Article commentry

My article about Fox Farms is intended for the "comment is free" discussion section on The Guardian News internet page. The purpose is to inform and argue with an informative and opinionated theme throughout. As it is an argumentative article the audience need to feel involved and questioned about their opinions yet, persuaded to have the same views as the article due to its bias presentation. I have achieved this through my use of personal pronouns for example “would you want to be skinned alive?”

The article is a discussion of fox farming which involves skinning foxes alive for their fur, despite it being highly unethical, and is a practice outlawed in many countries. My target audience is older teenagers and adults who think strongly about the subject and want to challenge it. It is also aimed at those who are not necessarily aware of fox farms and want to find out about what it is and how they can stop it. I have managed to appeal to such a wide audience by using very accessible language, (“Thousands of innocent foxes get clubbed or skinned alive every”) and a limited amount of subject specific lexis.

 It appeals to my target audience by using information along with quotes and photos to support each fact and opinion. I chose to write about this to gain the public's understanding on animal cruelty as I feel strongly that it needs to be stopped. I used language features such as hyperbole’s and direct address as the article is an opinion piece to persuade the audience to support the protest. This is shown when the article says "This will continue until enough people join and support the campaign to stop this cruelty against animals. (http://www.caft.org.uk/support.html)."

Style model

The graphology used in my article is 3 photos all with relevance to fox farming. The first photo is placed at the top of the page under the headline to stand out and catch the reader’s attention and gives them a visual aid. The second and third photos are of protesters against fox farming to support my statements and quotes and empathise to the reader that fox farming is a serious issue. By using violent images it persuades the reader to support the campaign which makes the article reach its purpose. The headline "killing innocent animals for their fur is unethical and needs to be stopped" is written in block capitals which makes the reader curious to continue reading and find out why it is unethical and in which way this process is committed.

The lexical choice of "violently" when describing how the foxes are killed it strengthens the imagery of the conditions the foxes had to go through to shock my target audience and persuade them to join to stop this act. The word "innocent" is often repeated to enforce the fact that these animals haven't done anything wrong to be treated this way. It also added to the sympathy felt by the audience as they will connect with the underlying message that these animals have no reason to go through these conditions.