Audience and genre

Upon reading this letter, I have come to understand that this letter was written by a group of people in U.S. to President William J. Clinton regarding Iraq. In this letter, writers are trying to persuade president to take action to remove Saddam Hussein from his power and to stop him from producing more weapons of mass destruction that can attack against the U.S. The writers are also telling President Clinton to go against United Nations (UN) and change American foreign policy. Audience and genre play a big role in persuasion. The type of genre can create a different reaction to the intended audience.
In this letter, Clinton is the intended audience but since this letter was read in public, its implied audience is U.S. citizens. The real audience isn’t always the same as imagined audience. I think the purpose of the letter is to persuade him to take action against Iraq. To me, all the genres are intertwined and that’s why as the role of audience changes, the reaction of the reader also changes.
If this letter could be rewritten, a T.V. interview with letter writer(s) or a magazine editorial can be an effective way to persuade the audience of the discourse. Only this time, the audience will be bigger, broader, of different ages, and of different levels of knowledge. It can be difficult to persuade the audience; however, making this a public issue can strengthen communication or the relationship between the writer and the reader (encoder to decoder). Since this is a national issue, it’s easier to involve the “real audience” (in this case, U.S. citizens) to see the reaction to it. A T.V. interview can be excellent because even if the reader/hearer is not physically present, it gives them a chance to play a role to be a part of the news; as Ong describes how Stern gives chance to his readers instead of making a frame story like Chaucer, where a reader is a part of a nonexistent group.
The major shift of form from formal letter to an ordinary T.V. interview has an advantage that all the citizens of America will be listening/watching it and will be able to decide their opinion. Although there is a challenge, that the audience may not want to be a part of the discourse. In any successful piece of discourse, a writer and a reader must play an assigned role.
In order to persuade U.S. citizens of this issue and to take an action, I think the form can be informal. Also most Americans don’t know of the affairs of Middle East, it’s important to let the public know of them through a map that shows the U.S. alliances with different countries in the world. U.S. has special alliance with Israel and Palestine. When UN tried to conduct an inspection in Iraq of the mass destruction weapons, Iraq was not as cooperative and the report of UN inspection in Iraq claims that Iraq seemed to hide the weapons. Later, the inspection was blocked. In addition, Iraq also has a history of using the biological weapons previously against Kurdistan and Iraq-Iran War. There was no evidence of that time that Iraq has no more of weapons. The audience needs to be informed about the possible threat of an attack from Iraq. In this situation, most American would feel threatened and their feelings against Iraq could persuade them to agree with American action. The reason I want to say “feelings against Iraq” is because the stereotype about Muslim nations being destructive. I think when Americans will understand the destabilization; they will probably support the nation’s decision. Any action against Iraq can destabilize the American life style due to import of oil.
In the letter, writer(s) have said it directly that the strategies for removing Saddam Hussein from power, “Will require a full complement of diplomatic, political, and military efforts.” And that they are the supporters of this policy related issue. These small terms like “our interest” or “our nation” impact a reader’s mind and can be an advantage to persuade the reader/hearer because most people think that they are good patriots.