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Elizabeth Korbert The Things People Say Summary

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The article, The Things People Say, written by Elizabeth Kolbert examines the consequences of group polarization by utilizing the outbreak surrounding President Obama’s birthplace and citizenship. During the 2008 elections, the media played a huge role in spreading the concept that President Obama was not born in the United States and that the birth certificate he revealed was a fake. The author analyzes not only the falsification of the story itself, but also the larger idea regarding the internet’s interference with extremism that can cause misinformation.
The tone that was used by the author proved most evident when examining this article. The author combines a serious nature with a sarcastic tone to both prove her argument and demean the underlying story. The serious tone is most noticeable whenever she discusses group polarization. It is easily understood that she believes the internet is causing problems by creating a new form of group polarization known as cyber polarization. However, when the author addresses the story of President Obama, she brings back a sarcastic tone indicating her support of our leader. She intended this sarcasm to subtly say that those who believed the stories about President Obama were uniformed extremist. These contrasting tones help to prove …show more content…

She effectively demonstrates that people are now capable of creating problems by sharing their opinions or altered information through the internet. She is not blaming the technology, but instead warning us, as people, to be careful as to what we believe or post for everyone to see because not everything on the internet is true. Her argument successfully used the story involving President Obama’s birth certificate after assuming his role in the White House. Who 's to say that the only reason I support her argument is because I already showed similar viewpoints to the

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