"It's On Us" NCAA Style: Good or Bad?

           As the temperatures rise and spring begins, so too does the start of this year’s NCAA March Madness tournament. As an avid sports fan myself, I cannot deny my infatuation with this time of the year. While watching earlier this week, however, I encountered a PSA that is part of the “It’s On Us” campaign. I’d seen the version with prominent celebrities, however this commercial was modified in having NCAA athletes making the “It’s on us” declaration.

            When encountering this PSA I had mixed emotions. Sure, I think the message of the campaign and therefore this particular commercial is on point; society needs to recognize the dangers and the realities of sexual assault. Presumably this PSA targets a demographic of young people. Media serves an especially important function for young people, with their undeniable gravitation towards television, computers and the Internet (Delgado & Austin, 2007, 409).  These spaces, then, open up new opportunities to initiate discussion focused on the stigmatized topics of sexual dangers and repercussions. Clearly, with this in mind, the “It’s On Us” campaign has a good intention in trying to introduce these controversial and often ignored topics to a demographic that desperately needs to hear this information.

            However, what I’m struggling with is the message of this particular PSA. I take issue with the use of exclusively NCAA athletes in assuming the responsibility of “It’s On Us.” In other words, I think that the general message imposes these obligations, obligations to prevent sexual assault, on just these NCAA athletes rather than portraying it as a societal obligation. The other version of the “It’s On Us” campaign uses celebrities of all sorts (musicians, actors, politicians, etc.), which better diffuses the message and better imparts a societal responsibility. In this NCAA ad, however, I think that it is very easy to misconstrue the message. Our society undeniably has been exposed to the perpetration of sexual assault by college athletes (Jameis Winston, Duke lacrosse, and Vanderbilt football just to name a few). While, yes, I think there is an issue in terms of the committing of sex crimes by college athletes, I also think it’s unfair to portray the sexual assault issue as just a college athletic issue.

            Perhaps the creators of this ad were drawing on the finding regarding perceived message quality, where messages that are perceived as coming from peers are viewed as more quality and likeable (Joyce & Harwood, 2014, 50). While this is naturally an informative finding in constructing a PSA, this ad was misguided. Rather than just use NCAA athletes, juxtaposing college athletes with everyday college students would have been more effective. This would establish similarity between the athletes and the college students, which would likely increase the perceptions of quality and likability in young viewers, as they would be more prone to perceive the subjects of the ad as their peers. Additionally, it would spread the responsibility of preventing sexual assault to all college students, not just the athletes, which would communicate a message of societal responsibility.

            March Madness definitely draws the college student eye. This message is not trivial, it’s extremely important. But in making a universal message, that comprehensively implicates the youth populace, the creators of “It’s On Us” need to recognize the pitfalls of exclusively making this an athlete ad.

References:

Delgado, H. M., & Austin, S. B. (2007). Can media promote responsible sexual behaviors among adolescents and young adults? Current Opinion in Pediatrics, 19(4), 405-410. doi: 10.1097/MOP.0b013e32823ed008

Joyce, N., & Harwood, J. (2014). Context and identification in persuasive mass communication. Journal of Media Psychology: Theories, Methods, and Applications, 26(1), 50-57. doi: 10.1027/1864-1105/a000110