On the surface, the article "Food Crisis in Sahel" (2011) from the Oxfam website is an informative piece educating on the Sahel region's potential food crisis. Upon closer inspection, however, it is a merely an advertisement for the Oxfam charity. While some parts are informative, the structure of it closely resembles the "Problem/Benefit" trope that many advertisers use to convince people. This is evident in the headings that the article has, which go from "The situation in Sahel" to "What Oxfam is doing", presenting Oxfam's actions as a direct remedy to the hunger problem. Within this general device, Oxfam has utilized many other persuasive techniques to convince people of it's legitimacy, which we shall explore in terms of audience and purpose, content and theme, tone and mood, and style and structure.
The target audience of this text is the western world, due to the article's language and view of West and Central Africa as places to be helped without personally referring to them. Words like "home" or pronouns like "our" are not used, indicating that the audience is not from the same region and will not identify in this way with these countries. The overall purpose of this text is to persuade the reader to contribute to the Oxfam charity, and this is done through the use of the "Problem/Benefit" device as mentioned earlier. In the first part, "The situation in Sahel", the main purpose is to inform the reader. Logos is used to prove to the reader that the situation is indeed dire, by basing the paragraphs on facts. Later on, in "What Oxfam is doing", the purpose shifts to reminding people of the solution to the problem they introduced. These two combine, working together to support the overarching aim of depicting Oxfam as a helpful, noble organization.
Having discussed the audience and purpose of the text, we arrive at content and theme. The article begins with a general introduction, followed by a more detailed look at the situation in the region (supported with facts), and concluding with a passage on Oxfam's aims for the coming year. The general theme of this piece is that of urgency. Beginning in the introduction, impactful verbs like "needs", "break" and strong phrases like "emergency", "crisis", "serious", "investing now" all contribute to imbibing the reader with a sense of necessity to help.
In the next paragraph, we learn that "early warning systems" have predicted occurrences that will create problems. This phrase is used twice, along with compelling adjectives like "dangerously", "dramatically" and "vulnerable". Additionally, the final paragraph uses superlatives like "poorest". All these contribute to convincing the reader to act swiftly to what is depicted as a dire situation.
Although the content is informative and briefs us as to Oxfam's goals, it only provides one example of what Oxfam has actually done in the region. Aside from the "co-op vegetable gardens program" mentioned in the final part, all other things mentioned are only their goals. As such, the majority of content it provides are "so what?" claims, which do not actually tell us many things they have accomplished. There is no movement/action within the content.
While the article has a urgent tone to it due to it's theme, it is also didactic. This is seen in the many statistical facts we are presented with, especially in the second section. It also has a very straightforward, assured feeling, which is purported through definite statements. Phrases like "we will be reaching", "the response...needs to tackle" and "vulnerable populations can be protected" make Oxfam seem sure and confident. By making statements like these, the audience is lulled into a sense of security - believing that we can change things albeit the unprovable nature of these statements.
This urgent tone and mood is also supported by the titles and phrases that the writer has put in bold. Before the article begins, a line from the article is quoted, put in bold, and is the biggest text on the page; this line says that "the humanitarian response must tackle the underlying causes of crises like this to prevent them recurring." Just from this first line, the mood is critical, with words like "must" and "crises". The phrase "to prevent them recurring" and "humanitarian response" are examples of ethos - they appeal with emotions to make us believe that donating would be the humane thing to do, since this tragedy has already happened before. This line is very important, as it sets the tone for the article and gives the audience a brief introduction before actually reading the article.
The main literary devices this article uses to achieve its goals are ethos, pathos and logos.
Ethos is persuading with ethics and moral beliefs, and we see that Oxfam does this in the introduction of the article by using words like "humanitarian aid", "vulnerable populations", "protected" etc... All these words suggest that the reader has the power to change something, and to reverse what is happening - i.e. the problem of "12 million people...facing a food crisis". With this sense of urgency, supporting Oxfam is seen as the most proper action to take. The placement of certain phrases also lends to this effect, such as the line "if early and effective action is not taken" strategically before "costly to lives and livelihoods". With these phrases Oxfam attributes to us the responsibility to take action to prevent this from happening, and uses ethos to encourage the reader to do what is right. The majority of the introduction contains ethos in this manner, setting the tone of the article.
In the paragraph "The Situation in Sahel", the main mode of appeal is logos. Statistics are presented to the audience, e.g. "5.4 million people", making them assured of the accuracy of this article. A number of reasons are also presented for the oncoming crisis, making its arrival seem plausible. Reasons and statistics are from "early warning systems", giving them a logical origin. Although this term is rather vague, it instills urgency in the reader. This passage is very important, as it seals Oxfam's reputation - through these facts we see that they are accurate, and believe everything else they claim.
Finally, the last passage uses a combination of pathos and logos to convince the reader.The pronoun "we" is littered throughout, emotionally connecting the audience to the solution. The final line, which says that "300,000 children dies from malnutrition-related diseases in a 'non-crisis' year" is also a form of pathos, as children are more likely to incite strong emotions in people. The placement of this sad sentence at the end also makes it lodge itself in the reader's mind, as their final thought. With this image, of children dying, people are more likely to feel obliged to help. Within the last section, logos is also used, with Oxfam providing specific numbers of who and where they plan to help. With these definite goals, audiences will feel like Oxfam is 'actually doing something' and support their cause.
Aside from pathos, ethos and logos, the article itself has one more interesting characteristic - that is does not say anywhere how the reader is expected to help. This is implied many times, with words like "early response" etc., and knowing that Oxfam is a charity presents us with obvious ways to help. But because these aren't explicitly stated, audiences will likely believe that they are the ones taking the initiative to help, and will be more willing to do so since it's a 'personal decision'.
In all, these stylistic choices made by the writer all contribute to engage the reader into believing and supporting Oxfam (although how this can be done is unspecified).
This text has a relatively simple structure. The main graphics appear at the beginning of the article, where there is a picture of a woman on a donkey, probably taken in the Sahel region. From the picture, the setting looks very desolate and dry, and the people are not shown to be very fortunate. The fact that she is moving perhaps implies that she has been displaced - especially since the donkey is carrying many other things as well. This picture is important because it gives a 'face' or an image that readers can identify the problem with, as the text alone may not have made as big of an impact as a visual. Throughout the text, the same simple font is used. Different fonts are used for the headings, which look more like newspaper-type fonts, perhaps to tell the reader that this is an article. As we have mentioned earlier, the words used in the headings have a sense of urgency, like the word "crises" which is used thrice, and the word "serious".
This variation in fonts provides the text with structure, and tells the audience what parts of the article they should focus on. The article itself does not have a definite date, perhaps to prevent audiences from writing it off as 'outdated' before even beginning to read it. The only date we see is "2012" in the headline. Lastly, the article also makes good use of statistics as a form of logos, as we have earlier discussed in the style section.
In conclusion, we have analyzed the article "Food Crisis in Sahel" (2011) from the Oxfam website. In the analysis, it is revealed that this in fact an advertisement for Oxfam, as its main aim is presenting their work as the solution to West and Central Africa's problems. Since it is just an article on their website, the target audience would be people who are already interested in helping, and are searching for more information. With this audience in mind, this article works effectively to cement Oxfam's place as a reputable charity as they support their claims with facts and present their goals for a better future. We have thus seen how Oxfam has employed a variety of advertising techniques (i.e. problem/benefit) and literary devices to achieve their goals.
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