Persuading Readers

The bbc.co.uk article, "Outcry in SA over 'racist' video" tells of a video recently made in South Africa where white university students humiliate and abuse black university employees. The students forced the employees to chug beers, dance for them, and then eat food that had been urinated on. The video has sparked student protests across the country.


The author of the article subtly tries to persuade me to believe that some good can come out of the horrific situation. He does so largely through the visuals that are used. The only quote that is enlarged and emphasized is one by Siviwe Vamva of the
South African Students Congress. "All these issues must be brought forward so that all the people of South Africa can see that racism is still a dominant feature in South African society," Vamva says. This puts a positive spin on the aftermath of the video.
The author continues this idea through pictures of students rallying together to fight racism after being united by their anger over the video. The author could have chosen to focus more on the negative behavior of the white students but, instead, uses select quotes and pictures to highlight the potential for good in the situation.

Examples and Details

The BBC article, "Outcry in SA over 'racist' video," describes a disgusting act of hatred committed against black employees at a university in South Africa. White students forced the black employees to chug beers and eat food that they had urinated, causing the workers to vomit. Students across the country have protested the acts. However there be some potential for good to come out of atrocities. "All these issues must be brought forward so that all the people of South Africa can see that racism is still a dominant feature in South African society," says Siviwe Vamva of the South African Students Congress.

Several details and examples stood out in this article. In particular, details about the history surrounding racism in South Africa were interesting and helped me understand the significance of the events involving the black employees and white students.

www.bbc.co.uk

Questioning the Media

The New York Times article, "'No Country for Old Men' Wins Oscar Tug of War," gave much information on last night's wins and losses at the Academy Awards. As the title suggests, the film, "No Country for Old Men" won the Best Picture Award. There were several wins that came as surprises, such as Marion Cotillard's win for Best Actress. The movie, "Juno" also claimed an unexpected win for Best Original Screenplay.

As I read the article I thought of several questions about which information the authors chose to include. Best Picture is a topic that is generally interesting to most readers, however few readers are curious about which film won the Best Original Screenplay. This article not only stated that Juno had won the Screenplay category, but also included personal information on the screenplay's author, Diablo Cody. Diablo, the article states, was once a stripper before getting into film. This information has no bearing on the film or the Oscars, and I wondered at first why the authors mentioned it at all. I then realized they included the detail because they wanted to grab readers' attention with a little added scandal.

nytimes.com

Comparing and Contrasting

I chose to compare and contrast the coverage of the Super Tuesday primaries. I looked at cnn.com and foxnews.com. I found many similarities in terms of the facts presented. They included the same information and numbers about wins, losses, and delegate counts. Both articles also mentioned that John McCain is now the leading candidate for the Republican nomination and that Mike Huckabee is also becoming a serious candidate. Both sites also agree that the Democratic party remains divided, largely between Clinton and Obama.

The sites had several differences in the way they presented the information. The titles were the first area where I found significant differences. The headline on CNN.com was "No Super Tuesday Crown," which highlighted that none of the elections were officially decided on Tuesday. On the other hand, the Foxnews.com headline, "McCain emerges as front runner while democrats spin Super Tuesday wins," emphasized that Republicans are more united than democrats, as if to promote Republicans. There was also a heavier focus on McCain's acceptance speech, which helped solidify the idea that he is the undisputed front runner.

cnn.com
foxnews.com

Making Predictions

I can make several predictions based on clues from the articles, like titles, pictures, captions, what section of the paper the article is found in, etc. Today I read the article, "Fighting in Chad's Capitol Ebbs, but Fighting Looms." The first prediction I can make based on the title is that violence in Chad is dwindling and possibly there is in an end to it in sight. However, based on what I already know about the situation in Chad, and in Africa as a whole, I can predict that the violence that was in Chad will spill over into nearby African countries. Based on the first picture and caption of the article, I can predict that it will take much time and money to reconstruct parts of Chad that were destroyed in the violence.

www.nytimes.com

My Media Topic

I am happy with my media topic, international and domestic news. So far I have found lots of interesting articles to read. The most interesting ones right now have been on the Superbowl. Go Giants! The final score, 17-14, put them over the Patriots. What a win!

www.nytimes.com