Category: Readers, Writers, Texts

Hold the Front Page! How the News Gets Made

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News doesn’t just happen – it’s made. The modern news cycle runs twenty-four seven, 365 days a year. Reporters and editors can’t simply wait for the next big event; they have airtime, feeds, and column inches to fill. At the same time, they can’t fabricate stories. This is where news values come in. Almost anything can become news if it meets certain criteria: relevance, rarity, human interest, conflict or controversy, and the potential for ongoing coverage.

When Words Turn Toxic: The Migrant Debate

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Explore the topic of migration through the lens of language, the words and images people use to frame the migration debate in ways that further certain ideological positions. Encounter language that dehumanises and objectifies, language that categorises, assumes, derides, divides, and villainises – and also language that rehumanises, cutting through the media noise to tell stories of living people with hopes, dreams and dignity.

Multimodality: the visual language of advertising

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Despite what people say, advertisers know that language and images work at both the conscious and the unconscious level, and a person unaware of advertising’s claim on him or her is the person least well equipped to resist its insidious attack, no matter how forthright they may sound. An essential underpinning to the language and literature course is the aim for you to become media-literate and an important purpose of a classroom study of advertising is to raise the level of awareness about the persuasive techniques used in ads. Ads can be studied to detect ‘hooks,’ they can be used to gauge values of consumers, and they can be analysed for symbols, colour, and imagery. And don’t neglect the simplest and most direct way of studying ads – the words themselves.

The History of Advertising

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Five thousand years ago, the Babylonians hung symbols over their shop doors depicting what kind of trade went on inside and, voila, the first advertisements were born. Advertising may have become more prevalent over the years, but wherever communities and commerce exit, so too does advertising.

Constructing Racial Stereotypes in Advertising and the Media

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Racial stereotyping is the act of classifying individuals or putting them into imaginary boxes based on their nationality, ethnicity or skin colour. It is the oversimplification of a person of a particular race. The problem of racial stereotyping occurs when one person’s behaviour is ascribed to a group’s tendencies instead of the causes of an immediate situation.Racial stereotyping is the act of classifying individuals or putting them into imaginary boxes based on their nationality, ethnicity or skin colour. It is the oversimplification of a person of a particular race. The problem of racial stereotyping occurs when one person’s behaviour is ascribed to a group’s tendencies instead of the causes of an immediate situation.

Speaking to Elephants: Persuasion Beyond Logic

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You can think of a speaker as an artist or craftsperson and ethos, pathos and logos All speeches contain three basic ingredients: ethos, pathos and logos. These are the terms used by the ancient Greeks to describe the different ways a speech appealed to an audience. Ethos refers to the trustworthiness of the speaker: it is what gives the speaker the right to stand before an audience. Ethos can be understood as a process of establishing credit with an audience, and building confidence in the listener. Pathos is any part of the speech that appeals to our emotions (the word shares a root with pathetic, sympathy and empathy). Whenever speakers remind you to be patriotic, make you smile or frown, or make you feel guilty they are appealing to your emotions. Logos is the part of the speech that appeals to our sense of logic and all good speeches do this. Statistics, arguments with sound premises, and examples of reasoning are all indicative of a logical approach to winning over the audience. the framework upon which the artisan works. Hone your own knowledge of these rhetorical tools, and how to recognize and appreciate them in speeches you study.

Persuasion or Propaganda?

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Propaganda can be dangerous when it is used on an uninformed public: people are easily persuaded because they do not have counter-arguments to the information they are being given. You may think you are immune to propaganda – but living in a digital age does not always make it easier to detect the techniques involved. It requires a conscious effort to be critical, work on your media literacy, and to stay alert for argumentative fallacies.