article analysis essay for english

1. Alvin Tse
Teacher: Ms. Cinder Merritt (ENG2D)
How Does the Author Use Bias to Impact the Audience?
Every author has their intentions of writing an article, and sometimes one needs to be careful of how the
author’s word choices and placement choices can cause one to think along a certain direction. This is
especially true of an article on a British online newspaper The Independent, where Rob Merrick
investigates a British aid plan that relieves refugees fleeing to Europe redirected to different countries
such as Asian and Latin American countries. The author attempts to deceive the British public into
believing that the UK government is responsibly providing refugees with superior alternatives to settling
in the UK by creating distance, attempting to speak highly of the UK with glittering generalities and
name-dropping in an endeavour to increase credibility.
Firstly, the author attempts to use an abundance of loaded words and a suggestive photo choice to create
distance between the refugees and the audience. The author’s loaded words downplay the situation into
very general terms, most of which the British public are familiar with. He uses words such as
“vulnerable” and “facing freezing conditions” to describe their situations; stating that the refugees are
“vulnerable” clearly implies that they are in need of help and physical support, and “facing freezing
conditions” conveys a bleak, cold image that the refugees are facing. This is familiar to the British public
in the cold weather that this article was published in. Facing similar conditions themselves and with such
general terms, the situation of the refugees can be easily dismissed by the British public. The author
further suggests that the government will also “pay for better infrastructure in far-flung countries willing
to take refugees who had hoped to settle in Europe”. The word choice of “far-flung” in this quotation
magnifies the author’s intention to reduce an emotional connection for the refugees to a minimum; the
author does not specify where these “far-flung” countries are, effectively communicating the notion “out
of sight, out of mind”; suggesting that this crisis is remote and is thus irrelevant to the UK public. The

2. notion and the author’s intentions are stressed when the destination the refugees are redirected to is twice
referred to simply as “Asia and Latin America”, both of which are geographically far from the UK, and
relatively unspoken of, thus being seemingly more arbitrary to the British public (Merrick). Finally, the
photo chosen for the article also suggests that the author is preventing the British public from making any
connections with the refugees. The photo chosen shows a crowd of black men in summer clothes under
sunlight looking towards the same direction. The skin colour of the men may cause the public of the UK,
a country who left the EU as a move of nationalism and patriotism (O’Toole), to think of them as
outsiders. The summer clothes and sunlight give the reader a sense of warmth, and suggest that the men
are perfectly warm in the weather – the ledge they rest on is also spotless, further allowing the audience to
believe that they are not too desperately in need of help. Finally, none of them are looking directly at the
camera. Eye contact is a powerful stimulator of love and compassion, and the fact that no one is looking
directly at the camera in the photo chosen further seizes any opportunity for the audience to sympathise
with the refugees. Hence, we can conclude that the author does not want the audience to connect with the
refugees in crisis, in order to have full opportunity to keep the focus on the UK’s compassion and
generosity.
The author chooses a picture that will hinder connections between the reader and the refugees (Merrick)

