Genre Analysis
The two genres, iconography and typography, are focused on the topic of human trafficking, which is a massive and growing issue not only in the United States but also as well as the world. People may think that slavery is a thing of the past but it is very much a thing to this day. People are trafficked and forced to do labor, anywhere from prostitution to agricultural work. The first piece is a YouTube video from TEDx called Every 15 Second by Matt Friedman and it is an iconography. The second piece is a website called the Polaris Project by the Polaris group and falls in the typography genre. The iconography and the typography are trying to inform their audiences about the seriousness of human trafficking and get that audience involved.
Audience and Purpose
Matt Friedman’s purpose in his Ted talk is to inform people and gain their support in his efforts to stop human trafficking. He is not there merely to entertain the people but give them reason into helping stop human trafficking. This is clearly brought to the attention of the viewer because he is not being too flashy and he gives you facts to open your eyes. The audience he is trying to reach out to is people who like to volunteer and those who have influential jobs. For example he mentions that college students can help by creating websites. Those college students that make websites can help spread the awareness of this issue. He also mentions people can help by donating money to the cause. By donating money, people can help save a person from going back to being a slave to the human traffickers. According to Friedman (2012), “ ten dollars in Cambodia will allow a person to stay in a shelter for a week.” The way he speaks is quite formal, which is appropriate for his subject because there is no benefit in joking around or acting informal when discussing on such an important issue like human trafficking. The formal language also fits the type of audience because college students, people with influential jobs, and people who have money are going to react more to a more serious person. In the end, the audience is able to comprehend this video’s purpose clearly.
The purpose of the website Polaris is to bring awareness of the issue of human trafficking as well as what Polaris does, so you can help Polaris take action against human trafficking. This is clear when you look up at the page titles: What We Do, Human Trafficking, and Take Action. The audience Polaris is trying to reach out to people seeking help and those who are willing to help or donate to the cause. Polaris has a page called “Give”, which is where you can donate money to Polaris, and it is color-coded very different then the rest of the pages as if it was meant to stand out. A help line phone number is also displayed on every page you visit on the website. Polaris’s audience and purpose tie in well together because a person who wants to help a situation is going to want to know who they are dealing with, what the concern is, and how they can help. A person is not going to help or seek help from an organization without any background into what they do. When it comes to the paper being formal or informal, it comes across as being formal. There is not many specialized vocabulary except for NHTRC, which stands for National Human Trafficking Resource Center (Polaris, 2015), and its not hard for the audience to figure out what it is because they have it in the top right corner of the screen.
The audiences that Matt Friedman and the Polaris group are trying to reach out to are closely related. One might get the feeling that the Polaris is looking for people to give money to the cause more than Matt Friedman is because the Polaris group actually gives you a place to give money and advertised it more. While both want to reach out to those who would want to help, Matt Friedman mentions about appealing to college kids in particular as the Polaris website does not. The purpose of both genres can be seen as the same except that one of Matt Friedman’s purposes is not to give you information on what he does for human trafficking like the Polaris group does in their website.
Rhetorical Issues
Friedman’s presentation consisted of all of the three types of rhetorical appeals. Logos would have to be the appeal that Friedman uses the best because he brings up quite a lot of shocking information. For instance, he mentions that every 15 seconds a person is a victim of human trafficking and that there is nearly 21 million slaves due to human trafficking, which is more then we have ever had (Friedman, 2012). He displays his evidence of how big the problem of human trafficking is by using a total of six charts. For Pathos, He tells a story about when he first encountered human trafficking. In the story he encounters a little girl that runs up to him at a brothel in Mumbai asking him to save her, but the police officer told him they could not because they would not let them leave alive. When he came back with more officers she was gone. This made the audience feel great sadness for this little girl who was a victim of human trafficking and could not be saved. There is also a picture of a hand being chained and handcuffed that brings out the harshness of this crime. Lastly, the ethos comes from Matt Friedan and two of his charts are backed by the United States State Department on Human Trafficking. The author himself has credibility because he is an international human trafficking expert with over 20 years of experience as an activist and is currently the Regional Project Manager of the United Nations Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking (UNIAP). Overall, the three rhetorical appeals are covered and done well.
