Create a Public Service Announcement (PSA) on a PowerPoint that covers material from
the textbook that will effectively answer the question “How can we reduce pollution over the next
ten years?” The PowerPoint should be “educational” and use concepts, theories, methods, history, etc.
from the chapters from the book (Perspectives on International Relations: Power, Institutions, and Ideas, Author: Henry R. Nau) as well as
outside research. I want to use Liberal Perspective Theory and present your PSA from this perspective.
• Students have freedom to choose what multimedia approaches they use in their videos (e.g.,
automated PowerPoint slides, images, music, voiceovers, actors, charts, figures, statistics, clips,
etc.). Be very careful to avoid copyright infringements, however.
• Include a relevant title and include all pertinent information in the description box.
• Do not include vulgarity, nudity, sexual acts, profanity, violence, or illegal acts in the video,
whether real or simulated.
• Target audience: 18-24 year olds at the national level
• Incorporate elements that will accurately and respectfully resonate with the audience
regarding race/ethnicity, gender, class, nationality, geography, etc.
Part 2 consists of a YouTube video link, an essay with Works Cited, and an annotated bibliography in
hard copy form on the first day of class presentations.
Type your essay using complete sentences along with proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
Staple multiple pages together in the top left corner. Include a proper heading at the top.
Incorporate arguments, evidence, and examples directly from our course, the textbook, and outside
research.
Critical Thinking Questions/Prompt
Make sure to write the process of the steps
Essay:
What is the purpose or goal of your video?
How exactly does the video meet your stated purpose or goal?
Explain the video’s title.
Give examples connected to the target audience.
Give examples related to race/ethnicity, gender, class, geography, etc.
Explain your creative development and the process by which you actually made the PowerPoint.
What was the main lesson that you learned from this whole process?
What would you advise for future students completing a similar project?
Works Cited:
As it relates to the essay, use proper APSA formatting for this section for sources utilized.
Annotated Bibliography:
Using proper APSA citations, include a list of all resources utilized in this project along
with a brief summary after each resource.
Multimedia Essay #1
There are many times when looking at modern world history that even learned observers cannot understand the motives, perspectives, and
actions of the members of the political sphere. Further, understanding the engine behind the interactions of world powers is a cornerstone
to understanding international relations. This video is intended to at least partially relieve this understandable and common ignorance.
Our video is meant to be a learning/study tool for college students of Political Science who may be having trouble hashing out the details
and themes in Perspectives on International Relations. It was with this intent in mind that we came up with the title of our video The
Realist and Liberal Perspective: Interpretations, Implementation, and Interaction with International Institutions. Although this title may
be perceived as “boring,” we deemed it was worth the risk because we felt that the more serious and all-inclusive tone of our title would
attract the attention of the college student with a real interest in learning the information. To further attract our target audience we
spent a great deal of effort using and connecting key vocabulary to the core themes of perspectives, levels of analysis, and institutions.
We felt that this approach would help the student to better learn and retain the information.
International relations is very much a disciple that at its core is the study of interactions between race, ethnicity, class and
geography. Much of our video displayed this reality. From the ethnic cleansing in Rwanda to civil war in Somalia and Kosovo,the
interventions in Iraq, in WWI, and WWII, the audience can see how ethnicity and race can start, prevent, and end war if the perspectives
are understood and levels of analysis are properly applied to the conflict and the economic class and racial makeup of the intervening
countries find interest in the conflict whether economic, humanitarian or otherwise.
Creating this video was an exhaustive process of meetings, debate, gridlock, and almost constant re-working to both meet what we perceived
to be the main focus of the assignment and to decide what aspects of the extensive information was pertinent to the general points we were
trying to convey to our audience. Our meetings started with a plan to convey the realist and liberal perspectives through various
conflicts: The Gulf War, The Iraq War, Kosovo, Somalia, and Rwanda. We initially felt, that using these conflicts would help to show the
audience how the realist and liberal perspectives operate and act in different circumstances. Additionally, we felt that the outcome in
some of these global conflicts would show the hindrances or benefits of institutions on the theories, methods and beliefs that each
perspective adopts. This idea was quickly scrapped however, for several reasons. The first of which was that the specific conflicts were
not supposed to be the main focus of the assignment. More importantly though, the themes and patterns behind the relationships that the
realists and liberals had to these conflicts was not necessarily clear, relatable, or easy to follow in that format. Additionally, in this
format the levels of analysis would be hard to define and perceive. Several meetings later, we came up with another outline that followed
the perspectives and levels of analysis more closely, helping the audience to be able to identify the relationship between the realist and
liberal perspectives within that framework. While this was certainly a step forward, we also realized that we needed to include a
connection to institutions in order to show how the institutions affect the level of analysis and the perspectives and vice-versa. With
this in mind, we decided to set up our framework to build off of these themes as the video progressed, first introducing the perspectives,
then introducing the levels of analysis, then showing how the perspectives and levels of analysis interact with institutions, and finally
fortifying these assertions with examples of global conflicts that fit the characteristics.
The quiz at the end was a late addition to our video that we felt would help the audience apply the information to possible scenarios,
and be able to recognize the distinct characteristics of the perspectives and levels of analysis.
We learned a lot from this process. It was extremely difficult to create an outline for our video that we felt adequately, simply, and
memorably related the realist and liberal perspectives, the levels of analysis, and the interaction with institutions while also
introducing applicable concepts, theories, methods, and history. Our chief goal was for the audience to walk away having learned the
information and be able to recognize realist and liberal policies and politicians and the levels of analysis that affect their
interactions with the world and international institutions. Thinning the information to create an easy-to-understand and simpler
presentation was definitely a large aspect of the finishing touches to this assignment. Another very important lesson we learned washow to
effectively and efficiently apply each group member’s niche and abilities in preparation for the next group assignment.
Another group approaching this assignment should understand most of all the value of time spent with one’s group simply discussing how
best to implement the information. The greatest difficulty with this assignment is in trying to relate in a simpler fashion what is very
dense, multifaceted, and sometimes seemingly contradictory material. Time is a blessing- Use it.