Inspired in part by Sharan Daniel's "Integrating Rhetoric and Journalism to Realize Publics" from Rhetoric and Public Affairs, this blog provides a space for students to explore rhetoric in their everyday lives.
Monday, June 17, 2019
Trouble in Paradise
(Bali)
British journalist, Alex Finnis gives traveling advice in Indonesia after an earthquake hits the country. Reading through the article it appears his main persuasive tools to help determine whether people should travel is his use of pathos and logos. He begins stating facts, that while true, may promote fear in those who had previously wished to visit. While being logical, he puts fear in the minds of readers. Besides talking about the earthquake, he also mentions Indonesia containing multiple volcanoes, which "can erupt with little or no warning" (Finnis). By using these horrific facts, he appears to encourage readers to avoid a trip to Indonesia for the time being.
Source: https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/travel/bali-travel-advice-indonesia-safe-earthquake-tsunami-volcano-eruption-palu-sulawesi-lombok-gili-islands-latest/
[109 words, 1 image, 1 link, 1 quotation]
Journalism Gone Wrong
I actually found an article
where a journalist was writing about how journalism needs to be changed so that
was a little interesting. He was talking about the 9/11 attacks and how they
were portrayed in different articles by journalist. They all used the rhetoric
strategy of wording their titles to “describe the attacks in the language of war,
rather than as a criminal act” (Brent Cunningham). They made the U.S believe
that we needed to go to war to defend ourselves because they thought that it
was more than just an act of terrorism. By wording their titles like this it
drew more people in and it made more people support the decision to send
several soldiers over to Iraq.
[1 Image, 1 link, 1 quote, 121 words]
Facebook vs Instagram
Two of the most commonly use
social media networks are Facebook and Instagram and they each have their own
unique way of sharing news. Facebook actually uses the rhetoric strategy of
quality over quantity. They have started sharing less content on facebook which
forces them “to only share the best of the best content” because they have
limited amount of space (Brian Peters). Instagram on the other hand uses
pictures to appeal to people because a lot of people will see pictures or
videos of famous people and click on them to read about what they are doing.
Instagram makes it very “easy to spend hours scrolling through photos” (Stefan
V. Yoak).
[1 Image, 1 Link, 2 Quotes, 112 words]
Hiding Fake News Goes a Long Way
The most common theme between
people who create fake news is the way they word their sentences. They word
them in a way that appeals to the audience and takes away from the fact that it
is fake news. For instance one type of rhetoric strategy people use is called
Ad baculum. The word itself is Latin for an appeal to force and it means
exactly that. When people are frustrated they tend to want to lash out so “threats
of force help to channel existing frustration & direct it at enemies” (Jonathan
Tilove). I never realized that even people like Donald trump use this strategy
in their everyday life. In fact a lot of people say using this strategy may have
been why he won his presidential campaign.
[1 image, 1 link, 1 quote, 129 words]
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)