In the website it does not use any kind of material that backs up it’s credibility. The only thing that has credibility seems to be some of their articles that they post. On the other hand, they don’t provide a list of sources for the information and fact s they provide on their Human Trafficking page as if they came up with it themselves. The only thing that sounds creditable is a hotline called The National Human Trafficking Resource Center that in mentioned often but Polaris powers it. This lack of ethos hurts Polaris’s credibility because they could have just come up with all of this stuff. There is not a great amount of pathos presented although they do provide testimonies at the end of each page about how the Polaris group has helped them. For instance one of the client quotes says, "Thanks to Polaris Project, I have a job, a home, and many friends that help me when I need it. I am making a life of my own" (Polaris, 2015). This quote makes the audience feel happy that he or she would be able to help people being trafficked. It also shows pictures of men and woman throughout the website working with descriptions describing how it is done without pay. These pictures make the audience feel sad to know this is happening in our world. Lastly, it comes down to the Logos. The website uses a bunch of different facts that show the significance of how bad human trafficking is in the world. They also have a variety of charts on different pages; for instance, on the home page there is a chart that shows the human trafficking trends in the United States.
The logos and the pathos are covered very well by both of the genres. The logos on the human trafficking page are actually quite similar facts as Matt Friedman’s video. While the pathos is covered well by both genres they do it a little differently. Matt Friedman uses stories about sad experiences but Polaris uses pictures of woman and quotes from those whom have been saved. The biggest difference between these two in the rhetorical issues is the ethos. Matt Friedman has more credibility to his video in contrast to that of the Polaris groups website. First of Matt himself tells how himself as a speaker is credible while there is nothing on Polaris’ website showing that they are credible.
Structure and Delivery
This videos structure is set up to be a presentation of a speech. The time of the video is sixteen minutes and forty-five seconds. It is taken place in what looks like an auditorium of some sort. While it is set up for a speech, Matt Friedman has, a monitor where he shows all of his visual aids behind him to the right, from the audiences view. His visual aids consist of a picture of a poor woman and graphs. Matt Friedman starts of his speech with a two stories that gets the audience emotionally interested into his speech. For instance, he mentions a story where a little girl comes up to him in a brothel asking him to save her, but the police officer informed him they would kill them if they took her away from the brothel (Friedman, 2015). After the story, he goes on the talk about some of the facts about human trafficking. Lastly, he tells his audience how they can get involved in stopping human trafficking. All of these elements contribute the purpose of this video by getting them interested, teaching them about the issue, and lastly telling them how to get involved. A person will not help the videos purpose if they are not interest in the issue at hand. People cannot argue for an issue if they do not know anything about it, and they will not do anything for the issue if they do not know how to help. If one of those elements are missing the purpose of this video goes to shreds.
The Polaris group presents a website that gives this genre a lot of space to put a lot of information, which brings in the problem of organization. Polaris did a good job in organizing and making it easy for it audience to find what they are looking for. Almost every page has visuals, which makes it appealing to the eyes, and they organize the visuals great on every page not making them distracting from the text. On the Human trafficking page they bold the writing to show the importance of the facts being told. For example, “The International Labor Organization estimates that there are 20.9 million victims of human trafficking globally, including 5.5 million children. 55% are women and girls” (Polaris, 2015). The organization and the visuals of the website make it look visually appealing to the eyes, and the occasional boldness of some texts does the same by making important text really pop out.
This is where the two genres really separate themselves. Compared to the Matt Friedman’s speech the Polaris website has a lot more room. It being a website gives it a lot of space where they can put quite a lot of information and Matt’s Presentation is only about ten minutes long. Polaris has to focus on the use of making words and photos pop on the website while Matt has to focus more on vocals to make his purpose pop. Even though they are completely different in their delivery and the structured, the two are both well organized and appealing to the eyes for the website and the eyes and ears of the video.
In conclusion, the Matt Friedman’s iconography was more effective of getting its purpose out the audience. What really kills the Polaris group’s page is that they lacked in their ethos. Both of the genres were well organized and used a good amount of logos and pathos that got their purpose across to the audience. But it all came down to the ethos. All in all looking at the webpage the audience is left wondering if they should trust this website while with Matt Friedman’s video you trust what he is saying. It also seems newer generations are going to be more interested by iconographic genres because they consist more visuals. While typographic genres consists more of a reading aspect. Newer generations are not reading as much as they use to which tend to lead them to an iconographic genre.
