I found a news article online named Bidding soars for painting by Trayvon Martin shooter at the Yahoo News. I then took the liberty to interview two of my neighbors namely Tom and Helen whom I believe have totally different tastes, preferences, hobbies and were raised from different backgrounds. I asked them several questions regarding the text, how they interpreted it and what meaning they were able to decipher from the text. In this essay, I will seek to analyze the discussion with ideas and themes from my own understanding on how to examine media artifacts in a greater social and cultural context.
Hellen was my first interviewee. She was angry at George Zimmerman’s actions due to the fact that she perceived that he was utilizing fame gathered from a lawsuit that ended in his favor for financial benefit. Hellen, who is of African American origin, was quick to recall the tragic death of Trayvon Martin. In her opinion, people who bid on his painting for such high prices were promoting a criminal who was set free by the numerous loopholes in the United States constitution. When I asked her whether she would buy the painting, she responded with a firm ‘no’. She was totally frustrated by the news.
My second interview was with Tom, a Caucasian male, who lives across the street from home. Toms view of the article was that it showed that Americans were filled with forgiveness and that Americans trusted the court’s ruling. With this regard, he said that he could buy the painting if it appealed to him and if it was within his budget ability. Tom liked the news because according to him, George Zimmerman was doing something useful with his life after the trial.
Works Cited
Paul D'Angelo, Jim A. Kuypers Doing News Framing Analysis: Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives Routledge 2009
Roger D Wimmer; Joseph R Dominick Mass media research : an introduction Boston, Mass. : Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, ©2014.
Yahoo News Bidding soars for painting by Trayvon Martin shooter 2013
Retrieved from: http://news.yahoo.com/bidding-soars-painting-trayvon-martin-shooter-215629731.html
