Civil Catamount Campaign
During the Spring 2021 semester at Western Carolina University, I was partnered with four other senior PR students to research, create and begin to implement civil discourse on a college campus. I worked alongside other PR students to research civil discourse. I was in charge of creating a hypothetical radio advertisement for the university’s radio station, creating a workshop banner and handout, presenting our research, and using the PESO model. Aligning my focus on the comprehensive research, I focused on the 2020 Presidential election and how social media can fuel civil discourse and its impact on the community.
I was in charge of the initial research in society that could potentially lead to uncivil discourse on campus. The research that I found led me to focus on the 2020 election with political points of view, how social media influences uncivil communication and can affect the civil discourse within a community, Trump's Twitter Ban that was a result of the Capital Riot, how race and racism are never-ending data in civil discourse.
Within the research conducted, I included the research I completed from the other institutions to identify any differences in approach or standards between the various schools. I found that Western’s hiring of Ricardo Nazario y Colon as the chief diversity officer has paid immediate dividends as he authored diversity workshops and events which were developed largely upon reviewing the programs instituted by Clemson, Harvard, and National Campaign for Political and Civic Engagement studies.
I assisted with the Let's Talk Civility workshop. We created the banner using our schools trademark color patterns to promote the workshop as a credible, school supported program using Adobe and Canva to create the banner.
Using the university's colors, I created a flyer that would be handed out at the workshop for attendees to learn the 5 "W's" (who, what, why, when and where) and the "How" of Civil Discourse.
By using the radio advertisement as a tactic in our campaign, I created a skit for radio advertisement.
In our Takeaway portion of the #CivilCatamount Campaign, the realization that in order to create a platform for civil discourse, uncivil discourse needs to be addressed.