Thursday, August 14, 2008

Reading Review Topics

The article 'Implied narratives in medical practice...' by Todd Oakley explores the idea of simulation semantics and a 'learning-for-doing' approach to medical print advertisements.

Oakley examines the way readers respond to 2 advertisements in a medical journal. He claims that these ads cause the reader to simulate their role as a GP by applying a healing narrative (illness -> diagnosis -> treatment -> cure) to the text which is why the advertisements are successfully persuasive.

The article deals with the creation of 'mental spaces' which are ideas and mindsets formed when a reader looks at a text. These various mental spaces include a 'grounding space', 'reference space and 'presentation space'. The conceptual blend of these spaces cause the reader to react in a certain way to the advertisements and acccount for the persuasiveness of these ads.

The article is very in-depth and uses academic terminology. It can be accessed via the library catalogue or via the online course guide.

2 comments:

Pretzel said...

Hi madame media,
I really enjoyed your reading review presentation. It was well spoken and was intersting.I would like to find out some more about implied narratives of medical practice!

marble said...

Hi Madame Media
A tough topic to cover but you did it well! I really like the way you broke down the whole reading into logical points and re-worked the complex language, to successfully convey meaning to an audience who has little background knowledge on the subject. This is a design and publication technique in itself and emcompasses issues of genre change including audience, context and purpose. The original reading performed a very different purpose, for a different audience in a different context and your adaptation of it to a presentation suitable for the class was very well done. You clearly understand the concepts and principles behind such a task.