Zulueta, Ryan Bong C.

MA Ed in Literature

ELT502 Structure of English

Dr. C. Mendiola

COHESION AND CONNECTEDNESS IN THREE ONLINE ARTICLES

RATIONALE
Introduction
After the publication of Cohesion in English (1976), the notion of cohesion was
widely accepted as a tool for the analysis of text beyond the sentence level. It was used
not only to characterize text structure, but also to study language development and
written composition. There have been many researches and studies conducted to
determine the behavior of languages in connection to their cohesive components, and
Haliday and Hasans discussion of cohesion has been greatly utilized to formulate ways
of understanding how ideas in a text connect to one another.
It could be said that discourse is more than a random set of utterances for the
reason that is shows connectedness. In his study Cohesion and Coherence: Linguistic
Approaches, T. Sanders (2006) mentioned that a central objective of linguists working
on the discourse level is to characterize this particular connectedness. He added that
linguists have traditionally approached this problem by looking at overt linguistic
elements and structure.
This connectedness can be best seen in terms of Haliday and Hasans (1976)
discussion in their work Cohesion in English. The traditionally accepted cohesive
devices discussed by Haliday and Hasan can be viewed as not just devices for
connectedness, but also as agents of what constitute a text, or what make a text a text.
These cohesive devices reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction, and lexical
cohesion generally contribute to the overall cohesion in a text. Haliday and Hasan
agreed that cohesion occurs when the interpretation of some element in the discourse
is dependent on that of another.
Distinguishing the five cohesive devices defined and explained by Haliday and
Hasan is necessary in the ordeal of this research paper. The first cohesive device,
reference, happens when two linguistic elements are related in what they refer to.
Agnes goes to the ice cream parlor. She often stays there.

The second cohesive device is substitution. It occurs when a linguistic element is not
repeated but is replaced by a substitution item.
Aldwin enjoys eating almond-filled chocolates. He has one every day.

The third cohesive device is ellipsis. This device is present when one of the identical
linguistic elements is omitted.
Every student in the class brought an ice cream today. Lee chose rocky road. Daniel had
vanilla while Mike ate raspberry.

Conjunction is the fourth cohesive device. The use of conjunction is apparent when a
semantic relation is explicitly marked.
Mr. Donovan went to the cafeteria, because he wanted some dessert too.

When two elements share a lexical field, such as what happens in collocation, lexical
cohesion occurs. This is the fifth and final cohesive device described by Haliday and
Hasan.
It was summer. Everyone wanted something that is cold.

