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The Representation of Facebook in the Media

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The Representation of Facebook in the Media
The representation of Facebook in the media

In this piece of coursework I will be analysing how language is used in three different texts, to represent Facebook. The three texts which I will be analysing will each be representing Facebook differently. Text A is an article from the Sun’s website which represents Facebook negatively published on the 18th January 2008. Text B is an article from the Daily Mail Online and represents Facebook very positively and was published on the 17th September 2012. And finally, text C is an article from the Guardian website which was published on the 4th October 2012.

The first text I am analysing is Text A which was written by Andrew Charlesworth, and begins with the minor sentence ‘Why Facebook is bad for you’. It is bold and in a bigger font than the rest of the article; this graphology attracts your attention and tells you immediately what the text is about.
The complex sentence ‘Networking website…mates’ gets you to relate to it if you use Facebook as a form of entertainment, and we agree with the attributive adjective ‘harmless’ as we don’t see Facebook as harmful or dangerous. Due to the noun ‘mates’, it is safe to say that the intended audience are younger people who have just or are about to start working, and ‘mate’ is the sort of noun younger people use to address each other.
However, the coordinate clause ‘But it could…future’, changes the tone and represents Facebook negatively as it is saying that Facebook could hurt you. This gets you to doubt the statement as Facebook is seen as a form of entertainment. The modal verb ‘could’ expresses the possibility that Facebook is dangerous.

The use of the dynamic verb ‘blight’, which is commonly used when something is neglected, damaged or spoilt, represents Facebook negatively as it is making its users negligent and careless. With the noun phrase ‘postings about drunken hijinks’ the writer is confidently giving an example of what could cost you your job, and is

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