IOC Sample

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How does this passage affect the audience?

Most Meaningful Takeaway

The most meaningful takeaway of today’s discussion for me was the fact that we discussed how identity is influenced by culture, and how having to learn a new language in depth produces the oblivion of your own culture and identity. As we can read in the text the author says ‘’for people who cannot entirely identify with either standard (formal Castilian) Spanish nor Standard English, what recourse is left to them but to create their own language?’’ the author in this sentence is explaining how important the language is for her.

 Knowing that her Spanish is not the most common and correct Spanish, and that her English is not perfect since she has a Latin accent, she directly states that there is no other way than creating her own language, in order to be able to communicate . This idea, transmits me the fact that the language is a big part of our identity, since nobody can fully understand what we want to transmit throw a different language than our native language.

Besides of the communication problems, the author is being forced to learn English, since it has more influential power than her own language, so in this case by having to learn a new language, she has to get used to a different culture, different customs since she has to copy the American accent in order to be accepted, copying the American accent and expressions. In this case we can also see the connection between power and language in the fact that she is forced to learn a language that has more power, influence, and acceptance than her language in order to become a more accepted person in society, and in order to be seen as an educated person.  As we discussed in our group when it comes to learn a new language, you know that in order to fully understand everything, a person has to understand the culture of the countries that speak that language as the mother tongue, and besides of that a person has to replace the expressions,and ways of communication of that new language with her or his own expressions that come from his or her own language and culture. Therefore, language plays a significant role in our identity because when we learn a new language, our expressions, customs, and even way of speaking and acting, change, creating a new person that is totally different to the one that knows and speaks in his mother tongue. 

Linguistic Imperialism

Linguistic imperialism, as we can notice nowadays, is affecting most of the countries of the world in many aspects. First of all we can see in education, as an example, how English has become the most powerful language of the world. In the society that we live, English is the most spoken language of the planet, which results in the fact that speaking English has to be a common thing for every single country, and that besides of that all the countries are being forced to learn English, just so that the countries can be part of the international relationships and agreements. What this fact means, is that speaking English, or the fact of being born in a country that has English as the mother tongue, will already give a person more chances to be more successful than a person that does not speak English. Because of this we can say that there are many countries that have so much knowledge that other countries do not have, and that those countries are not receiving recognition just because of the fact that they do not have English as their mother tongue, or they do not even speak English.

 An example that proves this idea is the fact that in all the countries of the world, individuals have to have a certain level of English skills to get a job. Besides of that when it comes to media and internet, most of the media is in English, and all the world accepts it. We cannot blame on any English speaker native country for this fact, but what we could do is to consider if accepting this fact will benefit us.

My conclusion is that nowadays the English has such a power that can dominate the whole world, since its influence reaches every part of the world. Besides of that it is important to also mention that the rest of the countries that do not have English as mother tongue have to do something about it not fearing to reject being part of the empire that this language has built in such a short period of time.

Text 2 Comment

In this blog post I am going to analyze an article called Food Crisis in Sahel, which belongs to the company Oxfam. We can notice that this is truly an article that has been posted in the website of the webpage, since we can see that the text appears in the website of the NGO. 

As we can see, the article is informing the readers about the economical problems that certain countries from Africa are constantly facing. This problems are mainly due to the climate, that has ruined food crops many years in the past as well as it is ruining food crops nowadays. Due to this, many individuals do not have enough food and water, so these countries are facing big problems of food and water shortages. Besides of informing the people about the situation, the writer is also trying to persuade the audience about the bad situation that these countries are facing. Therefore the target audience is the people of medium class that is able to help these individuals in need.

The structure of the article is made in such a way, in which a person can fully understand the message of the article. The writer first talks about the situation that these countries faced in the past and the consequences that it had. After that he or she explains what would be needed to change this situation, and what would be the solution to avoid it to occur on the future. Finally the writer tells the audience what people could do to change the situation.

Each section is important, because without reading the first section we would not be able to fully understand the second section, so the writer in this text gives us the context in the first section. Besides of that in the first section we can find the basic information that helps us to understand the second section, so it can be considered the introduction explaining what are the thing that are going to be discussed in the article.

 Besides of that, in the second section the writer fully explains the idea that he or she wants to transmit, explaining the current situation of the countries, and explaining what would be needed to avoid this bad and sad situation that these countries have to face.

Finally in the third section we find a sort of conclusion in which the writer gives us the last information, talking about, what things in the project have already been achieved, encouraging people to support the project and, encouraging people to believe that there is hope for these countries if people knows more about how the situation is nowadays.

Furthermore the persuasive language has an important role in this article. We can notice that this article has Ethos, Pathos and Logos.

We have Ethos because as we can see the article has credibility since the NGO Oxfam is the organization that is posting the information. Pathos is involved since it appeals to emotion through explaining how sad and bad the situation in these poor countries is, and lastly it also has Logos since the text gives us evidence of the issue, it presents numbers and real facts that can be trusted, so the information is clearly being displayed.

Native Advertisement

 The existence of Native advertisement is the proof that shows us the large impact that advertisement is creating in society, besides of this it shows us that advertisement is present even in situation in which we do not notice. Before analyzing how native advertisement is present in media, it is important to define specifically what a native advertising is.

