May 18th, 2017

I have to decide whether to write about my original idea - what elements from George Orwell's essay can be seen in the right wing media - or fake news. Both seem very interesting to me but I feel as if fake news is still new to me and I may not be as comfortable writing about it as I would about the media. My supervisor suggested to write about fake news, would be easier for me.

FAKE NEWS RESEARCH

From a local point: Jerzy Targalski, a polish historian and publicist stated that there are fake news websites that had infiltrated Poland though right wing sources that had copied the concept from Russia Today.

I have done some other research but still don't know what my focus will be. Why we have it? It's language and how it manipulates us?

RIGHT WING MEDIA

I have been doing more research for this topic, specifically on Trump.

Here is one of Trump's tweets. His use of capital letters is interesting, perhaps reflecting his anger and spreading fear. His "I told you so." comment implies that he is more superior than the rest and knows it all. Trump wants to create a renowned 'aura' of him in order to manipulate people into thinking that he knows the facts and decisions should be made by him. 

This effect is called the prestigious effect, when people become biased towards another person who seems more 'prestigious', they seem to believe and trust the person more. For example, one can be biased towards a doctor and places their trust in them because the doctor knows what he is doing. 

In his capital letters, we see an alliteration of the letter B ("big" and "beautiful").  I'd like to explore this more into what effect it has. Also, the intentioned word choice of these two words may be to describe the wall as well as America, "Make America Great Again". 

In this quote: 

“You’re going to have more World Trade Centers. It’s going to get worse and worse, folks,” 

we see again this spread of fear. The repetition of the word 'worse' does the job. Like Charlie Houpert said:

 “Fear is an incredibly powerful emotion. It captures our attention like no other emotion can [...] Secondly, it shuts down higher thinking. "

 When in fear or need, humans seek for a shelter or safe haven. For the majority who are manipulated by Trump's fear, they see him as their savior.

An interesting note is his use of 'folks'.  Folks is a colloquialism that has been used by Trump perhaps to make himself seem more modern (tweets) and to connect more with his followers. Individuals are more likely to be persuaded when someone is similar to them. 

Hillary's campaign slogan: "Stronger Together" forms a sense of unity like "Yes We Can". 

I am not sure of my political preference. Therefore I am neutral and would like to not be biased for the most of my extended essay however, I am looking forward to developing my ideas and views about politics. 

I also found this website called The Rhetoricians Notebook and their motto is: "It's not what they say, but how they say it". It talks about Obama's speeches and his use of language. I think that this is a great source for my EE. 

Next I will research Chomsky and try to apply his work to politics. I will also need to research some terminology from Global Politics. I will continue on finding more speeches/tweets and analyzing them.