Hershey's. Comparison of two articles on the chocolate company.

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                Elizabeth Glaser

                Ms. Cleary Grade 11

                English & Literature IBHL

                Word count: 889

           Hershey’s Has More Than Just “Dark” Chocolate

Hershey’s chocolate is one of the top selling brands of chocolate in America since the 1950s. Both texts A and B concentrate of the main topic of this company, however they both differ in the message being conveyed to its audience. Text A is an advertisement for the “smooth, rich and good for you” dark chocolate and originates from a page in “Hello” magazine 2012. However, text B is an online article originating from “Whole Foods” magazine on October 28th, 2011 and is highly bias against Hershey’s. Text A, targeting young women, has the main purpose of putting out for profit. Contrastingly, text B is reporting on the company regarding ethically sourced raw materials (cocoa beans). Both texts demonstrate common interests of profit, however, have many contrasting attributes that differentiate the two texts.

The attitudes of both texts help create a strong sense of similarities and differences. Both texts A and B display a strong sense of confidence in the message they are conveying. Text A and B both display this confidence through their bold vocabulary and strong uses of language. However, text A uses its vocabulary and language in a positive retrospect, rather than the negative energy given off by text B’s ability to use language to highlight the issues behind the company. In text A’s advertisement, the dark chocolate is given a luxurious value through the strong words “smooth, rich & good for you.” This bold triad formed saying gives the female audience a sense luxury in eating the chocolate due to the reassurance given by that single slogan. The ad then reassures its audience that the extra dark chocolate is “powerful” and has more antioxidants than a serving of wine furthermore giving the woman a feeling of higher luxury as she feels powerful and perhaps even cleansed by eating something with more antioxidants than something as elegant as wine.  As opposed to text A, the article in text B gives strong, negative words. Through the words “victims of human trafficking and slavery”, text B gives the audience new possible feelings that contradict the previous feelings towards this company prior to reading the article. Through these words, without any given context behind it, they already slander the company and give one a feeling of discomfort of what is being done by this large company. Not only does it provide the audience discomfort but also sympathy for those working on the plantations and also provokes anger, nevertheless giving the author of the article their aim on a “silver platter”.

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With all of this in mind, these confident attitudes are reflected on the persuasive techniques used throughout both texts. Though differing purposes, both texts A and B, in the end, fulfill their aims. With profit, sales, and money in mind of text A, it uses as many persuasive techniques as it possibly can, just as text B does to complete a similar task but with the reporting of ethically sourced raw materials. In text A, the advertisement does not compare itself to other brands of dark chocolate as many other brands do. This could be because of their views of ...

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