Alisa Miller's How The News Distorts Our Worldview

Saunders criticizes the megaphone, claiming it places priority on entertaining, profitable news as opposed to news that is educational or enlightening. Saunders furthers this claim by arguing that news media is habitually over-simplifying complicated issues, thus desensitizing the masses to stupidity and frivolity. Saunders’ essay is important because although it was published in 2007, it is still relevant (and will most likely be relevant as long as media exists). In fact, the points he makes in this essay are even more relatable now, as social media has increased greatly in popularity. Everywhere you look, there is a new “breaking story” about the Kardashians or the Jenners; and people accept this as real news! Saunders’ essay encourages readers to be critical of mass media and seek out undiluted, uncontaminated, earnest news

Also, she gives an example of her experience with her family life in poverty. She has earned a doctorate in leadership, so the readers look at her as reasonable to trust. Also, readers are able to accept her way about what she talks in her article about poverty.

She states many of her opinions on how the press should stop telling and spreading false events and ideas in the newspaper. When given the chance she tells her audience journalist about how the American press about her feels and how she feels challenged by them. Overall, the beginning of her speech tells the audience how she is going to state information and how they should listen to

Beginning his essay, Miller establishes his credibility by using personal facts and information and personal experience with the topic. Miller first handedly experienced the

The article "Mind Over Mass Media" by Steven Pinker uses logos, ethos, pathos, and other rhetorical elements to effectively communicate that mass media is a positive development and is not a reason for panic. The first noticeable rhetorical element in Pinker’s essay is the presence of a rhetorical triangle. A rhetorical triangle is made up of a rhetor, the audience, and the rhetor’s purpose. In this essay Steven Pinker is the rhetor because is the one trying to make a point to the audience. The audience is the reader of the article who is listening to the rhetor. Finally, the text or point the rhetor is trying to make is that e effects of mass media are not a cause for panic. In fact mass media is an effective way for humans to keep up with the modern age. The clearly defined rhetorical triangle in Steven Pinker’s essay is a surface level example of rhetorical elements in the text.

Now I realise it seems a bit hypocritical of me to attack the media’s representation of a news event when I myself am a part of the hype-generating circus we call mass media. However, the voice of my wise, high-school English teacher echoes in my subconscious that we should always be critical of the texts we consume and conscious of the

2. In the 21st century exposure to media is an everyday event for most of us. Even at the grocery store, we see magazines and newspapers with eye-catching headings that may not be true. Also, the news is everywhere, and with technology on the rise, we even get news alerts on our phones. The media has taken over society. Most of the stories we read about seem to be true but in reality, are they giving a true insight of what is actually happening? Some of the stories cause people to become blindfolded from reality. This is because the stories that people read or see have a profound impact on shaping our reality rather they are true or not. We see the news about events that are going on in the world; rather they are catastrophic events or devastating events that were done by humans.

However, the speech flipped an interesting emotional switch when she said that she was very anxious about giving the speech. She implied that she wasn’t sure what to say to a group of talented women. I don’t exactly understand her thought when it came to this part, because what would be the point of telling the audience that you’re anxious. For me, it just slowed down the pacing of the speech, because we’re waiting longer for her to get to her actual thesis.

From the beginning she pulls the readers attention, she uses a metaphor “Eventually being perfect day after day, year after year, became like always carrying a backpack filled with bricks on my back”(Quindlen, 296). This metaphor is the most significant part of her speech as she continues to refer to this metaphor throughout the speech. She uses this for the purpose of appealing to the audience in a meaningful, and personal way, creating a connection between her and the audience as most students, not only college students, can probably relate to the feeling of being heavily put down by something , not necessarily what she is talking about. Her use of pathos is what makes the speech so appealing and interesting, because she makes it so relatable and easy to understand.

When comprising an argument, the use of rhetorical strategies is essential to planning out how one presents both the chosen argument and the evidence for their position. To understand these strategies and how they are used allows for a deeper understanding of the argument and invokes critical thinking. For instance, in Journalist Joanmarie Kalter’s piece “Exposing Media Myths: TV doesn’t affect you as much as you think”. The author attempts to convince the reader that the notion, that TV is the number one source of information used today and therefore holds immense sway over the general public, is false. And because of how the rhetorical strategies are used in the article. She manages to get the reader to second guess the notion that TV holds

She chose charged words such as ‘petty’ that showed her anger towards the upper-class but also showed the pain she felt for her son being sent to war. Her introduction or exordium was strong, as well as her refutation, as she took the perspective of the other side, and answered question that could have been asked or criticisms that could have been made. While at the podium, her body language showed poise, but was not overbearing, as I would assume a plebian mother would be in-front of a

Gender and the Media by Rosalind Gill addresses gender stereotypes that are brought onto women and men through the media resulting in objectification and subjectification. Gill discusses how the representation of gender is altered as a result of the media in Western societies. Gender and the Media is aimed to address the rapid transmission of media and how those changes affect the construction of feminine and masculine gender roles in society. Gill uses her interest in the contradictions of gender construction by society, to analyze gender and the media. Using feminism as a backbone for her research, Gill and many commentators support the idea that feminist ideas are common and may even affect the media. Gender and the Media addresses multiple forms of media: postfeminism in advertising, gender in the news and journalism, and gender in magazines. Gild aims to address the construction of gender representations, elements for gender analysis, and feminist culture with Gender and the Media.

“The media are a primary source of those pictures in our heads about the larger world of public affairs, a world that for most citizens is ‘out of reach, out sight, out of mind’ and what we know about the world is largely based on what the media decide to tell us” (McCombs).

As discussed in class, one of the most influential agencies of socialization is the media. The way we see ourselves or the way other people see us come from what we are told by others and what we tell ourselves. In the Better world handbook, the chapter on media states that “the way we think and act in our daily lives is inextricably linked to the information we receive about the world” (Jones, Haenfler and Johnson). The chapter continues to discus how information delivered to us can be bias and this raises the issue on who controls the media and what we see through it. The problem with this could be that that whoever controls the media does not necessary have our best interest in mind and the content that is transmitted through the media is profit driven. . In the article “Lies my teacher told me: Everything your American history textbook got wrong” gives a perfect accept of how easy it is for information to get omitted based on what people what you to know and what they don’t want you to know. From a young age, people decide what they want you to know, so that they can decide on what they want you to think about certain topics whether its American history or something else, its like the

The audience of the speech is the sophomores of the DC High School. That means that she needs to keep the speech relatively simple, as her audience isn’t very old. As mentioned earlier the speech was held during an educational event. That is the circumstance of the speech and under that she addresses the topic education. The purpose of the speech is to motivate the students to continue their education when they have finished high school in order to succeed later in life.