Kathleen McCall

UWRT 1102 090

3/28/17
Reflection

My audience is people who watch news channels for information. This audience is

important because biases in the media that they watch may affect their opinions and actions. My

argument is that viewers should be more aware of bias in media so that they can make informed

decisions. When people choose to vote, protest, or be inactive, they should be doing it based on

their own research and interests, not based on how the media words things and what topics they

choose to present and not present. The Interplay of Influence by Kathleen Hall Jamieson helped

me to make my argument; one quote from the book about how campaign staff attempt to control

news coverage by controlling media access, setting the medias agenda, and creating credible

pseudoevents, and blur the distinction between news and commercials to increase the credibility

of the commercials message, (Jamieson 317) gave me a good list of end goals of having bias in

the media. The BuzzFeed article This Is How Your Hyperpartisan Political News Gets Made,

helped me find other motives for bias in the media, as Grant Stern says it, Grant Stern

commented that Those websites are marketing websites, he said after looking at the content,

and the product theyre pitching is outrage. (Silverman) The article President Trump Has

Done Almost Nothing, talked similarly about the media, but focused more on the people and

that too many of us take these words as action, and that we need to be distinguishing between

words and action. (Karabell)

The genre of shudder shades with words relating to media and bias plastered all over

works for what its meant to do, grab someones attention and be interesting enough that they can

learn from it. Conveying the concept with shudder shades makes it sort of a novelty, something

people will show to friends just out of interest. An article, wordy or filled with pictures, could

just be something that my audience may just toss aside since theyll glance at it and find it might
not jive with their current conceptions of the media. However, I also chose to do a satire article,

which I think since it is satire and meant to make it obvious that news nowadays can be wishy-

washy, it should still generate attention. The satire article is interesting and hopefully less boring

than an informative article on the current problems with the media. The shades are something

you could wear to spread the message, or set on your desk as a novelty for friends or coworkers

to look at. The satire article is something you would see on social media or on a website like

Buzzfeed. My genre pieces can be read in either order. I relied most on attention grabbing, other

than that the shutter shades are more visually based, and the article is more linguistically based.

The shutter shades use logos by appearing to be a useful product, if they were real. The satire

article appeals to Pathos and Logos by making you laugh or think differently of the media. My

audience needed the message conveyed in this manner so that its easy to consume and not swept

under the rug. They need it now in order to not be misinformed or controlled/manipulated. I feel

like my genre pieces will be successful with my target audience. When doing this project I

considered creating an obituary or 3D designing/printing the shutter shades, so if I were to do the

project again Id probably do both of those.

Works Cited

Jamieson, Kathleen Hall., and Karlyn Kohrs. Campbell. "News and Advertising in the Political

Campaign." The Interplay of Influence: News, Advertising, Politics, and the Mass Media.

Beijing: Peking UP, 2004. 317-328. Print.

Karabell, Zachary. "President Trump Has Done Almost Nothing." POLITICO Magazine. N.p., 13

Feb. 2017. Web. 14 Feb. 2017.

Silverman, Craig. "This Is How Your Hyperpartisan Political News Gets Made." BuzzFeed. N.p.,

27 Feb. 2017. Web. 1 Mar. 2017.