ENG 1252 MOD 5 FINAL
Redd 1
4
Thurl Redd
ENG 1252
Instructor
10/28/2020
Rhetorical analysis on argumentative writing
Introduction
In this essay we are going to rhetorically analyze the text by A. Riley on disability and the media: prescriptions full page. The main purpose of the analysis is to focus on how the media and the influence it has on the public perspective on people with disabilities. This thesis was selected due to the ongoing negative image given to disabled people in the society where they are viewed as helpless. The author of the text aims at criticizing and educating the media on how their biased outlook on people living with disabilities has affected their treatment and the general outlook. The text generally focuses on criticizing the media for making the disabled disabilities be a label for them instead of helping to educate the public that disabled people are successful despite their physical challenges. This essay focuses on analyzing the relationship between the media and disabilities in a negative and positive light to gain an informed understanding.
The selected text was from A. Riley II on disability and the media: prescriptions full page. This text by Riley suggests that the media is responsible for patronizing people living with disabilities in a wrong perspective. The text by Riley represented how the media made the people’s disabilities to be the only aspect of value in the identity by placing their focus on how the disabled people can overcome their disabilities to be able to fit in the society. This text helped us to understand that the media showed that the significant achievement of the disabled people would be to fit in the society. the author overall argument is that the media should stop depicting the people living with disabilities in a way that just focuses on their disabilities but should instead acknowledge the other aspects of their life such as their life achievements and goals. The thesis of the text is the negative perspective in which people with disabilities are portrayed in the media which affects the overall perspective of the public towards them.
The author chose to study the relationship between people living with disabilities and the media by analyzing the role played by the media in the negative image associated with disabled people. The main study of the author aimed at understanding how disabled people are portrayed in the media in the current society. The purpose of the writer is to criticize the media for only focusing on the disabilities in disabled people as their only attribute of value instead of foreshowing how disabled people have gone beyond the odds to become successful in life. The writer explains that these stereotypes on disabled people have affected how they are generally treated by the public, (Lunsford, Andrea, p33). The media coverage on the disabled people lead to them being treated as a lesser human being or their condition being manipulated and wrongly understood by the public. The text by the author is mainly intended to the media as the primary audience and the public as the secondary audience.
The author uses argumentative writing in her text to put her point across. Riley has effectively illustrated her opinion on the media coverage on the topic through supporting evidence and by critically analyzing how the media portrays disabled people in society. The writer also uses research analysis in her text as she takes a look into the research done on how the media impacts disabilities to help her properly accurately formulate her text. The writer’s ideas are arranged chronologically in the text as each idea is directly related to the other as the information provided a sequence of events. The information was arranged chronologically to create an effect on the reader on how the depiction of disabled people by the media generally affected their life. The text by Riley follows a chronological order as it highlights the order in which the information affect one another. In the text given the author starts with her problem statement on how the media and disabilities are related and then follows by giving relevant evidence to support her research. The purpose of the chronological order in which the information follows each other is to ensure that the targeted audience can easily understand and comprehend the text.
The writer used formal and technical language throughout the entire text since he was addressing a very serious issue to the media companies and the general public. The formal language was to properly communicate the grievance of the matter by using simple and easily understandable words to ensure that the information was well understood. The information used by the author in the text was accurate and based on the previous research done on the topic to present factual information that can be supported by evidence (Lunsford, Andrea, p33). The words were arranged in such a way that they created the desired effect that the writer had intended to ensure that the matter was taken into great concern. Certain words such as disabilities and media were repeated in the text since they were the main words and they carried a lot of weight in the text. This type of diction was used by the author to attract the attention of the intended audience and to ensure that the matter was taken seriously by the involved parties. The author uses simple sentence structures to ensure that the targeted audience can easily identify the main idea and to ensure that the sentences are easily understood. The author uses rhetorical features such as pathos and ethos in his text to affect the reader when reading the text.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the text by Riley appeals to the media for them to shift the way they portray the people with disabilities in society since media is a major influencer to the public. The rhetorical analysis conducted on this text focuses on analyzing how the writer had written the text and which factors influenced the method of writing. The purpose of this analysis is to gain a deeper meaning of the text by focusing on the small details.
References
Lunsford, Andrea A et al. Everything's an Argument. 7th ed., A Macmillan Education Imprint, 2016, p. 203.