Project Proposal

1. What is your goal? What do you hope to change and/or improve with your project?

My goal for this project is to research and present a comprehensive analysis of President Obama's plans for education and college tuition as compared to that of Governor Romney. I want to inform voters about the specifics behind each candidate's plans/improvements, using research and statistics to show how it will specifically affect college students and tuition costs.

2. Who is your target audience? What will you need to do to focus on and reach that audience specifically?

As mentioned, my target audience is all voters, but specifically college and graduate (or future college and graduate) students. This is a convenient audience for me to reach, given that this is a project to be conducted on Clemson's campus. The messages I incorporate will be targeted to this audience, as these people are obviously the most affected by college loans and tuition payments. I feel that this is a relevant topic within this climate, as Clemson's tuition, along with other educational institutions, is on the rise, and is obviously affecting students' economic situations. 

3. What form will your communication take? How will you create it?

I am having problems in trying to specifically decide how to format my project. I don't want to write a traditional essay comparison, as I am always inclined to do with projects like this. I want to make it into some sort of visual presentation that will be able to fully compare the two sides of the issue. I'm not very proficient with video editing, although I will look into how I could make this into a video-type project. I plan on looking into different media presentation platforms in order to choose the most appropriate medium for this topic.

4. How will you distribute the information?

I will most likely distribute this information using various social media platforms. I could publish it on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc. I need to figure out a way for it to reach a sizable audience, but I know that the Internet offers many ways of distributing media messages. 

5. If your project is successful, what will be different/changed/improved? How will you measure or demonstrate your project's effects?

If my project is successful, then my audience will be more informed of both candidates' plans for education, loans, and tuition costs. I have not yet decided if my project will contain any form of partisan bias, but if it does, I would like to encourage my audience to make the right choice in terms of voting for the candidate that will be most favorable to students of our generation. Otherwise, if I remain neutral, I will simply want my audience to be better informed of this topic and to be able to choose that candidate who's plan offers them the most. I will demonstrate my project's effectiveness based on how many views I get for my video, and on people's reactions to it.

Obviously I have not yet made up my mind in terms of specifics, but I know which topic I want to pursue and have some idea of how I will go about presentation my information.