The photo below shows a basketball star, Michael Jordan, wearing
his signature shoes and dunking. The text on this picture reads “Gotta Be The
Shoes.” This ad is used to help promote Michael Jordan’s shoes for his fans so
they can jump like him.
his signature shoes and dunking. The text on this picture reads “Gotta Be The
Shoes.” This ad is used to help promote Michael Jordan’s shoes for his fans so
they can jump like him.
The intended audience for this picture would be basketball players. These
basketball players are a discourse community in itself. The basketball players
are part of a team and part of a large group of athletes who also share the
love for the sport. What the audience is likely to think of photo is that the shoes
will give them the performance of Michael Jordan. They believe this because he is
considered one of the best players of all time and he is the only one from his
time that wore “Jordans” so they figure it must be the shoes, and the ad just
reiterates their thoughts. Many people of this audience will spend a lot of time
and money on these shoes by looking for the best pair for them, just to play
like Michael Jordan. The photo is intended to persuade the audience.
The credibility is established by Michael Jordan actually being in the photo. He
is well known by many people and as almost an idol, he is looked up to by many.
If someone random had been advertising his shoes, they would be less likely
to buy the shoes. In this photo, an ideal reaction the audience would be a
“wow” or “shocking” sort of emotion because of how high he is jumping. This
is not appropriate because it is not true, no matter what kind of shoes
they get, they will not play as well as Michael Jordan unless they have
worked as hard as him.
The picture is very simple, causing the message to be seen clearly. If the photo
has a bunch of decoration and tried to over-do itself, the viewer might lose
interest because it is hard to really see the overall message that is being
portrayed. The genre conveys its message very clearly, stating “gotta be the
shoes” on the middle of the picture. The structure of the genre helps it
tremendously because it clearly states it, giving the viewer no way of
being confused.
The language of this genre is very informal. It uses the term “gotta” which is
slang. If the maker of this photo would have used formal language, the discourse
community intended for this specific genre would most likely lose interest,
because many basketball players are younger and the newer generations tend to
stray from being too “fancy” with their vocabulary.