Reading Response Week 4
The readings about context and rhetoric showed me the importance of knowing your audience and anticipating each person’s reaction to your message. On page 10 of The Thomson Handbook, I thought it was very interesting that taking one word out of a film review that was negative and placing it in a different context, the film’s newspaper promos, would make it positive. This example showed how easily it is to change the context or for the audience to misinterpret something by the context. The checklist for writing context on page 13 will be very helpful when writing my business letter for JetBlue.
The video I found is a woman that was stuck on the tarmac at JFK for 11 hours. She films getting off of the plane and riding a bus back to the airport. She names the video “JetBlue Hostage Crisis” because she felt like a hostage while waiting on the plane for 11 hours. She describes the situation as a nightmare and believes the footage should be on the news because “no one will believe this happened”. One guy says “It’s hard to force a smile this morning.” The passengers are sarcastic which shows their frustration by joking around even though they don’t find the situation funny.
The audience that I will be addressing in my letter will be the passengers of JetBlue that were affected by the events of February 14-18, 2007. I will also include customers of JetBlue that weren’t affected by the events but might feel differently toward JetBlue after these events. The affected passengers will want to be compensated for their time and money spent during those days. The customers that weren’t affected will want to know that JetBlue is still reliable and can be trusted after an event like this. I will show all passengers that JetBlue has taken action to ensure that a situation like this will not occur in the future. I will also explain the Customer Bill of Rights. I will be very apologetic as well as sympathetic to the passengers. I will also take full blame of the situation. I will write in the proper context and keep my audience in mind as I write. I will try to read my letter from all points of view so that nothing will be misinterpreted. I will also use the checklist on page 13 for reference.
Here is the link from the video that I found:
Comments
Business Letter
I think that your idea of addressing those not directly affecting by the events in February is definitely an important one. However, you may not want to use them in your business letter. The assignment states that we are to “write a business letter from JetBlue to the customers affected by the crisis.” The customers affected are the audience of this letter. So, putting things in there about those not affected by the audience will not be relevant to the reader of the business letter. It is a good idea that the company definitely had to consider, but it did so in ways other than this business letter.
Reply
I agree with what you said about eliminating the writing to those not directly affected by the events in February. Not only because the assignment says to write to those directly affected, but because if you wrote an apologetic letter to everyone it may make it less impactful to those directly affected. If I was to receive a letter apologizing to people who didnt get hurt by a situation, it would almost make me angry because it would seem like the writer would just try to cover their own butt to make sure people do business with them again. If you eliminate the general public you could avoid the directly affected from feeling alienated by the letter.
Response
I also thought about setting my audience for those who were affected by the event and customers who weren’t affected yet might feel differently toward JetBlue after such event. But as what other classmates mentioned above, the business letter should be mainly focused to those that were directly affected. That way it can give more impacts and strong impression to those who have gone through the event as well it will be easier for us too write. But like I said, I also considered others for my audience because in company’s position, you can’t really ignore future customers who might have distrust of the company because of such event. I think even though we eliminate our audience to who directly affected, the way you plan to explain the Customer Bill of Rights and use apologetic tone will give good impression to others who are not directly affected.
Thanks!
Thanks for pointing out the importance of just addressing the customers that were affected by the crisis! Although I think it is important to address the customers of JetBlue that weren't affected as well as potential customers, I understand that it would be best to keep these letters separate. I really appreciate the advice! Thanks again!