Running Head: SOCIAL MEDIA AND POLITICAL DISCOURSE

Social Media and Political Discourse: A Rhetorical Comparison of Journal and Newspaper

Publications

Annie M. Scholz

Appalachian State University

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With the ever-present influence of social media, news is available instantly at the click of

our fingertips, and while we live for this instantaneous information, its easy for stories to be

misconstrued by the public and media outlets. Recently, the media has been under fire for

pushing certain agendas, and the statements of the President are leading to discourse the scrutiny

of journalists credibility and what should be regarded as fake news. It is vital that the debate

be analyzed across a wide spectrum of publications; I will be analyzing two divergent genres of

publication a newspaper article and a scholarly journal article. Fake News or shooting the

messenger? Addressing media credibility (Blythe, 2017), a newspaper article, and a peer-

reviewed journal article: Journalism, the Pressures of Verification and Notions of Post-Truth in

Civil Society (Martin, 2017) it becomes evident that while they focus on similar subjects, the

articles are geared towards differing audiences, public readers and specialized scholars. With

their intent to reach these specific audiences, Anne Blythe and Nora Martin employ the use of

various rhetorical methods: their personal motivations, ethos, pathos, and logos, and certain

constraints that fault their arguments. In this paper, I will analyze how these rhetorical methods

impact the authors arguments.

Fake News or shooting the messenger? Addressing media credibility by Anne

Blythe (2017), State Politics reporter for the Raleigh, NC-based The News and Observer, tackles

the controversial topic of fake news through coverage of Raleigh, NC Community Voices

forum Fake News the search for credibility. Credibility within journalism and mass media

has become a prevalent issue in American society, and Blythe uses her article to communicate

this information to the general public, who may not be as aware of the issues that surround

journalists. Blythe covers this event to exhibit the opinions of prominent local journalists, whose

careers are at the center of the doubt aimed at all media outlets. Panelists included Steve Daniels,
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co-anchor and investigative reporter for ABC11, and former Dateline NBC national

correspondent and Rob Christensen, North Carolina politics reporter/columnist for The News and

Observer for 44 years, and author of The Paradox of Tar Heel Politics; she includes detailed

descriptions of each panelists career to help establish her own credibility, as well as theirs

(Blythe, 2017).

Journalism, the Pressures of Verification and Notions of Post-Truth in Civil Society, by

Nora Martin (2017), a member of the faculty of Arts and Sciences at the University of

Technology in Sydney, Australia, is a peer reviewed article published in The Cosmopolitan Civil

Societies: An Interdisciplinary Journal. Martins (2017) article focuses on journalists methods

of gathering information, and how that information affects society alongside social medias

instant gratification for information. As a journalism scholar, Martin directs her argument at the

community of academic scholars. The exigence of the current societal debate over the

trustworthiness of journalists fuels Martins essay as she highlights the long, meticulous process

that journalists must go through to produce factual stories. She emphasizes that journalists

discretion is more vital than ever, in order to keep society informed with the truth: The findings

of this study reveal that we are seemingly living in a post-truth society largely due to the

impact of the changes in journalism and the media marketplace in the digital age it is becoming

increasingly difficult for citizens to separate fact from fiction; journalists thus have a role as

verifiers (Martin, 2017).

Each of these authors has specific intentions that cater their writing to certain

communities. Blythe, as a political newspaper reporter, wants to get her story out for people to

read. She writes her article in laymans terms, President Donald Trumps repeated

denouncements of some media outlets as purveyors of fake news in a social media age where
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misinformation is just a mouse-click away (Blythe, 2017). This simplified language makes

her article accessible to any member of the general public. As a journalist, Blythe is naturally

working to disprove the existence of fake news as Donald Trump has portrayed it. While

Blythe acts as an informant and member of the media, Martin writes as scholar and analyst of the

media. Her journal article is written in technical language which is evident from the terms

triangulation and data sources (Martin, 2017), indicating that the article is written for

professionals of the scholarly community, as well as exhibiting her extensive knowledge and

research of journalistic practices. Martins writing is fueled by her academic achievement as it is

published in an academic journal. With the interdisciplinary nature of the journal, her article will

be read by scholars of other subjects in addition to journalism and media scholars like herself. As

she examines the information practices of journalists, she exposes skills that are useful in

research and assessing the truth, which are skills that can greatly benefit scholars of all

disciplines.

