1) The audience of my website will probably be those people in the community that believe poverty is something only the poor should have to deal with. They may not have ever seen a poor neighborhood before or been to the poor side of town. It might include people who stereotype low-income families. I believe that education is usually the answer to ignorance and my website’s purpose will be to try and educate those who may not understand why poverty is a community problem and why the stereotypes are not usually true. My audience will probably be well-off financially and may even have some form of higher education. I’m thinking of the typical suburban community member that has never really seen anything beyond their suburban neighborhood. In a way, my website will aim to unite two very divided communities into one.
2) One of the purposes of my website is to provide background information because I thing part of the problem is that my audience isn’t very informed on the daily lives of low-income families. A large part of my research will involve explaining the hardships of low-income families. I’ll try to contradict some of the stereotypes with facts and if maybe the generalizations are true to some degree, I will mention why and how others should help.
3) If my readers already have some sort of negative attitude or misconception toward low-income families then they might be resistant toward what I have to say. I could probably keep their interest by mentioning how fixing a community problem like poverty would benefit them in the long run. Another chunk of my research will be dedicated to providing information on why my audience should care in the first place. To seem credible from the start I will have to create an official and professional looking website just so they don’t take it as a joke and all of my information should be supported by facts.
4) Well the misconceptions of living low-income are a big deal. Many people seem to believe that people living in poverty are lazy, don’t work and just wasn’t to take advantage of the government. These stereotypes seem to be aimed more toward minority groups also. It’s interesting because some the articles I read don’t outright say that low-income families fall into certain stereotypes, they might not be just the ones I mention earlier, but the information they are giving me seems to assume that families already have these characteristics. Every low-income family is low-income for a different reason. I realize it will be a challenge to narrow down my research without generalizing especially when I want to discourage it.
5) In order to keep the attention of my audience I can’t blame them. I don’t want them to feel attacked and put a stereotype on them when I’m discouraging them from doing the same thing. At the same time though I will need to be assertive so they understand the need for change. A very important aspect of keeping their attention will have to include providing enough proof for why they should care. I can’t just use “you should care because it’s the right thing to do”. Somehow my information will have to lead them to believe that helping low-income families will eventually help them as well.
6) Low-income families are in that situation for many different reasons that probably don’t fall into the usual stereotypes many people place on them and programs such as Baby Steps provide a lot of information to help those in need. It is a community wide problem, which is why more the community should pay attention to this situation.
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