11/3/16-comparing two different types of text

 Comparing two different types of text

 This online news article from the Daily mail has many of the connotations you expect to see such as a header. The header makes you want to find out who drove the boy to commit suicide as the physical verb ‘driven’ allows the reader to know that someone made the ‘boy’ do it. By the header being in quotation marks, makes the incident seem more real than it already does as this states to the reader that someone physically said the words. ‘Driven to suicide by bullies’. There is also a comment and share link at the bottom of the page which is not present on normal articles you find in hardbacks as it is not capable of doing so. This will make the article reach out to a wider audience and give people to chance to read it even though they haven’t specifically gone onto the Daily Mail Online page. There are also side bars present on this online article which are more colourful thus striking as the article is in black and white with no images to instantly grab your attention.

Because this article is online to be able to read it -unless it has been shared- you will have to go online yourself and search it up. This implies that the audience may be looking for advice as they are manually ‘looking’ for the information.  This shows that you will only do this if you are interested in the topic or are looking for advice for others. On the other hand if it was in a newspaper, you would read it if your eyes come across it or you is concerned about the incident.

I believe that the primary audience of this article are people who know someone who is getting bullied, as if you’re getting bullied yourself you would not want to read about people committing suicide by something you are experiencing. As well as people looking for advice, I believe the primary audience will be woman as its proven that woman go onto the daily mail online website more than men. This could be why the sidebar articles are more ‘gossipy’ and celebrity based. The header to the article starts with the concrete noun ‘boy’ suggesting him being young and innocent. The use of this word may also be due to the audience being more female heavy as woman with children can relate as ‘boy’ implies someone who needs to be looked after and comforted as they are not an independent man yet.

A secondary audience however may just be a person who reads the daily mail regularly and if this is the case, they will be attracted to the type of news they broadcast (as well as this article).I also think this will be the older generation as the adverb ‘daily’ implies that there are updates 24/7 so new news frequently, Whereas teenagers -for example- will not read online articles every day even though teenagers are more likely to be online than any other age group. In addition to this, the article may be online to try and inform teenagers about suicides from bullying as the victim was nearly a teenager himself. But it could also be informing anyone else interested about the incidence.  A secondary purpose of this article may be to educate people on the extreme effects of bullying and as they have used a real life situation to do so, will allow people to relate more and hopefully not go down the same path-bullying or committing suicide because of it-.

When looking at this article you do not expect it to be colourful or have many images as it is a serious and miserable topic. On the other hand by having an image it may create an emotional attachment between the reader and the story. This also links to the expectations of an online article as you do expect online articles to catch your eye as you are able to click off and go on another article at any moment as easy as pressing a button. So I did not expect the sidebar adverts to be more appealing than the article itself as it will make the reader be drawn to those more reducing their attention on the article on the boys suicide.

 

 

 

This poster will be appealing to the younger eye as its geographical features make it less formal. This includes the gun image suggesting danger and pain and the word art which makes you want to give your attention to the poster, as it creates an urge to read it and find out what it says.

Posters have to stand out from others around it as posters are generally found in corridors so have to be attracted- as you will only be engrossed in it for a couple of seconds - and in this case, I expect this poster to be in a school or college. This is because it is more ‘fun’ with the words coming out of the gun in a waved form. Because of the capital letters and bright colour, the ‘STOP CYBER BULLYING’ phrase catches your eye first. The red implies importance and the connotations of it suggest fear, violence and hurt (colour of blood).On the other hand it also has the connotation of love which could be the creators love for the topic.

I think the targeted audience is young people- including teenagers – as cyber bullying occurs more in these generations as it is all over text (which is all what teenagers do now are days).In particularly though, I think it is aimed at bullies as the punchy simple sentence ‘STOP THE HATE’ is coming across in a demanding and not pleasant way as it is not asking…it is telling. I think the poster could also attract people who are maybe thinking of or getting into being a bully as the abstract nouns ‘hate’ and ‘hurt’ and the concrete noun ‘deaths’ imply hell therefore not a nice thing to be involved in. The word ‘hate’ suggests isolation for the person being hated upon which consequently, no one wants to be. ‘Hurt’ suggests pain and discomfort which can be either mental or physical so long term or short term. This shows how it can affect someone for their whole life and could make the bully or people who are becoming one think twice. The word ‘deaths’ suggest the end of a life for more than one person giving the impression that you could also affect other people and not just the person you are targeting .

The expected audience is also the bullies as the gun suggest power and authority over someone who is scared of you; you only have the power out of fright.

The purpose of this poster I believe is to persuade bullies to stop bullying and to persuade people to help in their own spare time as the verb ‘stop’ is commanding and patronising. A secondary purpose of this poster could be to inform people that by hating and hurting someone multiple times, you could end up killing them. This is because ‘STOP THE DEATHS’ is in a darker shade than ‘STOP THE HATE’. The darker shade implies that it is more serious as it is more visible rather than a faded red.

This poster has many of the expectations of a stereotypical poster such as the short and snappy quotes of repeated words like the verb ‘stop’ and the noun ‘words’. This  allows the reader to understand how weapons are not just guns, knives and bombs for instance, but can also be something as little as ‘words’ which you can control yourself. Therefore everyone is in control of their own personal weapon which can do more harm than others as it can kill without you knowing. This is shown in the quote ’words are weapons and words can kill’.