Review of Related Literature

There have been many scholarly articles published to aid ones understanding of
how cohesion in the English language works. At best, these articles provide many
insights on how particular concepts about cohesion as presented by Haliday and Hasan
prove to be essential in comprehending the connected in any text.
In T. Sanders Cohesion and Coherence: Linguistic Approaches (2006), he has
discussed the principled difference between two answers to the question how to
account for connectedness of text and discourse? Sanders concluded that while
cohesion seeks the answer in overt textual signals, a coherence approach considers
connectedness to be a cognitive nature. He mentioned that a coherence approach
opens the way to a fruitful interaction between text linguistics, discourse psychology,
and cognitive science but at the same time does not neglect the attention for linguistic
detail characterizing the cohesion approach. He added that the coherence paradigm is
dominant in most recent work on the structure and the processing of discourse. He
summed up his article by saying that it is this type of paradigm, located at the
intersection of linguistics and discourse-processing research, which will lead to
significant progress in the field of discourse studies.
There are many researches done analyzing the cohesion of the English language
in connection to their respective circumstantial undertakings. In E. Hinkels Matters of
Cohesion in L2 Academic Texts (2001), he presented a comparative analysis of median
frequency rates of explicit cohesive devices employed in academic texts of students
who were speakers of such languages as English, Japanese, Korean, Indonesian, and
Arabic. Hinkels main purpose was to determine the specific differences and similarities
in the uses of explicit cohesion devices in a NS (native speaker) and NNS (non-native
speaker) corpus of 897 academic essays totalling 265,812 words.
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Hinkels findings were astounding majorly because he was able to distinguish the
strengths and weaknesses in the linguistic skills of different L2 students. He noted that a
quantitative analysis of common cohesive devices in NS and NNS academic texts
indicates that even advanced NNS students who have completed their ESL and
composition training continue to rely on a restricted repertoire of features in constructing
unified text. His most fascinating finding is having arrived at a result that regardless of
their L1, speakers of Japanese, Korean, Indonesian, and Arabic employ significantly
higher median rates of sentence transitions to establish cohesive textual structure.
Though this is fascinating, Hinkel also noted that the uses of sentence transitions in L2
texts do not necessarily mark a contextualized flow of information when sentence
transitions are intended to identify the meaningful relationship of ideas in discourse.
This is followed by another conclusion that in L2 texts, the preponderance of sentence
transitions often reflects NNS writers attempts to construct a unified idea flow within the
constraints of a limited syntactic and lexical range. Hinkels final recommendation
having arrived at these conclusions is that L2 writing and composition pedagogy needs
to focus not only on the fact that sentence transitions should be used in constructing
cohesive discourse but also on the appropriateness and the pitfalls of using transitions
in academic writing.
A 2005 study done by P. Martinkova titled Means of Coherence and Cohesion in
Spoken and Written Discourse deals with a linguistic experiment which has been
conveyed following the research of coherence and cohesion in authentic written texts
and spoken dialogues and monologues. Martinkovas research aimed to extend
previous similar linguistic elements and to bring more experimental material to compare
results obtained with the means of coherence research. It also aimed to explain basic
principles that make the texts intelligible for their recipients. Her research paid special
attention to the thematic development of texts because she believed that the concept of
thematic progressions proposed by can reveal important cohesive training.
In her research, Martinkova found out that one way to approach propositional
coherence is through theme/ rheme analysis. She considered that demonstrativeness of
spoken and written discourse as an issue. She additionally concluded that her research
demonstrated that thematic progressions play a very important role as means of text
coherence. The research also revealed that almost each of type of thematic
progressions was represented in each of the analysed written and spoken texts. Each
analysed text was coherent, and it was possible to find the thematic progression at a
high level of structure and within one speech as well. Spoken utterances used more
complicated thematic progression and thematic jumps as well (speakers suddenly
started to speak about something different). She finally mentioned that in further
research it would be necessary to deal with spoken texts, as there were still a great
number of questions to be answered.
Another research article that this paper wishes to review is A.H. Ahmeds
Students Problems with Cohesion and Coherence in EFL Essay Writing in Egypt:
Different Perspectives (2010). In his work, Ahmed focused on the organisational
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problems that Egyptian student teachers of English encounter when they write an
English essay. In particular, the study aimed at investigating students cohesion and
coherence problems in EFL essay writing.
Findings of Ahmeds study revealed that Egyptian student teachers of English
experience some coherence and cohesion problems in their English writing. In relation
to coherence problems in their English writing some problems were revealed such as
difficulty writing the introduction, the thesis statement, the topic sentence, writing
concluding sentences and writing the conclusion. In the same vein, university lecturers
reported that their student teachers have difficulty writing the thesis statement, the topic
sentences, transition of ideas, and sequence of ideas.
Many conclusions were addressed by Ahmed in his study. The first one is that
the teaching materials used with Egyptian students should cover a wide range of
cohesion and coherence skills coping with students different proficiency levels. Ahmed
also noted that the teaching techniques adopted by Egyptian essay writing lecturers
should be varied to help meet the needs of students with different abilities. Also he
mentioned that the teaching and learning tasks should be graded and varied to help
students make the most out of them, especially in large classes of different abilities and
skills. Lastly, Ahmed said that the feedback practices employed by the essay writing
lecturers should combine both types of oral and written feedback, be promptly given to
students, be critical and constructive in nature to challenge students and help them
develop the different cohesion and coherence skills.
The last scholastic article that this paper aims to review is the combined work of
C. Hargood, D.E. Miller, and M.J. Weal (2004) of University of Southampton. In
Measuring Narrative Cohesion: A Five Variables Approach, Hargood et al presented a
series of variables for measuring the narrative cohesion of stories that might be used to
get a measure of the effect on cohesion of adaptive presentation of narrative or of the
cohesive qualities of generated narratives. They noted that narrative cohesion goes
beyond linguistic cohesion and includes devices and concepts such as themes and
genre that can be used to unify the elements of a narrative and promote a flow in
storytelling. The researchers identified variables were based upon a combination of
existing research both in cohesion and narrative and existing attempts by systems to
capture the cohesion of a narrative. They had loosely defined their variables using
example features that could be identified within a narrative to demonstrate positive or
negative cohesion within each area. Using two stories from two different narrative
demonstrators, the researchers then provided an example of how their variables might
be applied to evaluate narrative cohesion.
In the conclusion of Hargood et al, they found that while linguistic cohesion is a
key element of a cohesive story, there were other significant concepts that can be used
to bind a story together which may be affected by dynamic presentation or generation of
narrative. While these can be identified from existing work and arguably can be
classified into different variables, measuring these accurately can be difficult in part due
to the subjective nature of identifying the presence of each variable. By identifying
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features for each variable, Harwood et al assumed that one can begin to form a method
where they consider what evidence is present within a narrative to suggest positive or
negative cohesion.
In light of all these reviewed linguistic studies and their respective outcomes by
various writers, this paper aims to analyse a relevant phenomenon to determine
cohesion in the English language. The articles mentioned and discussed above are
examples of how certain challenges in the overall understanding of a particular
discourse are shown and there were follow-ups on how such challenges can be
addressed in the future.

