In the short story “Understand”, the main character, Leon Greco, travels towards New York City in order to escape governmental authority. For my Rhetorical in Practice Project, I was interested in designing an online news article, specifically I planned on adopting The New York Times layout as a way to retain a form of continuity with the story. Saying that, I planned on adopting the key elements of The New York Times; such as, font style, formal writing, and avoidance of biases. Essentially, I endeavored to write an informative article to deliver factual details in regard to Greco, while also delivering a message that would not provoke my audience to not overreact. On top of that, I utilized this genre as a way to exhibit the trajectory of …show more content…
the media industry, where people are now receiving current events via online resources; such as, tablets, phones, and laptops. By applying these strategical elements, I plan to exhibit an identical layout of The New York Times online news article to not only be informative, but also to appeal to a sophisticated audience. Since my article is within the digital realm, my RIP project is directed, yet not limited, towards young individuals who are self-aware, knowledgeable, and interested in factual current events that may personally affect them. According to the Pew Research Center, 38 percent of the U.S population receives their news via online resources and are within the ages of 18 and 49. If we look at the progression of humanity, we are radically shifting towards the usage of technology. Essentially, my project is supporting the trajectory of the media industry, in which people are looking for quick accessible current events and swaying away from the usage of print resources. Aside from this, the reason I mention that my audience is not elderly is because most of these individuals still receive their current events in print. This may be due to cultural reasoning or simply because it’s the individual’s personal preference. As mentioned before, I defined my audience to be self-aware and interested in factual details, which compliments the format of my style. According to the Business Insider, The New York Times is classified as a credible source, where most of the people trust the facts they provide. This is the reason I chose the layout as a means to provide factual evidence in regards to Greco, in which I avoid taking ideas out of context since it would diminish my rhetor’s, Ian Zacarias, credibility as a journalist for The New York Times. By utilizing this genre, I intended to communicate a message that asserts that Leon Greco is not necessarily a physical threat, but may possibly be a cyber threat toward governmental officials.
I validated his non-threatening behavior by having one of the rhetor’s, Clausen Shea, cite Greco’s letter stating, “You’re probably determined to have police issue an APB on me, though. Therefore, I’ve taken the liberty on inserting a virus in the DMV computer, that will substitute information whenever my license plate number is requested” (Chiang 43). Essentially, I quoted one his unlawful actions, which is him unauthorizedly hacking a state level governmental agency with ease. However, notice that I never mention that he killed or assault an individual, therefore, depicting him as a cybercriminal. On top of that, I specifically provide an example of him hacking a governmental agency rather a single individual to influence the audience to believe he is only after institutions that invades his privacy. To obtain the level of credibility as The New York Times, I quoted a Clausen Shea, who was the doctor that worked closely with patients that have undergone the hormone treatment. In addition, I mention that Shea works at the Massachusetts General Hospital, which “conducts the largest hospital-based research program in the world”. Hence, this reassures the audience that rhetor is indeed a credible source. Not only that, in the title I mention Greco as “Patient” rather than a criminal with an intended purpose to not sensationalize the issue or provoke the audience to be timid. Essentially, I use diction as a means to assure my audience that he is not a threat; however, he must be captured for committing an illegal
crime.
In his editorial "Words Triumph Over Images," Curtis Wilkie blames today’s media for being “reckless” and “a mutant reality show”. He believes that television and radio are “unfiltered”, which causes the quality of journalism for newspapers to be unmatched. Yet, it is unfair to label all media that is not print as lesser because the quality of any media relies on the viewers and the individual journalists, and in drastic situations like a hurricane, reporters may have many road blocks. Any of these aspects can affect the quality of journalism, which invalidates Curtis Wilkie’s claim.
Cofer used a fiction story about a love story with ups and downs, to keep readers entertained. “There was only one source of beauty and light for me that school year. The only thing I had anticipated at the start of the semester. That was seeing Eugene.” Ostrow used a informational text to teach readers how John F. Kennedy’s death affected the way people saw the news. “But the JFK assassination coverage changed our expectations of the news and, by extension, the pace of our lives.” Not only did it affect the way people saw the news but also “ TV news became unavoidably dominant”. People watched the news continuously “A.C Nielsen said the average home tuned in for 31.6 hours.” Ostrow wanted to inform readers, while Cofer wanted to entertain
The essay by technology reporter for the New York Times, Jenna Wortham, titled, “It’s Not about You, Facebook. It’s about Us” discusses the idea that Facebook has helped shape emotions and now leaves its users emotionless. Although Wortham brings in several sources she does not support these sources with statistics and her personal feelings stand in the way of getting her main points across. In addition, she has a weak conclusion that leaves readers trying to grasp the actual message that Wortham is attempting to convey. Wortham fails to effectively support her thesis that society feels that it can not live without facebook.
In the novel “Between the World and Me” by Ta-Nehisi Coates, the story is a direct letter to his son. This letter contains the tools and instructions that his son will need in order to be a successful “black body” in the modern society. Coates explains his life experiences and hardships he had to overcome because of the color of his skin. Coates pushes an urgent message to the world; discrimination is still prevalent and real in today 's society, and the world is still struggling to accept an equal life for blacks. Coates writings alter the minds of his readers and allow them to experience life through a black man 's eyes. Ta-Nehisi Coates does this by the use of rhetorical strategies like, repetition and tone, metaphors and similes, and
HTS revolutionized modern journalism with a style all his own. He evolved a new style of journalism called “Gonzo” journalism. This bold and brazen style of journalism is the telling of the blatant truth with no thought of consequence. According to Thompson "The true Gonzo reporter needs the talent of a master journalist, the eye of an artist/photographer and the heavy balls of an actor.” A gonzo journalist does not proofread his work, because that would take away from the spontaneous of the event. A Gonzo journalist will witness an event, and either at the time of it, or shortly thereafter completely write about it. When written at an event, "The reporter works his fingers to bloody nubs trying to capture all that is happening around him, and then sends it off to the editor without a second look.”
