The Bias of language, the Bias of Pictures

This essay reminds me of the very begging of the year when we spent time focusing on the difference between how people perceive pictures and writing.  I remember looking at how a cartoon illustrating an idea or a picture capturing a certain scene was much more effective when it came to capturing the viewers attention and portraying a specific idea that you want.  Putting your thoughts into writing can just as easily portray an argument, but it seems to have less of an impact on the viewer because its thoughts rather than a coherent picture that stays in your mind. Pictures are an easy way to persuade and convince viewers that what they are seeing is real, and it is easy to come up with a certain evaluation based on what they want you to think.  I think that what this essay goes more into depth about is the idea that pictures or even announcements can easily leave out what comes next in the sequence.  Technically, they are not leaving out truth, but not telling the whole truth.  By doing this it is easy for media to shape a story into anything they wish it to be in order to capture the attention of their viewers.  This is why media sources can never be truly reliable.   

reactions to disasters

Both 9/11 and the San Francisco earthquake had similar reactions from the public, but also had many things that contrasted them. In both circumstances people came together rather quickly as a community to help each other and grieve about their loses. Help form around the country started instantly in both circumstances. Disasters are one of the only circumstances where class structures and cultural restrictions seem to become irrelevant. People are all put in the same boat and are essentially all put at the same playing field. This type of reaction was seen in both the San Francisco quake and 9/11. The only difference between the two is that 9/11 stirred up a different type reaction from the public that the quake. The quake was a natural disaster and there was nothing one could do from stopping it from occurring, but 9/11 was planned as an attack. This brought people together on a global level to hear about and deal with the conspiracy. The San Fran quake even though many years ago still had the same relative reaction from the public as natural disasters we have today do. In Hurricane Katrina and was sent from all over the country and the community was rebuilt. All disasters have the basic same reaction from the public it just depends on the circumstance it occurs.