Author: The article “Children were Dirty, They Were Scared, and They were Hungry” by by Lizzy O’Leary, a writer who takes her interest for immigrant families journey coming to the United States to a written stance. O’Leary teams up with an Immigration Attorney who describes her journey when explaining what she has witnessed at the border.

Rhetorical Analysis/ Exigence: The article was written to uncover the horrible conditions migrant families experience when seeking asylum in the United States. Many immigrant families seek a safe environment, better education, and escaping the violence their home brings. Innocent people shouldn’t be locked up in cages and treated as if they are an animal. This worldwide issue needs to be heard and O’Leary and Muhkerjee apply pressure onto the fact that innocent children are being held in crowded cages with little to no food, as well as no medical attention if needed. The tone and word choice used in O’Learys article puts focus on the importance of the issue, by using words like “Degrading” and ” inhuman” to describe the treatment the children are experiencing in the Federal Custody Facilities.

Audience: The article attracts an audience of readers who would like to further educate themselves on the social issue of  how immigrant families are being treated in Government facilities. Therefor, what Muhkerjee writes is pointed towards people who want to better their understanding on the social issue that is happening right under our noses.

Purpose: The purpose of the article is to educate the audience about the social issues of migrant children being detained in Government facilities under harsh conditions. The writer wants to inform the readers about what is exactly happening to these children that the Government isn’t showcasing. O’Leary mentions her little understanding to the crisis, As a result she invites Elora Mukherjee, a professor at Columbia Law School. Elora Mukherjee has been working on issues related to the crisis, and has interviewed immigrant families being detained in migrant facilities. The writer informs her audience about the “Inhuman” and “Degradation” conditions as described from Professor Mukherjee’s Interview with the immigrant families.

Genre: The article is an informational because the writer continuously addresses how she interviewed professor Elora who mostly educate the readers on what she witnessed while visiting the facilities. The writer’s whole purpose is to educate her audience on what is going on with immigrant families who are seeking asylum in the United States. In addition, informational articles are used to communicate a point and further educate the audience to understand the topic clearly, and that is exactly what Mukherjee does.

Stance: The writer Lizzie O’Leary believes that no person should be treated with such inhuman and degrading conditions. The author demands more attention for these children who are living under these conditions with little to no help and attention. O’Leary asks her readers to reach out to congress regardless of ones background and political background.

I have chosen to analyze “10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Woman” created by Rob Bliss Creative, featuring 24-year-old actress Shoshana Roberts. The author of this text is Rob Bliss, who is credible of his creation due to the fact that the video has reached 49 million views on YouTube. However,  Shoshana is the featuring actor. 

Rhetorical Situation/Exigence: The author of the video is responding to the street harassment of women while choosing to represent the ultimate cause of hidden cameras, and let the audience know the struggle women face every day, which is catcalling. The video is suggesting the reality of the consequences of a woman walking by in New York City streets, and the video brings awareness of the difficult times that women face in our society. 

Audience: The target audience for this text is masculine men due to the fact that it shows men committing such actions. It is a source to make men see their reflection and make them aware of the causes they are making. The author’s assumptions to the audience are that they are not knowledgeable of making those actions and that this video is a reflection of themselves, so they can see the damages they have done so they could stop doing so in the future.

However, I also think that there is another audience that the author points out. In this case, women and society as a whole. The author tries to point out the social issue of street harassment of women is unconsidered and not discussed. As evidence is the woman herself, walking by. 

Purpose: The main purpose of this text is to capture street harassment happening in the real world in the greatest city in the world, and let the watchers explore what it is like being street harassed. However another idea of challenging the traditional narrative of women being harassed because of their looks. In response to that misconception, Roberts was wearing black jeans and a T-shirt, opposing that women are a subject of street harassment despite what they wear. 

Genre: The genre of this text is the informal informational video that has a goal. The reason I say is informal is because it does not contain a script or use of graphics, however, it does have the narrator, which is Shoshana Roberts.

