Great Big World
Laila Roberts
The Great Big World campaign investigates the current state of media, literacy, and leadership by framing reading and critical thinking as acts of rebellion. Democracy depends on people who can distinguish what is real from what is constructed, and who are able to question, interpret, and articulate dissent. Today, 25% of young adults in the U.S. read below a 5th-grade level, limiting their ability to engage with complex ideas, recognize manipulation, and fully participate in public life.
In an environment shaped by misinformation, censorship, and “alternative facts,” weakened literacy makes it easier for narratives to be controlled and for truth to be distorted. When people lose the ability to critically engage with language, they also lose the ability to challenge authority, question power systems, and imagine different futures. The result is a public that is easier to influence, easier to divide, and harder to mobilize.
The campaign operates as a system of physical and digital tools designed to re-engage people with reading and reflection in everyday life. It extends beyond posters into new-word tracker book slips, dual-engagement postcards, bookmarks connected to an Instagram platform, a zine, and critical thinking workbooks. These materials are meant to reinforce reading as an active and social practice rather than a passive one. Each element supports the central call to action: Read. Reflect. Resist.
Great Big World ultimately calls on audiences to take back their minds and challenge dominant narratives, before the limits of language become the limits of what we are able to think, question, and change.