Alejandro Rodriguez

Professor Gomez
RWS 1302
25 September 2016
Genre Analysis Matrix
INTRODUCTION:
The genres I chose refer to gun violence and its effects. Guns have one purpose: to end
life. These genres truly show the devastating effects that guns have on civilian life. Guns cause
great havoc in peoples lives, and these genres exemplify that notion. I chose one video because
you can see and visualize the effects of gun violence, see the faces that are now damaged, and I
think this brings you into a greater understanding of what goes on. This piece is called Social
Media Reacts to Orlando Shooting. The other piece is a little more informal, however it gets my
point across. It is titled Columbine High School shootings and it gives all the information
about the day of the shooting as if to make you feel as if you were there. It also obtains quotes
from people who were there and people who spoke on the topic. I believe these genres share a
similar thesis statement which would be that guns can bring about extremely dire circumstances
and something should be done about it, to avoid future bad experiences. This is the thesis that I
assume both of these genres follow.
AUDIENCE AND PURPOSE QUESTIONS:
These genres are very special in the sense that I do not believe that they have specific
audiences in mind. These are to inform the general public of the harm that these weapons can do.

These weapons can take lives; everyone should value their own life as well as others, and it is
this reason I believe these authors were intending for their article and video to reach out to the
hearts of people. This is because people have the power to change the legality of weapons
through voting. However, with my personal thought being voiced, there may be some specific
audiences that can be targeted and these authors may have targeted these specific audiences. The
first audience that they may have targeted with their pieces could be the people who are for guns
being legal. This is because these people fight for their right to have guns, but if they understand
why guns should be illegal, they might possibly stop fighting for them. The other audience that
can be targeted by these genres can be politicians. These politicians are the ones that can get the
process of changing the law started, and these people once they want to make a change are the
ones that have the easiest opportunity to do it. The purpose of both of these genres are to inform
the general public of what the effect of these weapons is, and to persuade the public that firearms
are bad for civilian use. To specify, the videos purpose is to seek empathy from the people. This
shows the after effects and how all the people that were impacted negatively from a shooting,
whether it is directly or indirectly, came together and showed their support for a community; this
is what they want from the general public as well. The article is a play by play of the day of the
Columbine Shooting, this can be a way to put you with those students and experience the terror
that they must have felt or at least as close as you can get to that moment. For this reason I
believe that they are informing as well as trying to persuade the general public. If they achieve
their goal of getting to the audiences emotional side, then the audience will want to see what can
be done. In this specific case, they can petition, and vote against having guns legal. The audience
will likely hold the information with them for a good while. This is because it can affect them at
any time, as shootings are becoming all too normal in todays society. The information presented

is not difficult to comprehend whatsoever, but it is heavy in the emotional aspect of things. The
language presented in the video is quite informal, but this is acceptable because the audience it is
aiming for is the general population and it is being presented by normal, everyday people.
However, the case with the article is that it is being presented in a little more formal wording but
nonetheless it should be able to be followed easily. To compare the two articles, the similarities
are quite more substantial than the dissimilarities. They are similar in the content they present, as
both articles are talking about guns and their devastating effects. The differences they have are
that one is a video with people voicing strong opinions about the said events and the other is a
description of the event. The way in which they display the content is different but the content
itself is almost the same. The difference in the content is that one is talking about an Orlando
night club shooting, and the other is talking about the Columbine High school shooting.

RHETORICAL ISSUES: ETHOS, PATHOS, AND LOGOS

These specific genres do not help in establishing the informations credibility, but since
these are historical events there is no way to become more credible than that. Each genre does
evoke an emotional response; as a matter of fact they are trying to get an emotional response out
of the audience. The video tries to get an emotional response by presenting regular people who
have taken to heart what happened, and getting them to show short clips of themselves
explaining what happened or pleading for sympathy or prayers. This is a great way to appeal to
peoples emotions. The other article evokes emotions of fear because it tells the people exactly
what happened, allowing them to possibly see themselves in a situation like that. This is a way
that they can get an emotional response out of people. This does help contribute to the purpose of
the genres in the sense that they can get people to action and get them to do something about

what is happening in the world. There is not much evidence for the video other than the people
who knew about what happened and decided to take action and make a short video and submit it
for the viewing and hopefully to impact them enough to spring them into action. The descriptive
article uses investigative notes and peoples testimonies in order to back up what they are saying.
However, as I said before there is not much need for evidence of a historical event such as this
one that happened recently as long as people know about it. There is probably plenty of evidence
that can attest to these genres, but the need is not there. The message is not affected by missing
certain evidence of these shootings, it happened and people are aware. These genres are merely
bringing to light the importance of the need of change if these events are to stop occurring in the
future. There is no way to tell if certain evidence was left out on purpose, these genres were
partially meant to persuade so leaving them out could be a possibility but that it most likely not
the case. The information is presented in unique ways; the video contains submissions by people
themselves and is quite informal, as to get a change from the general public. The article is the
most unique, this is because it is not just a plain article; there are different aspects to it. I believe
that the genre that was most effective in displaying it content and persuading the audience was
the descriptive article the reason for this is that it gives people the ability to deduct their own
opinions from the information presented. This is because it is quite impactful on its own, so
when someone reads it, they are left to make their own opinions about it. The video is basically
telling people to do something in a sympathetic fashion, so they are being told to feel in a sense.
For this reason I believe that the article is the one genre out of the two that is quite more
impactful than the other because it allows people to make their own opinions about said event,
which is the most impactful way to have an impression left. These articles were presented to the
same discourse communities in the sense that everyone values their life, but they had sub-

discourse communities. The video was presented more towards the Gay community as it was an
attack on their livelihood, and the article was presented to the students of America, as they have
to fear for their lives while pursuing an education.

References
Fineman, N., & Tiefenthler, A. (2016). Social Media Reacts to Orlando Shooting. Retrieved
September 14, 2016, from http://www.nytimes.com/video/us/100000004467807/socialmedia-reacts-to-orlando-shooting.html

History.com Staff. (2009). Columbine High School shootings. Retrieved September 14, 2016,
from http://www.history.com/topics/columbine-high-school-shootings