Going vegetarian to stop animal cruelty: Genre Analysis of a video and a flyer.
David Sotomayor
800455012
The University of Texas at El Paso
Going vegetarian to stop the animal cruelty: A Genre Analysis of an online video and a flyer.
Life on the farm isn't what it used to be. The green pastures and idyllic barnyard scenes portrayed in children's books have been replaced by windowless sheds, tiny crates, wire cages, and other confinement systems integral to what is now known as "factory farming."
In America the majority of the population is carnivorous and unconsciously they are supporting the factory farms which murder thousands of animals in inhumanly ways to deliver the meats. This paper compares a video posted by chooseveg.org called “Farm to fridge: The transformation of animals into food” and a flyer which is made by the Vegan Outreach foundation. Both of these genres are persuading people to become a vegetarian to end animal cruelty in factory farms.
Purpose and Audience
The purpose of the video “Farm to fridge” and the flyer from the Vegan Outreach foundation is to show people the extremely cruel process that farm animals go through to end up in our tables as our food, they both give you an alternative to eating meats, the alternative is vegetarianism.
The audience intended for this genre are grown audience range from teenagers to elderly people, due to the graphics of the video and the pictures on the flyers, both these images are portray very graphic images to describe the cruelty done to the animals, These genres are meant to reach all discourse communities in general even if you you already are a vegan. They give you another good reason to continue being one. With the flyer people won’t spend much time reading it since it is full of images and contains very few words, but these words are very precise, so even if there is very few words the intention is clear. The video lasts eleven minutes with fifty-one seconds, but since the images are so hard many people will not the video completely, but even if one only watches the first three minutes the purpose as well as the flyer is very clear. What the audience know is where all the meat that they eat comes from, but what they don’t know is the cruel process that is behind it.
Rhetorical Issues: Ethos, Pathos and Logos.
The video and the flyer’s credibility is very high due to the images on the flyer and the video, and also because both the video and the flyer are supported by PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) which is a very big organization that protects animals.
When referring to the emotions the video is full of Pathos some people are not even able to watch the whole video, the images are very disturbing, they cause a lot of pity, when one observes the animals in the conditions the farms have them living, when baby pigs are murdered with no mercy for the slightest defects, and the cows, chickens being murdered in inhuman ways without painkillers. The flyer shows also some very graphic images that disturb you but they do not compare to the nature of the video.
The type of evidence used in both the video and the flyer are, the mages in the flyer, and the farm workers slaughtering the animals. There is no bigger evidence than to see them on video doing these acts. People who eat meat will also feel some change in emotion, as they realize how there food which they love to eat is being brought to them in such cruel ways.
I believe visual images are more persuasive than words or facts, because people always understand more something they see than what they read as they say one image says more than a thousand words.
Structure and Delivery
In the video it talks about the different meats and diaries in this order: pork, poultry, diary, beef, and seafood. After one observes the video of how the animals are abused it gives you the option to make a change in your diet a change that can save thousands of these far animals lives and gives you a link where you can see vegan diets.
In the flyer it show one pictures of cows and chickens and gives you brief but strong information on how these animals are killed. For example the little piglets who haven’t gained the proper weight, they are slammed head first into the ground several times until they die and than thrown into a trashcan filled with piglets killed this way. And in the last page it shows the alternative food various vegan dishes that are substitute of the carnivorous ones.
Style and Language
In both the video and the flyer the language is formal, since they are discussing a concerning issue the language has to be formal for it to have impact. There is no special vocabulary used, only to describe the type of animals per say using the word poultry when referring to chickens and turkeys. The language used is based on common words no out of the ordinary except the one mentioned (poultry), so that audiences of all ages can read and understand. Some audiences while reading the flyer might not be so convinced, but when one takes a look at the videos it is more than clear.
Conclusion
The video was a very lot more persuading than the flyer do to the nature of the video shown, the images on the flyer are also very disturbing but there is no comparison of a video to a still image, therefore the video in this genre analysis was more effective conveying the message than the flyer.
References
Flyer:
People for the Ethical Treat of Animals. (2011) Vegan Outreach, veganoutreach.org, retrieved from a Flyer on September 20th 2012.
Video: Farm to Fridge:
Farm to Fridge . A look inside the meat industry slaughter houses (Video File). (2011, August 15). Retrieved on September 20th 2012 from: