Critically Analyse of Mail Online by Fiona Macrae and Bupa by Natalie Heaton

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In this written report the aim is to critically analyse two separate articles of the same subject. The purpose is to look at the language, arguments and viewpoints each article has put across and how it’s interpreted to the audience.
According to Malthouse and Roffey-Barensten(2013 page 61) to analyse means to break topics into elements and examine each..
The two articles being analysed are from the Mail Online published on the 4th August 2013 by reporter Fiona Macrae for the purpose of this report we will call this article text A. the second article is Bupa published January 2013 by Natalie Heaton Bupa health information team .We will call this text B
The subject of childhood obesity has been widely reported in the media in recent years and been debated in parliament. According to department of health(GOV.UK) 25th march 2013 it costs the government more than 50 billion every year.
Text A is an online newspaper and aims to draw in the reader by using shock headlines that are intended to grab your attention. It does this by using emotive language for example “British children are eating themselves into an early grave “It backs up its headlines by using equally shocking pictures supposedly of children to to keep the reader interested. It does this by using logical fallacies manipulating an emotional response in place of a valid or compelling argument.(yourlogicalfallacyis.com)
According to Cotteral(second edition 2011 page 117) emotive language uses words phrases and examples that intend to provoke an emotional response.
Text A uses quotes from professionals with specialist knowledge to convince the reader that the information must be true because a specialist has said so for example Research by Imperial College London that soari...

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...dence to back up arguments and statistics. The layout of each text differs in several ways. Text A is a journalistic piece and its aim is to shock rather than report the actual problem of childhood obesity its does this by cleverly using shocking pictures and emotive language such as” alarming” to furthermore pull the reader in the text is also very persuasive and descriptive outlining the shocking epidemic of childhood obesity .A typical tabloid article
Text B is not journalistic at all and is written for medical factual information aimed to give the reader the whys and where’s of childhood obesity and how to prevent this from happening. It has no need to shock or sensationalise that’s not its purpose. Although text B talks about the so called epidemic of childhood obesity it does it in a more informative way as you would expect an information booklet to be.

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