Jacoby can be easily perceived as an upset and alarmed individual who blames the rise of criminal activity in the United States on the failure of the criminal justice system. He cares about people and believes that the safety of individuals is decreasing because criminals are not punished effectively by imprisonment and that some even receive a “sign of manhood” from going to prison (197). Additionally, he is upset that the ineffective system is so expensive. His concern for his audience’s safety and his carefully argued grounds, which he uses to support his claim, create a persona of an intelligent person of
Throughout his villanelle, “Saturday at the Border,” Hayden Carruth continuously mentions the “death-knell” (Carruth 3) to reveal his aged narrator’s anticipation of his upcoming death. The poem written in conversation with Carruth’s villanelle, “Monday at the River,” assures the narrator that despite his age, he still possesses the expertise to write a well structured poem. Additionally, the poem offers Carruth’s narrator a different attitude with which to approach his writing, as well as his death, to alleviate his feelings of distress and encourage him to write with confidence.
In William Zinnser’s essay “Simplicity” he states that “clear thinking becomes clear writing; one can’t exist without the other.” He believes that people speak more complexly then they have to and that the key to good writing and speaking is simplicity. In his argument he goes on to say that often writers are not careful enough. They know what they are trying to say but do not know how to put it down on paper. They assume that the reader will understand what they are thinking even though their writing is not obvious to others. He does make several suggestions for improvement. Very easily one could make their writing easier to understand by simple corrections.
In The Heart of Understanding, Thich Nhat Hanh’s uses simple but powerful words and real world examples to illustrate the profound Buddhist philosophy from the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra, an important representative of Mahayana Buddhist literature. The Mahayana school of Buddhist teachings emphasizes the doctrine of Sunyata- emptiness. The doctrine of emptiness, one of the most important Mahayana innovations, focuses on the relational aspect of existence. Thich Nhat Hanh coins and introduces a new word- interbeing to explain the state of emptiness. This idea of interbeing not only illustrates emptiness well but also provides understanding of other fundamental Buddhist ideas such as No-Self, impermanence and non-duality.
Our minds have changed from being able to focus and read a lengthy paper, to distracted and skimming for the little highlights to give us information. Media used to be lengthy pages full of information. Now it has turned into short snippets of the bold points in the articles, “Television programs add text crawls and pop-up ads, and magazines and newspapers shorten their articles, introduce capsule summaries, and crowd their pages with easy-to-browse info-snippets” (Carr 5). Media has played on our short attention span and constantly wondering mind by adding bright colors and bold prints to the many stories all around us. The days of one-page articles are over. Now one page turns into five to ten links, three sub-links, and twenty other sidebars.
By choosing the newsroom to manipulate in “12 O’Clock News,” Bishop draws attention to the relationship between the news and the public. Bishop never directly admits that it is a newsroom with which she has defamiliarized us. One indication of the setting being a newsroom is the format in which she presents the information. Along the left margin, Bishop includes a title or subject matter for each stanza, similar to the inclusion of a headline for each news story. These titles serve as clues to the reality of what she is presenting, allowing or urging us to relate the two or to keep in mind that although the objects she presents seem foreign, they are actually common and known to us. Comparing the two creates a clouding of perception; although the truth or...
As stated earlier, newspapers often condense the problem or issue at hand, leaving a foggy resonation for viewers to pon...
However, despite the early use of this technique, the modern version differs from the old one as the historic circumstances and intentions of these literary journalists were rather unique to this era, as was the proliferation of writers, new and old, who quickly adopted the style for their own reasons. In the “Introduction” to The New Journalism (1975), Tom Wolfe states that the emerging genre was a response to the crisis of realism in the literary context. Wolfe found out that the intersection of novel and journalism was largely due to the abandonment of realism by authors and the need to bridge the gap between fact and fiction. For Wolfe, the novel had been “an American dream” in the forties, fifties, and the early sixties of the twentieth century. It “was no mere literary form. It was a psychological phenomenon. It was a cortical fever"
Newspaper, radio, film, television. These are only a few of the various forms media can take. From the moment we open our eyes to the instant we shut them, we are surrounded by media and absorb the information it hurls at us in an osmosis-like manner. The news ranges from the latest terror attack and political scandals to supposed UFO sightings and scandals involving sandals. We as an audience tend to focus more on the message the media relays rather than on the medium in which it is presented to us. “What?” is asked more than “How?” The key claim Marshall McLuhan makes in his book, The Medium is the Massage, is that the form of media influences how the message is perceived. Let’s illustrate this with a scenario: it’s eight o’clock in the morning.
My two articles I have chosen to compare are from the ‘The Sun’ and ‘The Times’. They are about a man who has kidnapped an eight-year-old girl, Sarah Payne. The police have recently issued an e-fit picture of the kidnapper to the media. The two newspapers present the story in different ways, therefore, both newspapers have to be attractive to sell well. To be ‘eye-catching’ the layout of the article is very important. ‘The Sun’ has used the e-fit picture of the kidnapper on the front-page, which takes up 75% of the page. However, this is very helpful because even if the paper does not sell the customers will see the e-fit picture. There is a single column along side the picture which is headed by ‘Sarah Payne’, who has been kidnapped. The picture of the kidnapper is very sincere and the man is unshaven making him look evil and scary. The headline is also bold and eye-catching because the black background illuminates the white headline. The headline is put in the form ‘one word, one line’ to make it sound like an instruction: