Analysis Of The Article Zombies-A Pop Culture Resource For Public Health

In their article “ Zombies - A Pop Culture Resource For Public Health Awareness” (2013) Melissa Nasiruddin, Monique Halabi, Alexander Doa, Kyle Chen, and Brandon Brown identify how Zombies serve as a means of educating the public on health concerns like disease or disasters through various media outlets, particularly television and movies. The authors first develop their claim by providing a historical context into the creation of zombies as well as their incorporation into popular culture. The authors then discuss how zombies are an ideal opportunity for increasing awareness of public health issues by drawing parallels between the zombies in pop culture and former Public health issues. This is then proven by psychological reasoning and real-world

The authors have many clear purposes for writing this article: they are informing the readers that zombies have many purposes other than entertainment, and expressing the idea that zombies are a symbolic representation of infectious diseases. The authors' main focus is to debunk the idea that zombies are utilized solely as a form of entertainment. This can be seen when Nasiruddin et al. (2013) talk about the CDC question as to what type of disaster people were prepared stating “ several persons showed interest in preparing for a catastrophic zombie attack These responses were most likely meant to be facetious, but they demonstrated the prominence of zombies in popular culture and their utility for

also utilize traditional rhetorical appeals like Ethos in their use of plain language and logos in their presentation of evidence in a logical manner to build the claims of the article. For example, when the authors finish their introduction they state “This article explores the utility of zombies to capitalize on the benefits of spreading public health awareness through the use of relatable popular culture tools and scientific explanations for fiction phenomena” (Nasiruddin et al. 2013 pg. 809). By clearly stating what the article entails the authors break down a barrier of misunderstanding between them and us as the readers. Reducing the chances their article would be misunderstood and Nasiruddin et al. can spend more time focusing on the details of their argument rather than focusing on what their argument entails. The authors develop logos similarly to how they developed ethos, by using a sequential order to present and then explain their evidence it makes a simple and easy format for the reader to follow. For instance, Nasiruddin et al. (2013) present the evidence “Zombies' popularity may be perfect to increase awareness of rabies” (pg. 810). the authors then go on to highlight several similarities between the zombies and rabies, By introducing the evidence they are about to explain the reader has a clear understanding of the topic and makes it simple to follow. Strengthening their argument by spending less time on what their evidence is and