Fear, what about it? 😨

Introduction

“Fear keeps us focused on the past or worried about the future.”
– Thich Nhat Hanh

Hello everyone, and welcome back to yet another PLP 11 blog post. Today we are talking about fear, but not just any fear. The fear of nuclear war, and the effects it had on us physiologically, but more specifically the effects it had on the media, and the role it played in shaping propaganda throughout the Cold War. This project was long and required a lot of work to finish; however, regardless of that, I am more than satisfied with my final product, which I will show you all near the end of this blog post. For now, let’s move on to our project and the steps I took to complete what was a very content-heavy project.

About Our Project

The looming threat of war is growing by the day, whether it’s the war in Ukraine, or tensions with China and the US, or even the Israel-Hamas conflict, we are surrounded by ever-growing stress, and media reports that aren’t always a reliable source of information. Our project was about the Cold War, but more specifically, I chose to invest my time in researching propaganda and the influence it had on fear during and after the Cold War concluded. Our end product needed to represent our findings, and had to answer our inquiry question we chose before we started our research. My inquiry question was, “How did the media’s portrayal of nuclear warfare induce fear into people’s perception of nuclear bombs heading into the Cold War?” This PLP project would also take some of our class to Arizona, Nevada, where they would get to explore the Titan missile silo; sadly, I decided not to go along, but the kids who did go along got a fantastic real-world glimpse into what the Cold War afforded in terms of fear and nuclear capabilities. So, without further ado, let’s get into the learning aspect of this project.

The Learning

The Notes

Throughout our project, notes were a key aspect. Throughout PLP 11, I have noticed we have been taking and using notes more than ever, an aspect of learning PLP seems to find important. At first, I was uninterested in taking notes, and only cared to hand in assignments I was 100% required to. However, I found out early this was no way to work, and I felt not only bad about myself and my goals but also about the work I was creating and handing in. Notes, I found out, are a lot more complex than I first thought. The first notes I started to actually care about creating were in BC First Peoples, where we would take notes basically daily, and we would create weekly notes in something called the Smart Brevity format—a format I would soon realize would help me tremendously throughout the rest of the school year. Going back to our project, throughout the project, we would create notes on multiple books and articles, most notably the “Hiroshima” novel and the new “Turning Point” documentary on Netflix. We also needed to create something called literature notes: “A literature note is a single note containing references to all the interesting passages in a book (or other piece of media) that you encounter.” (source).
Here is one of the literature notes I handed in, Link.
On top of literature notes, we also had to make Fleeting notes, and permanent notes. You can find examples of some Fleeting, and Permanent notes by clicking Here. Finally, all of these notes were to be organized into a Zettlekasten, however I found that my sort of knock-off Zettlekasten worked best for my learning style and way of note taking. You can find my entire product hub by clicking Here.
All in all, I found my Literature note, my theme analysis of Hiroshima, and my fleeting notes all to be something I am proud of. However, I felt I could have better utilized the Zettelkasten, and have done a better job on my literature note on “Fallout,” mainly by focusing on layout and format, I also felt that I could have also set more reminders that reminded me to utilize the traditional Zettlekasten. However, I felt I did a good job on utilizing my notes to help aid my final product, which we will discuss next.

The Podcast

So, our final product, how did I get here and what was my end goal? Well, as discussed previously, one of, and if not the most important step was note-taking throughout the project. Without any of the notes I took, a lot of my research would not be credible, and I also wouldn’t even have enough to create a factually correct piece of work. So moving onto the podcast. As you have probably guessed, I chose my final product to be in the form of a podcast. My podcast included research from multiple sources, all of which you can find by clicking here. Before I started to create a script, I started to research immediately, as having credible research is probably the most important part of a historically accurate podcast. Secondly, I started to script my podcast, this was by far the hardest part but thankfully, I was able to use my skills I gained in my previous podcast project in grade 10 to help aid me in script building in this project. So finally, I am happy to present my podcast, you can listen to it here: Link. Overall, I am satisfied with what I created, and I feel that my podcast came out exactly how I wanted it. Although I feel I could have used slightly more research, and made the idea of fear stand out more in my podcast, I felt the overall layout and feel turned out exactly how I wanted it to when I was brainstorming ideas. Here is my podcast, you can listen to it by following this Spotify Link.

Answer To The Driving Question 

So now that I have presented all of my learning, finally my answer to the driving question: “How has fear been used as a political, defensive, and cultural tool to shape our society?”

Fear has long been a powerful tool in shaping society, influencing political, defensive, and cultural landscapes. Politically, leaders often exploit fear to rally support, justify policies, or suppress opinions. For example, during the Cold War, the fear of communism led to McCarthyism and widespread suspicion in the United States. In terms of defence, fear motivates nations to build up military capabilities and implement strict security measures to protect against possible threats. Culturally, fear can influence behaviours and beliefs, such as the fear of disease prompting public health campaigns or the fear of crime. Overall, fear can unite people against common threats, but it can also be manipulated to control and divide.

Project Conclusion

So, in conclusion, this project was not only a continuation of our last project but an entirely new chapter. Overall, I am completely satisfied with my final product, and I appreciate the teacher’s emphasis on the importance of proper note-taking, as it has helped tremendously in my final product’s quality and ability to be informative but also accurate with research. Though I felt I could have used the Zettelkasten method to help aid me even more in organizing my research, I felt I did a good job in terms of note-taking and staying on task. I have also progressed greatly in my ability to communicate with my teachers and peers in this project, and I thank the teachers for pushing me to answer questions when we had our RC update. Thank you for reading, and I’ll see you in the next project.