General Objectives
In recent times the social media has grown to a particular height that information
is easily shared, consumed, and absorbed. The proliferation of different social
networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram has transformed not just the
social landscape of human evolution, but also the educational dimension of societies.
Educational curriculums are now patterned, revised, and improved to include recent and
modern changes to be relevant to contemporary students. With the advent of the digital
age, access to information has become a necessary tool to be part of school programs.
Gone are the days in which essays are just primarily written on paper in classrooms.
Now, any work can be submitted online. These written works were not just enhanced by
simple Microsoft programs. These works come in form of blogs, texts, tweets, status
updates, and other digital writing vacuums that somehow are more palatable to the
contemporary students. They become more engaged when a certain school work
directly involves the use of modern computer devices.
In this sense, this paper aims to analyse the cohesion of several essays in the
form of blogs from different internet sites. Not only will this study aim to examine the
contents and structure of these blogs, but it will also try to explain a trend that is
common in these digital essays. Just like the articles discussed in the Review of
Related Literature portion of this paper, these blogs will have their contents analysed
and the presence of cohesion (or the absence of it) in these digital essays will be
deliberated in the discourse of this papers discussion.
Specifically, this study will examine the cohesion devices as described by
Haliday and Hasan that were utilized in the three blogs gathered from different internet
sites. From the use of these cohesion devices (reference, substitution, ellipsis,
conjunction, lexical cohesion), the study will also scrutinize how effective these tools
were used to generate meaning and connectedness in the overall content of the chosen
texts. From there, suggestions about what can be done to improve the quality of blogs
will be given in this study.

METHODOLOGY
Sources of Data
For this study, three blogs from different internet sites are chosen to undergo an
examination using the linguistic lens of cohesion utilization as advocated by Haliday and
Hasan in Cohesion in English. The three blogs are from three different sites. These
blog are published in 2004, 2009, and 2014 respectively. They are written by three
different individuals. The blogs contents are not directly related to one another. They
share a common theme, though. In all these articles, the idea of social media resonates.
Given that each of them is posted and published at a different time, each of the three
blogs talks about a particular issue about social media in accordance to the climate of
the year when the blog was published.
The three blogs are as follow, together with the internet sites where they were
posted or published:
1. The Internet: Good or Bad?, by splotchy, published May 10, 2004 on
fictionpress.com
2. With the advent of Facebook and Twitter, does email marketing matter
anymore?, by Ingrid Riley, published June 11, 2009 on siliconcaribe.com
3. Social media and the perils of looking for 'likes', by Douglas Rushkoff,
published February 18, 2014 on cnn.com

Analysis of Data
Each of the online articles mentioned above is perused. The examination of the
cohesion utilization is as follows:
1. The study identifies whether the five cohesion devices (reference, substitution,
ellipsis, conjunction, and lexical cohesion) are used in each online article.
2. The five cohesion devices used in each online article are enumerated with their
instances in the overall appearance of each text.
3. As each of the five cohesion devices utilized is enumerated, the study ascertains
what effect it has on the overall cohesion of each text.
4. The study then determines whether the cohesion devices used efficiently
contribute to the connectedness of each articles holistic meaning, or the
cohesion devices used do not contribute to the articles connectedness at all.

