TOW #3 9/25

              This political cartoon shows an iPhone (evidently a generation 5 or later), symbolizing millennials, with an iPhone charging cord (for generation 4 or earlier) is labeled as Hillary Clinton. This cartoon was published in The San Diego Tribune. Although their political bias is often debated, The San Diego Tribune is generally thought of as a conservative-leaning newspaper. This is likely to be the reason why it featured a cartoon meant to mock Hillary Clinton, the Presidential nominee for the opposing political party. The cartoon was also published to show why millennials overwhelmingly sided with Bernie Sanders and not Hillary Clinton earlier in the 2016 race.

              This cartoon was most likely made for millennials. This is evident in the fact that the author uses iPhone charging ports to symbolize the disconnection between Clinton and millennials. A younger audience would understand this much quicker than an audience of adults. The idea behind the cartoon is that Hillary is too old-fashioned and too traditional. This means that she has not been in line with the way that young voters think. Her rival for the nomination, Bernie Sanders, expressed a passion for new ideas that attracted the majority of young voters. The artist is able to demonstrate this in the cartoon by depicting Hillary as an out-of-date chord, and the millennials as the newest iPhone.

              The main device that the artist uses in this cartoon is objectification. They objectify both Hillary and millennials. The objectification of Hillary as an outdated (at least to the millennials) charging chord represents that her way of thinking is not compatible with theirs. Evidently, the artist is correct. Young voters overwhelmingly sided with Bernie Sanders. However, if the author’s purpose was to criticize Hillary Clinton, they were not entirely successful. The young voters that this cartoon applied to have become Hillary supporters, for the most part. The metaphors used in the cartoon applied specifically to this younger audience, and they seem to have moved on from what it ridicules.

TOW #2 9/18

Trump Makes his Birther Lie Worse

This article discusses the most recent story surrounding Donald Trump. Earlier in Trump's campaign, he made hints and claims that Barack Obama was not born in the United States. These hints actually began with Trump’s first campaign in 2011. This weekend however, he claims that Obama was, in fact, born in the U.S. He then pointed fingers at his opponent Hillary Clinton, saying she began the rumor that Obama was not. The article was written by Gail Collins. She has worked for The New York Times for twenty-one years and was the first woman to hold the position of “Editorial Page Editor.”

The New York Times has a predominately liberal audience, and because of this, one would expect negative bias to be present in an article discussing the republican presidential nominee. However, the article is mostly composed of quotes said by Trump himself. The only bias that is present is the author’s response to those quotes. She uses sarcasm throughout the article. She quotes Trump from 2011 when he said “Three weeks ago I thought he was born in this country. Right now I have some real doubts. I have people that actually have been studying it, and they cannot believe what they’re finding,” she then remarks that “We never did learn what they found. But Trump has continued to get some of his most startling information from ‘people’.” She uses sarcasm later when responding to a quote from Former Mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani, that Trump had changed his mind two or three years ago. Collins points out that this is the same time that Trump tweeted “How amazing, the State Health Director who verified copies of Obama’s ‘birth certificate’ died in plane crash today. All others lived.”

It is clear that Collins has an opinion about Donald Trump, and not a positive one. She is also writing to a mostly-liberal audience. Her prolonged sarcasm is used to make Trump look unintelligent to support her own ideas as well as satisfy the liberal audience. Her sarcasm, although used with bias, is based entirely off of facts. Trump did say all the things Collins sarcastically quotes him of saying and he said them when she says he said them. This makes Collin’s article extremely effective. If someone were to refute her work in defense of Trump, they would first have to attack Trump’s words.

TOW #1 9/11

Tow #1

Article - VW Engineer Pleads Guilty in U.S. Criminal Case Over Diesel Emissions

            This article showcases the recent events concerning the Volkswagen emission scandals that were uncovered in 2015. The popular car company was caught cheating on emissions tests by including software that would decrease nitro-oxide emissions when it detected the car was being tested at the expense of efficiency. Specifically, it mentions the recent confessions made by Volkswagen engineer James Robert Liang, who recently pleaded guilty. The author, Hiroko Tabuchi, has been writing about Business for The New York Times for eight years. In 2013, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting.

            It seems this article was written for people concerned about the future of Volkswagen. The author’s style of writing, however, appeals more to an audience wanting to see the giant topple. This article was written almost a year after the scandal was first discovered by the public, which has given writers enough time to gather what they need to disgrace the German carmaker. The author uses these gatherings to contribute to her scornful tone. She includes quotes from VW executive’s emails that read “regulators are still waiting for Answers. We still have no good explanations!!!!!” This particular quote is included to make the executives of Volkswagen seem desperate and childish.

            The author then quotes the chief of the Justice Department’s Environmental Crimes Section who says that this was “the first shoe to drop”. This idiom means that there is an inevitable next step in the process and that Volkswagen will have to endure, and that Volkswagen is destined to lose the battle. The author villainizes Volkswagen at the end of the article by saying that the prosecutor’s office of Lower Saxony, a town in which Volkswagen powers most of the economy, was reluctant to comment. It would be impossible to deny that Volkswagen is in the wrong and so it is relatively easy for the author to villainize them in this article, and Tabuchi is certainly successful in portraying them that way.

IRB #1

I have chosen to read "Freakonomics" by Stephen J. Dubner and Steven Levitt for my first IRB. This popular piece applies principles of economics to everyday situations such as parenting and cheating. I have been recommended this book more times than I can remember and I am finally getting it off my bucket-list. I think it will strongly appeal to my love for math and science and make for a great read!