AMA Is a Discourse Community That Is a Group of Individuals Bound by Common Interests

There are many online profession websites for many different majors, whether you are in pre-medical studies, fashion design, business, pre-pharmaceuticals, architecture, or digital design major. Professional websites are specifically designed to professions in the working world. These types of professional groups help people maintain their interests. They make it easier for people in the profession to communicate and branch out to one another. But, there is a specific professional organization that has been around for over 150 years, the American Medical Association, as known as AMA. The creator of AMA was Dr. Nathan Smith Davis, who was the first editor of JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association, which is where research papers of other doctors and scientist are found. The American Medical Association’s website uses organization when they have hyperlinks to different webpages, visuals, and the linguistic. This has effectively brought other physicians and/or students, who are going into the medical field, to the website.

To start off with, when you open the website, the layout is a basic one that you would see on other different professional medical website like, the National Institute of Health or the American Occupational Therapy Association. On the home screen of the American Medical Association’s website, you can see physicians, who have earned their M.D., and students working to achieve their license. AMA uses the color purple for their menu bar and words, which pops out on the white page to the viewers of the website. As you scroll down there are pictures that relate to the topics and not just words upon words. The words in purple under the menu bar are hyperlinks that will led you to topics based on the word that you choose, while the grey bar above the menu will led you to their other websites. The home page has main topics that are being circulated in the healthcare profession. The sub-topics are sustainability, diabetes, hypertension, and physician health. Under the sub-topics are articles written by the editors of AMA, which showcase the new ideas, or statistics found.

In addition, the American Medical Association was built “to promote the art and science of medicine and the betterment of public health”, which is found at the bottom of the website. Using ethos, AMA is trying to invoke the viewers to feel that they are trying to help them. As stated in the Writer/Designer the linguistics mode is based on “the delivery of spoken or written text” (Arola, Ball, and Sheppard, 5). The layout of word choice would cause them to want to join and help for the cause to improve the public health. AMA promotes themselves as a great cause AMA is a “discourse community [,which] is a group of individuals bound by a common interest who communicate through approved channels” (Porter, 548). Being in a community that shares the same interest gives a sense that belong somewhere, which can motivate you to succeed.

AMA created JAMA, which is the Journal of American Medical Association where scientist, doctors, and physicians can access research that was done and critique their work. Doctors have studied countless years to be were they are now, so “validation builds [their] sense of belonging and strengthens [their] relationships”(Hall Ph.D., paragraph 5). Having somebody’s acknowledgement will strengthen the bond between others and this could potentially succeed in their goal.

Not only does AMA use linguistics, but they also use visuals as well, to make the website more appealing to the viewers. Throughout the website, there are countless pictures that relate to their topics respectively. As the idiom goes “a picture is worth a thousand words”, which means that pictures can show their point more effectively than a wordy description. However, the American Medical Association has also, branched out to other social media platforms like, Facebook, Google+, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram. AMA post pictures of their recent events, pre-medical students, achievements and medical help. Today’s society is always on social media, using this knowledge AMA is trying its best to gain more members. Websites or social media posts “bombard us with visual information in an effort to attract our attention” (Arola, Ball, and Sheppard, 6). The visuals of pictures make the website seem less boring than it actually is. The usage of another medium might help bring in a flow of new audience to the site. Thus, potential members are drawn to the website and could join the AMA and start scrolling more through the website.

On the other hand, the American Medical Association, also has its downfalls. On the homepage nothing pops out at the audience when they first open the website. AMA should have used more colors to make their website pop out to their audience. Using the use of analogous colors, would help the website by “[providing] harmonious blends” making the website aesthetically pleasing to the eye (Pepper, ‘Introduction to Color Theory: Color & Rhetorical Purpose”). Depending on the color choice of the website, the audience might not want to continue clicking throughout the website. The designer of AMA’s website left a fair amount of white space on the home page. The designer should have added more colors to block the white space in between each of the different topics to make the website pop out to the audience a bit more.

In the final analysis, the American Medical Association has done a pretty good job at their website. Despite of the website’s down falls, the designer did put the use of rhetorical appeals to get audience to stay on the site. Considering that it is one of the most well-known professional medical websites in the world. The use of different multimodal functions through the webpage has brought the ability for AMA to be able to gain new members every year.