The broken windows theory was introduced in 1982 by James Q.
Wilson that suggests that policing methods that target minor crimes such as
vandalism, public drinking, and fare evasion help to create an atmosphere of order
and lawfulness, thereby preventing more serious crimes. Apart from the evolution
of the original theory and policing methods, this theory can be implemented in
society general that can have an effect on individuals eventually.
The background of choosing our topic
The poster we designed to publicly display in the curriculum integration
exhibition is supposed to deliver a simple message that simply reflects
the broken windows theory in light of important events that are either
relatable or quite fresh in the news. We chose to portray a few issues
that are continuously happening due to negligence, fear of taking action
and/or not being chosen to be talked about.
At first I took an individual angle of talking about the stigmatization with
rape cases and victims in the society and handling them through law
enforcement. There were loopholes or blank spaces that couldn’t be filled
and overall made the idea of the portrayal of this concept rather weak.
Hence, the idea of taking a few relevant events that can feature the necessity
of this theory seemed the right direction to head towards.
The generalized concept was suggested by Jabir and including the sub-topics
of focusing on flame incited slum areas, rape victims and the conditions
of Geneva Camp were provided by Adib and me. The five of us that are
in the team agreed upon this concept due to its relevance and expected a
clear message to showcase what negligence can do to society.
The title “Act, Forget, Repeat” is simply thought provoking, and thus
conveys a simple but effective message. The purpose is to bring the
audience into a thought process and to incite engagement for being
conscious about their actions and actively participating to better the
society rather than just playing pretend.
My Role in this project
Since our poster is informative, I wanted to keep precise text and enough visuals
to keep it simple and crisp. I engaged in as much research as possible and
analyzed a lot of pictures to use the perfect ones that would go with the
theme without being disrespectful or imposing any harm on anyone.
I determined that my target audience would be centered amongst the
mainstreamers, the aspirers and just the general public. Choosing the
appropriate pictures, the proper caption, the most recent statistical data and
events that portrayed long term negligence ensured that the poster would be
valid and visually understandable. I also worked with a graphic designer
to keep the alignment correct in all directions and to arrange the images with
text in a timeline format and proper sequence.
I also observed the interviewees and listened to the public dialogue that Jabir
and Fahad recorded during the presentation. Whilst most of the feedback
was positive as people expressed that our poster significantly went with the
essence of broken windows theory, some of the opinions made me realize
that the pictures of the slum areas in fire could’ve been given a more specific angle.
The principles of PR implemented
After evaluating the feedback from the public dialogue taken during the
interview session, I can confidently tell that the message we wanted to put
out there was successfully conveyed among the set target audience.
Because we kept in mind the purpose and used easy language - the audience
articulated that they had a realization that negligence actually leads to more
and continuous disasters.
The message has been successfully communicated through our simple poster
design and the interview sessions went smoothly for our evaluation.
It also helped to realize that people want more specific angles to understand
an incident being portrayed, especially through the usage of photographs.
In this project for academic purposes, from the beginning till
the actual digital presentation of this project has been going according to the
set strategy to fulfill the objectives. I believe in terms of PR ethics, we
maintained clarity, did not use pictures that would be disrespectful or harming
anybody and gave an idea of where the barrier lies to implement proper broken
windows theory. We kept it honest and promoted awareness through an
informative campaign.