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Genita Johnson
Dr. Wynne
English 101-26
February 5th 2016
Child Abuse: Genre Analysis of a Poster and Public Broadcast
Abuse is defined as to be misused, used improperly or to be wasted; to use in such a way as
to cause harm or damage; to be treated cruelly. Any time we are misused or used for a purpose
other than what God intended, its damaging said Joyce Meyer during her public broadcast.
Millions of children are abused every year in the United States. Child abuse is not always as
visible to the human eye, child abuse is often a topic that stays within families. Child abuse is
familiar issue to the United States; over the years America has become more aware of the issue.
Americans have become more open to sharing their childhood experiences as teaching
mechanisms to create awareness. The poster by Faces of Child Abuse focuses on raising
awareness. The public broadcast Life beyond Abuse by Joyce Meyer exposes the graphics of
child abuse and personal experience of child abuse.
Audience and Purpose
In both genres they are raising awareness on child abuse. Each are focused on educating the
general public to spread the importance on child abuse. The broadcast is directed towards victims
or the general public. The broadcast speaks to a larger audience because Joyce Meyer has a large
following for her Christian ministries. The poster educates the general public through the
readers emotions.

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The Faces of Child Abuse poster has a set audience of the general public or anyone who comes
across facesofchildabuse.org. The purpose of the photograph is to display a message about
raising awareness of child abuse. The genre focuses on primarily on making the general public
aware, the photo has a caption in all capitals RAISING AWARENESS. The audience learns to
bring a child from the shadows through the caption of the poster.
The broadcast Life beyond Abuse is directed towards people who have gone through child
abuse or general public or anyone who comes across her ministries. The purpose of the broadcast
is to expose her story. Meyer feels that God has allowed her to be free and not fake and after
years of silence she can share her experience of how far shes come. The audience learns about
the sickness of her parents, her embarrassment and shame, and how far shes come. Meyer shares
her explicit story of living in fear day to day of her father. Meyer believes she couldnt even
begin to tell the audience the full story because of the graphic details. The broadcast is not easy
to hear and not easy to relate to. The audience needs to be a mature audience and have the
strength to listen to such graphic details. The broadcast is set up for her to spread more work for
her ministries and share her own story.
Rhetorical Issues: Ethos, Pathos and Logos
The posters main appeal is pathos. The poster is based off the viewers empathy, which is set up
to make you to feel compassionate towards the children. The poster consists of the profile of
what would be considered a troubled childs face with a caption of Expose child abuse from the
shadows and raise awareness to express the awareness. The Faces of Child Abuse uses the
profile of the young child facts for their main appeal to create attention towards the words across
the picture. The poster challenges emotions because of the phrase directing the viewer to expose
child abuse from the shadows. After reading the caption it causes the viewer to really think about

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how child abuse is always a secret and kept hidden. Immediately that is going to hit hard with the
reader. The reader will hopefully considering helping out to raise awareness. The sad imagery
will hopefully influence viewers to gain interest and raise awareness.
The broadcast has an emotional appeal. The broadcast focused primarily on evoking the
listeners emotions. The broadcast was spoken in an explanatory way to make the listener
understand and interpret the sincerity of what child abuse is or does to your development. Joyce
Meyer explains her upbringing so you as a listener so you can grasp the extremities of her
troubles. Meyer adds graphic details to explain the kind of man her father was. She stresses a lot
on the amount of shame and fear she had growing up. Her description I was also constantly
afraid. There was no place I ever felt safe growing up. I dont think we can even begin to
imagine what kind of damage this does to a child uses a logic appeal because she tries to make
the listener understand how victims reason. Meyers uses all of her examples as explaining how
child abuse was interpreted by her and shaped her life. The ethos appeal is a credited trustworthy
source, it is hard for listeners not trust such a personal story. The average person would not
reveal such a personal part of their life for it to be made up, making it easier for the audience to
connect with Meyer. Meyer expresses the focus of her broadcast through pathos.
The genres are shaped by the information based off the appeals they are providing to the
audience. Although the poster and broadcast evoke different types of emotional responses. The
poster is structured to focus around the child. The child is the big picture to real in the reader in
to focus on the caption. The caption is short and brief and not detailed and filled with visuals
unlike the broadcast. The broadcast reals you with personal story that moves you and makes the
story more touching. The graphics and in depth stories of the personal stories is pertain to the

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problems with child developmental growth and child abuse struggles. The poster doesnt have as
big of an impact as the broadcast would.
Structure
The poster offers a simple and easy to read layout. The viewers first initial look is easy for a
person to understand the purpose of the photograph. The poster allows the viewer to understand
the meaning with just a glance. The poster conveys its message with the positioning of the
caption and the profile view of the child in the picture. The poster is designed in a way that the
viewer will immediately be able to understand the meaning behind the caption. Faces of Abuse
provides a link in the bottom left corner in order to access the web for further information.
The broadcast can be accessed with a quick search, but it takes longer to understand than the
poster because the broadcast is twelve minutes. The full length of the broadcast will only interest
people who are deeply concerned with the subject. The broadcast has more freedoms compared
to the poster. The broadcast allows users to replay the video as many times as possible. If viewers
want to learn more about Meyers ministries they can easily access the website for further
information.
Style / Language
The facesofchildabuse.com uses non formal language for the caption of the poster. The
language is brief and general informative genre is formal, it is easy for readers to have a clear
understanding. The broadcast style allows the reader to be informed in a way of through sharing
of personal experiences. Meyer uses an informative tone of voice although occasionally her
voice would crack.

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Conclusion/Synthesis
Both of these genres are eye opening. The poster provides its audience with a display of a
message about raising awareness of child abuse presented in non-formal language. The broadcast
provides viewers, in a serious informative tone of voice, with information regarding Meyer to
open up her childhood wounds and share with all the listeners. Both of these genres display
elements of ethos pathos and logos, the broadcast demonstrated to be the most effective in
conveying its message of spreading awareness of child abuse. The detailed personal information
provided a play by play description of child abuse. It provided a better explanation on the
problems with child abuse, what child abuse is like for the victim and the secrets of child abuse.
For these reasons, the broadcast has the best impact.

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Works Cited
1. (n.d.): n. pag. Faces of Child Abuse. Web. 28 Jan. 2016.
2. "Life Beyond Abuse." Life Beyond Abuse. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Feb. 2016.