Why are Bloggers Still Sitting at the Kids Table?

Does ‘The Federal Shield Act’ affect Bloggers?
Why are Bloggers still sitting at the kids table? Andrew Moshirnia addresses this question by mentioning The Federal Shield Law and the popularity of online media. He says that online media mass media is growing through newspapers, and social media is expanding with social networking sites. Moshirnia uses the terms of The Federal Shield Law to argue that online media outlets, including Bloggers, should gain the same rights as paid journalists are allowed when it comes to the ability to keep their sources confidential. The author is a second year Law student at Harvard and targets his audience as people educated in the field, as he would himself. When compared to the standing on The Federal Shield Law that professional journalists are allowed, the author says that Bloggers are mere kids in comparison. He uses: logical fallacies regarding the Shield Act to promote Bloggers, claims which he intended would add creditability to his work, logical appeals by stating facts to strengthen his argument, quotes to support his claims, and diction by targeting a small group of people as his audience. Logical fallacies are used throughout the article to make claims about what is ‘true’, when in fact these claims are not supported with clear evidence.

Logical fallacies can convince the reader.
In the author’s effort to appeal to the logic of the audience, some points in his argument show characteristics of logical fallacies. Near the beginning of the article, it is said that ‘we have not become a nation of journalists’. However, blogging is referred to the way everyone can be their own journalist. One of the main direct points of his article is that Bloggers should have the same rights as professional journalists, since their media is so widely read. He also includes a claim that many professional journalists who happen to have blogs, are not protected by The Federal Shield Law even though they are at work. Yet, many professional journalists are not allowed by contract to have a blog in addition to their job parameters. Logically, this does not make sense that since most professional journalists are not allowed to have blogs anyways, so these journalists do not have to worry about the realm of The Federal Shield Law. With this logic in mind, the author doesn’t include creditable evidence to support all of his claims.

Creditability. Creditability. Creditability.
The author makes his claims creditable by offering many references to gain the readers attention, yet many of his references are not of a creditable nature. The reader can gain information and reliability about the topic by the inclusion of sources used to make the author’s claims; however, many of these articles are from the Citizen Media Law Project, which is the same company that his article is from. Since the information is coming from the same group of editors, bias information may be used in favor of the author. Some of the sources also include wikipedia, a site where anyone can post anything about a given topic, which in turn could be filled with unaccredited information. These references can also appeal to the audiences’ logic.

Do Moshirnia’s resources help make his argument?
The author uses references in the article to appeal to the logic of the reader ‘seemingly’ enhancing the creditability. Citing other sources to backup claims allow the reader to go and learn more about the situation and check the creditability of the sources out for themselves. The reasoning for the author’s claims is not stated timely after the claims are made, which can cause confusion for the reader. Also, the references are used as all of his reasoning, and none of his own thoughts are given in some cases. The logical appeals were used to state his claim and backup his claim, however, some where not done in a creditable way. Another way that the author appeals to the logic is through the use of quotes, which seem to decorate his article.

Do quotes really help make the argument more affective?
The author’s extensive use of quotations as tools in his article, support the creditability of his work. Through the usage of quotes, the author also commits emotional fallacies to engage his readers. The author talks about how the Blogger’s blogs are used throughout the world by many people as a source of mass media, but the Bloggers are remain unprotected by The Federal Shield Law. By making the reader feel sympathy for the Bloggers, the author commits an emotional fallacy. However, the author also uses quotes from statistics in his article, these quotes appeal to the reader in a logical way. The use of quotes also increases the author’s creditability, and makes the reader more inclined to believe the claims of the author. In addition to the usage of quotes, the author also uses diction to form his argument.

Who is the target audience?
The use of diction throughout the article shows who the author wants to include in his audience. The author assumes that the reader knows what the Federal Shield law is and how it works by linking to articles that support his point, but not articles that provide a definition or an explanation for the Law. The way the author has phrased his argument shows that it is tailored to those with in the journalism field, or to those who are educated on the topic. As well as making these assumptions about his audience, the author also uses qualifiers to keep the audience size smaller by being as specific as possible. A smaller audience means that the author has very specific and concise arguments due to the diction that was used.

Is the author’s use of quotes and statistics effectively? Could it be made better?
The author used tools such as: logical fallacies, claims with evidence, logical appeals, quotes and diction to appeal to the reader by making his argument as strong as possible. The author however may have placed certain things sooner as to add to the strength of his article. The quote at the end, about who uses the internet and how it is distributed among sources on the internet, could have been moved to earlier in the article so that the reader would understand that it is mass media that is moving to the internet. This would help his argument at the beginning instead of using his reference to the quote about trends in technology over the last decade. Having said that, the reader would now understand that many people look to blogs for mass media, thus it is relevant for the Bloggers to have protection. He also says near the beginning that the nation isn’t becoming a bunch of little journalists, and then goes to say that many people blog and that most people go online to these such news stories or answers instead of mass media. The contradiction of these two arguments is undermines his whole point in his article, which makes it seem unclear and thus less creditable. Overall, the author uses such literary tools to prove his point, whether he uses them in the right way or not is the question.