Rhetorical Precis Essay

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Rhetorical Precis: Virality Uber Alles: What the Fetishization of Social Media Is Costing Us All Arianna Huffington’s March 8, 2012 article, “Virality Uber Alles: What the Fetishization of Social Media is Costing Us All” asserts the dependence on social networking has led to a society more focused on the networking rather than the news. Through the dominant usage of ethos and a specific tone and diction throughout her work, Huffington supports her assertion by exemplifying the negative effects of a social network reliant society through testimonials and statistics. The author’s purpose is to convince the reader that social media’s role in society is one that should not be dominant in order to notify people of the shift in the variances of news today. The author writes in a more informal tone, with strong selection of diction for those who are knowledgeable and capable of coming across of the specific type of media. Huffiington’s article was one that successfully executed the ideas and convince her audience to agree on her stance due to the content within her supporting details. Her ethos was dominant all throughout the article in her references to figures more credible than she. She quotes, “ ‘The campaigns can sort of distract reporters throughout the day by helping fuel these mini-stories, mini-controversies,’ said the New York Times' Jeff Zeleny” (Huffington 4). The reference to a person that works in a prestigious publishing company urges the reader to believe that the idea being argued by Huffington is indeed correct. Huffington also draws in her audience through a specific tone, that which casualizes and personalizes the article, almost as if listening to a person speak. This is reflected in her essay when she visualizes how, “Someday, historians will likely look back at this virality-uber-alles age and wonder what we were trying to accomplish. The answer
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