Gordon's Visual Analysis

Montana Meth Project PSA

Context – I found this image looking through a web browser, but it was originally posted on the Montana Meth Project’s website, www.montanameth.org. They inspired a national organization, whose site is www.notevenonce.com. The organization publicized this image in various print media, such as billboards, newspapers and the internet. The images creator claims to target Montana youth ages 12-17. So while the intended audience seems to be teenagers, the myriad media used ensure a much wider actual audience. Given their policy statement, they are focused overridingly on preventing first-time use. This is reiterated by their motto “Not Even Once.” Thus, they’re focused on potential meth users far more than they’re focused on current meth users.

Emotions – This image seems to be soliciting several emotions related to fear and sadness. The visual components seem to achieve this through contrast to the words. The audience momentarily glances at the worried look on one girl’s face. This evokes slight apprehension and tenseness by stimulating our human capacity for empathy (ex. mirror neutrons). But the image largely serves to set a visual “tone” that the text contradicts. The text on the right side is bright and consistent, which parallels its content. The lipstick also sets a somewhat lighthearted tone. This tone is changed dramatically by the broken, blotchy text to the right: “Now we share hepatitis and HIV”. The second sentence seems to provoke stronger feelings of fear as well as some degree of horror. By contrasting these two, relatively healthy-looking young women with such powerful text, the image invokes strong feelings of alarm, shock and dismay. The viewer feels alarmed and shocked at the calamity that the second sentence implies. They also feel dismay and hopelessness, because the young girls are condemned to suffer though incurable, deadly diseases.

Behavior – This image, doubtlessly, inspires the viewer to abstain from doing methamphetamines. It also serves to increase awareness of the risks of intravenous drug abuse, and may encourage current meth users to quit. Principally, though, it’s aimed at getting the audience to never try meth-not even once.

Interpretation – The link between the affect and the behavior is rather straightforward. The audience’s feelings of fear and sadness are intended to translate into a belief that meth is destructive, in general, and sharing needles is worse. It is suggested, implicitly, that meth use and sharing needles are inseparable (that is, everyone who does meth shares needles). This serves to remove a layer of insulation from the feelings of fear and sadness (viewers can’t reassure themselves that they might do meth, but never share needles). In a nutshell, this image invokes the following interpretation: Meth use leads to IV drug use. IV drug use leads to sharing needles. Sharing needles leads to HIV and hepatitis. Hepatitis and HIV lead to death. But all of this happens so instantaneously that the only conscious interpretation would be “If I try meth, I’m going to end up dying because of it.”

Demographics – This image seems to strongly target a general group: teenage girls. Some obvious indicators of this are the gender of the people displayed in the image, and the presence of lipstick. The first phrase, “My friends and I share everything”, when combined with the lipstick, seems to target mainstream cliques of girls. The girls are both rather thin and not-unattractive, which can be interpreted two ways. The first, and more direct, is that they are focusing on these types of girls- mainstream, conventional lipstick-lovin’ American girls, as opposed to the introverted, “loner”, counterculture girls that mainstream society probably associates more with meth use. This is consistent with sponsoring organizations note that meth has spread rapidly into the mainstream. Another interpretation would be that they are targeting the other group-the loners. This might be so because this stereotype is perceived as doing meth for two reasons: to be socially accepted, and to lose weight (stimulants cause weight loss). This image offers this group a caution: if you try meth, you may gain friends, and you may lose weight, but you’ll pay for it dearly.