Buying the Election?
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/09/opinion/nocera-buying-the-election.html?ref=columnists
Joe Nocera, a columnist for the New York Times, wrote an article called "Buying the Election" about campaign funding is having a negative influence on American politics. Nocera is trying to explain how the large increase in funding for politicians is hurting democracy in America. Nocera uses details, imagery, and diction to help convey and emphasize his negative opinion towards campaign funding.
A challenge that Joe Nocera likely faced when writing this column was trying to make this problem seem relatable to an everyday reader. He uses imagery to help connect to the readers when he wrote, "They seem to spend more time fund-raising than pressing the flesh with voters" (Nocera). Pressing the flesh with voters is meant to represent the person connection you feel with a candidate by shaking their hand. Nocera is saying that these fund-raisers have replaced connecting to voters. This has created a wider gap between voters and presidential candidates, which doesn't help democracy.
Joe Nocera also uses diction to help explain his opinion. He uses words like expensive that help make his point that the large amounts of money are bad. An example of him negatively describing these large sums of money is, "... in the real world is that unlimited spending will not serve to enlighten voters." He uses the word unlimited to help convey how the spending is completely out of control. Nocera also uses pejorative diction such as corrupt when he says, "... money that comes into politics has the potential to corrupt." Corrupt brings images of crime and greed when used so Nocera uses it to help put these images into the readers mind while reading. The diction allows him to help convey the harmful affects of campaign funding.
Nocera also uses particular details to help emphasize opinions. He uses the example of Sheldon Adelson who "pumped 10 million into into Restore Our Future, the biggest Republican super PAC." This example shows the large sums going towards political campaigns just because the feel a certain way about a particular issue. It really emphasizes the new wave of money trying to influence policy which goes against the basic principals of democracy.
The details, imagery, and diction that Nocera uses all lead towards his goal of pointing how campaign funding is hurting American democracy. They help lead the reader towards Nocera's opinion and serve as a guide for how the reader is suppose to react and interprete Nocera's findings.
This is a really interesting article and I can tell how he uses imagery, diction, and details to persuade people to his opinion. Overall I really liked how you analyzed the article and I really enjoy the example you used for imagery. The example of "pressing the flesh with voters" painted an image and the meaning you explained for why he did this makes sense. In your diction paragraph I felt that you could maybe use stronger examples. I think the word "corrupt" is an awesome example, but "unlimited" and "expensive" are a little weak. Is there any other words that could describe the meaning he was trying to convey in the article?
ReplyDeleteI thought you did a great job with details! I think more examples would strengthen the paragraph even more. You did a good job analyzing the article all together!
One thing to make sure of to keep the order of your thesis statement the same of your paragraphs. Details, imagery, diction not imagery diction details, like in your body paragraphs. It doesn't matter the order that they are placed in, just make sure they are the same in the thesis and the body paragraphs. I think your examples were perfectly fine and well explained. The one example that I did not like is the " pressing flesh with voters" that personally sounds like pejorative diction to me because flesh reminds me of something dead of gruesome.
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