RHETORICAL ANALYSIS ASSIGNMENT
Rhetorical Analysis of Online dating is associated with sex addiction and social anxiety
The modern day rise of the pornography industry and sex work or even the existence of religious restrictions have led to sex addiction among young adults. However, since conversations revolving sex are often seen as taboo or indecent, there are rarely any studies trying to understand which factors cause sex addiction. The article Online dating is associated with sex addiction and social anxiety tackles this topic because they understand that there is a lack of empirical evidence surrounding sex addiction, or even sex itself. The authors use and assess all the previously existing information from articles about sex addiction to add on to their new lens of viewing it through the modern age of smart phone dating app culture. Furthermore, the article expands on mental health, specifically social anxiety, as a factor for sex addiction.
Before understanding the specifics of the writing, it is important to understand the genre and the medium through which the writing is being presented. The genre, which is described as the type of form writing takes place, for Online dating is associated with sex addiction and social anxiety is an article. More specifically, a scientific or peer-reviewed article. This can be proven by seeing that the article has been through four revised manuscripts, the last of which was accepted on July 28, 2018. Another reason for why this is a scientific or peer-reviewed article is because the article consists of multiple authors, multiple references to the other related articles involving sex addiction and how it can support the current article, and the information is focused on the data collection, methodology, the results of experimentation, and even discussion and conclusion based on the results, much like a lab paper. For the medium, which can be described as the way through which the author conveys their writing, is the Journal of Behavioral Addictions. It is important to understand that the Journal of Behavioral Addictions is a scientific community focused on behavioral addictions, and through this, you can understand the audience, because it focused the targeted audience to people who are meant to see this article naturally, like members of the Journal of Behavioral Addictions, unless someone actively looks for it. Thus, it can be interpreted that this article is not necessarily for the average person, despite the information being important for the average person. This can be attributed to the difference in knowledge and information that an average person has compared to members of this scientific community, or any scientific community.
The audience of this article is specific because it is meant to be the science or research community, specifically the science or research community that is focused on sex, sex addiction, social anxiety, psychology, or even someting as broad as human interactions. Even more specifically, considering that the medium is the Journal of Behavioral Addictions, it is only meant to be naturally viewed by scientists who subscribe to this journal. This is an important aspect to understand about this article because it centralizes the way we understand the information in the text; that it is mainly data, references to other scientific studies, or even methodology and experimentation. Since the audience is the science or research community/Journal of Behavioral Addictions community, then that would mean that the authors themselves are also from this community. This is important to understand because it supports the reasons why the authors would choose information and data from existing, related texts to build off and expand upon it for the modern day. Furthermore, it is to create more information surrounding sex addiction, or sex in general, since it is not popular to talk about.
The tone, which is the emotions, feelings an author conveys through their writing, is solely informative and formal. Considering that it is a scientific article, it does not convey any strong emotions within the piece to exclude as much bias as possible. However, it is important to note that bias is evident in every form of media. Therefore, it can be interpreted that, since this article was made for the purpose of exploring sex addiction, it is so that sex addiction can be prevented, thus making the tone of this article persuasive. Since, we understand the tone, it is safe to conclude that the purpose of this writing is to inform and persuade the average person who looks it up and the professional scientist/researcher in the Journal of Behavioral Addictions about the potential effects of both social anxiety and online dating apps to sex addiction. The rhetorical situation, which the discovery made through the article, is that, while the authors decided to see if social anxiety or sensation/thrill seeking led to sex addiction, the conclusion was that sex addiction was more correlated with social anxiety compared to sensation/thrill seeking. This ties in with the purpose of this article since the purpose was to inform and persuade the average person about sex addiction, the rhetorical situation can tell the average person the specific mental health deficiencies that could lead into sex addiction.
The stance, which is the position that the author(s) takes when writing, coincides with the tone and purpose; it is a persuasive piece meant to warn others about the correlations between social anxiety to the behavioral addiction or sex addicition. Scientific articles generally do not openly express a stance, to try to get rid of bias. However, considering that the article was meant to show how social anxiety, which can be common, can lead to a behavioral addiction, it is safe to assume that it was meant to be a warning. Thus, it can be inferred that scientific articles like this one can be used in argumentative pieces in order to bolster a narrative talking about social anxiety and its negative effects. The language also builds off of all the other rhetorical terms; it is formal and scientific, including data, a methods section, a results, a discussions section to discuss the findings from the methods and results sections, and even a conclusion with references to their research in the end. These all add on to the idea that this is a scientific, peer-reviewed article meant to show information about the correlation between sex addiction and mental health.
In conclusion, the article Online dating is associated with sex addiction and social anxiety is a scientific, peer-reviewed article on Journal of Behavioral Addictions made by multiple authors and was meant for a scientific audience. The content was meant to both be informative, but also slightly biased as it is used to inform the intended audience and others who actively looked for the article about the effects of a behavioral addiction like sex addiction and its relation to social anxiety.
Works Cited
Zlot, Yoni et al. “Online dating is associated with sex addiction and social anxiety.” Journal of behavioral addictions vol. 7,3 (2018): 821-826. doi:10.1556/2006.7.2018.66