The Stance:  Although the author is not particularly presented in the video, the stance of the author is ultimately altered due to the fact that Bliss has chosen to share the theme of street harassment of women. 

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1XGPvbWn0A

The New York Times article “What is DACA? And How Did It End Up in the Supreme Court?” written by Caitlin Dickerson explains the DACA program and gives the readers an update of its stance in the Supreme Court. Dickerson is a “national immigration reporter based in New York State” whose work has received a Peabody Award and a Murrow Award. Since she is based in New York State, which has a high immigrant population, and primarily focuses on immigration and immigrants, it is clear that Dickerson is more than qualified to write this article, though she does lean in favour of the immigrants. In this article, Dickerson highlights the DACA Program, gives a brief overview of how it was created in 2012 by President Obama, and how it is now trying to be dismantled by President Trump. Seeing as the majority of this article was dedicated to explaining what DACA is, who it benefits and how it benefits its recipients shows how this article was aimed at people who are not yet familiar with this program. Dickerson carefully crafts her writing to make sure that she doesn’t use highly opinionated words or stark phrases that may offend people who may already have opinions on the DACA program. Instead, as a news article, she takes a more neutral stance, focusing solely on the facts of the situation by linking other articles and demographics to inform her audience. She chose to include demographics that had a favourable light towards immigrants and even made sure to mention how “Contrary to what President Trump has said, people with serious criminal histories (meaning a felony or serious misdemeanour conviction, or three convictions for any type of misdemeanour) are not eligible” for the program. Though Dickerson doesn’t use much pathos in her writing, the videos that she chose to include, especially “What ‘Dreamers’ Gained From DACA” By A.j. Chavar, which showcases the lives of DACA immigrants and their struggles, makes her sympathy clear. The point of all of these positive demographics and the sympathetical videos goes to show how Dickerson wants to imply that these immigrants are simply trying to better their lives in America.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/article/what-is-daca.html

“Conspiracy theorists burn 5G towers claiming link to virus” an article by Kelvin Chan, Beatrice Dupuy, and Arijeta Lajka addresses the social issue of misinformation and delusion. What they are talking about is of course the burning/destruction of the 5G cellular radio towers. The authors brought various information that details of how the misinformation of cell towers causing cancer and other health risks were brought to the world and changed ever so slightly with cell towers now able to spread virus instead on Facebook. This gets picked up by many delusional people and groups some including the anti-vaccine group. Then they started addressing this “false” problem to people and demanded to take the cell towers down. This quickly gets rejected which only made those delusional people take matters into their own hands by burning the cell towers down. The problem here is how can they know what cell towers are 5G? And so, many regular cell towers were burnt down which made communication by phone through countries and cities become useless, this made immediate calls for help unavailable. This however not only affected the nation but also the workers who are building the cell towers to get attacked.
The targetted audience is everyone including the conspiracy theorists, they hope to make the information known that 5G towers don’t spread viruses and this is backed by the top of the health organizations. The purpose is to inform the public about how and why the cell towers being destroyed and are causing problems everywhere. The genre is an informational news web site. The authors all very much want the public to know that there is no correlation between 5G towers and the virus outbreak. I know this because of how many times they have included information from knowledgable people that says there is no correlation between them and basically mentions how anyone that believes otherwise is wrong and possibly dumb.

