See Something Say Something, early poster from NYC (now nationwide) campaign
This is something of an easy target but I want to analyze the truth claims and propaganda content of one of the original See Something Say Something posters deployed by the Metropolitan Transit Authority in New York City. See Something Say Something is a terrorism awareness campaign designed by ad exec Allan Kay that originated in New York and was later adopted by the Department of Homeland Security and deployed in more than thirty transit systems across the nation.
The poster in question is bright yellow and features a grid of 12 pairs of human eyes staring at the viewer at the top. The eyes belong to humans of varying races and ethnicities. The expressions in the eyes are unafraid and vigilant, verging on confrontational. But we can only see their eyes, not the rest of their faces or bodies. The text below the eyes reads:
THERE ARE 16 MILLION EYES IN THE CITY
WE’RE COUNTING ON ALL OF THEM
IF YOU SEE SOMETHING SAY SOMETHING
Through a combination of words and text and the context in which they appear (public transit posters across the city), the poster is making the following truth claims:
- Public space is dangerous, particularly in relation to terrorist attacks.
- Terrorists could be anywhere and could likely be the regular people you encounter in your everyday commute.
- Authorities might not be able to protect you from them.
And from those truth claims the poster makes a normative assertion, a call to action in the form of an imperative “See Something Say Something” which, combined with lots of vigilante eyes staring the viewer down, mean:
- Part of your civic obligation in public space is spying on fellow citizens
The whole multi-city See Something Say Something campaign makes ingenious use of many of the rhetorical principles outlined by the Institute for Propaganda Analysis prior to WWII and detailed by Wendell Potter in his book Deadly Spin. And this poster specifically makes use of several. The intentional diversity of the age, race and gender of the eyes makes a visual reference to “Plain Folks”. The text on the poster, “WE NEED ALL OF THEM” makes it clear here we are talking about you, me and everybody else. Just all of us regular people helping out our government. Get on the “Bandwagon”, another one of the rhetorical tactics.
Additionally, the poster employs visual and textual euphemisms. What is the threat? It is unnamed. It is amorphous. It is “something” therefore it is anything. But we must be vigilant and report it. We are responsible.
But this poster’s primary tactic is #1 on the list: Fear. September 11th is an event that looms large in recent history. By linking our most mundane everyday spaces to that traumatic event, repeatedly, everywhere the poster and messaging appear, the poster leverages that collective trauma. It repeats that trauma. The trauma feels plausible because it was(is) so recently raw. The warning is clear: citizens must take responsibility for preventing terrorism by being suspicious. Even the authorities might not be able to protect you – you must use your own eyes – your most disembodied, peephole eyes – as weapons in public space.
Really interesting to take on a PSA with the fact-checking assignment. On the one hand, I think the poster only suggests those claims in its viewers’ minds if they are in the proper context — it doesn’t actually state these claims. But it does, in context, refer to a world where all three of these claims are accurate. This is the power of propaganda, which you do a nice job dissecting: it can suggest and imply powerful things without actually stating them. Your post made me think a lot about the context within which claims are made, and the effect that has on their accuracy.