The Rhetorical Analysis of Two Texts
Sitting with her child in front of the television, Maomi Wolfs is astonished to see the content of her three-and-a-half year olds favorite cartoon. " If you pay attention to the dialogue, the images of the value-laden messages, you'll get a queasy, dawning sense that your kids have entered into a cartoon moral warp, where everything that's cool and inviting to children is being given and genuinely perverse underlay." (42) In her article, "The New Kiddie Porn", she describes cartoon shows that appear on the popular T.V. channel Cartoon Network and isolates the ideas of sexual suggestiveness in them. In an article by Dale Kunkel and Kristie M. Cope, the issue of sexual content in television is also addressed but in the form of research instead of personal experience. In their article, "Sexual Messages on Television: Comparing Findings From Three Studies", the authors discuss three different studies on television programs and how much sexual content is found. This article is clearly an academic study due to the way that it is presented to the reader. Sexual suggestiveness, activities and behavior are analyzed by the way they appear in the media. In both of these articles, although structured in different ways, we see the effects of
In their article, Kunkel and Cope do not directly give information about their background, but by the research that is shown, the reader develops a sense of confidence in the writers of this article because the facts that are presented seem very accurate. Graphs and charts are included and the article's structure explains the experiments and their results in great detail. The writers show their experience and dedication to this topic to develop their ethos. Their target audiences vary. The article is for parents but also for learned scholars who are interested in the factual evidence that they have found. They give accurate examples of real television shows such as Seinfeld and Almost Perfect. Also many statistics are given to prove that they have looked into this topic in great detail. "Two Americans under the ages of 20 become infected with HIV every hour (Office of National AIDS Policy, 1996)... In the face of these sobering statistics, it is important to consider the extent to which media portrayal engage in or over look concerns such as these, which are very serious issues in the lives of young people today."(360) In both of these articles, the authors' uses of ethos are formed in different ways, but still give the reader a feeling of confidence in the writer. In both of the articles, the ideas of logos and pathos are also used. In Wolfs article, the predominant idea is pathos whereas in Kunkel and Copes article, the main idea is logos. Each article is trying to prove the authors point, but one with many statistics and the other uses more personal experiences. The authors' uses of ethos are formed in different ways, but still give the reader a feeling of confidence in the writer. In her article, Wolfs describes her experience with cartoons. She says, "When I was growing up, the worst villains were Natasha and Boris, in Rocky and Bullwinkle; domestic strife was Wilma Flintstone in a huff if Fred forgot their anniversary-and all was forgiven with a kiss by the time the credits rolled around."(42) She gives the reader some information about what time period she grew up in. She also tells of her children and her experiences as a mother. She uses personal experience to develop her ethos. She says, "It's the first choice [cartoons] whenever I need a quick pass of child-free time to make a phone call."(42). Her target audience, which is working parents with young children, is greatly affected because they can relate to putting their kids in front of the T.V. so that they can have "child-free time". A strong reason that working parents are her target audience is because of the magazine that this article appears in. GEORGE, founded by JFK JR, is a political magazine which working people would read. In Kunkel and Copes' article however, I found that their ex
Some common words found in the essay are:
Kunkel Cope, IM Weasel, Journal Communication, Kunkel Copes, Wilma Flintstone, Research Wolfs, CBS March, Brown Buerkel-Rothfuss, Chicken What's, Findings Studies, target audience, sexual content, sexual messages, kunkel copes, wolfs article, kunkel copes article, kunkel cope, copes article, ethos formed reader, children adolescents, sexual suggestiveness, article kunkel cope, authors' ethos, formed reader feeling, feeling confidence writer,
Approximate Word count = 1876
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)
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