Source:
https://apnews.com/4ac3679b6f39e8bd2561c1c8eeafd855

In “Income Inequality Is Costing the U.S. on Social Issues,” one very thought-provoking issue is the gap between rich and poor. As we all know, the United States has the most advanced technology available to mankind, but it’s not as good as we thought it would be, the United States is not keeping up with the times in what is now a rapidly evolving era. The birth rate of young people in the United States is very high, but more than twenty percent of people live in poverty. Also among adults, the number of people in prison is increasing every year, which not only shows the seriousness of the education problem, but also one of the main causes of the poverty gap. Furthermore, the United States has a very high mortality rate and very low survival and life expectancy, yet its health care system is very advanced, which means that the health and social cohesion of the American people needs to grow. This may be the result of “excessive inequality”. One of the more serious causes of the wealth gap is that working families are earning less and less, and the lowering of the labor market has led to a more difficult life for working families. The loss of jobs and income dissatisfaction has gradually increased the severity of the gap. In addition, The U.S. is trying to have more talent so that everyone has a college degree, thus boosting the income of lower-class families, however what is not thought of is that although education is expanding, there are not many people who actually learn and go on to advance in society, which can be seen in the graduation rate, low-income families stagnant school enrollment rate has led to the distance between the rich and poor children are also expanding. As a result, We need to change the various issues so that we can alleviate the wealth gap one step at a time, and America needs to have a better health care problem that needs to maintain a balance with medical technology. The second thing is to reduce crime and have a tougher education system that doesn’t allow things like students attending class when they want to and skipping class when they don’t. Lastly, there was the issue of the workforce, which needed to be proportional to income in order to have greater control over the widening gap between rich and poor in society.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/29/business/economy/income-inequality-is-costing-the-us-on-social-issues.html

“What’s wrong with Physics” is an interview with a relatively unknown quantum optics professor Chris Search. Horgan, the author and conductor of the interview, is more than credible for this interview. He has written multiple books on different topics and problems regarding science and directs the Center for Science Writings at the Stevens Institute of Technology. The questions he asks in this interview are mostly hard hitting and without fluff showing that he’s actually attempting to get some tangible response from Chris. Throughout the interview Horgan asks Chris about multiple disparaging problems going on in the Physics community. One such important and hotly debated topic is diversity within the Physics department of which Chris strongly believes there should be more but that there is relatively no change throughout the years as to its increase. The target audience of this interview is mostly students, faculty, researchers that are interested in science and physics and possibly even avid readers of scientific american. That is why the Horgan asks questions that would be known to people that are students or avid readers of scientific american such as, “If you were Physics Czar, would you pull the plug on any projects? Increase funding for any?” The point of this text is to get a high level physicists opinion on pressing matters happening within the community. However I think it is more telling of what Chris doesn’t say. He doesn’t talk about the problem of putting a paywall behind information which has plagued the scientific community for the past 20 years and instead says “war is good for physics”. He doesn’t talk about why there is such a lack of diversity in the field of Physics when asked about it. He doesn’t even make a case for the clear need for theoretical physics if we are to find a tangible way of measuring these so-called “immeasurable questions” as he refers to them. I think this instead points to the broader problem that because his life’s work is tied to an institution giving him funding he either cannot say much about things he really feels or refuses to feel them in the first place. The genre is an interview but it feels relatively one-sided. I think Horgan tried his best to get something interesting and something that would add to the conversation (or lack thereof for while trying to find articles on diversity in physics I could find relatively nothing) but is met with a brick wall or in this case a fat wallet. The questions he asked were hard hitting and necessary questions to ask, now more than ever, but I don’t know if the old dogs are the ones we should be hearing opinions from. 

Source: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/whats-wrong-with-physics/#

AUTHOR: Global Fund for Women was created by Anne Firth Murray, Frances Kissling, Laura Lederer, and Nita Barrow. They were witnesses to minimal action being taken to further address women’s rights and with that, they worked to create an organization to help progress equality for women and to invest in women’s rights movements.

RHETORICAL SITUATION/EXIGENCE: There are numerous groups of women who work day in and day out to spread awareness on the treatment they receive or the rights they aren’t guaranteed, but they’re not listened to as much as they should be. Although women are told that they have as much equal rights as the next, they fail to consider that some people don’t grant them the respect they deserve. There are articles and debates about whether or not women should be allowed to abort or not, there are laws that prohibit them from aborting a child. A woman’s reproductive system and what she chooses to put her body through, should be her decision. Numerous other women are left without jobs, paid less, or are denied from a specific position, not only because their gender has come into play but also “marginalized because of their race, caste, sexuality, income, or location.”

