Audience Strategy

            For many people deportation is not such a big deal but there are others who are affected by this. Deportation is not only affecting a specific type or a specific race, it seems to be affecting every race, but in a stereotypical manner it seems to be affecting more the people of Mexico and South America. For the most part it is affecting these people between the ages of 18 through 40, it is happening at different ages but for the most part it happens between these ages and that is who my visual essay is going towards.  If I was to describe these people physically it would be super hard because it is not the same for everybody, many people from the same country look very different so there is not something that can define physically where they are from. But there are cases in which you can tell some one is from Mexico, or India, China, because there are certain facial features that gives it away, but it is very hard to describe it.

            I understand that Deportation is not something that is funny, but I think that since there are so many negative things going towards this subject I just thought that a bit of humor could be added. I took a picture of my friend that looks very South American, he is actually from Chimborazo in Ecuador, and he just put regular clothes that had some sort of American identity in his clothes. He wears shorts that has the printing of the American Flag as well as a Bandana with the same printing, and a T-Shirt that says USA. I just put a text that says, “Let’s Confuse ICE”. This picture was taken when there were many officers taking undocumented people into custody. This was just to show a very general idea of the appearance of South American.

            Everybody that I’ve known loves to laugh so I guess that if I were to put something that could break a laugh from the people that understand the message would be great. I think that anything related in that way can draw the most attention, because now people are always posting memes about any situation. I think that could work or to use logos that most people are familiar with I believe could also get the job done.

VISUAL ESSAY

REFLECTION

For me it was not that difficult to relate to the topic I am talking about because in a way or another I experienced this firsthand. With my visual essay my intention is not to make fun of the situation but to try and not make it as serious. I agree that deportation has nothing positive to it and I experienced that with my mom 7 years ago when she got deported to Ecuador. I think that to my intended audience they will get where I’m coming from. I chose to in a way use a meme to make things a bit lighter and to involve even more people. I feel that if my intended audience were scholars or from different race or even older people, the genre I chose would not work that well. I believe that if my audience were the ones previously mentioned I would have had to go with something like a poster or a picture with a very deep meaning.

For this visual essay I went with both pathos and logos in way. For instance, for pathos since it is supposed to appeal to emotions, the emotions that I think it was directed towards was happiness. Obviously, this is not saying that Deportation should make anybody feel joy or happiness, but I am saying that the meme which is my visual essay conveys that. The rhetorical situation in this meme is that his physical appearance is clearly from a south American country but in the meme, he is basically trying to hide that by wearing gear that has the American flag and that had something to do with the USA. Since he has that appearance and stereotypically speaking ICE was sending undocumented people back to their country and since he doesn’t seems to have the “American” appearance then that its why I put the caption “Let’s Confuse ICE.” This is also logos because it appeals to logic because he doesn’t look like the common American would look like. So, this is the reason why this meme appeals to both pathos and logos.

This is very different to compose a visual essay than a normal essay because in normal essay I just use my words and try to express what I think to the best of my ability, but in a visual essay it takes more thinking. I have to put myself in the audience shoes to try and relate with them or try to find something in which they can understand. Not everybody is going to understand what I want to get across so I try to find a genre that most people can understand. I see people of all ages nowadays that are very familiar with memes so I thought to myself if I was to make a meme of the situation more people would be able to understand. Finding someone who was willing to put on that clothes was also a challenge, but for this type of work I had to go a step further.

Overall, I think that the genre that I chose was the best one I could have chosen for the designated audience. I think that if something has a bit of humor in it, it would get more people’s attention. I am trying to get the message across to as many people as I can so choosing the correct genre to get my message across was a challenge.