Patricia Isabela Gonzalez

ENGL 1312

10:30-11:30

New York Times Article and You Tube Video Analysis

      Global warming can be expressed through many different points of view. Everyone writes about it in a different way through different genres. Though, there are genres that have more in common than others. An article can be very similar to a short story; sometimes a song can even be considered a poem. I chose to analyze two completely different genres on their differences and similarities, a You Tube video and a New York Times article. 

       A video on You Tube called “Global Warming (The Earth Song)” made, with “The Earth Song” by Michael Jackson, by someone with the screen name Toomerm, maybe watched and listened by many more people than those who read the newspaper but they do not take the material as seriously. Those who see videos on You Tube are usually middle or high school students and if it is not funny they forget about it and do not talk about it at all. But if the video were funny, word about it would spread and everyone would get online just to watch it because that is how it is with You Tube. The New York Times article is intended for people who read the newspaper. Usually students in grade school do not read the newspaper as much as adults and college students who are interested in current events. These people are more likely to read it and do something about it rather than just toss is out after reading it. Therefore newspaper is a more effective way of communicating and convincing people to take the global warming issue seriously. But both of these are able to change people’s mind about this issue in their own way.

     Readers already know that global warming is a problem that can extinguish humanity in the long run. They know that there is incredible amount of money being spent on research on this branch of science. The readers also know there are many people out there that do not really believe in global warming; what they believe is that all that is just a myth to take money from companies, corporations, and the people themselves. What people do not know is that according to the New York Times article “by 2100, sea levels are likely to rise between 7 to 23 inches and the changes now underway will continue for centuries to come.” One can think “Oh well that is not that much if it will take 100 years”, but think of this way, 70 % of the world is covered with water and it is all rising 7 to 23 inches, that sure is a lot of ice being melted. Many people have not noticed either that since 1970, temperatures have gone up at nearly three times the average for the 20th century.

     Watching and listening to the You Tube video will probably only take like 7 minutes but if someone actually listens to it and notices the truths the songs describes to us, then they should spend a little more time thinking about it. As for the article a person can probably read it in approximately ten minutes, but if it convinces the reader enough to want to do something about it then he would probably spend a whole lifetime helping prevent global warming, because there is always going to be ignorant people that take their planet for granted. Weather it is in five, ten or fifteen minutes both of these writers are trying to reach the same purpose. They want people to stop treating their planet like a trashcan and start doing something to prevent the human race from extinction.

     For the You Tube video the person who made it had to choose images that created an impact to the human emotions, an impact powerful enough that will make people realize that if they pay a little more attention to their action towards the Earth our future generations might actually have a change to enjoy the beauty our planet has to give to us.  This is accomplished mostly through pathos. For example he puts images of contaminated and dirty rivers with trash everywhere, thousands of dead fish, and children drinking from it because they have no other option. If they do not, these people will literally die of thirst. We see polluted oceans due to oil spills and the animals suffering because of it. We see forests burning as the deer try to escape the infernal flames, as well. The video includes several pictures of the smoke released by heat-trapping gases from smokestacks, and tailpipes that cause the icebergs to melt which is also shown in the video through pictures. It later shows the tsunamis that the melting of icebergs cause. As you see these pictures you are listening to The Earth Song by Michael Jackson that basically just asks us what have we done to the world? Do we stop to notice that the Earth is crying; that the shores are weeping? All this material is appropriate because there is no better way of making people realize the importance of global warming than by showing them actual evidence rather than just giving them statistical information. Besides we are talking about a video, usually a video with words on it about statistics and research would make us loose interest.

     On the other hand the New York Times uses nothing but logos. It gives us statistical information about what is happening to the Earth and what will happen if we keep it up, and continue to ignore this problem. It proves to us with numbers and research that global warming is “unequivocal” and mentions that the Al Gore documentary titled “An Inconvenient Truth” received an Oscar. It does this so people can notice that for it to have received an Academy Award it must be true or at least backed up by very reliable facts. The article also strives to prove its point by explaining that, “gases like carbon dioxide and methane allow sunlight to reach the earth, but prevent some of the resulting heat from radiating back out into space.”  So if we have heat coming in but no heat escaping from the atmosphere, eventually we will have more heat than we can bear. And, like the information for the video, all this information is also completely appropriate for this genre because a newspaper article is supposed to include all these kinds of information. We usually do not buy the newspaper to just see the pictures on it; we buy it to learn about the current events through a more professional point of view.

     When speaking about a You Tube video, acceptable information that will actually serve its intent would be considered information that one already knows but really never thinks about. For example, we know that tsunamis can devastate the lives of many by ripping houses down from their foundations, razing the work places of many, and stealing life away from innocent people, but we really never think about it because we think that will not happen to us. We believe ourselves invulnerable so we just decide to ignore it and leave the coastal population at risk. But when we think about a newspaper article, especially about the New York Times, since it is the largest metropolitan newspaper and it is usually seen as a reliable source to quote and cite, something acceptable that would get a point across would be material that gives us facts based of years of research and discoveries that cause the world to change either for the better or for the worst. It has to make the reader believe that their lives are really at risk and they should read about it.

     Both of these genres need a different amount of information. The video only needs about five to eight minutes of images and background music. It follows a same sequence through most of it, pictures of the results of global warming and pollution while “The Earth Song” is playing in the background. These kinds of videos just show different images that prove the same point. An article, though it can vary in lengths and follow different formats. This article is about four paragraphs long. It has an introduction that lets us know that this is a pro-global warming article and will try to prove that global warming is real. The paragraphs after that are written to prove their point, which is more or less how all articles are. 

     The Earth Song, which is the song that is used as a background for the pictures in the video, has casual language. It does not bother to decorate the lyrics with fancy vocabulary. It directly asks us what about the elephants, the forests, the seas, nature itself, etc. Even a student from grade school can see this video and know exactly what it is about and what feelings it is trying to convey. If the words are not found as clear the pictures can get rid of any doubts. They are regular pictures that evoke heart aching emotions as soon as they are seen. This video does not use or need any typed fonts or words.  The article, on the other hand, does use some terms that are perhaps not as easy to understand for a middle school and some early high school students, but the terms are understandable thanks to context clues around them. For example when the writer talks about the greenhouse effect, he explains in the next couple of sentences more or less what it is. This is a scientific article; therefore it obviously has some scientific terms, like carbon dioxide, momentum, and the greenhouse effect. It might be considered written between a middle and high middle style. The fonts are perfectly normal. Nothing fancy is used at all but it does include a picture, a picture that can represent the pathos part of the article in some way. It is a picture of a polar bear that is also included in the video. It is a polar trying to stay afloat by mounting on broken pieces of ice.

     There are more differences between the way these two genres try to get an idea across than similarities, but his does not mean that one works and the other does not. One works as a more professional source, as for something to quote, and the other works mainly just for personal awareness, something someone might see just for pleasure. We have to keep in mind that we one only chose one example from each of these two genres. There are many other examples that fit into very different situations and might have more similarities than differences.

References:

Unknown. (2008, February 2). Global Warming. The New York Times.