AUDIENCE: This organization strives to reach the hearts of the general public, anyone willing to listen and contribute. They hope that by funding more and more movements they’ll open the minds of even the most stubborn of people. Especially women who have experienced the same circumstances they’re trying to address.

PURPOSE: There are multiple issues that this organization is trying to get rid of, but more than anything, the organization wants to spread awareness about the things women aren’t freely allowed to do or have. They want to assist the numerous women’s movements so that they can appeal to different individuals. With that they want to make sure that they receive “equal pay and land ownership rights to sexual rights, freedom from violence, access to education, and maternal health rights.”

GENRE: The article is more of an informational and persuasive article because they consistently address different reasons on why it’s important to focus on women’s rights and what exactly they’re being deprived of. In addition to that, they discuss documents that have their support due to the fact that it focuses on granting women the rights they deserve.

STANCE: Global Fund for women strongly believes that once women take a stand and make their voices heard, only then can we see a social change. The more support these movements get, the stronger it becomes and the louder their voices are.

The article “Many Black and Asian Americans Say They Have Experienced Discrimination Amid the COVID-19 Outbreak” was written by Neil G. Ruiz, Juliana Horowitz, and Christine Tamir; a group of researchers who study human lives and ethnicity of individuals by using significant reliable references in this report that took from “ Survey of U.S Adults…”. Besides, these authors are credible because two of them are associate directors in research, while one of them is a research assistant. It signifies that they all have excellent experiences and capacities to work on analysis and evidence. Furthermore, this text talks about racial discrimination toward Black and Asian people. They were seen differently and had experienced many times of racist views even more since the outbreak of Covid-19. “It is more common for people to express racist or racially insensitive views about people who are Asian than it was before the coronavirus outbreak”, and considering of this, it lets them worry when wearing masks going outdoor for the fact that they could be seen as suspicious of the virus just because of their backgrounds and skin color. In addition, the purpose of the article is to inform the fact of racial discrimination and stereotypes against certain individuals still exist, where they must be resolved or ended. Next, an example of the death of George Floyd has arisen as a demonstration to settle prejudice and inequality against Black people across the country, which also influenced other groups of people to participate in the issue of racism. After that, the genre of this article is a business report because it provides tables and graphs as pieces of evidence to prove their judgments. “A majority of Asian Americans (58%) and 45% of Black Americans say that it is more common for people to express racist views toward their group since the coronavirus outbreak”, the authors contain resources to provide the audiences with the knowledge and ideas to support their argument. Moreover, Ruiz, Horowitz, and Tamir disagree with the behaviors that people took to view individuals differently because of their backgrounds; with the idea that this text talks about the mistreatment and inequality of certain groups of people that later came to the idea to solve and reduce the conflict of this social issue. Also, “The fastest-growing major racial or ethnic group in the U.S. Hispanics make up 18% of the population overall, while Black Americans are 12%”, the authors used most of the sources to stand against the views of prejudices and racial discrimination toward various groups of individuals.

Source:

Neil G. Ruiz, J. (2020, August 20). Many Black, Asian Americans Say They Have Experienced Discrimination Amid Coronavirus. Retrieved September 04, 2020, from https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2020/07/01/many-black-and-asian-americans-say-they-have-experienced-discrimination-amid-the-covid-19-outbreak/