5. Finally, the study finds if there could be any improvement done to the general
writing of blogs based on the three sample articles scrutinized.
The overall analysis of data will be descriptive and qualitative in nature. The
cohesion devices used in each article will be described, explained, and linked to the
idea of overall cohesion and connectedness.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

Results
It is important to note that the three online articles used in this study are only
thematically related in terms of their discussion about a particular issue in social media.
Each article does not serve as a priori or a posteriori of the other two. They are written
by different individuals and published in different years. If the three online articles share
common features, it is only of the circumstance that the language utilized in each article
is one that is usually utilized in online discussions.

Online Article 1
The Internet: Good or Bad?
by splotchy
Published May 10, 2004, from:
https://www.fictionpress.com/s/1605113/1/The-Internet-Good-or-Bad
The Internet has been regarded as the most evil invention of the century. Do you
agree with this statement? Those born in Singapore might be able to understand
my views better.
The Internet is a marvelous invention that has become part and parcel of
our everyday life. It is a basic requirement for anyone, especially when he or she
is studying or has advanced into the business world. Global communication is an
important thing. We need to know everything that is happening around us or we
will lose touch with the power countries. Without the Internet, we wouldnt be
able to receive news as easily as now. True, there is the invention of the telephone
and facsimile for similar transfer of information, but nothing beats the speed of
the Internet. Just one click of the mouse and the news about Saddam Husseins
capture or WHOs [World Health Organization] latest list of SARS affected
countries would be known to the entire world.
Furthermore, the Internet also brings people closer to each other through
sources such as emails, MSN messenger chats, and even sites like Friendster.
Which also brings me to say that Internet is definitely a big key in terms of
entertainment.
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Parents often grimace when they learn their children are always hanging
out at arcades after school. These are the places where parents wont be able to
keep an eye on them. Why not download some of the games into the computers at
home then? 24 hours of easy accessibility to games and still in the safety and
comfort of home will then be available. Another point worth mentioning is that
the Internet is arguably the most efficient source of information. In this fast
flying world where people can be made or broken in a few seconds because of
computer crashes, the Internet is the place for them to get first hand news, tips
and tricks. Via the Internet, millionaires can buy and sell the right shares at the
right time and turn into overnight billionaires.
Sites like Ebay or Amazon Online also make shopping more convenient
for the self-proclaimed couch potatoes. Teachers planning lessons would also be
affected. Relying wholely on books, newspapers and other forms of media will
take a longer and harder time than surfing the Internet.
Finally, research and development are the skills employers emphasize
nowadays. How much research can be done if we depend only on the ancient
methods of searching for information? Past statistics might be lost to us as there
would be no way to get old news from newspapers unless you dig hard into the
archives. Time is crucial and the Internet solves that variable to achieve
excellence.
In conclusion, I must say that the Internet is definitely not the most evil
information of the century. The Internet is pretty much a non-living thing. It
cant think without a brain. To say its evil, you should be pointing fingers at the
user of the Internet instead.

The first article read and examined is The Internet: Good or Bad?. It is written
and posted by an online blogger under the pseudonym of splotchy. In terms of
discourse analysis, the article is closely examined if its writer used several cohesion
devices to arrive at the overall meaning of the text. The article is posted as an
argumentative essay to answer the query in its title.
This article has seven paragraphs. The first one serves as an introductory
question posted to the bloggers online readers. It describes the Internet as the most
evil invention of the century. splotchy, the blogger then turns his attention to his readers
asking whether the readers agree with his previous statement.
To begin with the analysis of the articles use of cohesion devices, the article
contains all five of them. The article contains a number of reference, ellipsis,
conjunction, and lexical cohesion. Here are some of the linguistic elements used for
cohesion devices in the second paragraph of the article:
Reference

