Compare the Three Newspaper Articles On Aids Commenting On Their Effectiveness As Sources of Information and the Effects of Style and Content On the Reader.

The language in this article is very straight to the point, no nonsense facts, which are all used to make the style very clear and formal. They use very dramatic and hard hitting facts though that are designed to shock the reader a little bit. Things such as "Thailand accounts for 800,000 to a million of Asia's 3 million HIV carriers." Although in between these emotive facts there is talk of the one of the article's main topics, Asia's economy problems.

During some of the reporting of facts the writing style tends to have a sense of urgency to it "We are losing the fight". This tells the reader how serious the problem is and which is probably why the meeting was held in the first place. The writer puts the urgent language into short, sharp sentences and the particular sentence that I quoted before was put into its own short paragraph, which makes it stand out more clearly.

This article also takes quotes from well known organisations such as "the World Health Organisation" and "the United Nations Development Programme." From these organisations the reader gets clear facts of the increase of HIV and AIDS. The good thing about using these well known organisations is that these are trustworthy in the eyes of the reader and thus the reader takes on the information as fact not fiction and they also believe it to be reliable.

At the end of the article there seems to be a new tone in the writing to a more positive approach to the problem. Where the reader is told "The two countries will co-operate in seeking a cure." This leaves the reader with an optimistic view on the subject, which is nice.

The next article is from the Times newspaper, which like the Guardian is also a broad-sheet, but his article is national news, being reported from Scotland. The writer was probably prompted to write this article because of a report that was published that year, which is referred to during the article.

There are many presentational devices during the article, the headline of this article is also very clear, although misleading, that the article is going to be critical of the government "Government is wasting funds on AIDS prevention." The by-line has been put into a different font to make sure it stands out and it supports the statement in the headline, by giving evidence. In this article there is also a cartoon drawing, which is quite amusing and attractive to the reader, but contradicts the headline so until you have read the article it makes very little sense to how they relate. This makes the reader curious and want to find out more.

The writer brings in to use of experts to back up facts just like in the Guardian article. In this article however, the views of the experts such as Mr. Craven, are very much given to the reader in a very matter of fact manner. The writer does a brilliant job of undermining Mr. Craven, not by accusing him of anything, but instead just suggesting things to the reader and then leaving the reader to make up their own mind. She makes sure that the reader knows that "Mr. Craven, a right-wing economist" suggesting that he is going to be quite 'old fashioned.' She also makes a fool of the other academic she talks of, Professor Stewart. The writer does this by using his quotes, but using them with words such as "claims" which makes the reader think that maybe the Professor isn't correct. The Professor is also quoted using very harsh and emotive language "grotesque deception". Mr. Craven is then given the chance to air his views, but first the reader is told of some of his very extreme views, which is very implicit and undermines him greatly and denotes his credibility, with him talking of "execution or limbs amputated off criminals to eradicate crime". "The spread to the heterosexual population has not happened", this implies with his tone that he could be quite homophobic, which is not very socially acceptable nowadays. There is a lot of implied criticism towards Mr. Craven, but the writer is very careful and clever not to say anything directly and leave it up to the reader to decide again.

There are then two more experts brought in so the reader can have a contrasting opinion. Dr Gruer talks of people being "arrogant" and they challenge the prejudice, that Mr. Craven obviously has along with some other people in society against people with AIDs or HIV.

Right at the end of the article

J.Borland Page 1 27/04/2007

Mrs. Cambell S10 3N~3J