Experimenting with Dialogue and Intertextuality

I chose to compare two video news: one is “Aunts and Stepdads line up for this year hottest gift: The electric Tea Kettle” from The Onion and the other is “Cooking to cut costs” from CNN.

The similarities about these two news is the constructions of the narration.  Both of them first state what happens generally in this news to give the audience an overall idea. Then it goes to details to describe the story with vivid pictures as well as interviews with experts or authorities. This tries to build more credibility for this news.

But these two news have a major difference. The Onion news uses satirical tone to re veil some reality now, though the news there is “fake”. Specially, this video news is to describe how insane and crazy customers buy a product, but in reality for such a bad economy, customers will definitely control themselves to cut unnecessary expense. Personally, I think The Onion wants the audience to reflect their own consuming behaviors.

On the other hand, CNN news is more rational to the audience. Every sentence used is more serious and cautious. By a straighforward way to tell the audience that people now prefer cooking at home to cut cost, CNN conveys the message that what is the people’s response to the bad economy now.