Johnathan D. Quick, MD, MPH and Hedi Larson wrote “The Vaccine-Autism Myth Started 20 Years Ago. Here’s Why It Still Endures Today” for Time Magazine in 2018 to communicate the necessity for childhood immunizations and address the fraudulent scientific claim that they cause Autism. At the time Dr. Quick was an instructor at Harvard University and a senior fellow at the nonprofit Management Sciences for Health while Ms. Larson was a professor of Anthropology, Risk, & Decision Science in London and Director of the Vaccine Confidence Project. Their backgrounds being both centered in academia and medicine, along with the intentional use of the word “Myth” in the title, lend the article immediately to a pro vaccination stance made by qualified medical professionals. However opening with references to click-bait headlines about the horrors of vaccines followed by “just a few examples of the fake science news stories shared this month on Facebook,” sets the tone for the subsequent language. The article was also published in Time and directed toward an audience of social media savvy parents, calling attention to any curiosity that may be felt when scrolling past such attention-grabbing stories. At this point it can be ascertained that the goal of the piece may not be entirely scientifically driven.

They begin by explaining that the vaccine-autism myth originated with an article written for a respected medical journal by Andrew Wakefield a former British MD. With Wakefield falsely linking the MMR (Measles, Mumps, and Rubella) vaccine to Autism. Later that paper retracted the article and he was de-licensed by medical authorities for deceit, yet the impact of his claim had lasting repercussions. The authors go on to catalog the resurgence of measles cases in the years following the publication and describe how an element of fanaticism came to surround Andrew Wakefield as he continued his platform “relentlessly” eventually making a documentary film that played in independent U.S. and European theaters. Showing how United States and Europe both had a significant increase in measles cases and measles related deaths after the now infamous article, due to parents choosing not to vaccinate their children out of fear and misinformation, is how Quick and Larson transition into what can be done to protect parents and their children going forward. They advise the general public to trust its primary healthcare providers, the medical community to double down on ensuring published scientific information has not been falsified and call for responsible and evidence-based reporting from print and broadcast media. Urging State health officials to enforce strict public health policies and finally asking parents and educators to help children ascertain critical thinking skills early in life so they may be prepared to discern fact from fiction as they navigate a new age of “social media, frequent distrust of authorities, and increasing epidemic threats.”

In their conclusion the authors reiterate that “we,” (the audience) “must be vigilant,” (the purpose) against “the dangerous long-term consequences,” (the central point) of “fake science,” (the exigence) “threatening the health and lives of everyone,” (the stance.) The article did not speak to any actual correlation between vaccinations and autism, past or present, nor did its writers seek to scientifically disprove the statement they used as foundation for their argument. This was, in fact,  just a propaganda piece.

I have chosen to analyze this short film representing the ongoing issue surrounding immigration in the United States. To briefly summarize, this informational video shows several real time moments where children from as young as 4 years old are taken to court in exchange for their hearing and place in this country. However, often these children do not have a lawyer present to defend them, this is where the issue comes into hand. Linda Freedman is a filmmaker who based this film on a reading made by another author [Anna Ciesielski, a young lawyer working for Immigration Counseling Service]. So far, this is the only film that Freedman has worked on. She wanted to bring light to this topic because it does not get the attention or aid that it deserves. She stated that she was also not familiar with this issue and once she learned about it, it quickly broke through her. The main point in this film being that the children must represent themselves, when by law everyone has the right to an attorney and if they can’t afford one the government must provide them with one. Which would you leave you wondering why can’t this be the same for immigrant children?  Freedman includes at least two minutes of how these court hearings usually happen: the child walks in and sits on the chair, they are handed a pair of headphones, set the mic and proceed to make eye contact with the judge. The headphones are given to them because they are at least given a translator that helps them communicate as much as they can with the judge because they are not able to speak back in English, I believe that at 1:40-2:25 is where this hearing becomes the most impactful part of the film. This video can easily inform the general public with why the issue is as bad as it sounds. It can also inform higher professionals that can help fix the problem such as attorneys, translators, and the government. This video was also made to persuade others because towards the end of the video, Freedman provides a link where people can donate to the organization leading these children [https://www.unaccompaniedchildren.org.] This is where her stance comes in because she is leading the reason for why others must help; her filmmaking can only do so much. After educating herself, Linda Freedman wants to educate the rest of America and do her part with her privilege in uplifting these children’s voices and their stories.