Entry 8: Facebook Satire

After reading through a passage on The Onion's in class, I went up and search about any satires on Facebook, one of the most famous websites that people go to. One of the news article I saw was the Onion's reporting Mark Zuckerberg as a CIA agent. It was really hilarious and unrealistic when I first saw it, but then I stopped laughing and thought about it. What if I didn't know that this article was from the Onion's? I would've probably believed in this if I were to not know which company published the article. Then I took a look at the video clip beneath the article and it sounded so genuine that I think most people would fall for it. In the video, there were pictures of codes written on Facebook online and have people who named "Agent XXX". They even named Mark Zuckerberg as "The Overload". The Onion's even related Facebook's Farmville as a symbol for the Al-Qaeda's message and attack. Everything just sounded really ridiculous. I believe the satire was to make fun of Facebook and its user. Its purpose seems to be merely to entertain, although there may be other causes for writing this article.

Entry 7: Guideline for "An Inconvenient Truth"

Thesis: Through his credibility and personal anecdotes, Al Gore drew attention and put emphasis on the significance of global warming and the impact it's bringing to our society.

I. He showed pictures of him participating in politics and global warming studies to bring ethos of his great leadership and success in the past.

II. He talked about going to Antartica and some other places to study global warming. It builds his credibility by showing the amount of effort he has put in this field.

III. He also used Roger Revelle, his professor, as an example for studying global warming. It helped Al Gore built his trust of his data and his knowledge on the subject.

IV. During the presentation, there were graphs and statistics such as the graph that showed the correlation between rise and fall of CO2 and temperature, which helped support his position.

V. Pathos were also used through presentations of the effects of global warming and natural disasters showing how harmful global warming can be.

VI. He used audio tracks of icebergs falling and melting down to demonstrate a great impact of increase in temperature due to Green House Effect.

VII. There was an emotional personal anecdote of his son hit by a car for saving a person, which made him realize that we should all pay more attention and care to things that are precious to us. It draws an analogy between his son to him and the effect of global warming on Earth to the people.

Conclusion: Al Gore uses ethos, logos, and pathos to persuade the audience to take actions for decreasing the harmful effects global warming have been bringing us.