Ian A.

Reed

WRTC 103

2/22/18

Reflection on the PSA

The PSA in this document was created by me, and features a claim made by Cheryl

Pellerin in her article “Women Should Be Allowed in Combat Roles.” What she and this PSA

claim is that both men and women take the same oath to become a member of the U.S. military.

The main purpose for this advertisement is to raise awareness for and support for women to

achieve equal opportunities in the military, and they shouldn’t be limited by their gender. The

audience that this message is trying to appeal to is women that feel generally concerned about

how they are being represented in society, and one way that this PSA tries to do that is by

featuring the female subject in active duty, and showing how important the jobs that they have

are.

The woman in in this PSA is on a radio, signaling a “call-for-fire” in a section of land

that consists of rocky and sandy terrain. Other objects in this advertisement are an armored

vehicle parked directly behind the woman, and all the equipment that the woman is covered in.

These features help evoke a very patriotic attitude, but also a sense of seriousness, because of

how grim the scene is, and also how it shows the breaking of norms with a woman calling on her

radio for an air strike. The way the text relates to this idea is that it builds off the statement

already being made in the picture, promoting equality for women in the U.S. military. The article

that this argument is based on describes women in combat, and how both men and women have

sacrificed so much to be able to serve their country. The text that came from this article and the
picture both help represent that idea. Again, this PSA brings up the issue of equality, and tries to

defy societal norms by saying that men and women are both fully capable of doing the same

kinds of jobs in the same field of work.

The most persuasive argument made in this advertisement is the idea that men and

women both take the same oath to serve in the military, and the picture of the woman defends

this argument by showing that both sexes are capable of doing the same things, and they are

willing to do exactly what men do. This PSA makes use of the rhetorical appeals in three ways.

Ethos is represented by the citation of sources at the bottom of the image, citing both the author

of the article and the one that took the picture that I used. Logos is displayed by the simple fact

that men and women do take the same oath to serve in the U.S. military. And pathos was used in

the form of a picture, showing a woman in a real-life situation on the battlefield. The design

choices I ultimately decided on were the contrast between text color and the image’s color, and

that the woman was off to the side so that I was, finally, able to deliver the message that I wanted

to deliver without covering up the subject in any way.

Works Cited

Houston, Whitney. Conducting A Call-for-Fire. 2014. U.S. Army,

http://www.pacom.mil/Media/Photos/igphoto/2001326184/.

Pellerin, Cheryl. "Women Should Be Allowed in Combat Roles." The US Military, edited by

Noah Berlatsky, Greenhaven Press, 2016. Opposing Viewpoints. Opposing Viewpoints in

Context, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/EJ3010978220/OVIC?u=viva_jmu&xid=4b

aeeaaf. Accessed 3 Feb. 2018. Originally published as "Dempsey: Allowing Women in

Combat Strengthens Joint Force,", 24 Jan. 2013.