Journal 3: 459 words

For my three artifacts, I chose a poster from the women’s march, an Instagram post by Madonna in support of the march and speech on video from Hillary Clinton to Bejiing on the subject of women’s rights. The speech resurfaced when she began her presidential campaign. For my key term, I chose audience and I feel that each of my artifacts show that the way the message is given and even who is giving the message can greatly impact what audience will be drawn to it. For example, the poster I chose from the women’s march says “Love women, don’t grab them”, this slogan is catchy and is meant to attract a female audience that has been affected by or influenced by the sexual atrocities that occur to women.

Some women are more interested by the political aspect of women’s rights, which is where the speech from Hillary is most effective. In an effort to raise awareness about women’s rights, Hillary gave a speech to Bejiing about her stance on the women’s rights movement. While the woman’s march poster is more geared towards a portion of women interested in a certain right being preserved.

The Instagram post made by Madonna made such a scene that it was removed from the site. Her use of social media like Instagram helps to not only draw the attention of women that are interested in women’s rights, but the younger generations that utilize social media as a part of daily activity. Overall, the different ways the same overall message of women’s rights was portrayed in various ways in order to reach out to all women, not just one group.

When I looked at the other students’ examples, I noticed that several others utilized social movements prevalent in our society, like women’s rights. Edbauer’s article spoke of circulation and the importance of reaching the correct audience in order to make an impact. Social movements prove to be great examples of this in the way that they are specified towards a very specific audience and their protests/campaigns must have efficient circulation in order to further their support group. Also, specifically in my example of Madonna’s Instagram post it becomes evident that the advances in today’s technology changed the way that messages are circulated. Hillary’s speech in 1995 could have been easily condensed into a post on social media in today’s society. This may have increased the audience she would have been able to reach.

These types of social movements are also excellent examples of Bitzer’s idea of rhetoric. Bitzer puts great emphasis on the important of exigence in the rhetorical situation. The women’s march and other movements had exigencies that allowed for their ideas and opinions to become so powerful and impactful to their audience.