our, we, us exophora to humans

it anaphora to Internet
he, she anaphora to anyone
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Substitution
True (to It is true)
Ellipsis
Conjunction or for additive
when for causal
and for additive
part parcel (synonym)
Lexical
life world global (collocation)
Cohesion
telephone facsimile (collocation)
It is noteworthy that substitution is not utilized in the second paragraph of the
article. Haliday and Hasan have clustered substitution and ellipsis as similar and related
cohesion devices with very few differences. They function in the same manner that
reference does. All these three cohesion devices possess grammatical features in
formation and use.
The second paragraph of the article heavily uses the pronouns our, we, and us to
refer to the first person relation of the blogger as an identification with the readers as
fellow humans subscribing to Internet services. This kind of exophora is very common in
internet blogs, most especially in question-and-answer dialogues in several internet
sites. The writer also refers to himself in the other paragraphs using personal pronouns
like me and I. The remaining paragraphs of the article basically use anaphoric
references to ideas mentioned in each paragraphs topic sentence. Some examples of
these are people in reference to other, they to parents, them to children,
The use of ellipsis and substitution is also very apparent in some of the writers
key ideas. In the sentence, Why not download some of the games in the computers at
home then? There is an omitted idea in this question. Then what would be the probable
element deleted whatever the idea is in that question. The word Which in the last
sentence of the third paragraph is a substitution for the idea stated in the paragraphs
first sentence. The last paragraph also uses the word variable to substitute for the idea
of time.
The writer of the blog employs basic conjunctions such as and, or, and when to
provide additional information, and cause-and-effect relationships. This can be
considered as a very elementary way of maximizing the use of conjunctions to achieve
cohesion. It is almost accidental in essence. Throughout the whole article, the use of
conjunctions is primarily for additive and causal functions only. In the articles
succeeding paragraphs, furthermore is used to provide an additional example to support
the writers previous claim. These conjunctions are used to expound the basic argument
that the writer posted in his essay. The conjunctions finally and in conclusion are also
made use by the writer to drive a particular point in his essay.
The lexical cohesion elements used in the table above are examples of repetition
and collocation that the writer included to connect and refer to ideas in the text that
could be similar or contrastive. The remaining paragraphs contain such lexical
cohesion. The terms made and broken are used in the fourth paragraph to collocate the
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relationship between something constructive and destructive. Additionally, place is used

as a general word for both previously mentioned terms home and Internet. Buy and sell
are another collocation used to show a particular action of individuals who have money.
The terms millionaires and billionaires also share some degree of collocation. The terms
convenient and coach potatoes obviously share some collocated qualities, so do the
terms teachers and lessons. The terms books and newspapers are explicit repetitive
examples to refer to forms of media. In the last paragraph, the term archives shares an
affinity with the lexical cohesion of the word newspapers.
Overall, the writer of the first online article made use of certain cohesion devices
to strap his ideas together. If one will ask, Is there a certain level of connectedness and
cohesion in the text?, the answer would be, Yes, there is. To a certain extent, online
blogger splotchy utilized these cohesion devices to point out that the Internet could be
both a good and bad thing for its users. On some level, he was successful in being
reader-friendly in his writing because most of his ideas automatically connect with one
another.
Online Article 2
With the advent of Facebook and Twitter, does email marketing
matter anymore?
by Ingrid Riley
Published June 11, 2009, from:
http://www.siliconcaribe.com/2009/06/11/with-the-advent-of-facebook-andtwitter-does-email-marketing-matter-anymore/
Does the fact that you can create a Fan Page, a group for your company, cafe or
event, especially on social media sites like Facebook helping to make email
marketing irrelevant?
How email marketing typically works
The success of email marketing is based on permission, you can ask and receive
permission from people who visit your website, store or event to give you their
names and email addresses, so you can keep in contact with them. With them
saying yes and signing up via an email capture form on your site or writing in a
book, you now have permission to keep them informed about sales, new
product/services and upcoming events. A relationship has been formed. You are
expecting to send them information, they are expecting to hear from you. To
email them, you may choose to use services such as mailbuild.com which has a
charge however minimal or you can use local email marketing providers like one
in Jamaica, Jamaicalifestyle.com and they charge US$100 to push your message
to their mailing list. There are many others who just use their free email from
yahoo or gmail, load up their tens, or hundreds of email addresses and click
send.Hey its free, and there isnt a need to know if the email bounced or is still

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valid, was opened, clicked or passed along-features a paid service like

mailbuild.com gives. BUT.
And now there is Facebook,Twitter
With the advent of social networking sites and facilities like Facebook and
Twitter, this enables you to build a list of interested fans, followers and group
members. Here again they have decided to come a fan, to follow you, to become a
member of your group. Again a relationship has been formed. At this time
Facebook and Twitter is free to send messages to your Fans, to group members
and to followers. They have gone further and are now offering you the same
features as some email marketing services providers do-information on who your
fans, group members and followers are via e.g. Facebooks insights feature which
culls demographic and geolocation data. Very valuable.
So given where we are coming from email lists and email marketing service
providers to now the social web and its features of building fans and followers, is
email marketing on a slippery slope to becoming irrelevant?

