Video Summary and Analysis

The AT&T Texting and Driving Documentary—“The Last Test” Summary

The Public Service video for texting while driving begins with a police officer arriving to the scene of an accident and moves to interviews where people whom had lost loved ones in accidents whom were texting while driving and of those whom were severely injured from accidents while texting and driving. They first interview starts with a friend of a girl who was texting a friend that died in an accident. They move into an interview where a boy whom was in an accident from texting while driving whom is disabled as a result of the accident. They then move to a mother and the friends of a girl whom died in the hospital from an accident that was caused by driving distracted as a result from texting while driving. They show the mother and friends singing and celebrating a birthday for the girl whom passed away with the physical presence of the “birthday girl” being absent from the celebration. It then shows the mom crying and proceeds to talk about the person whom had died. They end the video by having people whom were affected by these accidents caused by texting and driving hold up signs that bore nothing other than the last texts of the victims of these tragedies. The last image they show in the video is of a rose on a highway with the mother of a victim looking at the rose with tears rolling down her face. The public service announcement ends with the text “TXTING & DRIVING…IT CAN WAIT” and saying it was a message from at&t.

            Analyis of  AT&T Texting and Driving Documentary –“The Last Text” Video

The argument made in the video took an emotional appeal. The video used images of car accidents and the testimonies of individuals and people involved and affected by the accidents that took place as a result of texting while driving. The interview of the officer in the beginning starts the video and has the officer describing his feeling and experience arriving to the scene of an accident. This serves to set the stage for the argument of the testimonies and individual stories of people whom lost friends and family to the accidents. The use of telling the stories of  their personal experiences and the descriptions given by the friends and family of the people whom had passed to show who they were a part of these families lives serves to bring a reality of whom the person was. This also helps further to make the emotional appeal because the viewer in essence gets to know the victim. The narrative of an individual whom had almost died and had barely survived made even more of a case for the argument of not texting while driving because the story of how the incident affected his life is told from his firsthand experience. The video also used the account of the officer whom arrived at the scene and his statement of how it was not his first time arriving to such a scene and that these were not simply individual and separated instruments brings an awareness of how it is an issue that matters to the viewer. Near the end of the video in which they show the simple and short texts which were the last texts of those who died and the one survivor in the video held up on signs by those affected from the loss of loved ones and the accidents itself made an effort to show how those simple words which altogether were nothing of noted significance had been the reason for the tragic experiences. The end of the video following with the message “TXTING & DRIVING…IT CAN WAIT” was the overall purpose of the argument made in the video and was summed up very simply in the end followed by the information given for the motivating force behind this video.