Tornadoes have swept through the South and Midwest, wreaking havoc and claiming lives. The story on the tornadoes have been presented to us through different online news sources, each having its own use of language. These sources' use of language effect the way that readers react to the event.
The first news source I looked at was from Fox News. The title of the article already got me confused: "Dry, cool air mixed with warm moisture, add in heat, and deadly tornado outbreak is cooked up." Was the author attempting to use clever wordplay to make a deadly tornado seem like a simple disaster whose recipe included different weather patterns? The whole title is vague, because I'm not quite sure if the author is trying to make light on a deadly twister or emphasize the horrible weather the South has been having. If only that was made clear, because those two seem to be on different ends. The article continued to talk about "cooking" the weather to create the tornado breakout. Using the word cooking in terms of weather seems to be out of place. It has a positive connotation, because it makes the tornadoes seem like they're not doing much damage, as if they aren't wrecking havoc and killing people.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/04/29/dry-cool-air-mixed-with-warm-moisture-add-in-heat-and-deadly-tornado-outbreak/
The second news source was from The Huffington Post, entitled, "Tornadoes Kill More Than A Dozen People In Arkansas, Oklahoma." This article focuses on the destruction and people's accounts of the tornadoes across Arkansas and Oklahoma. The first thing that caught my eye was, "And then all hell broke loose," when describing people's reactions to the coming tornado. This phrase has a negative connotation that makes the reader feel scared and picture the erupting chaos. This feeling of terror is followed up by a paragraph with words like "destruction," "killing," "flattening rows of homes," "shredding cars," and "demolishing a school." These are strong words that makes the reader feel sympathy towards the people stuck in the tornado zone and provide a sense of the disaster.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/27/arkansas-oklahoma-tornadoes_n_5223589.html
The article from CNN did not evoke much emotion, but rather presented the facts and brief one-sentence accounts on the tornado. However, CNN did use vague numeral amounts describe the information. Terms like "repeatedly," a number of," "tens of thousands," and "numerous" were vague numbers that could be left up to interpretation. Nevertheless, CNN did give provide an informative article on the tornadoes that did not appear to sway the audience to feel any specific way.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/29/us/severe-weather/index.html?iref=allsearch
The final article was from NPR, and it did not evoke any strong emotions to sway the audience one way or another. NPR writes that the "deadly tornadoes have wreaked havoc in the South." This describes the destruction and what actually happened, but doesn't go so far as to use words that evoke an emotional response from the reader to make them feel sad or sympathetic. This sentence is followed by, "leveling homes and claiming at least 28 lives." The words leveling and claiming are neutral, if not positive words to describe the effects of the tornado. It was much better to use these words instead of "destroying" or "killing," which has a connotation of a horrible disaster (even though the tornado is). NPR's word choice makes the effects of the tornado seem less disastrous.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/04/29/307960239/to-survive-a-tornado-first-run-to-shelter-then-grab-a-helmet
By looking at the language used by these four sources on the same story, I found that each uses language differently to evoke and emotional response (or not) from the audience. Fox News had me confused from the start because of the title, and the rest of the article only made the tornado seem pretty average. Huffington Post used strong language to make readers feel sad and sympathetic. CNN and NPR, however, did not use strong words that evoked emotion. Instead, both sources represented the facts on the tornadoes without attempting to sway the audience with language.
I agree, when Fox News compares a tornado to cooking, I wouldn't be able to take the tornado seriously. When I think of cooking, I think of happy, warm memories and when that is compared to a disastrous tornado, I would also become very confused. I came to the same conclusion with NPR, whose writers didn't use any emotional words. I think this is mainly because NPR wants to keep a reputation of direct facts with no bias. By incorporating emotions, readers will get a better sense of what happened and how bad the tornadoes actually were, but by leaving out emotion, the readers are able to focus on only the facts.
ReplyDeleteI also analyzed articles written on the tornadoes. Your interpretation and analyses of the articles was really thorough. I agree with you that when the article shows a lot of emotional appeal, it is also filled with bias. The vague phrases that you pointed out in the CNN article were very interesting. I think a lot of news organizations use vague phrasing so the reader can project their own understanding onto what their reading. Vague phrasing gives the illusion that the news corporation knows all the facts, when really their strategic use of language masks their rather flimsy argument. My articles seemed to have slightly different emotional appeals than yours, but I agree with you on how the connotation of some words were used to the advantage of the writer.
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