Audience and Purpose
Matt Friedman’s purpose in his Ted talk is to inform people and gain their support in his efforts to stop human trafficking. He is not there merely to entertain the people but give them reason into helping stop human trafficking. This is clearly brought to the attention of the viewer because he is not being too flashy and he gives you facts to open your eyes. The audience he is trying to reach out to is people who like to volunteer and those who have influential jobs. For example he mentions that college students can help by creating websites. Those college students that make websites can help spread the awareness of this issue. He also mentions people can help by donating money to the cause. By donating money, people can help save a person from going back to being a slave to the human traffickers. According to Friedman (2012), “ ten dollars in Cambodia will allow a person to stay in a shelter for a week.” The way he speaks is quite formal, which is appropriate for his subject because there is no benefit in joking around or acting informal when discussing on such an important issue like human trafficking. The formal language also fits the type of audience because college students, people with influential jobs, and people who have money are going to react more to a more serious person. In the end, the audience is able to comprehend this video’s purpose clearly.
The purpose of the website Polaris is to bring awareness of the issue of human trafficking as well as what Polaris does, so you can help Polaris take action against human trafficking. This is clear when you look up at the page titles: What We Do, Human Trafficking, and Take Action. The audience Polaris is trying to reach out to people seeking help and those who are willing to help or donate to the cause. Polaris has a page called “Give”, which is where you can donate money to Polaris, and it is color-coded very different then the rest of the pages as if it was meant to stand out. A help line phone number is also displayed on every page you visit on the website. Polaris’s audience and purpose tie in well together because a person who wants to help a situation is going to want to know who they are dealing with, what the concern is, and how they can help. A person is not going to help or seek help from an organization without any background into what they do. When it comes to the paper being formal or informal, it comes across as being formal. There is not many specialized vocabulary except for NHTRC, which stands for National Human Trafficking Resource Center (Polaris, 2015), and its not hard for the audience to figure out what it is because they have it in the top right corner of the screen.
The audiences that Matt Friedman and the Polaris group are trying to reach out to are closely related. One might get the feeling that the Polaris is looking for people to give money to the cause more than Matt Friedman is because the Polaris group actually gives you a place to give money and advertised it more. While both want to reach out to those who would want to help, Matt Friedman mentions about appealing to college kids in particular as the Polaris website does not. The purpose of both genres can be seen as the same except that one of Matt Friedman’s purposes is not to give you information on what he does for human trafficking like the Polaris group does in their website.
Rhetorical Issues
Friedman’s presentation consisted of all of the three types of rhetorical appeals. Logos would have to be the appeal that Friedman uses the best because he brings up quite a lot of shocking information. For instance, he mentions that every 15 seconds a person is a victim of human trafficking and that there is nearly 21 million slaves due to human trafficking, which is more then we have ever had (Friedman, 2012). He displays his evidence of how big the problem of human trafficking is by using a total of six charts. For Pathos, He tells a story about when he first encountered human trafficking. In the story he encounters a little girl that runs up to him at a brothel in Mumbai asking him to save her, but the police officer told him they could not because they would not let them leave alive. When he came back with more officers she was gone. This made the audience feel great sadness for this little girl who was a victim of human trafficking and could not be saved. There is also a picture of a hand being chained and handcuffed that brings out the harshness of this crime. Lastly, the ethos comes from Matt Friedan and two of his charts are backed by the United States State Department on Human Trafficking. The author himself has credibility because he is an international human trafficking expert with over 20 years of experience as an activist and is currently the Regional Project Manager of the United Nations Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking (UNIAP). Overall, the three rhetorical appeals are covered and done well.
In the website it does not use any kind of material that backs up it’s credibility. The only thing that has credibility seems to be some of their articles that they post. On the other hand, they don’t provide a list of sources for the information and fact s they provide on their Human Trafficking page as if they came up with it themselves. The only thing that sounds creditable is a hotline called The National Human Trafficking Resource Center that in mentioned often but Polaris powers it. This lack of ethos hurts Polaris’s credibility because they could have just come up with all of this stuff. There is not a great amount of pathos presented although they do provide testimonies at the end of each page about how the Polaris group has helped them. For instance one of the client quotes says, "Thanks to Polaris Project, I have a job, a home, and many friends that help me when I need it. I am making a life of my own" (Polaris, 2015). This quote makes the audience feel happy that he or she would be able to help people being trafficked. It also shows pictures of men and woman throughout the website working with descriptions describing how it is done without pay. These pictures make the audience feel sad to know this is happening in our world. Lastly, it comes down to the Logos. The website uses a bunch of different facts that show the significance of how bad human trafficking is in the world. They also have a variety of charts on different pages; for instance, on the home page there is a chart that shows the human trafficking trends in the United States.
