The visual presentation of the fake news article I analyzed is rather conspicuous. The page is surrounded with red borders, and important words around the site, like "LATEST," are highlighted in red; these features contribute to the staunch Republican atmosphere of the site and the article. Above the title (which is in huge, bold, black type) sits a “NEWS” designation highlighted in red, an attempt to establish the article as factual. Every effort seems to be made to direct attention to the title—an advertisement even puts a good deal of space between it and the actual article content. This spacing strategy is repeated throughout, with more ads, tweets, and videos separating small blocks of text from the rest of the article, as if daring the reader at every step to stop reading while only half-informed, before they can properly evaluate the article’s reliability. The huge Facebook “Share” button directly under the title makes it clear that people are meant to spread the article, presumably once they stop reading prematurely. This seems to further support the idea that the article’s aim is to rile people up.
If any color other than red was substantially present on the page, the overwhelming conservative tilt of the site, and the article, might not be so apparent. Additionally, were it all presented as a unified text, it might not come off as so disjointed and so desperate for the reader to click “Share.”
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Article: https://conservativeforever.com/breaking-kim-jong-un-surrenders-sends-letter-white-house-trump-wins-north-korea/ The "fake news" article I found, which appears on far-right site Conservative Forever, has the kind of clickbait title that stands out from the crowd. The title is not simply a gross exaggeration or dramatization of the facts of the event in question; it is blatantly untrue. It seems that, in general, the site's publications follow a similar formula, painting moderately important political news as grandiose successes for President Trump. This attribution is made even when the event has nothing to do with Donald Trump himself, often just featuring the perceived "wins" and "losses" of the Republican party in opposition with the democrats. President Trump does hold a place as a sort of paragon of intertextuality, with his name in the headlines almost daily. To reference Trump is to reference his fiery campaign rhetoric, his moves toward border walls and transgender bans. Trump is the perfect stand-in crusader for the conservative ideology that the site champions.
Invoking this image of Trump as a staunch protector of Republican values allows the article to appeal to the "us versus them" mentality that permeates America's bipartisan politics. While partisanship is less important in this article than in many found on Conservative Forever, the author evokes the same mentality here against the nation of North Korea. The writer thus taps into the kind of social narratives that the Los Angeles Times article on the recent Facebook breach employed. Here, the tension with North Korea is used, along with general ideas of the foreign nation as communist and un-American. The article's only real point is that South Korean leaders announced a meeting that would occur between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, and that the latter made encouraging comments suggesting that North Korea would suspend nuclear missile testing and work towards denuclearization. These facts are supported by tweets from nationally recognized news sources like CNN, texts which are used to bolster the argument from Conservative Forever, which functions as fringe media. This mirrors how sources like The Guardian's damning piece on the Facebook scandal were used in the article we examined in class. Additionally, the article includes tweets from individuals who expressed their support for Trump and the agency they believe he had over the move towards peace talks on North Korea's end. These individuals see the development as a direct result of Trump's foreign policy. However, these individuals have no real authority, and the article does not attempt to lend them credence. Similar to the Facebook article, Conservative Forever's work uses words that have extreme emotional connotations. The title describes Kim Jong Un's "surrender" and Trump's "win," words that depict Trump as a hero who has put an end to the conflict with North Korea. This assertion is completely unjustified based on the contents of the article itself. It seems that the main aim of the work is to rile up emotions in Trump's supporters, and emotionally charged words are yet another way the article accomplishes this goal. Sojourner Truth's speech "Ain't I A Woman?" offers a famous, persuasive argument from which I can take many lessons for my own project. While the format is not exactly the same as the "This I Believe" project, it nevertheless presents her beliefs on a topic with some strategies I could employ. In particular:
1. I could try to appeal to emotions the way Sojourner Truth does, using emotional symbols significant to the culture that includes the audience. For Truth, this was done through referencing Christ. For my project, I could perhaps use pop culture alongside my argument. 2. In the speech, Truth structures her argument as a form of rebuttals to different claims others might make against women's rights. I could do something similar, but instead systematically rebut the points of my opposition: the self-deprecating side of myself that argues against forgiving me, or my vengeful side that demands clinging to anger rather than forgiving others. 3. Sojourner Truth uses informal language in a very effective way. It equates her with the everyday population, and it strengthens her intellect argument by showing that she does not need to have an advanced vocabulary and IQ to have an opinion that matters. I should try to find a similar way to use structure to complement the content of my project. |
AuthorI'm Nic Nemec, a freshman studying English at UMBC. I write for The Retriever and am a small group leader with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. I enjoy long walks on the beach. ArchivesCategories |