The poster and online article have a lot of differences and not just the different genres they are. The target audiences for each are opposite to the other with the article being aimed at people who are seeking help for others, or wanting to find out more about suicides due to bullying. Whereas the poster is aimed at bullies themselves due to the commanding verb ‘stop’  implying that they are trying to enforce the message onto people to stop bullying as ‘words kill’.

The geographical features are also different with the article only containing paragraphs of text while the poster is using the image of a gun to get the ‘hurt’ and ‘kill’ message across. This could be due to the fact the article is on a serious incident which generally happened and has an older audience and the poster is aimed at younger people who they are trying to get a messages across to so wanting to come across less formal and more friendly with images and word art.

The poster has used a range of different fonts and sizes whereas the article has stuck with one font and size throughout (apart from the header which has to stand out from the rest of the text to grab the audience’s attention).The range of fonts and sixes the poster has used makes it more alluring and the colour red along with it makes it alerting. Taking this into consideration, the article is more boring and less alluring than the poster as by looking at it, it does not look like an interesting read and so you will most likely scroll past a lot of it. However as the article is not on a wall and will only have your attention for a few seconds like a poster, it is able to conation more information. Another reason could be because they have not got a younger audience who do not like reading paragraphs of writing and this may well be the reason why the poster does not do this.

The purpose of the poster is to stop bullying from happening but the article contains a story where bullying has already occurred, and so is using this real life event for evidence –the poster does not contain any evidence so might be less convincing to some-.

 

 

13.5.5 comupter room work

British stereotypes: do mention the war, Please!

G- This text is an extract from a newspaper article which answers why there is neither a date nor by-line present due to it being the opening paragraph. Not all the stereotypical connotations of a newspaper are present within this extract, along with a strapline which is usually placed under the header. This implies that no one with a high authority or status has a strong opinion on this topic as stereotypically, a strapline consists of a quote from someone of power.

R-Due to the graphology of this extract being black and white which is the style of a hard copy newspaper, I expect someone who buys the guardian regularly will come across this article. This is with reference to the use of the ripped style edges indicating that this extract was torn out of a newspaper. However, this appears to be for appearance purposes which therefore suggest this article may be from online. In that case, someone looking for information or are interested in this topic will come across it, as they will manually have to go onto the internet and search up this article.

If this extract is online, the reader will have to be hooked from the start due to their being many other articles and information on this topic at easy reach. The use of an exclamation mark at the end of the header may entice the reader to read on as it gives a sense of importance as the adverb ‘please’ is almost begging people to ‘mention the war’.

1. Due to the abbreviation of the word Britons, the contraction ‘Brits’ implies that the target audience may be people who are educated with British people due to the author not using the collective noun ‘Britons’. Although ‘The Guardian’ is a British newspaper, the language used indicates that the article is not aimed at ‘Brits’ themselves. This is because the author is describing what ‘Brits’ are like and the 3^rd person term ‘are’ suggest that this is aimed to educate people on British people. On the other hand, the audience could be British people as the author could be trying to persuade the people of Britain to change their stereotype of ‘class-conscious binge-drinkers’ as the verb ‘binge’ with the concrete noun ‘drinkers’ implies we are senseless and anti-social people. This suggest that all ‘Brits’ who are at the legal age to drink have no self-control. The collective noun ‘class’ implies unity yet with the adjective ‘conscious’ it suggests the British community is aware of the differences between groups of people, and so keep to what they know. Therefore, do not mix with everyone forming unity amongst all. Jonathan Freedland  however does not feel this is the case as the verb ‘portrayed’ implies ‘Brits’ are just described in this way but it is not specifically true.

 

P- The primary purpose of this article is to inform people about what British people are like in relation to ‘Frenchman’ who ‘wear a striped shirt and beret’ and ‘ruddy-faced Germans’. On the other hand, another purpose of this article could be to inform ‘Brits’ that others will have their assumptions  of you due to stereotypes but this does not define who you are. This is shown when it says ‘the European image of the Brits’ as the abstract noun ‘image’ implies a made-up picture of Britons.  When the author writes ‘ we know precisely what all those Europeans think of us’ gives the impression that he is bias towards ‘Brits’ as the 3^rd person term ‘us’ implies he is from Britain. By relating other European countries as ‘those’ suggest no individuality between them and that he sees it as some rivalry between Britain and other countries. This relates to when Freedland describes Britons as being ‘utterly obsessed with the war’ as this implies we are always looking for a fight.

E-When reading the Header of this article ‘British stereotypes: do mention the war, Please!’ you expect the content of it to be “taking the micky” out of British people as the use of the punctuation of: a comma gives a space to breath, which in this form implies that people are bored and fed-up of Britons pleading all the time, the colon gives a sense that Britons mentioning the war is the start to a list of things we do which are “annoying” and the exclamation mark suggest urgency and as though this command is being shouted.   The commanding verb ‘do’ also implies urgency as it gives the impression Britons always ‘mention the war’ referring to us as being aggressive.

However  when you read on, you get the sense that all these assumptions are just abbreviations and quick thought stereotypes of Britons due to the concrete noun ‘thumbnail’ along with the verb ‘sketch’ implying  a thoughtless  image. Because of the author now “sticking up” for Britons, you do not know how this controversial article is going to end. Therefore the audience may be shocked with the ending as it concludes that not only does the author think that these stereotypes are ‘not the whole picture’, but that the author is also a fellow Briton. This shows that Britons know that these stereotypes are made of them.