(no subject)
these are the first 2 pages of my artifact analysis, due tuesday.
Matt Ralston
Artifact Analysis Part II
4 May, 2005
Background Information on the text I am analyzing.
Time magazine is one of the most popular magazines in America, it has been giving out it’s Man of the Year award since 1927, the first winner being Charles Lindbergh. Since then, former winners have included (seriously) Adolph Hitler (1938) Joseph Stalin (1939, 1942) the American soldier (1950, 2003), Pope John XXIII (1962), and a variety of U.S. Presidents (Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Regan, Clinton, and George W. Bush twice!) Looking through previous winners, I was obviously amazed that Adolph Hitler and Martin Luther King Jr. had won the same award. Also amazing was the fact that in 1998, the co-winners of the Man of the Year were Bill Clinton and Kenneth Starr (the guy who dedicated six years to finding some dirt on Clinton.) New Gingrich has won it. Nixon has won it. Several of these people I look down on considerably, and often times it seems as though this magazine is doing the opposite of what it says when it designates the “Person of the Year”, as I have always found a good judge of one’s worth to be proportionate to the number of people that they are responsible for killing (which would make many of these people, Hitler, Stalin, Regan, Bush, Nixon, ect. very low on the actual list, going by my moral framework.) Anyway, the absolute ridiculousness of a person like George W. Bush being honored as the Person of the year offers up a broad amount of material to be criticized, so I have decided to go with a commercial that I saw on CNN, which explained who Time had picked as Person of the Year in 2004. The text of the commercial went as follows:
V.O.
Who did Time pick for it’s person of the year, 2004? It wasn’t a terrorist (a monotoned red and black picture of Osama Bin Laden slides across the screen) It wasn’t a filmmaker (a monotoned red and black picture of Michael Moore slides across the screen), it was a president (a monotoned red and black picture of George Bush’s face slides onto the screen, stays there, and turns into normal color)
Then, the following revolting piece of text, which is actually in Time’s Person of the Year edition (as part of the article) states:
For sticking to his guns (literally and figuratively), for reshaping the rules of politics to fit his ten-gallon-hat leadership style and for persuading a majority of voters that he deserved to be in the White House for another four years, George W. Bush is TIME's 2004 Person of the Year.
This is extremely nauseating, and this is the piece of text which I will be analyzing.
Broad inquiry questions concerning the text:
What do I know about Time magazine’s ownership? About its’ motives for making George W. Bush the Person of the Year (i.e., in what way does it benefit the corporate ownership of this piece of media if Bush’s efforts are glorified - monetarily, ideologically, religiously, etc.) What ideology is overwhelmingly present throughout the commercial (It will also help to examine the article in the magazine about why George W. Bush was Time’s Person of the Year). How is the text biased? What kind of rhetoric does it use? Is it objective? Who was it written by, and what is the background information on him/her? How are Time and CNN affiliated (obviously both are owned by Time/Warner, the biggest media conglomerate in the world, but beyond that, how do the two media outlets interact, relate? Do they ever disagree on something, or do they share the same homogenous dissent free opinion of every other media source owned by Time Warner? What are they trying to say by equating Michael Moore with Osama Bin Laden? Why do they assume that Osama Bin Laden would even be a legitimate recipient of Time’s Person of the Year, i.e., did they really have to clarify that it wasn’t him, or was this just sarcasm, or how was it done for rhetorical effect? How does the ad assume that George W. Bush is a superior man to Michael Moore and Osama Ben Laden? Who is responsible for killing the largest amount of people, Bin Laden or Bush? What is CNN and Time’s demographic, core audience? What other notable people were beat out by George Bush in 2004 (most likely scientists, a few peacemakers, some activists), and what does this say about the ideology of Time magazine? Does the magazine acknowledge that George Bush is at the head of an administration which started a war based on unfounded evidence which they presented as being absolute fact? Does the magazine acknowledge that this war has killed, by conservative estimates, 100,000 (one hundred thousand) Iraqi civilians? (over thirty times the amount killed in the September 11th attacks, the second excuse used by the Bush administration for invading Iraq)?
Specific analytical item within the text that I will be exploring to bring out the specific point.
Mainly, I will be focusing on the first part of the CNN commercial, that states that Time’s Man of the Year for 2004 “…wasn’t a terrorist, it wasn’t a filmmaker, it was a president.” I am not sure what to make of this. Obviously, Osama Bin Laden was not actually considered to be Time’s Man of the Year. This is simply a rhetorical tactic. But Michael Moore, was he a legitimate choice for the award? It would be helpful to look at previous winners. Martin Luther King Jr., a major voice of dissent throughout the civil right’s movement, was honored by Time magazine, and it would be useful to look at the orientation of previous winners. From what I can infer, Moore is cast as being a menace, a spineless and tasteless agitator who dared question the brilliant president. The commercial seems to set the hierarchy of moral value at - 3. terrorist 2. filmmaker (or any dissenter? 1. president. It seems to specifically equate dissent to the rather extreme policies of the Bush administration with terrorism and anti-americanism, and genuine evil. I would like to examine how this apparent suggestion was shaped by the ownership of the media on which it was presented, and also on the strict McCarthyism of the administration, which looks to silence critics, and has warned people such as Moore to “watch what they say”
Matt Ralston
Artifact Analysis Part II
4 May, 2005
Background Information on the text I am analyzing.
