Susan Boyle article

       Article: It wasn't singer Susan Boyle who was ugly on Britain's got talent so much as our react to her- The Guardian, Thursday 16th April 2009

What effect do the two rhetorical questions have on the reader? What tone do they set?

‘Is Susan Boyle ugly? Or are we?’  This makes the reader think about how we judge people and whether the comments and doubt that Susan Boyle could sing made us as the audience the ugly ones. The rhetorical questions grab our attention and has a direct effect on the reader by using a personal pronoun ‘we’ to make us feel involved. By starting off by almost saying that Susan Boyle is ugly, this makes us feel empathy for her. This sets the tone as quite harsh and critical.

    How would you describe the author’s attitude to Susan Boyle? Support your point with embedded quotations.

The author is quite harsh and rude to Susan Boyle, she immediately critisises her appearance and how she comes across describing her as “small and rather chubby, with a squashed face, unruly teeth and unkempt hair”. This shows how society sees and judges people, it shows that we judge people quick by the way they look and dress, just as we did with Susan Boyle. Although the author seems harsh the way she talks about her appearance when we read it, it is what most of us were thinking as she came out on stage preparing to sing.

     What do the details about Susan Boyle’s private life add to our picture of her? Why has the journalist included them?

This is another example of how people are quickly judged by others. When Susan talked about her private life being “unemployed, single, lives with a cat called Pebbles and has never been kissed” this depicts her as the stereotype of the unsuccessful candidate. The journalist included these details as it adds to the point of judging people. Telling about her private life adds to what we had already judged her by her appearance, it just confirms what many may have already imagined her life to be like such as “never been kissed” and “lives with a cat called Pebbles” based on her appearance. It also adds to the expectation of what she would be like at singing, by her appearance many already thought she would be bad, and these details adds to that. All this makes the surprise even bigger.

     The author uses a rhetorical question to begin the second paragraph: explain the effect that this has on the reader.

By starting off with a rhetorical question again, as it did in the first paragraph, grabs the attention of the reader and again gets you thinking. Here it is talking about why we, as society, think that ugly women can’t do things like pretty girls. By adding “rather than weeping and wishing they were someone else” makes us think and have empathy for those who the writer is referring to.

       She mentions several British celebrities (you do not need to know who they are): what is the purpose of contrasting these men with the statement she makes about women?

She uses these male celebrities, who she describes as ugly, to contrast against the point that women cannot be ugly and successful especially in the media business. She emphasizes this point by adding the male celebrities to add to this point, by showing that men can be ugly and successful but women can’t, they have to be typically beautiful to be successful in the media, otherwise you are not wanted.  

     Do you agree with what she says? Think of the purpowith se of the final two sentences: what effect do they have on the reader?

Although I do partly agree with her point that women cant be ugly and successful but men can, I don’t agree with the harsh tone she puts it across in. Especially in the last two sentences, she almost critisises those people who are on the news because something bad has happened to them, and they are the exception of being typically beautiful and appearing on tv/media. 

News article style comparison

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-21711661
This is a BBC news article about a recent story of a 16 year old girl killed on a bus on her way to school. This article is very factual and there is not much opinion coming from the writer. Most opinions are quoted and is set out in quite short sentences and paragraphs.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2290155/Christina-Edkins-Knifeman-pictured-calmly-waiting-bus-following-fatal-attack.htmlBy Paul Bentley and Nick Fagge

This is another article about the same incident from the daily mail. This is quite factual but is written as more of a story than the BBC article. There are more opinions and emotion written in this article and the sentences are longer, making it more like telling the story of what happened rather than just stating the facts. 

Comparison
The main differences between the two articles are that the BBC article is more factual and less opinionated than the daily mail article. The second is written to tell the story of what had and is happening regarding the case. Also, the BBC article is much shorter and only states facts of what happened. 

This tells us that the purpose of the first article was to say what had happened (mostly in facts) and it helps us to understand that the audience may be well educated middle to upper class adults as it is mostly factual as they can see a balanced argument and form their own opinion. The daily mail article had more of a purpose to tell the story of what happened and is less factual and one sided as its audience wants more 'gossip' than facts. 

Women's sport article research

Women’s sport is underfunded and ignored, charity claims

By Alexandra Topping, accessed on 28/2/13

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/oct/24/womens-sport-underfunded-ignored-charity-claims

This article is about women’s sport and the media coverage and acknowledgement that it gets. It discussed how woman’s sport is hardly covered in media with a shocking figure of 5% of all media coverage being woman’s sport. Especially after historic summer for women’s sport in the Olympic and Paralympic games. It also revealed that women’s sport receives just 0.5% of all commercial sponsorship. It also found that from a vote 81% thought that female athletes at London 2012 provided better role models for young girls than any other celebrities. It was also widened to equalizing men and women in the Olympics and sports in general.

Paralympics and Olympics article research

                     Why not run the Olympics and Paralympics together? 
                     By Sam Clench

                     Accessed on 28/2/13     

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                     http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/Why-not-run-the-Olympics-and-Paralympics-together/

This article is about the Paralympics and Olympics and how as the Olympics comes before the Paralympics, the excitement and media coverage suddenly drops after the Olympics are over and the Paralympics start. It discusses the idea of putting Paralympic event integrated into the Olympic schedule so that the paralympians get the attention, media coverage and admiration that they deserve. It also briefly talks about bringing paralympians into the Olympics such as athletics or swimming, as after all they have to work a lot harder and some could compete at the level of able body athletes. Although it mainly focuses on that they do not get enough attention it goes on to say, as it was written just after the Olympics had finished and the Paralympics due to start, that the Paralympic tickets are meant to be sold out, which does show that the support for the Paralympics has come up greatly compared to former Paralympics.

Discussion and ideas

In class, when we started to discuss ideas on what to write, I couldn't really think of anything. People started to say ideas and some of them helped me think of possible ideas for me. Someone mentioned discussing gun control in America and that made me think about gun control in South Africa, as almost everyone has a gun there, and I then thought about the Oscar Pistorius case, which someone later brought up. I then thought about the Paralympics and maybe forming and discussion a long those lines. This brought me to sport and especially thinking about women's sport and how they aren't as well acknowledged especially on television, this seemed quite appropriate to the time seeing as it is after the olympics and paralympics.