The following clip is a video responce from Russell Barth, an author, activist, and Canadian medical marijuana license holder.
This was made in responce to an anti-marijuana video made by another YouTube user, hellorodney, which you can view here if you want http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EaMS6BctDU
It can be argued that this video has many purposes. I believe that the video originally was intended as a video responce to hellorodney's claims concerning many issues surrounding the effectiveness of cannabis use. It ends up being a video that helps to inform the general uninformed population about the effectiveness and safety of medical cannabis use, as well as being an informative instructional video for the pro-marijuana supporters who are fighting against the criminalization and prohibition of marijuana but may not be doing so in the best possible way.
The stance of the video that Mr. Barth is arguing is that he feels that it's unjust to classify marijuana as being a harmful drug without scientific backing, that marijuana has many practical medicinal uses, and that he believes the prohibition and the war against marijuana (especially in America) has never worked and never will.
The genre of this video is an informative videoblog with a bit of politics mixed in.
I believe that the intended audience for this video are the YouTube user known as "hellorodney", as well as any pro-marijuana supporters who are fighting against the criminalization and prohibition of marijuana.
As much as I enjoyed this video, I dont feel that the video itself is effective as it's original intended use. Unfortunately, hellorodney has not said anything in responce to Mr. Barth's video to suggest that he has learned anything or changed his mind regarding his own personal viewpoints on marijuana. Also, the video does not have that many views, and the production quality is not the most appealing to the average YouTube watcher. Barth's video relies on content alone, which is good for us who are patient and are interested in what he has to say, but the 8 and a half minute argument is too long for the average YouTube viewer who is more interested in finding 10 second clips of household pets acting silly for instant humor gratification. If we are to assume that the video was also intended to inform other marijuana activists about the proper way to fight for the taxation and regulation of cannabis, even if over half of the hits that this video got were from pro-marijuana activists, it's unlikely that a majority of those pro-marijuana activists were the ones who Russell thought perpetuated the stereotypes and really needed to watch and learn from this video.
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Ethos: Russell Barth mentions in the video description that he is an author, activist, and Canadian Medical Marijuana License Holder. His credibility is not nearly as good as that of an active staff member of a pro-marijuana organization or of that of a politician or scientist, however I would say that he is definately more credible than the common marijuana user when it comes to learning the statistics and doing research before making his argument. He cites several legitimately credible sources within the video, providing URL's and directions which would have been more effective had he posted them inside the video description.
ReplyDeletePathos: If we consider that his main audience is Hellorodney (the man to which this video responce is focused towards), I would say that any sort of video responce on YouTube, particularly one in which you've got yourself talking in front of a camera and then published to a website that gets millions of views every day, it is bound to provoke some sort of emotional responce from the audience to see someone who believes strongly enough in the subject matter that he's willing to physically communicate to a larger audience (meaning anyone else who ends up watching his video). Unfortunately, the production quality doesnt really generate much emotional appeal for a majority of viewers. His sources, however, DO appeal to the emotions: he suggests that the watcher see the effects of medical marijuana in another YouTube video that he had posted, showing what his wife's constant seizures are like.
Logos: This video has strong logos. Barth backs up his argument with facts and cites his sources, and continues to challenge Hellorodney's opinion by asking questions of his own (How/why would prohibition work? When has prohibition ever worked?) to drive the point home.