3. The author also attempts to speaks highly of the UK and their willingness to aid in the crisis, but
ultimately fails due to lack of specificity and a myriad of contradictions. Firstly, the author uses glittering
generalities to praise the UK and their actions. The author uses words such as “lifesaving supplies”,
“emergency medical care”, “legal support” and “urgent health assistance” to glamourise the aid package
that the UK is offering (Merrick). Most of the terminology that the author uses is globally approved and
recognised as “helpful” supplies, so it is easy for the British public to overlook the vagueness of the
statistics provided. Also, a list of numbers is provided near the end of the article to suggest all the
contributions the UK government has given to the public. The author uses an inverted pyramid to present
these statistics – he tends to place bigger numbers near the top of the list, and the foremost aim is to
“provide 22,400 life-saving relief items including tents, blankets, winter clothes such as hats and gloves
and hygiene kits including mother and baby products”, the least vague aim on the list. However, it is
evident that some items on the list are ambiguous – for example, the last strand suggests that more than
1,500 refugees will be provided with “urgent health assistance”, without any specification of what health
assistance this may be. This lack of specificity shows that the figures given in the first place are not
confidently trusted by the author himself, and that he is desperate to use every statistic that works in his
stance’s favour to convince the audience of it. The author also includes a multitude of contradictions that
he fails to cover up during his attempt to speak highly of the UK government. The author introduces
quotes that are entirely non-compliant with what he has said in the rest of the article. For example, he
quotes the Prime Minister to have said in Malta that the package was an aid to “help migrants return home
rather than risk their lives continuing perilous journeys to Europe”. This contradicts the rest of the article
where the author promotes the government’s choice of helping refugees sustain lives in “far-flung”
countries such as “Asia and Latin America”. A similar contradiction happens in the aforementioned list at
the end of the article, where a strand states that the package “allows up to 22,000 people to reunite with
family members they have been separated from” (Merrick). This reinforces the author’s inconsistency
between his stance and his quotes and data, and therefore hinders the validity of the article and its stance
once again. The various happenings of contradictions and ambiguousness therefore hinder the author’s

4. ability to speak highly of the UK government, and shows his struggle to shed positive light onto the UK
government due to his dissonant cognitive stance.
Finally, the author makes numerous endeavours to name-drop and insert quotes to increase his credibility.
The author uses various organisations to suggest legitimacy of the scheme. For example, he mentions the
UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) multiple times to suggest that the British aid package bolsters an existing
project. This automatically allows the audience to see this project as legitimate and thus the author gains
credibility simply for mentioning any involvement of the agency. The author furthermore quotes
“government sources” for stressing that refugees will only move to Asia and Latin America under their
own will. The exact government sources are not stated, and even an idea of which department of the
government the sources are from is not provided. This name-dropping shows that the author is attempting
to increase his credibility by using any source that vaguely represents where it has come from. The author
also uses various quotes to further legitimise his stance. The author uses a quote from International
Development Secretary Priti Patel that mentions “mass migration” fuelled by “conflict, drought and
political upheaval”. Simply using the word “conflict” severely downplays the terror and pain that the
refugees have to go through in their daily lives. The same quote mentions “mass migration”, which are
used for very large scale movements, sometimes even of animals, once again causing a disconnect
between the audience and the refugees. However, it is noteworthy that Patel labels the UK’s effort as their
“latest support”, directly contradicting a former statement from the author that this is “the first time
Britain’s aid budget has been used to bolster [the scheme]” (Merrick). It is evident that the author has
attempted to increase his credibility by crediting his sources to NGOs and quotes, however has done so in
vain due to the dissonance between his quotes and his narration.
In this article, the author’s use of loaded words, glittering generalities and name-dropping shows that he is
desperate to lead the British public into believing that the UK has done much to provide superior
alternatives to refugees and turning them away from their home country. However, upon closer analysis,

5. it is evident throughout the lack of specificity and the multitude of contradictions that the author’s stance
and opinions are incongruent. This article is a prime example of how an author with a clear stance has the
ability to misdirect and deceive his audience completely.
Word Count: 1473

6. Works Cited
Merrick, Rob. “EU Malta Summit: Refugees Heading to Europe to Be Redirected to Asia and Latin
America in New £30m British Aid Plan.” ​The Independent​ [London], 3 Feb. 2017. ​The
Independent​,
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-malta-summit-refugees-europe-redirect-settle-asia-lat
in-america-theresa-may-30-million-aid-plan-a7561296.html. Accessed 14 Feb. 2017.
O’Toole, Fintan. “Brexit Is Being Driven by English Nationalism. And It Will End in Self-Rule.” ​The
Guardian​, 19 June 2016. ​The Guardian​,
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/18/england-eu-referendum-brexit. Accessed 14
Feb. 2017.