The second article to be examined is Ingrid Rileys With the advent of Facebook
and Twitter, does email marketing matter anymore?. Published in 2009, this article talks
about the impending obsoleteness of email marketing. This is a topic that is largely
consumerist and commercial in nature. This article only contains four paragraphs with
two subtitles separating the first two paragraphs from the last two.
It is impressive to take note that this second article uses the pronoun you as a
reference to the online readers substantially in the whole article. As an exophoric
reference, the use of you simply gives the notion that online articles will directly involve
their readers with the understanding that their content has something to do with who
reads them.
Take note that the following sentences significantly use the pronouns you and
your a number of times:
1. Does the fact that you can create a Fan Page, a group for your company, cafe
or event, especially on social media sites like Facebook helping to make email
marketing irrelevant?
2. The success of email marketing is based on permission, you can ask and
receive permission from people who visit your website, store or event to give you
their names and email addresses, so you can keep in contact with them.
3. With the advent of social networking sites and facilities like Facebook and
Twitter, this enables you to build a list of interested fans, followers and group
members.

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The use of reference is significant in this article for its involvement of the reader
in its context. With using you a number of times, Riley made sure that her point that the
issue raised in the article considerably concerns her readers. It is like she is having a
dialogue with them.
In addition to other reference elements employed in Rileys article, the pronouns
them and they are also employed many times in reference to people. These are used to
create a two-way involvement between you who are the online readers and them and
they who are the people who manipulate and control sites like Facebook and Twitter,
and others.
The pronoun we is used in the final paragraph of the article to refer to both Riley
herself and her affinity with the online readers. In terms of connectedness and cohesion,
Riley has made sure to inform her readers, that she is also part of the online consumers
who subscribe to internet services providers.
Just like the first article, this second one made use of very little substitution and
ellipsis elements. The reason behind this in the second article may be attributed to the
fact that Riley patterned her essay in a way that it will always repeat the points that she
has previously stated without substituting terms or even omitting them.
In a similar fashion, the use of conjunctive tools is also scarce in this second
article. The only major conjunctions used by Riley are so, but, and again. So is used by
Riley in the article in the very last paragraph to create one conclusive causal point to tie
up the overall idea of her text. The article but is also used by Riley once to aid a
transitional point after the second paragraph to create a good adversative point dealing
with the difference of email marketers and Facebook and Twitter developers.
In terms of lexical cohesion, Riley profoundly used repetition to drive her point.
One can notice how the word permission was used thrice in the articles second
paragraph. The term email, with its lack of organic synonym has been used seven times
in reference to the words verbal and adjectival functions. Some of the other terms that
were repeated are marketing, expecting, and addresses. The reason behind this might
be similar to that of the repetition of the word email. There may be a few terms to
rename such words.
Some collocated terms are also used in the article. One can notice the
successive use of collocations in the following terms:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

ask receive
sales new product/services
message mailing
tens hundreds
fans followers group members
demographic geolocation

