Technological Trauma By Larissa Dubecki: Article Analysis

In the news article “Technological trauma: cyber bullies more powerful than schoolyard thugs” (the Age 28/10/2006), Larissa Dubecki assertsin a reasoned and logical tone that cyber bullying should not be permitted or tolerated because it is extremely harmful to young people. The writer appeals to the wellbeing of teenagers through establishing the threats and negative impact of cyber bullying that can be physically and mentally harmful.
The writer appeals to the reader’s sense of safety and wellbeing by exposing the potential danger and problems associated with unrestrained. The consequences of cyber bullying could range from “acute anxiety” to “self- harm” or even to “suicides”. LOADED language? Negative connotations? Appeal to fear? Substantiating
The writer’s appeal to sense of justice triggers emotions of sympathy for the victims from the reader as the reader is inclined to feel an overwhelming unfairness at the fact that offenders are able to get away “unpunished”. Sites where people are able to “vote for the ugliest, fattest and most hated person in school” are exposed by the writer as dangerous, inappropriate and hurtful. Appeal to sympathy? Shock? Negative connotations? Loaded language? The reader is led to feel a connection between themselves and those oppressed because these negative traits are relevant to the reader’s own life how do you know this? Assumption here and thus, the reader is persuaded to side with the writer’s view that hurtful insults at people’s image should stop. In addition to this, the perpetrators are exposed as people who “aim to humiliate…hack into accounts and …sometimes locking the victims out of their own account”. The negativeassociations linked with “bullies” are designed to further attack the offenders as viscous and inhumane. Thus, the writer arouses feelings of anger from the reader and they are positioned to agree that bullies should be “caught and dealt