For the first blog, I picked the most recent and most
powerful event that is currently going on in the world. Which is an executive
order issued by Donald Trump. This time, I used CNN as my blog resource, but
also I used Fox News to compare and see if there was any content conflict. As a
lot of people point out, CNN is relatively more liberal and Fox news is the
other way around.
This article
talks about Donald Trump’s new executive order that bans about 7 countries
which amounts to 134 million people from entering the United States. In
addition, He will eliminate citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries from
entering the United States for at least the next 90 days. CNN continually
talked about it is still unknown how many more countries will be added to the
list, it will be more likely to happen sooner or later.
Both CNN and Fox use Logos and Ethos clearly. One
thing that stood out to me was that both of the news medias used the clear
number of “134 millions” and “7 countries”, which gives us a clear image of how
big that is, and it is a good example of Logos. For Ethos, the article focuses
on the idea of America first, which I think categorized as Ethos. In addition,
as Dr. Carter mentioned in class, information always comes charged with emotion
of some kind. It depends on how people capture and grasp the article, but
emotional portion is still large in this social change.
Again, the article not just talks about the seven
countries to be added to the ban but also there will be more countries that
will be added to it, which makes a lot of people even more emotional.
Another thing about this social change is that even
though America is not a communist society, people get influenced a lot by the
internet and the idea of Koine.
I think those above are a good way to persuade the
audience.
Blog Post 1
ReplyDeleteCOMM 250
All three modes of persuasion, ethos, pathos, and logos, can be seen when reading the articles published by CNN and Fox News about Trump’s latest executive order. I appreciated that you used not only one source of information but two separate websites to compare how these modes of persuasion are being used. I agree that logos is used in the article when CNN states that there are 7 countries whose citizens have been banned from entering the United States. CNN and Fox News cited different numbers when it came to the actual number of people being banned. CNN cited 218 million and Fox News reported that this includes only 134 million individuals. I would like to expand the use of logos in these articles by stating, “Trump more than halved the number of refugees who could eventually be admitted in 2017 to 50,000 from the 110,000 cap established under former President Barack Obama” (CNN Wire).
This statistic can also be seen as the use of pathos, or emotion, to persuade an audience. By including the words “more than halved” the author is giving the reader a clearer understanding of the number of people who are being affected by the executive order. This visualization gives readers a different emotional reaction depending on whether they are for or against Trumps recent executive order. Trump claims that this new order has been put into place to “keep America safe” and this statement can be used to give people a sense of peace (Diamond, Jeremy).
CNN and Fox News are both considered trustworthy sources of information. After reading through both articles I found myself leaning more towards the article published by Fox News. The Fox News article was published one day ahead of the other and includes quotes by the Department of Homeland Security and the White House Chief of Staff. CNN, on the other hand, only cited quotes by “the official” but never stated who “the official” was. I later discovered, after reading the article published by Fox News that “the official” refers to the senior White House official. Professor Jonathan Carter said, “No social change has occurred without rhetoric” and this idea can be clearly seen when reading information about Trumps new executive order.
Sources:
http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/27/politics/donald-trump-refugees-executive-order/index.html (Diamond, Jeremy)
http://myfox8.com/2017/01/28/donald-trumps-latest-executive-order-bans-people-from-7-countries/ (CNN Wire)