Time magazine is one of the most popular magazines in America, it has been giving out it’s Man of the Year award since 1927, the first winner being Charles Lindbergh. Since then, former winners have included (seriously) Adolph Hitler (1938) Joseph Stalin (1939, 1942) the American soldier (1950, 2003), Pope John XXIII (1962), and a variety of U.S. Presidents (Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Regan, Clinton, and George W. Bush twice!) Looking through previous winners, I was obviously amazed that Adolph Hitler and Martin Luther King Jr. had won the same award. Also amazing was the fact that in 1998, the co-winners of the Man of the Year were Bill Clinton and Kenneth Starr (the guy who dedicated six years to finding some dirt on Clinton.) New Gingrich has won it. Nixon has won it. Several of these people I look down on considerably, and often times it seems as though this magazine is doing the opposite of what it says when it designates the “Person of the Year”, as I have always found a good judge of one’s worth to be proportionate to the number of people that they are responsible for killing (which would make many of these people, Hitler, Stalin, Regan, Bush, Nixon, ect. very low on the actual list, going by my moral framework.) Anyway, the absolute ridiculousness of a person like George W. Bush being honored as the Person of the year offers up a broad amount of material to be criticized, so I have decided to go with a commercial that I saw on CNN, which explained who Time had picked as Person of the Year in 2004. The text of the commercial went as follows:
V.O.
Who did Time pick for it’s person of the year, 2004? It wasn’t a terrorist (a monotoned red and black picture of Osama Bin Laden slides across the screen) It wasn’t a filmmaker (a monotoned red and black picture of Michael Moore slides across the screen), it was a president (a monotoned red and black picture of George Bush’s face slides onto the screen, stays there, and turns into normal color)
Then, the following revolting piece of text, which is actually in Time’s Person of the Year edition (as part of the article) states:
For sticking to his guns (literally and figuratively), for reshaping the rules of politics to fit his ten-gallon-hat leadership style and for persuading a majority of voters that he deserved to be in the White House for another four years, George W. Bush is TIME's 2004 Person of the Year.
This is extremely nauseating, and this is the piece of text which I will be analyzing.
Broad inquiry questions concerning the text:
What do I know about Time magazine’s ownership? About its’ motives for making George W. Bush the Person of the Year (i.e., in what way does it benefit the corporate ownership of this piece of media if Bush’s efforts are glorified - monetarily, ideologically, religiously, etc.) What ideology is overwhelmingly present throughout the commercial (It will also help to examine the article in the magazine about why George W. Bush was Time’s Person of the Year). How is the text biased? What kind of rhetoric does it use? Is it objective? Who was it written by, and what is the background information on him/her? How are Time and CNN affiliated (obviously both are owned by Time/Warner, the biggest media conglomerate in the world, but beyond that, how do the two media outlets interact, relate? Do they ever disagree on something, or do they share the same homogenous dissent free opinion of every other media source owned by Time Warner? What are they trying to say by equating Michael Moore with Osama Bin Laden? Why do they assume that Osama Bin Laden would even be a legitimate recipient of Time’s Person of the Year, i.e., did they really have to clarify that it wasn’t him, or was this just sarcasm, or how was it done for rhetorical effect? How does the ad assume that George W. Bush is a superior man to Michael Moore and Osama Ben Laden? Who is responsible for killing the largest amount of people, Bin Laden or Bush? What is CNN and Time’s demographic, core audience? What other notable people were beat out by George Bush in 2004 (most likely scientists, a few peacemakers, some activists), and what does this say about the ideology of Time magazine? Does the magazine acknowledge that George Bush is at the head of an administration which started a war based on unfounded evidence which they presented as being absolute fact? Does the magazine acknowledge that this war has killed, by conservative estimates, 100,000 (one hundred thousand) Iraqi civilians? (over thirty times the amount killed in the September 11th attacks, the second excuse used by the Bush administration for invading Iraq)?
Specific analytical item within the text that I will be exploring to bring out the specific point.
Mainly, I will be focusing on the first part of the CNN commercial, that states that Time’s Man of the Year for 2004 “…wasn’t a terrorist, it wasn’t a filmmaker, it was a president.” I am not sure what to make of this. Obviously, Osama Bin Laden was not actually considered to be Time’s Man of the Year. This is simply a rhetorical tactic. But Michael Moore, was he a legitimate choice for the award? It would be helpful to look at previous winners. Martin Luther King Jr., a major voice of dissent throughout the civil right’s movement, was honored by Time magazine, and it would be useful to look at the orientation of previous winners. From what I can infer, Moore is cast as being a menace, a spineless and tasteless agitator who dared question the brilliant president. The commercial seems to set the hierarchy of moral value at - 3. terrorist 2. filmmaker (or any dissenter? 1. president. It seems to specifically equate dissent to the rather extreme policies of the Bush administration with terrorism and anti-americanism, and genuine evil. I would like to examine how this apparent suggestion was shaped by the ownership of the media on which it was presented, and also on the strict McCarthyism of the administration, which looks to silence critics, and has warned people such as Moore to “watch what they say”