Native advertisement is the technique in which the advertisements use specific content to build trust and engagement with the would-be costumers. In order to do this, native advertisement is promoted for example on Twitter, it can be suggested in a post of Facebook. But the important idea is that nowadays the brands work together with the Social media companies, in order to reach the people.

As we can see in this picture, the picture is the post or article of an electronic news company called The Washington Post. The post is talking about a political issue, being more specific the company is putting a headline that says Russian forces expand their control of Crimea. First off the structure of the post has a picture, a column and a Headline. The post has a picture taken in Ukraine, showing connection with the theme of the post. In the picture we can see a Ukrainian soldier who is in a situation that transmits concentration and tension, so it transmits us the idea that the information that is shown in the post is real therefore, it has logos. Besides of that the column that the post has talks about the political issue, so it is related with the theme of the post. The persuasive language also is present since the post has ethos and logos. Besides of that there is a Microsoft advertisement in the post that is a native advertisement. We can say that it is a native advertisement because it is advertised in a popular electric webpage, and since many people trust the information of the electronic news posts, they will also believe that the product that is being advertised is also good.

Generation Like

First off, before watching this documentary I already knew that companies are affecting society through media, but after watching it, I understood how they manipulate so much information that we, the viewers, watch and therefore, affect our thoughts and personalities. 

When individuals structure their identity around commercial products and initiatives they generate benefits for the company that creates the products, by spending so much time sharing the believe that specifically one product is so good, and that everybody should consume it, or buy it. The personality of all these individuals gets affected, because they lose their capacity of self deciding if a product is good or not. 

When the word empower is related with media, in my opinion it makes reference to the fact that one person with many followers will have a lot of influence in the life of many individuals, such influences can be very different, the influence can be the way a person dresses, or the food that a person decides to eat. Therefore, the media does empower an individual, if the individual becomes so famous and gets millions of followers, which will result in the gain of influence, because the followers of the individual will consider copy certain things from their idol.

As the documentary shows us, when a person shares many information about a product, it is interacting with other individuals in order to spread the idea that a certain product is good, but at the end of the day the individual will not interact with the other individuals with a different purpose, which will keep the individual apart from society. This idea is related with the Hunger Games, because as we can see many players collaborate, but at the end of the game there can be only one winner, so the player will be alone, even though he or she has interacted with other individuals.

Besides of this, nowadays the audience interacts so much with the media, which in my opinion is a bad thing, because as more attention we give to media, the media becomes more benefited, and the individuals that interact with the media do not get benefited. Besides of that the individuals not only do not get benefited, but also they get influenced and manipulated by the media.

Lastly, a person with many likes and followers will have a large influence in the thinking of his or her followers. Because of this, many companies ,knowing that these individuals with millions of followers have influence, will manage to make a deal with the famous individuals so that the individuals convince their audience about the liability of the product that the company wants  the individuals to present. In these deals the famous individuals receive money instead of promoting the idea that the product is so good. But the important thing here, is that the individuals are able to receive that money because of his or her followers, the explanation for this is that  the followers of the individuals are the ones who give them the influence and the power by clicking the like button of their videos or pictures, therefore, we the audience, are the ones who are feeding the power of media in society.

Pop Culture

A Critique of My Chemical Romance’s song Teenagers

Not doubting in singing what they sing, My Chemical Romance releases this new hit called Teenagers, where they portray their thinking about how teenagers are treated nowadays by society. The main aim of my Chemical Romance in this song is to tell the audience that teenagers are being controlled in everything they do, and that the government controls all the information that the teenagers learn at school, and all the information that they receive by media, not allowing them to question if what they learn is real, or that if what they learn can be trusted. Besides of this, this music band wants to portray the idea that the system of the country is made in a way in which teenagers are not able to question if the way in which the country is being ran is a fair and just way for all the people of society.

As we can notice in the lyrics, the government or the persons ruling the government are depicted as people who are manipulating the teenagers as we can understand by looking at the lyrics. Examples of this can be, They are going to clean up your looks, "with all the lies in the books'',''to make a citizen out of you'', which are phrases that transmit the idea that the government is going to rule in some way in which the teenagers do not have the possibility to think outside the box, so that the teenagers become the kind of citizen that the government wants.

Besides of this the song is transmitting the idea that the government, or the way in which society is being ruled, is excluding all the teenagers from society, so that they do not have the power, or abilities to decide if the way in which they are being ruled is correct and fair, and therefore not being able to carry a revolution, or start to wish a change in the system. As Gerard Way, the singer of the band sings ''Maybe they’ll leave you alone but not me'', he portrays the already mentioned idea, but furthermore the singer also sings They could care less as long as someone’ll bleed. This last verse goes even further, first off by saying they, Gerard is referring to the government, but the shocking thing here is that he is openly saying that the government manipulates the teenagers, ruining their possibilities to fulfill a dream, not caring about it, and making benefit of it.

Besides of this, a related information about the hit is that because of the content of the song the video-clip of the song was banned, mainly because the group decided to use images of catastrophe explosions as slogan of the hit, which transmit the idea that government is destroying the life of the teenagers.

As a personal opinion I think that what My Chemical Romance is trying to portray by this song is a real issue, teenagers are being controlled and manipulated by the government In some countries, and besides of that the government is benefiting himself.