Composition Rationale

For my Composition In Two Genres assignment, I wanted to convey the ideas from my inquiry based essay by using different genres. My Inquiry Based Essay discussed safe injection sites as a solution to the opioid crisis. The essay explores what safe injection sites do, what issues they solve, and how people can help to implement them. For this assignment, I chose to create two different advertisements to appeal to two different audiences.

The first genre is a subway car advertisement. The target audience for this ad are people who are addicted to opioids. I wanted to reach these people because they are the ones who are most affected by this crisis, and the implementation of safe injection sites would be most beneficial to them. I chose a subway ad because it is more accessible than a digital ad and allows for more information to be stated.Through the ad, I wanted to gain the attention of people addicted to opioids and inform them of the functionality of safe injection sites. I used an element of pathos by implementing a dark background with a photo of a man crying to make my audience feel and relate to the man’s plight. By adding a syringe and an image of a bottle of pills, I wanted to make it immediately clear that the ad was about the opioid crisis. That way, I could capture the full attention of my intended audience who deal with the opioid crisis constantly.

Since I wanted the images to really speak for themselves, I chose to make the part with the images the largest section of the ad. By keeping half of the ad minimal, even if some addicts just glanced at the ad, they would at least see the main message that “No one deserves to fear for their life every day.” Just seeing that would hopefully let them know that people care about and understand their struggle. Because the ad would be located on a train where people would have the time to digest the message, I chose to add several pieces of information to it. Therefore, the bottom part of the ad gives information about what safe injection sites do and suggests two ways in which people can get involved in implementing safe injection sites – by voting for officials who care about the crisis and signing an a change.org petition to bring more awareness to the issue.

For the second advertisement, I wanted to reach young people interested in social issues. Since Instagram is one of the top three social media platforms used by teenagers, I chose to make an advertisement on the Instagram app. Instagram is also beneficial because they allow for targeted advertising, meaning that I could reach the specific intended audience. I wanted to use this ad to spread awareness of the benefits of safe injection sites and attempt to insight passion within my audience to do something about the issue. I used a meme within the ad in order to gain the attention of young people, and I tried to keep the tone serious despite the implementation of a humorous aspect. I utilized the digital aspect of the genre by keeping the actual content of the ad quite short, yet I provided more information by adding a link to more information and giving more details in the post description.

The meme within the ad depicts the idea that government officials have been ignoring the benefits of safe injection sites and not taking them seriously. Hopefully, this meme would appeal to the emotions of this audience. The fact that officials are not taking this issue seriously would likely invoke anger in many of the viewers, which would cause them to want to do something about the issue.This would hopefully lead them to desire to find out more info by clicking the provided link which could take them to a site that provides information on safe injection sites and proposes ways to get involved.

Many people are dying every day from the opioid crisis and through these ads I wanted to spread awareness of the crisis along with awareness of safe injection sites as a legitimate solution to many of the issues the opioid crisis poses. I believe the use of these genres would be effective because they are made to be eye catching to their specific audiences and would appeal to their audiences emotions. Therefore, each genre’s respective audience would likely want to act in whatever way they could to introduce change.