Badgers For Life: Suicide Prevention Campaign

The Badgers for Life campaign is a suicide prevention campaign to raise awareness about college student depression and provide information about services on campus that aim to combat suicide. Depression is an often overlooked prominent issue among college students that I do not see discussed very often on campus. Part of the campaign is targeted at students who are suffering from depression and the other part is targeted at the student body as a whole. Badgers for Life aims to urge students suffering from depression to talk to someone at UHS if they have not done so. Badgers for Life also aims to raise overall awareness about depression and suicide and inform all students of ways they can help prevent suicide. One action that Badgers for Life …show more content…
An example would be that 44% of college students report symptoms of depression, as I mentioned earlier. This kind of statistic further implements the Social Identity Theory and also persuades audiences at the contemplation stage. Statistics like these can also act as a social proof to show that there are people out there that seek help if they are experiencing depression, guiding the reader to consider doing the same. There will also be UHS contact information clearly written on the poster, giving students the ability to act. This combined with the motivation of personal relevance should prove to be persuasive according to the Elaboration Likelihood Model. Posters like these will be placed around campus in dorms and …show more content…
These posters will have a similar basic format but will have a slightly different tone to the messages (Item 2). The poster will also feature a short message on the poster that will grab the attention of the reader. An example of this would be, “I didn’t think he would take it that far” in quotation marks. This quote will be paired with a picture of a casket or grave. This will also be a tactic to persuade the audience at a precontemplation stage that will appeal to the reader’s emotions. This will also be an implementation of the Extended Parallel Processing model and the Elaboration Likelihood Model. The major implication of this message is that a close friend could commit suicide unexpectedly. This introduces a fearful threat to the audience. The threat insinuates both severity and susceptibility, which are required for persuasion based on EPPM. It also adds personal relevance as a motivation for those who may not think they need to be taught about depression according to