Oxfam - Food Crisis in Sahel Analysis

The article to be discussed is regarding the food crisis occurring in Sahel (2011), this issue was covered by Oxfam, an organization that aims to battle poverty. although the article speaks about a specific dilemma that occurred in Sahel, Oxfam uses this opportunity, along with spreading awareness of the topic, they are advertising for their own organization through ethos, pathos & logos along with several other persuasive claims and techniques that will be discussed further.

The target audience for this issue i believe is mainly wealthier people outside the region, it is a very general format and not many difficult words or advanced language, thus proving to me that the audience could be of all ages, and is very wide ranged. the articles purpose is to persuade the audience to support and help this issue, and at the same time to invest in their company, they do this by using persuasive techniques and ethos, pathos & logos, and imagery, which will be discussed furthermore.

This article consists firstly of a basic overview regarding the issue in Sahel, and then under the subtitle 'the situation in Sahel' they provide the readers with more facts and statistics about the state of the people and the area, appealing to them through logos and pathos mainly, they mainly speak about the state of the citizens and the food that they are provided with. After that under the second headline "What Oxfam is doing" they speak about the current vegetable program they have provided, along with man of their goals for the upcoming years which could encourage the readers to want to support the cause further in order for them to help Oxfam complete their goals.

The tone and mood that was most obvious throughout the article could be described as desperate or sad. this is due to the logos used in the second section where they are stating all the upsetting statistics of the unfortunate situation, mainly this sentence, "Recent reports said over 5.4 million......people do not have enough food to eat" which genuinely depresses the reader and naturally forces pity from them. i also felt a desperate tone due to words such as 'must' and 'help' and 'support', these words prove to us that this organization is very eager and in need of other peoples help, also another factor in persuading the audience.

 As you can see in the article, the two main headlines say 'the situation in Sahel' and then 'what Oxfam is doing', this supports the "problem & benefit" persuasive technique, which provides the reader with the issue and then shows them how it can be solved, and at the same time advertising Oxfam as a helpful organization.
however i found that the main source of persuasion was their appeal to ethos, pathos, and logos. the logos within the article is very obvious, statistics such as ("5.4", "1.7", "1.67 million", "35%of the population"... etc) while describing the problem which makes the readers feel more professional and gives them a better understanding. Logos is also used in the last section to describe Oxfam's goals and achievements ("70,000 people this year".. etc). and when explaining their goals through accurate numbers ("aiming to help 100,000 people have access to food") which makes them a more reliable organization through seeing how well they have been doing in this format.
Pathos is also used mainly in the second section where the situation is described, such as when stated that "national food reserves are dangerously low", this appeals to peoples emotions because they begin to pity the hungry people and to fear for them, which gives them the obligation to help.
Ethos is mainly used at the end where they state the organizations work information ("www.Oxfam.org website, December 2011) which makes the reader more comfortable to support a professional organization.

The structure of this article is very important to the aim of it all, firstly the article begins with a picture, to physically appeal to people and give them a good idea of what is occurring. underneath that the main quote that stands out due to its difference in color to the rest of the article, says "The humanitarian response must tackle the underlying causes of crisis like this to prevent them recurring" which gives the reader a brief statement of what will be discussed and what is asked of them. Also as mentioned earlier their use of statistics (Logos) provides readers with a better understanding and more comfortable mood regarding the topic. The two main headlines that stand out due to being in a darker font and slightly larger than the rest of the text say "The situation in Sahel" and "What Oxfam is doing" are enlarged to emphasize the two main points that they aim to get across throughout this article, as mentioned earlier this is used to highlight problem/benefit persuasive technique in order to fully convince the readers.

In conclusion, Oxfam uses several persuasive techniques to convince readers to support the cause and invest in their organization, so the main purpose was persuasion and self-advertisement which i think was fully achieved throughout all the techniques and structure used to create the article.