The Lutheran Immigration and Refugees Services is a non-profit working to improve immigration policies and help immigrants and refugees. This organization has been around for almost 80 years. They are “a champion for refugees and migrants from around the globe”(LIRS.org). This essay will be a rhetorical analysis of their online website www.LIRS.org. The design and intentions of the author of this website serves a specific purpose to make the audience take action in their goals.
The genre of this text effects how the site is organized and how that will reach the audience. A broader genre would be that it’s a website, but a more specific description would be that is non-profit. The structure of the text looks like the template most non-profits use with the links at the top and images taking up the whole length of the screen.
The website aims for a specific audience that the organization wants to attract. The intended audience for this website is people willing to donate to LIRS or for people looking to become more involved with refugee relief. The secondary audience may be people who are looking to raise their awareness on immigration issues. The values that these audiences hold would be acceptance and community. Their opinions would reflect wanting refugees and immigrants to have a better life in America with the help to the organization. This audience would be more open minded to accepting immigrants in the U.S. The author appeals to these values and opinions because of the information and access on the website such as the donate button and the take action section of the site.
The donate and take action links also lead to the intentions of this text. The overall intention for the text is to take donations and volunteers in for the organization. At the top of the website there is a donate button that is orange while the rest of the site is blue and white. The attention to this button serves an important part of their purpose. A second purpose is to spread awareness about immigration issues and what LIRS does. This is seen through the parts of the website such as the about us tab and the link to their blog. Providing these links will draw the audience towards the sites purpose.
Allowing for a medium to support the sites purpose is important. The medium of this text is the Web. I think the author chose this particular medium because it can hold a lot of information and be very easy to navigate. I also think the author took into account how important the internet is in today’s society and the access many people have to the Web. You can find this text through searching for non-profit immigration and refugee organizations and that will send you to the website. This website is filled with visual, spatial, and linguistical aspects that make the website successful. LIRS “was founded in 1939 by Lutheran churches in the united states to serve uprooted people during world war 2.2” (LIRS.org). This organization has been supporting people in need for generations and they have adapted to the type of people who need help in today’s political climate and adapt to new ways to spread their mission such as with this website. Old forms of spreading their mission existed through public speeches at national council meetings. The social and cultural connotations in this text relate to the current immigration problems including improving immigration policies. This is a big controversy within our culture. The colors used on the site are different shades of blues and orange. The word welcome is used throughout the website. On the home page there is a picture of the statue of liberty hand and torch.
There are also images of refugee children and families.
Readers will react with this text through the links and opportunities to donate and volunteer. Readers would access this text while on their phone or laptop however it is a site they would use while sitting down in order to focus on the content. It is a text that could be used in private or public settings.
The author has to consider many aspects while using this medium. They establish credibility through a tab on the website that leads to a board of directors, executive committee, staff leadership and at-large members with their names and positions. The site also states the board of director consists of 17 members who “have knowledge of and commitment to refugees and immigrants” (LIRS.org). Looking at the staff leadership someone can make a guess that a more specific author could be the director for marketing and communications, director for outreach, director for development, or director for advocacy because all these positions play a role in this website.
I trust this source because it is run directly by the organization. It is important to trust the source because if someone donates money, they need to know it is legitimate. The author comes across as a group of individuals working together for a social justice issue, they believe is important. They also have links to their church, service, and foundation partners. These relationships show the authors involvement with partners who work for people. The organization itself does not have a great reputation with leadership according to reviews on glassdoor.com however this would be done through research past the site text. The text does not support this reputation.
This website uses calming colors and easy to read fonts so that the audience can quickly and easily understand the purpose of the website. The architecture of the site is easy to navigate like most nonprofit websites so users can effectively use the site. All of this enhances the users experience and allows LIRS to carry out their mission with the public to a full extent.
References
Arola, Kristin L., Ball, Cheryl E., Sheppard, Jennifer. Writer/Designer: A Guide to Making Multimodal Projects. Bedford/St. Martin’s. 2014.
“Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service Reviews.” Glassdoor, www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Lutheran-Immigration-and-Refugee-Service-Reviews-E915690.htm.
“Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service.” LIRS, 6 Feb. 2019, www.lirs.org/.