Standard Level Paper 1 May 2018

            An unexpected encounter with a shark is everyone’s worst nightmare; the thought of a nice, innocent day at the beach with family being abruptly interrupted by a feeding frenzy from the dinosaur-like creature sends shills down everyone’s spine. Text 1 is an article extract from The Washington Times in 2015, commenting on the perception of sharks in the media as “Shark Week” approaches. In the context of modern American television, the author aims to dispose of the common misconception that sharks and their presence warrants the extremes of terror it currently induces. Facing an audience of beach lovers who have been embedded with the fearful representations of sharks in America, the author skilfully utilizes hyperbolic and satiric lexical choices, a pejorative tone towards the media, and an appeal to ethos to convey his message that sharks are irrationally feared.

            From the very onset of the article, the visual and structural features stand out to engage and attract a readership interested in beach going and sharks. The enlarged and bolded title “No snacking in the Surf” grabs the attention of the readers not only due to its size but also its alliterative phrasing. The alliteration between “snack” and “surf” is amusing and is effective in garnering the attention of an audience who actually do have the intent to go surfing on the beach soon. Yet the author also employs a cultural allusion to “Shark Week” – a famous and popular TV programme mainly based in the United States. With such an allusion, the author expands his audience to those who watch such programs, are interested in sharks, and have immense fear of such creatures – as expected in the context. Such technique piques the attention of almost everyone who hold a fear of sharks, galvanizing them to read further.

            The visual representation of the hammerhead shark reinforces the notion that the author is introducing and playing off of the audience’s fear of sharks. First, the actual size of the image is imposing, capturing almost half of the page, emphasizing its gigantic size and razor-sharp teeth. The accompanied caption that states the hammerhead’s ability to use “electro sensory system” to “locate its prey” implicitly activates Americans’ fear of sharks and better prepares them to engage with the following content.

            From the very beginnings of the body paragraphs, the author ensures to portray the American media outlets with a pejorative tone. Once again, the author uses another cultural allusion of “Jaws, the 1975 movie,” which in the context of American film is known universally as one of the most influential movies of the time. With such an allusion, the author is implicitly casting blame on the American media for manufacturing a scary image of sharks to gullible watchers. There is no mention of where such fear is justified. In fact, the author seems to want to confuse the lines between what’s real and justified with the American’s perception of sharks with the phrase “real as imagined.” Such techniques help his purpose of changing people’s perception of sharks, but also the implicit purpose of criticizing the media for perpetuating people’s fears.

            Our understanding of these two purposes are reinforced in the following paragraphs as well. The author mentions how the discovery Channel has “struck it rich this year” on its annual “Shark Week” programme. Such lexical choices have dual meanings. On one hand, it can refer to how the TV program has included many clips and scenes of these fearsome sharks. On the other hand, it can be interpreted as a satirical tone that is referring to how Discovery Channel intentionally made it “rich” or exaggerated to appeal to the contemporary American’s fear and fascination with sharks. The diction of “rich” re-appears later as the author criticizes the weather reporters for saying how “sharks are in everyone’s upstairs bathtubs.” Such evident hyperbole coupled with the author’s dubious and pejorative tone conveys to the audience that their worst fears are being exploited for television ratings and viewership revenue.

            It is within this context of mass fright for sharks and media outlets that exploit such fears that the author turns his critical tone fully against those in media. The author characterizes the media, such as the Accuweather Announcers, as if they were “no doubt bored with endless recitations about facts and humidity measurements.” The fact that the author thinks they were bored with their own jobs reveals the author’s bias that news anchors, representatives of the media as a whole, do not report anything important. More importantly, it instills in the minds of readers that they are most certainly not qualified to comment on sharks.

            To build upon such negative portrayal of the media, the author further uses juxtaposition and personalization to achieve his purpose of discrediting the media and removing people’s irrational fear of sharks. Even a news outlet as reputable as “New York Times” in the context of Western society and America is characterized as “ever on the scent of a good story.” Television is even said to be following the axiom of “if it bleeds, it leads.” The grotesque imagery of chasing blood and being attracted to scent gives these news outlets an almost animalistic quality – perhaps even shark-like. Such juxtaposition of media outlets’ behavior and the commonly perceived aggressive behavior of sharks implies how the media are the real “killers” and how they, not sharks, should elicit a sense of distrust. Sharks are said to have “accommodated” to such characterization. This personalization as active participants in this battle for sharks’ reputation makes it easier for the audience to sympathize with the species and how misrepresented are, helping achieve the author’s purpose.

            Additionally, the author’s use of structure and his appeal to logos helps to make him, and subsequently his points, more believable. The Washington Times employs strategic positioning with regards to repudiation of the main stream media’s characterization of sharks. The author mentions how sharks are different when “up-close and personal”, and how some stories are “true and some not” and how the “surf is their turf.” All these phrases were written as last sentences of paragraphs, which has the effect of lingering in the audience’s mind. With such technique, the author implicitly privileges his own viewpoints. More importantly, his appeal to ethos is successful conveyed through the website structure of the Washington Times. The top of the webpage is dominated by links to other sections of the news outlet like “opinion”, “sports” and “markets”, which distinguishes the Washington Times as reliable and a trusted news outlet. Moreover, the visual font of the Washington Times helps subconsciously establish the media outlet as reputable because it is the same font used by other revered outlets in the American context, such as the New York Times.

            The author’s mention of facts and statistics also appeals to logos and ethos. Despite the author’s clear implicit stance against the negative portrayal of sharks, the genre of news reporting requires him to give some facts to buttress his ideas and viewpoints. To do this, the author provides past incidences of shark violence like “a 16-year old boy that lost an arm in Oak Island.” Such provision of information contrary to his viewpoint conveys to the audience that he is even-handed in his analysis. And hence, implicitly, his views should be met with utmost trust. After gaining the trust of the audience, the author turns to statistics that support his points. The article mentions how “the chances of being eaten by a shark are roughly 1 in 4 million” and juxtaposes that to humans that kill “thousands of the scary creatures annually.” The author’s pejorative tone in comparing human’s potential to destroy to a shark’s conveys his repudiation of the fact that sharks are more dangerous. In fact, the author makes the audience point the finger of blame back at themselves.

            In conclusion, the Washington Times successfully achieves its dual purpose of lampooning the media’s representation of sharks and changing people perception of sharks and their potential to harm. Bearing in mind the context of scared American public and a populace greatly influenced by the media, the author successfully subverts such portrayal with skillful appeals to ethos and logos while characterizing the media as untrustworthy through negative tone and cunning juxtaposition. Given such context, there may be those who still reject the idea of trust in sharks, as the Washington Times itself is a mainstream media outlet. Regardless, the Washington Times effectively uses the genre’s objectives style to convey its point.