Analysis of "Suffering in the Desert" YouTube Video (Sample Public Argument)

kansascity.legalexaminer.com

     After an incredibly long break, I have returned to begin the process of creating my own Public Argument, Paper #3 of ENG 109H. To begin, I decided to study another video, but not the #LikeAGirl commercials. This time, it is a YouTube video posted by a U of A student as an English project. Entitled "Suffering in the Desert," this particular video focused on the question of allowing undocumented immigrants to cross the U.S./Mexico border without problems. Within the video, there were traces of certain aspects that, like the #LAG commercials, both strengthened and weakened her argument, of which I will now elaborate.

     The tone for the video is extremely obvious: melancholy and almost forceful. In the very beginning, two scenes of text are shown. The first displays a quote from the organization "No More Deaths" that states, "Humanitarian aid is never a crime." The second issues a command for action: "Americans need to stop standing by while thousands die in our desert." Both statements contribute to the tone because (1) the statements imply that Americans are apathetic to the problems of undocumented immigrants, and (2) the second statement is making a claim that there are "thousands [who are] d[ying] in our desert." The visuals, the photographs used throughout the entire video, further intensify the depressing situation as viewers see photos of families with small children trying to flee; a body covered by a blanket, representing a failed attempt to escape to freedom; and immigrants laying their heads upon railroad tracks to sleep. However, the music, Coldplay's "Lost," was perhaps a weak point for the tone. It might just be me, but from a musical standpoint, I found the song to be, for lack of more proper vernacular, "cheesy." The lyrics convey a sense of a person struggling to find a way out of a sticky situation and knowing that he will someday conquer that problem, all of which fit nicely into the problem of immigration. But the melody of the piano and of lead singer Chris Martin do not correlate with the intended tone of the video at all and instead creates a rather goofy contrast between the "sad love song" tone of the melody and the morbid situation it tries to emphasize. Perhaps using a gentle piano and violin/cello combination with no lyrics would have suited the video more than a song from Coldplay.

Not from the video, but it gets the point across.
adeaconswife.com

     This video seems to focus heavily on the emotions of the audience. Constantly, facts about mortality rates and causes of immigrants and establishments to help those immigrants appear in small transitional scenes, and all of the photos show the heartbreaking plight of the immigrants. The music, although I did mention that it was a peculiar choice for the video, is meant to make a person thoughtful about the immigrants who want to desperately reach America and live better lives. By appealing to emotion, the creator hoped to sway her audience into agreeing with her argument about helping the undocumented immigrants reach American soil. To build her credibility in conjunction with her building emotional pressure and logical reasoning, at the end of the video, she presented a list of works cited, which reveals that she consulted books, documentaries, and news from the No More Deaths organization itself.

     Her primary method of conveying her argument is the transitional scenes, since those are the portions in which she includes text. From there, her argument is structured in the typical essay style: she gives some facts about the immigrants, their attackers, and the desert; some notes about the benevolent organizations that are helping the immigrants; and a plead to the audience to assist those organizations. The pictures do not exactly tell a different story; instead, they supplement the text by showing situations that she indicated in the transitions. However, looking at the photos alone can provide enough information to figure out what is happening, given the proper context. If the order of the photographs changed, it might have also affected how the textual argument was organized, potentially making it less effective.

Not from the video, and does not portray the point of the video.
So why did I use this photo? Because it's the desert, and those
squirrels are too cute.
en.wikipedia.org

     Because the video presents a persuasive argument, there are calls to action given to the audience. The first is located at the beginning of the video as the second transitional scene, when she states that Americans needed to start caring about the immigrants. The other most prominent call is found at the end of the video, when she encourages her audience to assist the humanitarian organizations in their efforts to help the immigrants. For the first call to action, the subsequent photos quickly show the audience a brief glimpse of immigrants running for their lives and the occasional deaths, providing reasons to the audience of her insistence. The pictures for the second call to action show the organizations distributing food and treating hurt immigrants, the sight of which draws empathy from the audience and encourages them to really try to assist the organizations.

     Overall, this video does an excellent job in persuading the audience that the immigration problem has to be solved benevolently. If I wanted to make a video, I would try to copy her style, but I would add some video clips from the documentaries and change the background music to something more thought-provoking--something a lot like this.

     Thus concludes the analysis. Go have fun, guys.