Folk Tales

       
     A anthropological theory from 1967 called Structuralism was mainly associated with a French man named Claude Levi- Strauss. He had a profound interest in structures of the human mind and aimed to discover connections between it and culture. He believed that human minds have universal characteristics and  that among these was the need to classify things. The most common means of classifying used by humans is binary opposition such as black and white, good and evil, old and young.

     Strauss applied his beliefs about classification to folk tales. He examined many tales and determined that many could be converted into another through a series of steps:

     1- Converting a positive element into a negative
     2- Reversing the order of the elements
     3- Replacing the male hero with a female hero
     4- Preserving certain key elements
   
     A good example is the tale of Cinderella and Ash Boy.

     I think it's interesting that even in very different cultures the basis of many folk tales are the same. This represents a unified more general human  culture shared by us all.

   
   
     

Rhetoric in Blogs Focusing on the Media and Body Image

    Body image is a huge part of american culture. We have an ideal body type ingrained in our minds beginning even as early as childhood . And where do we all get this ideal? From the media...commercials, magazines, billboards all with perfect digitally enhanced people.

     In this blog I'm going to analyse the rhetoric used in two different blogs on this topic. Links to these blogs will be provided at the bottom of the page.

     The first blog I read on this topic is called "Body Beautiful: How Media Influences Your Body Image  Perception" written by Emme. Emme appeals to logos by mentioning an experiment "performed by post doctoral researcher Shelly Grabe and psychology professor Janet Hyde...where they found that exposure to media depicting ultra thin models increased women's concerns about their bodies". Emme appeals to pathos when mentioning how "these images of super thin women [trickle] down to girls as young as 5-8" also when using vivid diction such as "[glamorizing] the thin". Emme has a conversational tone by using words such as us, we you and they, words which also give a very joint effect. She includes herself in the women who need to be more aware of medias effects on body image.

     The second blog I read on this topic is called "Body Image and the Media" written by Deaven Ashley Freed. Deaven appeals very strongly to pathos in her blog. She posts many emotionally loaded pictures and videos for example a picture of a very pretty girl with the words " not pretty enough" and "not talented enough" written all over her. Deaven appeals to logos when quoting the South Carolina Department of mental Health in saying that " 8 million Americans have eating disorders- 7 million women and 1 million men." Deaven also uses a conversational tone by using words such as we and you. 

     Both of these blogs effectively used a conversational and self inclusive tone. I think it serves to make the reader feel included and like the author is on their same level. The use of the pictures in Deaven's blog was especially useful in drawing in the reader emotionally. I feel that the pictures were a good thing to point out because including so many seems to be fairly characteristic of blogs more than other sources.

http://emmenation.com/blog/2012/08/07/body-beautiful-how-media-influences-your-body-image-perception/
http://www.personal.psu.edu/afr3/blogs/SIOW/2011/09/body-image-and-the-media.html