Rhetorical Analysis of Project 3

For project three, I have decided to tackle one of the largest environmental controversies in the past 5 years, the Flint Michigan Water Scandal.

Who is the Author?

• As an environmental studies major, a person who cares deeply for the environment around her, and a human rights activist, this event has hit home. The scandal has become a household name through media and public discussion for it's political implications. Magazines like Time and National Geographic, as well as well known newspapers like The New York Times and Washington Post, have covered the issue and spread the name far. It's possible to draw from these sources for a discussion of blame and politics, but for an actual explanation of how and why this occurred, it is better to draw from scientific sources, such as journals and researchers with authority.  A very important source that I've used over and over again is my high school mentor, who has taught me more about environmental issues than anything else. I plan to become a person who is dedicated to bettering the environment around her, be it through big environmental groups and projects, or just living more environmentally friendly myself. Learning from events now can help in the future.

• I personally have strong feelings towards subjects like this, and should avoid letting my bias against large company's and their ability to ruin wonderful and beautiful environments. I have always been environmentally conscious and my experiences growing up in a very liberal, progressive, and environmentally engaged town has taught me to hate big business and the disasters they create. Flagstaff, and the residents of, has never cared for fitting in and living in a life of luxury at the expense of others.However, as I mentioned earlier, it is more important to understand how this happened and how to fix it rather than assign blame for why it happened. This project is about solutions and why they are good or bad on a logical level, not on a personal level.

Who is the Audience?

• The audience for this event, so far, has been the entirety of the US. This has been because of the air time it has had on media thus far. The political implications of the event has captured a very large audience, but very little of the technical and environmental implications have been covered. I plan to discuss all three of these ideas for an audience that is looking for more depth in the issue. 

• This audience, after being exposed to the political turmoil that followed the event, might disagree with the causes and the proposed solutions because it goes against the beliefs of certain political parties and of big businesses. 

• I think they may wholly disagree with my proposals because of our opposite political beliefs. Just knowing that I am a liberal alone can cause a disagreement because of the precedence set by political rifts in our own government. In other words, democrats and republicans can't get along at all.

• As I mentioned previously, by avoiding being biased and proposing or rejecting proposals simply because they are for big business or are "too conservative". By providing logical reasons for my disagreement, I think I could manage to captivate the audience better.

• I would like to consider my father as a person who could benefit from being in my audience. He and I are almost total opposites, both politically and in social views. However, he is a big believer in logical arguments, and I think with using certain facts and statistics to substantiate the argument I would be able to convince him of the proper solution for this horrible tragedy.

What is the Message/ Purpose?

• I want to be able to convince my audience of the issues that come with big business and inform them of the solutions that have been denounced by political parties. I want them to understand the implications of these issues and I want them to motivated to do something about them. Finally, I want them to believe in their own power to prevent these things from happening.

• I think many of the people talking about this issue are only concerned about the political aspects of the issue and not the people of Flint, Michigan. I think they need to focus less on the controversy and more on the people who are being affected by the tragedy. There could be more testimony from them rather than the politicians involved. We need to know why they think this is happening, and what they think could be done to fix the overlying issues.  After all, it is their livelihoods and children that are being affected, not the politicians in Washington.

What is the genre?

• For this project I plan on using a video essay to present my argument that the proposed solutions to the Flint water problem.

• The audience for this genre is generally younger, from the millennial generation, because of the prevalence of video essays on Youtube. However, there are more older viewers that would be interested in this topic and they also have access to these websites.

• I have never made a video essay before and am really not familiar with the technology or the conventions of the genre.

• I am very worried that I will fail to produce a quality video and therefore fail to present a vail argument for project three. I need to get focused on how to produce a quality video and do some research.

• The most important conventions of a video essay are relevant pictures/ images, and quality audio. Both conventions help the viewer understand the topic better, and having confusing pictures or audio kinda ruins the whole experience.

When?

• In order to understand the current issue, we need to go back and understand previous disasters, like the Chicago river fire, or the BP oil spill, and how the government handled those situations through things like litigation and compensation. We also need to familiarize ourselves with regulations, like the Clean Water Act, or lack there of, that are in place to prevent these things from happening. Once we understand the precedence set by these things, we can begin to analyze how well, or how poorly, the officials in Flint, Michigan, plan to handle the situation.

• Large news channels, like NBC, CNN, ABC, and Fox, are all covering the issue, discussing things like how this all started, the people who have been affected, and who's to blame. They have even discussed the proposed plans to fix the disaster. Yet, many have yet to propose their own solutions.

• The many of the solutions consist of only immediate relief and do not take long term fixes into consideration, such as is proposed by Gov. Rick Snyder on this CNN Newscast. There is no mention of learning why this happened or how to fix it; only mentioning the issue and the need for immediate relief through bottled water and medical assistance. Another solution, posted on a blog intended to promote capitalism in all it's glory, proposes that the water system in Flint should be privatized because it would encourage more water testing and safety. In my opinion, this will make the situation much worse; private businesses are more likely to cheat on water safety and have no incentives to fix the problem. A final solution proposed is to first, locate the lead pipes that were contaminating the water, and let them grow a protective coating to protect the water in the future, as proposed on this NPR podcast. However, this is not a long term solution. These lead pipes need to be replaced with a metal that will not leech into the water, but that could take months, which is time that the people of Flint do not have.