The article being analysed is “Anti-Vaxers are murderers” by Susie O’Brien, published in The Herald Sun on the 24th of March 2015. In the article O’Brien identifies the issue of parents not vaccinating their kids. Her contention is to spread awareness about Whooping Cough and how anti-vaxers encourage it.
Throughout the text O’Brien adopts an aggressive, attacking, appalled, ridiculing, blaming, informative and pleading tone. Attached to the article is a photograph of Greg Hughes cradling the late Riley Hughes in a park outside of several suburban homes. This photo implies to the audience that this tragedy can affect any families no matter their current circumstances. She is very formal throughout the article causing the reader to believe that…show more content… Claire Harvey, a writer of The Sunday Telegraph stated, “Would you kill a baby today? Would you put him through horrific pain? Would you take away his oxygen and let him suffocate to death? Well, if you haven’t vaccinated your own children, you are doing all those things. You killed four-week old Riley Hughes.” This example uses a series of rhetorical question, which has been also made to attack anti-vaxers, through the continual use of exclusive language, by suggesting they killed a baby. The techniques used make the reader feel disturbed and angry by the anti-vaxers and to make them side with the…show more content… O’Brien speaks directly to the audience and reasons, “Imagine the agony of his parents, who had to watch their little baby boy cough himself to death. Riley was too young to be vaccinated, so he was relying on the immunity of those around him.” O’Brien quickly establishes appeals to family values to the audience by speaking of the parents and their little baby boy. She also asserts emotive language within the words to make the audience emotional and upset over this loss, which could have been avoided if people had received the immunity through vaccinations. Consequently, the reader is made to emphasize with the parents about the loss and feel shameful towards those who refuse to not only vaccinate themselves but also their
