Images In the News Reports

In recent decades, rapid developing technology contributes to a variety of news media in people’s life by combining image, animation and words. Many readers are more likely to skim over some pictures related to the story that they are interested in instead of reading thousands of words in the article. However, what can images in the news report tell us?

When thinking about the relationship between stories in words and images, a series of shocking pictures about an earthquake that happened in China just floods into my mind. On the afternoon of May 12, 2008, a 7.9-magnitude earthquake hit Sichuan Province, killing about 70,000 people and leaving over 18,000 missing. I can easily recall the past tragedy because the images I saw at that time deeply impressed me.

Based on the reports about the earthquake in 2008, I want to discuss the relationship between the image and story in respect of attention catching, brief introduction and responsibility evocation. The picture below is attached in an article published in New York Times on May 13, 2008, named “Powerful Quake Ravages China, Killing Thousands”.

   

Firstly, I think the image would catch readers’ attention successfully. Closely related to the story, the picture was amplified and placed in front of the main content. People’s first reaction seeing this picture should be shocking and regretful. The image leads them to concern themselves with this issue so that people would be more patient to read the whole report in detail. In addition, there are other images also presented in the story next to the content in the report for readers to see while they are reading the whole story. The images enrich the report and showed the event to readers in different aspects. From my perspective, the combination of image and words would have an excellent result, because they work as complements to make the story more vivid to readers.

What’s more, as Errol Morris revealed in his article “Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire” that pictures are supposed to be worth a thousand words (Errol Morris), the attached images contained a lot of useful information about the report, and they can give readers a brief introduction of the content. The entire report introduced some specific information about the earthquake as well as government’s reactions. What’s more, it also talked about some victims’ present statuses and their descriptions about the earthquake by interviews. From my perspective, just by viewing the image, readers can easily identify that the report was about a tragedy based on the rescue image. And one of the smaller images next to the content also showed the ruins of buildings after the earthquake, directly representing readers the serious damage caused by the earthquake. Based on these images, readers can understand the story easier.

Finally, the image attached in this story tends to appeal to people to give their hands to the victims. In the picture above, rescue workers were working together to pull out an injured girl from a collapsed school. This image was taken during the rescue to evoke emotion from the readers. It tries to get people involved and motivate them to become the worker in the rescue. I prefer the idea that images have the power to persuade people to become involve in the rescue, more than words would. The moving scene displayed in images could raise a sense of social mission and responsibility in people’s minds. Readers are more likely to be aware of the responsibility and duty to contribute to the relief and help of victims to rebuild their homeland through these images.

In conclusion, related images play a significant role in the news reports, because they can achieve some goals that words could not. And it works as a valuable material to cooperate with words to present a rich and whole story to readers. 

Unit2 #8- A Single Image Tells Us What?

In Errol Morris’s essay “liar, liar, pants on fire”, he claims his opinion about the relationship between pictures, description and fact. He declares, “pictures are supposed to worth thousand of word”, because people can understand a situation or something more easily and clearly by just looking at the pictures directly than read its description by words. However, pictures also means nothing without combining with some words, for the reason that people may misunderstand the situation even though they saw the pictures. Unlike videos, pictures cannot entirely reveal stories. Images may miss some details, so people cannot have a conclusion of “True” or ”False” simply by referring to pictures.

I think I am a kind of agree with Errol’s opinion about images and belief. In general case, images can demonstrate the situation clearly unaccompanied with any words, because people always want to find a best way or aspect to show others the circumstance when they are taking photos. And if the information cannot be included in a single image, they can also take some more. Referring to the boat image in Errol’s image, I think there must be some other pictures taken the same person but was not shown there in the article. Readers may identify the ship through others images.

However, based on some pictures on the Internet, we also easily be mislead by seeing surface features of a problem through a picture without any word description. The link is a website showing some picture mislead people’s judgment.

http://www.momentsthatdefinelife.com/2013/01/photos-can-be-misleading-shareyourlife.html

By seeing the first picture, People may draw a conclusion that the two cute kids were having a fun movie night. However, the fact is that the kids’ mum was wake up from a dead sleep because of her kids’ crying. One of the kids found her stumbled out of bed and completely covered in her own vomit. The mother just took the first picture after she cleaned the room. So here, people cannot know the fact only by referring to the picture.

Taking an Approach...

Reading Harris’ “Taking an approach” was actually quite interesting to me. In rewriting, taking an approach doesn’t simply means rework others’ works or some old materials in a similar way. It focuses more on transforming or reshaping other’s opinion into your own new theories. As Harris reveals in this chapter, “When you take on the approach of another writer both of your thinking and theirs need to change…to transfer is to reshape, not to replace or rebut. The original does not go away but is remade into something new” (Harris p74). Corresponding to Harris’ discussion in rewriting before, taking an approach is the last step writers want to do in their written essay after coming to terms, forwarding and countering. By combing all the previous steps, creative artists transform the original text into news works of their own. So the approach is closely related to forwarding and countering.

In New York Times, the reports usually are reported along with different people’s opinions and statements. The reporters try to find and use different resources to illustrate the new event from different aspects. They do not change the original texts, but rework on them by adding the new things. Critics may also do what we called taking an approach for the news, because they acknowledge its influence, turn the approach on themselves and do reflexivity. As for comments, maybe they are too short to be essays; however, they can also be considered as approached taken by readers who are really concerned about the news. Actually, blog can reflect it much more clearly. Though the news and blogs may not be written in an academic style, they do include almost everything Harris mentioned in his book.

Admittedly, the works in Harris’s book are much more serious. As we can see in Harry Braverman’s example, he was struggling with his book for several years, concerning many things we would not ever think about when writing blogs, which may contribute to a difference. 

