This analysis analyzes a photograph titled “Stoopidity-ness” from www.ebaumsworld.com and a political cartoon titled “Why Johnny Can’t Read” by Steve Greenberg. The political cartoon was retrieved from www.politicalcartoons.com. The analysis will cover the style of the two genres, the audience members the genres apply to, the purpose of the genres, the structure of the genres, and the specialized language that the genres use. I learned a lot from this paper, especially on how to correctly analyze two genres.
Analysis of Illiteracy Genres
Illiteracy is defined as a lack of ability to read and write or the lack of any or enough education. Illiteracy rates in the United States have sky-rocketed in the last 30 years, with the number of illiterate adults increasing by 2.25 million people each year. Forty-two million adult Americans cannot read. Approximately 50 percent of the nation’s unemployed youth ages 16-21 are illiterate and have almost no prospects of getting a good job. (The Literacy Company, 2010). www.ebaumworld.com’s photograph titled “Stoopidity-ness” and Steve Greenberg’s political cartoon “Why Johnny Can’t Read” are two different types of genres that use satire to raise awareness of the effects of illiteracy.
Audience
The intended audience for the photograph and the political cartoon is any person who is capable of reading. The discourse communities for each genre include literate Americans, readers, students, and literacy advocates, to name a few. The audience is likely to know that illiteracy is a problem in America and that the problem should be solved in people at the earliest age possible. The longer a person goes without learning how to read, the worse off the nation is as a whole. From the genres, the audience is not able to find out what race or nationality that illiteracy affects the most and this may be something that they want answered. When flipping through a magazine or newspaper, people prefer to be entertained over being educated, so the audience will not spend a vast amount of time analyzing either genre. Both the photograph and the political cartoon are meant to inform the audience in a sarcastic way. They poke fun at illiteracy, but not in a way that it takes away from the seriousness of the issue.
Purpose
In the “stoopidity-ness” photograph, “stoopid” is spelled incorrectly to convey that illiterate people are unable to spell. It also conveys that people who are illiterate are more likely to be criminals and to make dumb decisions like getting tattooed all over their face. These facts are indeed true. Seventy percent of those in prison are believed to be illiterate in some fashion. (The Literacy Company, 2010). Many criminals end up in prison because they do not have proper literacy skills, proper education, or proper life skills. Many studies have been done to find the correlation between literacy and crime. The result of these studies found that crime rates were lower where there were higher literacy rates. Facial tattoos are never a wise decision to make. Many people view those who have facial tattoos as hardcore criminals. Visible tattoos also limit a person’s option on where they can get a job. Many employers have policies that do not allow visible tattoos. Depending on the employer's industry and the type of job, this is a very fair policy. Upscale businesses or restaurants do not want to give off the wrong impression by having one of their employees greeting costumers with a face full of tattoos. While most of the photograph contains factual information, the subject in the photograph is a Caucasian male. Illiteracy statistics show that Caucasian males scored higher in literacy testing that African Americans or Hispanics. Pacific Islanders actually scored the highest of them all.
In the political cartoon, it says that Johnny is unable to read because libraries are underfunded. Public libraries have now become obsolete because funding cuts have forced many libraries to reduce staff, hours, and days of operation. Although in the political cartoon it has the library hours open for 15 minutes three days a week. This is not quite an accurate portray of library hours, although there are many libraries only open three days a week.
Each genre helps to evoke an emotion in two completely different ways. The photograph evokes an emotion of uncertainty or uneasiness because the person looks so criminal-like. It does not make the audience feel bad that the person in the photograph is illiterate because it almost looks like he deserves to be illiterate. The political cartoon evokes an emotion of empathy. The audience feels sorry for Johnny because he wants to utilize the library but he is unable to due to poor funding.
Structure
In the political cartoon, the picture is in black and white to set a solemn mood. It takes up the whole page and it shows little Johnny looking up at a library with the hours posted on the library door. The hours are on Monday and Thursday from 10:10-10:25 and 2:15-2:30 on Wednesday. The author of the cartoon is using irony because no library would be open for 15 minutes a day. There is a closed sign on the door and a clock on the wall with the time showing as 10:31, meaning Johnny just missed the library closing. The text in the political cartoon says “Under-funded library- why little Johnny can’t read”.
In the photograph, most of the page is taken up by a Caucasian male’s mug shot. He is wearing an orange jumpsuit and standing in front of a jail height graph. His face is covered in tattoos. The text in the photograph says “Stoopidity-ness- it never seems to be in short supply.” Underneath that is a text line that reads “Illiteracy-it walks hand in hand with stoopidity-ness”. This structure helps facilitate the purpose of the genre because it is showing how stupid a person who is illiterate looks.
Language
The languages in both genres are very informal and sarcastic. In the political cartoon, political irony is used to criticize underfunded libraries. In the photograph, intentional misspelling is used to facilitate how important it is for people to get an education so that they are not illiterate. The photograph was the most effective in conveying the message of how important literacy is because it had a bit of a shock factor.
Conclusion
Illiteracy is always going to be a problem in the United States, especially if the government does nothing about funding the programs needed to help combat the problem. Although these genres may have been sarcastic and ironic, they still helped raise awareness and bring attention to the audience members.
“References”
Anonymous, Author. Stoopidity-ness. Retrieved February 1st, 2011 from www.ebaumsworld.com.
Greenberg, Steve. Why Johnny Can’t Read. Retrieved February 1st 2011 from www.politicalcartoons.com.
The Literacy Company (2010). Reading, Literacy, and Education Statistics. Retrieved February 1st, 2011 from http://www.readfaster.com/education_stats.asp.
Image courtesy of ebaumsworld.com
Image courtesy of politicalcartoons.com