PEACE CORPS IN THE 21 ST CENTURY: A RHETORICAL ANALYSIS

42upon recommending the establishment of the Peace Corps, stated “Peace Corps memberswill often serve under conditions of physical hardship, living under primitive conditions. .. . For every Peace Corps member service will mean a great financial sacrifice. They willreceive no salary. . . . It is essential that Peace Corpsmen and women live simply andunostentatiously among the people they have come to assist.” 105As evidenced byKennedy’s rhetoric, volunteers were meant to live disconnected from the comfort ofAmerica under difficult conditions. Service was meant to be full of sacrifice and duty.Today, there are few places that can be called “new frontiers.” Today’s volunteers areentering countries, though unfamiliar, not undiscovered.The Peace Corps’ recruitment no longer needs to appeal to the frontier spirit. Therugged individualism of the Kennedy era is no longer as central to service as it once was.The public service announcements appeal to today’s volunteer, targeting specific diversevolunteer groups and making general appeals to the spirit of service today. In 2003, theorganization decided to get serious about recruitment messages in print, on the television,on the radio, and on billboards.Magazine and NewspaperThe print campaign targets one of three different audiences; the older volunteer,the African-American volunteer, or the Hispanic volunteer.