Short Essay #1 Abe Defames Chinese Warship Lock Japanese Vessel May Lead to Violence

Since last year, the diplomatic relation between China and Japan have become much more intense because of an alleged disputed island issue. The Japanese government announced that they purchased the Diaoyu Island from a private Japanese owner for nearly $30 million, which raised a protest in China. The Chinese government strongly condemned this behavior, and accused Japan of stealing Chinese territory in the East China Sea.

As a Chinese, I am very interested in this issue, and pay attention to reports on the Internet to see what is going on. I saw a report named Japanese prime minister accuses Chinese navy ship of 'dangerous' act in CNN on February 5^th. As a worldwide news media, CNN told audiences the background of this issue as well as declared both China and Japan’s statements and attitude about the island. From my perspective, this story would be reported differently, even more serious in a Chinese media, not merely because its audience is Chinese, but also owing to the importance of Chinese territorial sovereignty. The following is a rewritten story may be reported in the Chinese news media for Chinese to see.

Abe Defames Chinese Warship Lock Japanese Vessel May Lead to Violence

According to the CNN report, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said that he was extremely regrettable that a Chinese vessel locked its radar on a Japanese navy boat near disputed islands last week. He said it could lead to violence and warned China against making the situation worse. 

The Japanese foreign ministry summoned the Chinese ambassador for a meeting Tuesday to lodge a formal protest regarding the accusations. And the Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera said that Tokyo also suspects that China put a radar-lock on a Japanese navy helicopter on January 19. (CNN)

China's foreign ministry accused Japan of creating tension and tarnishing China's image, in response to Japan's allegation that a Chinese frigate's use of fire-control radar to lock on to a Japanese vessel in the East China Sea amounted to a "threat of force."

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a daily press briefing that Chinese authorities are verifying and investigating the incident.

Hua said that it was actually Japan that was provoking tensions over the disputed Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea, and that Tokyo's efforts to ratchet up tension run against efforts to improve Sino-Japanese ties.

"The problem at present is not China showing strength, but Japan continuously sending its ships and aircraft into the waters and airspace around the Diaoyu Islands to carry out illegal activities, damaging and infringing upon China's territorial sovereignty," she said. 

She also pointed that China has not changed its stance of developing relations on the basis of principles enshrined in the four bilateral political documents. China wishes to solve and manage problems through talks, and hopes Japan can face up to reality and history and make concerted efforts with China," she also said. (Global Times)

As we all known, it is a common international tradition for naval vessels to warn other ships, if the vessels from another country want to do harmful tracking or navigation interference. Generally, when others do actual threat or cause some serious influence on navy vessel’s sailing, the vessel can warn others by sending radio. If the radio message does not work, the affected vessel can take further measures by aiming at others, using fire control radar, or even firing warning shots.

In April 20, 2010, Japan also stated that Chinese destroyer aimed at a Japanese P-3C patrol aircraft, which was tracking Chinese naval formation in Japan Sea area. Japanese media defined the action was an intimidation, which let the Japanese patrol aircraft in a dangerous sate of being shot down at any time. However, in fact, the Japanese P-3C patrol aircraft often used the excuse of confirming targets in its air defense identification zone to provoke Chinese navy vessels by low altitude and short distance tracking. So Chinese navy had to take a necessary measure to stop it.

In addition, in this event, Itsunori Onodera said that distance between the Chinese and Japanese vessels was only about 3 kilometers. The military experts pointed out that the distance is less than the shooting limitation of anti-ship missiles. Even though the Chinese navy locked the Japanese vessel, they cannot fire it. And if they do want to fire the Japanese warship in that situation, they can just use artillery. It reflects the Japan’s bad intentions. What’s more, Itsunori Onodera published the so-called “radar event” in two weeks after it was happen also makes people doubt about its real purpose.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/06/world/asia/china-japan-disputed-islands/index.html?iref=allsearch

Unit2 #6 About Countering

In the chapter Countering, Harris reveals his opinion about how to write arguments. He says that the aim of academic writing should not be simple to prove how smart you are but to add to what can be said above a subject (Harris 56). In a word, writers should not simply oppose a text, but supplement it when they write an academic essay. So in countering, we need to pay attention to somewhere that others have not mention before, or pick up some weaknesses to discuss. We help the essay becomes much more persuasive and reliable after add some new materials, opinion and resources.

To clearly and successfully identify what texts fail to do, we need to figure out the writer’s purpose in the writing. And them we can get the essays’ limitation. Harris talk about 3 ways in this chapter to help us do the countering-Arguing the other side, Uncovering value and Dissenting-as well as some examples to illustrate the three ways. For example, there was a high-speed way accident in China several months ago. Some people claimed that it was the Chinese government's fault because the high-speed train was built in a very bad quality. Some corrupt officials took the money away. However, to counter these people's statement, others might say that it was not the Chinese government's fault. They pointed out that the reason of the accident is the bad weather. The weather influenced the signal receptor in the train, so that the train could not received instruments from the command center, and that was the main reason of the accident.

I think a good example about counting is our responses after we read some academic materials. Students have various opinions about the some issue, and they also have their own evidences and experiences to support their ideas. They may not always agree with what they have read, and they do counting in the response. By pick up an idea from the reading, they try to add some different ideas into the same issue. One more specific example is my unit 1 essay Is literature Dying in This Digital Age? I write this argument or blog after reading Andrew Sullivan, Chris Hedges and Nicholas Carr’s essays about literature. I kind of agree with some of their ideas, but also find some weaknesses. So I may add some evidence to help this argument become much more reliable.

http://writing1122linxiao.blogspot.com/