The Little Rock Nine

4 Pages 977 Words

Little Rock’s Crisis: A Year of Trouble
The stories of the Little Rock nine have been a popular topic over the years, and have spawned articles, books, and even a major motion picture. All of these mediums have certain audiences that they attract. It is the job of the author to know what kind of audience he is facing. Newspapers and Journals are important tools to illustrate the difference in certain audiences. A newspaper offers a broad range of topics like sports, politics, and general everyday events. The Arkansas Democrat is a newspaper located in Arkansas, and on Sunday, September 27, 1998, it published an article titled, Little Rock’s “Lost Class” of 1959 recalls turbulent year, by Andrew A. Green. On the other hand, a journal is more focused on the interest of an individual, and is usually published by a university or research group. Arkansas Historical Quarterly is an example of a journal, and in the most recent volume, Spring of 2003, it also covers the story of the Little Rock nine titled, Segregationist Discourse, by Phoebe Godfrey. Although the articles are on the same topic, they differ in a variety of ways. The professions of the authors is a big reason for the difference in the articles, but the audience that the author is trying to reach is also important.
Newspapers are designed to reach a wide audience, and cover a wide range of topics. In the article by Green, he covers a topic that would ordinarily be done by a professional in the field of history, but he writes in such a way that would be interesting for many different kinds of people. The story is about the closings of schools in the Little Rock after the integration of students in 1957. Green focuses on the students and their accounts of the tragedy. By incorporating the former students in his article he draws in a variety of readers. Adults that grew up during that time period would find it interesting to see their peers recollection ...