How Wolves Change Rivers

When assigned to read a source and write a follow up paper, often times a student will only do the bare minimum that is required of them and just skim the text. However, this is a practice that is ultimately harmful for the learner, as when one does not dig beneath the surface level of a piece of work, they can not accurately analyze or garner the author’s true purpose and intent for writing. Instead, author Mike Bunn challenges college students to “read like a writer” (Bunn 2011), and focus more on how effective the work is and whether or not the author achieved their purpose. By following this practice, a student is able to produce greater works of their own, as they will learn from the style and structure of others. Therefore, when dealing …show more content…
Before delving into the actual content of the video, it is important to investigate exactly who the target audience of this video might be. With some key features in mind, such as the clickbait nature of the title or the fact that it is published on the YouTube platform instead of a website about ecological awareness, it is safe to assess that this video’s audience is simply the general public. Currently, “How Wolves Change Rivers” holds 38,146,20 views on YouTube, which are staggering numbers for a video that is essentially a four minute nature documentary. The creators of this video knew their audience well, and were able to clearly reach that audience effectively. Measuring success can be a difficult thing to accurately pinpoint, however, I argue that when judging the effectiveness of a source, taking a look at the popularity and type of response that it gains is an important factor. Therefore, with a total of 94,000 likes, and over 38 million views, “How Wolves Change Rivers” can be considered a successful video. In addition to knowing how to gather an audience, the creators of “How Wolves Change Rivers” also know how to captivate and keep that audience with the actual content that is provided as