The logos and the pathos are covered very well by both of the genres. The logos on the human trafficking page are actually quite similar facts as Matt Friedman’s video. While the pathos is covered well by both genres they do it a little differently. Matt Friedman uses stories about sad experiences but Polaris uses pictures of woman and quotes from those whom have been saved. The biggest difference between these two in the rhetorical issues is the ethos. Matt Friedman has more credibility to his video in contrast to that of the Polaris groups website. First of Matt himself tells how himself as a speaker is credible while there is nothing on Polaris’ website showing that they are credible.
Structure and Delivery
This videos structure is set up to be a presentation of a speech. The time of the video is sixteen minutes and forty-five seconds. It is taken place in what looks like an auditorium of some sort. While it is set up for a speech, Matt Friedman has, a monitor where he shows all of his visual aids behind him to the right, from the audiences view. His visual aids consist of a picture of a poor woman and graphs. Matt Friedman starts of his speech with a two stories that gets the audience emotionally interested into his speech. For instance, he mentions a story where a little girl comes up to him in a brothel asking him to save her, but the police officer informed him they would kill them if they took her away from the brothel (Friedman, 2015). After the story, he goes on the talk about some of the facts about human trafficking. Lastly, he tells his audience how they can get involved in stopping human trafficking. All of these elements contribute the purpose of this video by getting them interested, teaching them about the issue, and lastly telling them how to get involved. A person will not help the videos purpose if they are not interest in the issue at hand. People cannot argue for an issue if they do not know anything about it, and they will not do anything for the issue if they do not know how to help. If one of those elements are missing the purpose of this video goes to shreds.
The Polaris group presents a website that gives this genre a lot of space to put a lot of information, which brings in the problem of organization. Polaris did a good job in organizing and making it easy for it audience to find what they are looking for. Almost every page has visuals, which makes it appealing to the eyes, and they organize the visuals great on every page not making them distracting from the text. On the Human trafficking page they bold the writing to show the importance of the facts being told. For example, “The International Labor Organization estimates that there are 20.9 million victims of human trafficking globally, including 5.5 million children. 55% are women and girls” (Polaris, 2015). The organization and the visuals of the website make it look visually appealing to the eyes, and the occasional boldness of some texts does the same by making important text really pop out.
This is where the two genres really separate themselves. Compared to the Matt Friedman’s speech the Polaris website has a lot more room. It being a website gives it a lot of space where they can put quite a lot of information and Matt’s Presentation is only about ten minutes long. Polaris has to focus on the use of making words and photos pop on the website while Matt has to focus more on vocals to make his purpose pop. Even though they are completely different in their delivery and the structured, the two are both well organized and appealing to the eyes for the website and the eyes and ears of the video.
In conclusion, the Matt Friedman’s iconography was more effective of getting its purpose out the audience. What really kills the Polaris group’s page is that they lacked in their ethos. Both of the genres were well organized and used a good amount of logos and pathos that got their purpose across to the audience. But it all came down to the ethos. All in all looking at the webpage the audience is left wondering if they should trust this website while with Matt Friedman’s video you trust what he is saying. It also seems newer generations are going to be more interested by iconographic genres because they consist more visuals. While typographic genres consists more of a reading aspect. Newer generations are not reading as much as they use to which tend to lead them to an iconographic genre.
This paper was the first paper dealing with the topic of human trafficking so some of the facts about it were really eye opening. I learned that nearly 21 million people are trafficked and every fifteen seconds a new person is added to that 21 million. I found the paper not to difficult to write. The only difficulty I had while writing this paper was finding evidence I could put in my paper on structure and delivery. This was especially hard for the video because it was visual so I had to find something he said that was important to the structure and delivery. It was nice to notice I am not as bad as a writer as I use to be and that writing for me is all about getting in a rhythm.