Madison OSullivan and Lauren Kelly

UWRT 1101
Genre Project Step Three
Olivia Zicherman
8 October 2014
Sources Involving ISIS
There are many different sources that have information about ISIS. They have their own
opinions on this crisis happening in the Middle East. This is a group of people that have done so
many different things that there are multiple resources out there with information about this
topic. It was easy to find sources, but most of the sources said the same things so finding ones
that were different from each other was a difficult task. There are so many different types of
genre out there that discuss this topic, but all are targeted towards different point of views.
However, after searching all over the Internet, we have found three different types of genre that
all talk about this crisis. In our research, we have found a newspaper article from the Charlotte
Observer, a Twitter picture with a caption attached to it, and a CNN article.
The purpose of the Charlotte Observer newspaper article was to inform us that the leaders
of the Muslim community stood outside of the Charlotte Observer building to let Charlotte, and
the rest of the World, know that not all Muslims agree with what ISIS is doing. The audience of
this article was anyone who reads the Charlotte Observer, meaning that this is most likely adults,
which is their intended audience. The discourse of the newspaper article was very informative
and changed our opinion or social constructionism belief of who was really involved and
agreed with this group of people. The reality of this article is that we believe all Muslims have

the same views, but they do not. The Newspaper paper articles point is to get information out to
the Charlotte area, and this is exactly what they did.
The Twitter picture was tweeted by @curdistani and the caption stated Ezidi Kurdish
children are dying of thirst and hunger on Sinjar Mountains. No more words for tragedy. The
purpose of this picture and tweet was to show the public what is happening with ISIS overseas.
The tweet on Twitter can be considered a tweet because it only contain 140 characters, so it fits
into this type of genre. This social media websites audience is teenagers and young adults.
They know that this audience likes to stay informed but they like the short and sweet, to the
point type of genres, so that is what they are giving them. The Twitter post discourse is
informative and descriptive, but in a different type of way than the Newspaper article. The
reality behind this tweet is that we are not positive that this picture actually goes along with the
text.
The CNN article informed us about what other countries are going to do and also how
ISIS is threatening other countries. The purpose of the CNN article was to inform us about what
other countries are going to do, and also how ISIS is threatening other countries. This article
constructs a reality in our head that is different from actual reality. This discourse mode of this
article is informative and persuasive. CNNs audience is a broad amount of people who have
political affiliations or who want to keep up with worldwide breaking news. CNN is very
informative about the crisis but if this is the only source that you use, you should consider
broadening your knowledge of the topic because not everything that news channels say is
correct. The reality of this source is that it could be very bias considering the type of news
channel that it is.

All of these sources contain information about ISIS and the people involved in this crisis
and the challenges that they have to face. The newspaper article and the CNN article both reach
the public adults in the United States. The Twitter article is more directed to the younger
generation because there is not much reading, and more of the younger people use this social
media website. All three of these sources are about the same topic, however, they are from a
different points of view. The different points of view have changed our opinions on this crisis,
and have also showed us that we need to look at more than one genre when researching broad,
opinionated topics.
Before starting this project we were not very informed about the different types of genre
out there. As young adults, we limit ourselves to social media thinking that this is enough to
gather all of the information that we need about important topics. However, this project opened
our eyes to different genres out there that can give us more information. We thought that genre
was strictly just non-fiction, fiction, historical, ect. and we never really thought much more
about it. After completing this assignment our definition of genre has broadened. Genre has
such a more powerful meaning to us now, as we have realized that genre is different forms of
communication that have the similar context but are structured in different ways to target
different audiences.

Works Cited
Charlotte Observer Local Muslim Leaders Condemn ISIS
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2014/09/09/5163135/local-muslim-leaders-condemnisis.html
Curdistani (curdistani). Ezidi Kurdish children are dying of thirst and hunger on Sinjar
mountains. No more words for tragedy. 6 Aug. 2014, 2:31 p.m. Tweet.
CNS News Leader: ISIS is Systematically Beheading Children in Christian Genocide
http://www.cnsnews.com/mrctv-blog/barbara-boland/leader-isis-systematicallybeheading-children-christian-genocide