You can see the website here: http://carterajones21.wix.com/childrenoftheworld
For inquiry four, I created a website that focused on one of the main aspects of my inquiry three essay, child trafficking and labor. The template for my site was for world hunger and poverty awareness, so the colors are somewhat somber and serious. The colors play well into my slightly dark and twisted message: that child trafficking is not only morally okay, but should be legal as well. I try throughout the different pages of the site to emphasize the satirical nature of the website, mostly through sarcasm and hyperbole. This inquiry is a strong departure from inquiry three, as it refutes the overall implications of three, and delivers its points in a different way.
When navigating through the website, the “Home” tab, which is the first thing you see when you go to the URL, displays four tabs at the top: Home, About Us, Get Involved and Support Us. Two things stand out on the home page. First is the large title at the top left of the page, “Children Of The World.” I decided to pick this title because if an uninformed viewer went to this website and saw that title, they would assume the purpose of the website was beneficial and positive as opposed to malicious. Directly below this, in the center of the page, is a large slideshow that takes up most of the viewable space. This is the first appearance of a rhetorical appeal in my website, as I hit the audience’s emotions right off the bat. The four pictures are all of clearly malnourished African children who are inferred to be impoverished. The goal of the slideshow is to ensure the audience becomes quickly emotionally invested. Below the slideshow, still on the main page, is where I unveil the “Promise to Work Project.” For the sake of irony, I use Nestle and Costco as the two companies who banded together to pioneer the initiative, seeing as they were both involved in human rights lawsuits recently. My contact information on the bottom shows another instance of dark humor, with the number being 1-800-kid-work.
My next main tab is “About Us,” with a subtab of “Contact Us.” The subtab is simple enough, with just an imbedded email address and nothing much else special. The about us page is where I really start to employ some rhetorical tactics to sell my point of view. The big map in the middle of the screen is of Africa, which plays off the information on the main page. The paragraphs directly below talk about how, “We find most of our workers in Africa, particularly The Congo, Niger, Algeria, Mali and Chad. However, we also use child workers from Southeast Asia and rural parts of South America.” This focus on impoverished countries and regions is supposed to augment the empathetic feelings that the audience is feeling. The rest of the paragraph focuses on what ended up being the thesis of my inquiry three: The focus on rule of law as a legitimate alternative to our current legal view on trafficking. This is the segment of my website that is most focused on content, as opposed to satirical attitudes. I talk about how easy it is for current corporations to manipulate and find loopholes in the current United States “No Tolerance” approach on trafficking. Near the bottom right of the page, I have a picture of a bunch of kids looking really happy right next to a link that explains why child labor “isn’t really that bad.” Seeing as that’s kind of an outdated viewpoint, I was understandably not able to find many articles that agreed with that. The get involved page brings in some more comedy, as Nestle and Costco guarantee you the support of their full team of prestigious lawyers should you get in trouble with the law stemming from a “Children Of The World” purchase. I also go the opportunity to refer to myself as a PhD, when I used the one quote from my inquiry three paper that offered an opposing viewpoint to my central thesis: that forced labor might not actually be that bad.
Overall, I think I did a good job of remediating inquiry three, and approaching my issue of trafficking and forced labor from a different perspective. I am hopeful that the satirical nature of my paragraphs will be apparent to the reader, and if so, I think the content on the website should be entertaining to most.