Analysis of My Rhetorical Situation

     Now that I have finally found my story on the vaccination bill SB 277 in California, I can start to analyze the rhetorical situation of it. 

• Audience

Scoble, Robert.  "Audience listens at Startup School". 10/29/11 via
Flicker. Creative Commons Generic License.  

      The audience of my quick reference guide of the vaccination controversy will be those who are in the unknown.  The people reading the guide will not know very much or nothing at all about the topic so I will have to make it clear to them what is going on, who is important, when it happened, why it is important, where it takes place, etc.  I can assume that the audience will have some interest in the health status of a state they live near, or just of a state in the US in general.  I am going to assume that the audience understands what the measles vaccine is, but other than that, I am assuming that they don't know anything else.  This kind of audience might be the kind of people who just scan the average daily newspaper of their state (for example the Arizona Republic), or they might be one to scan the news on websites of national magazines like the New York Times.  I think that the audience would just be people that find new information interesting, and they just like to keep up with the news: whether it be local or national. 

     I think that the audience would be more into the simple kinds of media.  What I mean by that is, they would find stories on places that are easy to navigate.  So, I don't think that they are the type of people who are active on Twitter, maybe Facebook.  But I think that overall, they would be more of keeping up to date with magazines and newspapers. 

     I believe that the general demographic of my audience would be middle to upper class just because they have the money or the insurance to care about vaccinations or not.  I think that their race/ethnicity wouldn't matter.  I do not think that that determines whether or not you care about health or learning about the news.  However, I think that women might be more interested in this specific topic just because they have their maternal instincts in them, opening up the side of them where they want the best for their kids.  If they see an article about new vaccinations or if vaccinations are safe or if they are being forced upon kids, it may spark their curiosity.  That doesn't mean that men won't be interested in this topic, but I think that generally women will be more prone to reading the article.  That being said, I think that the audience will find health to be an important aspect of their life.  They also probably have some sort of view on politics (it doesn't have to be a strong view leaning left or right, but there is some input).  They also probably value their personal rights as well as education, since the bill has to do with denying some kids their public or private education if they don't get vaccinated.  I don't think that anything is really going to be severely unimportant to the audience, otherwise I don't see why they would care to be looking at news articles.  However, I think that some topics are just not interesting to some readers.  For example, I really don't care to read about computer and technology updates.  I am just not interested.  So for my audience, I think that they would be uninterested in things that don't really pertain to health and wellness or political issues.  The same goes for what the don't value.  I don't know that someone can really not value new information unless they really truly hate it, but I don't think that my audience would be like that.  

• Purpose

     I really want my audience to be informed of the issues that are related to public health and how it might affect them by reading this article.  I want to make them feel like they are knowledgeable enough to have an opinion on whether or not they agree with the bill SB277 and that if they were to be faced with the same issue in their state, what they would do.  I want the QRG to have enough information for them to be interested enough to do more research on their own and become more invested in the controversy and maybe fight to do something about vaccinations in the place that they live.  They don't even have to make a change in their city, but to have an opinion about something, especially when that something is health-related is important to me.  

     What is a bit confusing about this controversy is that the people who give the shots (the doctors and nurses) before the bill, they couldn't force anyone to get vaccinated if it was against their moral or religious beliefs (or it had some medical reasoning behind it).  The government is forcing the public and private schools to have every student vaccinated in order to attend that school.  So, the doctors and nurses technically won't really have a choice once the bill is passed into a law in the summer of 2016.  The audience needs to know that the government is the one that is ordering the vaccinations-not the doctors and not the schools.  And the parents are the ones that are either opposing the bill or supporting it.  The ones that are supporting the bill agree with the government that the vaccinations are there for a reason- to maintain the health of the people in the area.  The parents and other people that are opposing the bill are arguing that the bill takes away their personal rights to their own beliefs and values.  

Live Life Happy. "The purpose of an argument should not be
victory but progress". 04/15/12 via Flicker. Creative Commons
Non-Commercial Generic Public License.  

     The importance of the setting of this controversy, in California, is that being such a liberal state, it is important to note how the people are reacting to the government's policies and how it is dealing with a health crisis.  Democrats normally like to have government regulation in health care, so it is surprising that the people of California aren't agreeing with this policy regarding health.  Democrats also believe that the legislation will more often be favored which restricts some personal freedoms. So the fact that this controversy takes place in the highly democratic state of California also shows the tension between the people and the government.  

     The time period is also important for audience to note because right now, diseases that have vaccines aren't really that common mostly because people have been getting vaccinations to prevent the spread of those diseases.  However, recently, some diseases that the CDC had thought were gone forever have come back into the picture.  This is because people nowadays have mixed views on vaccinations.  Some people think that it is up to them to vaccinate their children or not, however it not only will affect their children but those around them as well if they get the disease and aren't vaccinated.  

     Other than those topics that I discussed, I think that the audience should be able to clearly understand the controversy and why it is so important that they know about it.  Once more people know about the vaccination controversy, the problem might get fixed sooner because there will be more knowledgeable people out there who will have a way to calm both sides with a solution.  

• Author (That's me!)

     I don't know about you, but I think that shots stink.  I have never liked them.  They aren't fun.  They hurt.  HOWEVER, I am so grateful for shots and vaccinations.  It really isn't something that anyone thinks about all the time while they're walking to class.  They aren't thinking "Woah, I'm so glad I got that measles shot when I was a baby".  That's just not how normal people think.  But after finding all of the information about this specific vaccination controversy, I have been thinking about vaccines A LOT.  I have really connected to this topic and I definitely have an opinion on the whole ordeal.  Although, I want the audience to have the chance to make up their own opinion about the issue.  I had my opportunity to pick a "side" if you will.  I am going to make my QRF completely unbiased.  What I might think doesn't help tell the story.  It only persuades the reader one way or the other.  What I can bring to this project is passion but an objective passion that hopefully will spread to the reader so that they will become enthralled with the controversy too.  

     As I said before, I am thankful for the vaccinations that my mom made me get, not only as an infant, but as a teenager and even now with the annual flu shots.  My favorite president of the US (I know I was/am a freak), Franklin D. Roosevelt, had polio.  Whenever I would read about him, I would always notice how polio severely impacted his life.  So every time that I think about FDR (don't worry, it isn't TOO much) I think about how great so many people's lives are now that polio isn't around.  If the vaccination had not been created, I think that the world would be a very different place right now.  So, for parents to not want to get their kids vaccinated not only will hurt their children in the long run, but it will affect all of the other people around them as well.  So if you couldn't tell, I am super into this whole vaccination thing.