigma around mental health altogether.
The only criticism I do have in regard to this artifact’s outreach is that they do not focus much of it toward the younger, elementary level population. Remember that startling statistic: half of those with mental health issues will develop these conditions by the age of 14. If the accessibility to the ribbon, and the enforcement was taught in school from a young age when children’s brains have the highest flexibility to absorb information and when these issues first surface, I think this would vastly reduce the risk of children developing undiagnosed mental illnesses in the future.

With every artifact there are inevitable areas necessary for improvement. Yet, after examining this artifact in relation to other mental health symbols it is clear that the pathos, commonplace, and visual rhetoric involved in this artifact’s outreach are what makes it so impactful. So what would happen if everyone wore these ribbons? Would the stigma still be gone? Or will there always be more work to be done? I hope we have the opportunity to find that out in the future.

Below are images of the first round of changes I made when analyzing changes to make to my first draft for my final one:

Can a Ribbon Evoke Emotion?

Elevator Pitch for Civic Artifact Speech: 

If someone were to ask you how you are right now what would you say? Most of you would probably say “I’m fine” but also most of you would, at least partially be lying. Did you know that the average adult in our country would answer this question using this answer 14 times throughout a given week but only 19% mean it. This provides a small insight into how prevalent mental health issues at any level are in our country and proves why campaigns are being formed with artifacts like the Green Ribbon representing the urgency to address this issue.

This campaign was launched in 2007 to bring awareness to the elimination of stigma around mental health. They were successful in reaching the audience in a way no previous artifact did through the specificity and simplicity of the design, the pathos involved with the message of the ribbon, and through the commonplace involved in the shape of the ribbon, symbolizing whatever it represents is of importance.

This will be interesting to explore because while this symbol has proven successful in gaining awareness for this major issue in America, there are still a large number of people unaware that there is even a health ribbon of this color. So, has this campaign broken the stigma enough or are they only scratching the surface of getting Americans the help they need?
Thank you.

 

How Pathos Amplifies Trust

Trust plays a large and important role in todays society, especially in governmental practices and it is increasingly becoming more and more difficult for citizens to trust those in power. So how do the few individuals who are effective in making change and getting the majority of citizens to agree on whether or not an issue or event is significant? In my opinion the use of Pathos is the most effective way in which a speaker can reach their audience and/or convince them to trust in what they want the audience to believe.

Ancient philosopher, Aristotle introduced three concepts that he believed directly influenced a speakers ability to gain the audience’s trust, and that was the use of Ethos, Pathos, and Logos. These three terms refer to specific elements used by speakers that are included in their speeches to convince an audience to believe something specific, each appealing to a different area of influence in humans. Logos refers to the logic (or supporting evidence to an argument) used in speeches, Ethos refers to the credibility of the speaker, and Pathos refers to the strong emotion both of the speaker, and recognition of whichever strong emotion the audience may have.

When examining all three of these concepts and how they specifically influence an individual’s ability to trust, Pathos without a doubt struck out to me as the most effective means to convince an audience that a speaker is trustworthy. This is due to the fact that Pathos is undoubtedly essential in any speech, despite if the speaker is credible or not and even if they include an excess amount of logical information to support the argument; both are ultimately not effective without considering the emotion of the audience, and deciding how best to approach convincing the audience a certain way while taking that into consideration.

One speech that I specifically remember sticking out to me was each speech included in the documentary on Netflix titled the Social Dilemma. This film explores the dangers that social media and technology have cultivated in our society, along with reasons why our society must become aware of these dangers fast before it is too late to reverse the effects this growing technology has on individuals.

There were multiple speeches included in this film that were all made by profoundly credible speakers who worked directly in tech industries and had logical information supporting their argument. Yet what truly stuck out to me and made each speech so memorable was the emotion attached to the arguments.

You could see the fear, and worry in each speakers eyes as they spoke on the topic. The urgency they felt necessary to fix this rapidly growing issue of advancing technology was not only highlighted in the language carefully cultivated by the speaker to convince the audience that it is in society’s best interest as a whole to fix and stay on top of this issue, but also through their facial expressions as they used this powerful language.

Due to the power that emotions have to persuade an audience no matter what the argument is, I believe that when it comes to trust in our society, citizens most respond when their emotions are appealed to (and when Pathos is utilized).

Tech Makes Life Easier! Or Does It?

A response to How ChatGPT Hijacks Democracy:

With the inevitable rise of technology as time progresses, there are constantly advances being made that are created to make our ability for democratic outreach more “cost efficient”. But the threat that most of these new technological advances pose is that they limit the ability for the everyday citizens to participate in civic engagement. As a society we must be aware of this danger due to the fact that the companies who create this technology promote that their products actually expand the ability for public participation in democracy. This article specifically discusses the rise of the new chatbot, ChatGPT which has the ability to automatically respond to posts, create letters, and cultivate emails that appear to be eerily similar to humans. This poses the overall threat that AI can eventually fully replace humans in practices like lobbying, but there are many other dangers associated with this new product as well.

This poses such a large threat to our democracy in terms of true civic engagement due to the fact that in order to successfully vitalize this  technology, you must have the money to purchase the right technology to really utilize its benefits enough for it to be ultimately cost and time efficient. This significantly limits the ability for citizens to fulfill their right as a participatory member of their community (which is what it truly means to be a citizen overall). This also significantly limits the freedom for public involvement in democracy if they cannot afford the means to keep up with the current political outreach system (if ChatGPT’s influence continues to grow). This is why overall we can see why the overlapping issue of AI taking over not only the larger lobbying corporations but the role of everyday participatory citizens is so dangerous in the future of our society and the amount of involvement accessible.

As this technology continues to grow, so does the importance of civic awareness. This is due to the fact that new technology such as ChatGPT can be misconceived as convenient due to the time efficiency it proposes and the easy accessibility it is seen to have due to it being an appliance of technology (which is associated with being easily available to the public). This article states in relation to this that “…maybe this kind of strategy-generating AI could revitalize the democratization of democracy by giving this kind of lobbying power to the powerless.” While this seems like a very appealing concept when it is promoted this way (similar to the way the manufacturers of these products promote them) it does not take into account that with the rise of this technology, its use, and accessibility comes a significant rise in the likeliness of new technology to continue to come along that is not as cost effective, and therefore only accessible to those of the higher class who may not have the perspective of every citizen in mind when using this technology to influence democracy.

Overall, while the discovery of new technological innovations created to make life “easier” and increase the ability for citizens to influence government may seem highly beneficial in the future of our society, the negatives are just as important to take into consideration.