Blythe and Martin both utilize the literary methods of persuasion, ethos, pathos, and

logos, to appeal to their readers. As a reporter for The News and Observer, a well-read

publication in Raleigh, Blythe gains credibility from her employer. Blythes attendance of the

event, and her status as a State Politics reporter, solidify her credibility to her readers. She

includes details of each of the panelists and their careers, and quotes from the panel, establishing

their credibility as presenters. Martins (2017) article is filled with quotations and in-text

citations from the scholars and studies she uses to enforce her argument, with a references page

following her piece. She also concludes the paper with an Acknowledgments subheading, in

which she mentions the peer reviewers that provided insight and advice to solidify her argument.
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Martins career as an academic and faculty member at a university is evidence of her expertise in

the arts and social sciences.

Blythes (2017) article includes the subsection: Politicians battling the media is not

new, in which she uses pathos to appeal to her audience. She details the experience of panelist

Rob Christensen, who was targeted by Republican senator Jesse Helms, a known anti-media

proponent. Christensen was forcibly removed from the 1984 Republican convention by Helms

security: People were standing on chairs yelling throw the bastard out, Christensen said.

And as I was being led out by the sergeant-at-arms, the presiding officer says, The cancer

has been surgically removed (Blythe, 2017). This behavior is vastly like that of President

Donald Trump and his war on media and journalism, which has spurred this worldwide debate

on freedom of the press and credibility within the media. Martin uses a combination of ethos and

logos as she begins her argument with emphasis on the concept of post-truth. This term was

Oxford Dictionaries International Word of the Year last year. The prolonged use of the concept,

and recent accreditation by the well-known academic resource helps her construct a believable

argument. Her use of technical knowledge, and review from peers also provides emphasis that

she has extensive knowledge regarding the topic.

The contrasting articles by Blythe and Martin both contain constraints. Blythes article

recalls the perspectives of four professional journalists. However, this presents a bias because

these are the people being targeted by the fake news controversy, and they possess the only

opinions that are presented in the article. Essentially this is journalism targeting the credibility of

journalism, which leads readers to expect counterarguments to the existence of fake news. One

subheading of the article reads: Fake news means different things to different people (Blythe,

2017), which challenges the point that she is trying to make that fakes news is more akin to the
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clich of shooting the messenger since the concept is subjective to each person. With the

limited length required for newspaper publications, Blythe cannot possibly illustrate in-depth

detail of the forum, and significant content may be left out. Martins (2017) article is wrapped in

the constraint of academia. Although it serves its purpose as a peer-reviewed publication, it may

only be fully understood by scholars within her field. She often uses professional language, such

as a systematic literature review in order to develop a meta-analysis of research on digital

consumption in the contemporary media ecosystem. She also refers to studies that individuals

outside of the field are likely to find as complex, and even boring. Martin cites many sources that

are over ten years out of date, which may cause some inaccuracies due to the recent drastic

changes that have been made in technology, and the instantaneous capabilities of social media.

The arguments regarding journalism and media that both Anne Blythe and Nora Martin

pose are extremely relevant to todays political discourse, particularly in the United States where

President Donald Trump has waged a war against the media, and journalists credibility needs to

be upheld. Each authors argument involves motivation, the use of ethos, pathos, and logos, and

constraints that hinder their position. They use these literary properties to target specific

audiences, the masses and the scholars.

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References

Blythe, A. (2017, August 31). 'Fake News' or 'shooting the messenger?' Addressing media

credibility. Retrieved from http://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-

government/state-politics/article170497942.html

Martin, N. (2017). Journalism, the Pressures of Verification and Notions of Post-Truth in Civil

Society. Cosmopolitan Civil Societies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 9(2), 41-55.

doi:10.5130/ccs.v9i2.5476