Online Harassment and Cyber Mobs – Non-fiction, Essay

“Online Harassment and Cyber Mobs” is a speech written by Anita Sarkeesian. The speech is for the feminist Frequency website published December 5, 2012. In the speech Online Harassment and Cyber Mobs Anita Sarkeesian talks about the major issues of Cyber Mobs and its consequences. She starts out telling how she herself became the villain of a massive online game in real life, by simply launching a fundraising campaign about how women are being represented in video games. This lead to a massive online hate campaign managed by a bunch of male adult gamers. Sarkeesian tells about how the worst part of it was that all this display of misogyny and harassment, the gamers referred to it as being a game and therefor justifying that what they did was acceptable. Sarkeesian points out, how this is a major issue that often happens and that there should be put an end to it immediately, because it’s not just a game it’s cyber bullying. In the speech Sarkeesian is using a lot of different rhetorical means such as the appeal forms and Toulmin model of Argumentation. By doing this she engages her audience more and gets her message trough clear and loud: women in the media, especially in games are being portrayed as sexually and downright oppressive objectified stereotype, and this is a problem. But how well does she use rhetorical means, and how reliable appear she as a sender? In the speech Online Harassment and Cyber Mobs, Anita Sarkeesian uses a lot of rhetorical means to get her message through and to interest and appeal to the crowd. First of all it’s remarkable to look at how Sarkeesian is using the rhetorical pentagram. A huge part of this is how she uses the language. Sarkeesian uses low class language or also called “everyday” language. The effect of this is, that it increases the understanding for the people listening to her, so they get more interested and engages in what she has to say. Another thing about her language to notice is, that she is using irony. An example of this occurs in the speech on line 20 where Sarkeesian tells about her project and how simple it is.Then she asks what possibly can go wrong, and already before that, she mentioned, that the project did go wrong. The irony also helps keeping the audience engaged, because it’s in some way funny and therefor it also helps keeping the audience interested in her speech. Another element of the rhetorical pentagram is the situation of the speech. Sarkeesian gives her speech at TEDXwomen conference, which is a recognized conference that has a large audience. Also the media platform Sarkeesian uses to publish her videos is widely recognized all over the world and therefore she has a “powerful” influence and people listen to what she has to say. The sender of the speech is Anita Sarkeesian. The fact that Sarkeesian uses her own story and is the sender herself supports her argumentation. By being the sender herself, and by having her own website, it makes the speech very subjective. The receiver of the speech is wide. Sarkeesian wants to share her message with as many as possible, to stop the cyber mobs for good. Aside from using the rhetorical pentagram, Sarkeesian also uses other rhetorical means such as the appeal forms. In the speech, she uses both pathos and ethos. Ethos appears by being who she is – a recognized media critic and a victim.The fact that she’s a victim herself does that she knows what she talks about and therefor she knows about the subject she talks about and its influence on people. The ethos increases her credibility as a sender. The use of pathos emerges when Sarkeesian talks about her being a victim of online harassment, for example, when she tells about how all of her social media sites were flooded with threats of rape, violence, sexual assault and death. The pathos helps create a more emotionally charged speech that also engages the audience because you fell sorry for her. By looking at the Toulmin model of Argumentation it’s underlined what the message of the speech is. Her main claim and therefor also the message of the speech is, that women in the media, especially in games are being portrayed as sexually and downright oppressive objectified stereotype. Sarkeesian ground is herself and the experience she has been the victim of. She doesn’t use rebuttal, which affect her ethos by lowing it, and also makes her less reliable as a sender. Discussion http://www.psmag.com/health-and-behavior/women-arent-welcome-internet-72170 -Why are women being the victims of online harassment? - What are the consequences for the people being online harassed? - Why is online harassment becoming more and more seen on the Internet?