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Each of these pairs/ trios is used in a single sentence, connoting the immediate
relationship between and among their linguistic features.
As a whole, the second article is easier to read for its use of plenty of repetitions
and collocations. The limited reference and substitution also contribute to the smooth
comprehension of the second article. There are only a few things in the online article
that need to be taken into account in terms of determining its meaning. In terms of
cohesion, the article has utilized a few cohesion features. In terms of connectedness,
one can see that the ideas also connect in a very simple manner. Rileys article
provides such ease that one would not find difficulty in what she meant to say in it.
Online Article 3
Social media and the perils of looking for 'likes'
by Douglas Rushkoff
Published Ferbruary 18, 2014, from:
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/02/18/opinion/rushkoff-social-media-likes/
Editor's note: Douglas Rushkoff writes a regular column for CNN.com. He is
a media theorist, the author of the book, "Present Shock: When everything
happens now" and correspondent on a Frontline documentary "Generation
Like" being shown on PBS beginning February 18.
(CNN) -- Ask teens the object of social media, and they'll all tell you the same
thing: to get "likes." Whether on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Tumblr, young
users understand the coin of this realm, and are more than happy to do what is
necessary to accumulate it. But is the currency value neutral, or does it come with
an agenda of its own?
Living for likes makes a teen's social career a whole lot easier, in some respects.
Now there's a number letting kids know how popular they are, how well a photo
is resonating with their friends, or whether their video stands a chance of vaulting
them into the professional world of singing, skateboarding or twerking.
What they may not understand, however, is that this game of likes is not taking
place on a level playing field. It was constructed by companies whose
multibillion-dollar stock valuations are depending on little more than generating
traffic -- more likes, follows and favorites -- and then selling the data that can be
gleaned from it.
In a sense, major parts of our economy (or at least the inflated valuations on the
NASDAQ exchange) are now depending on the social media activity of kids. I'm
not sure that's a pressure worth putting on them.
On the surface, it all looks pretty empowering. For the MTV generation, changing
the channel via remote control was about as interactive as mainstream media got
-- and that only brought a kid from one corporate media conglomerate's
commercial programming to another's.
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Clearly, the social media universe, with its countless Facebook pages, YouTube
channels, Twitter feeds and Instagram photos, offers a whole lot more choice.
Instead of watching a TV channel, today's teens get to watch each other. That in
itself amounts to power, freedom and agency, right?
Maybe. For while all these clicks and keystrokes and photos and videos may be
free, they come with a price. Kids aren't paying with money, but with their
attention and their hours of meticulous profile tweaking. They're paying with
their likes, their favorites, and their follows. And they get paid back with a new
path to popularity or even fame.
Sometimes, the exchange is explicit. Brands from soft drinks to automobiles ask
kids to like an ad or promotion, all for the chance to be liked back or re-tweeted
by the brand to its millions of followers. The teen gets more of those coveted
likes. The companies get a real-time portrait of their potential customers and
influencers, as well as all their friends.
And this isn't just some virtual game. Likes really do matter out here in the real
world, too. New musicians and new writers alike must demonstrate that they
have social media followings in order to find distribution and sponsors.
A new kind of talent agency, The Audience, has arisen to help young up-andcomers cultivate a social media presence, and then sell that network of followers
to the appropriate advertisers.
It's actually a science. Thanks to the immense data pools created by social media
users, a firm like The Audience can find the overlaps between fans of a certain
pop star and those who have interacted with particular brands. That little venn
diagram is marketer's gold. And, to be fair, The Audience is helping young
musicians build careers in a landscape where there are no record labels left
willing to develop talent -- and no one buying music, anymore, anyway. By
pairing talent with sponsors, The Audience creates a new revenue stream for
artists, or at least the ones with the most viewed selfies.
But it does create an oddly circular culture: Kids develop social media audiences
in order to become "stars," which really just means having enough social media
followers to sell out to a brand for sponsorship. Perhaps more amazingly, none of
them seem to mind. When I asked kids what they thought about "selling out" for
my PBS documentary on social media, none of them could even tell me what
"selling out" meant. They thought it had something to do with there not being any
tickets left for a concert.
The language barrier aside, young social media users today draw no distinction
between art and commerce, culture and advertising. While kids engaged with
social media have the ability to express themselves and their values to pretty
much the rest of the developed world, they seem unaware of the extent to which
these platforms shape the values they choose to express.
As I learned from a 13-year-old skateboarder who calls himself Baby Scumbag,
you get fewer likes for making videos of board tricks than you do for getting
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gorgeous girls to pose for you in the near nude, or just doing crazy antics in the
street. He's a massive success on YouTube, where his videos often generate more
than a million views.
Another teenager, a girl from near San Diego, started making videos of herself
singing, but is quickly learning that shots of her in her bedroom, or full body, or
in a bathing suit, get her more attention. Her videos no longer include her vocals.
That's the part I don't think most teens grasp. Nor do most adults have enough of
a handle on this whole social media universe to fully articulate our misgivings.
We know something is amiss, but saying it out loud feels so, well, out of touch.
The reality here, however, is that it's our young social media users who are out of
touch -- or at least painfully oblivious to the way the tools and platforms they're
using in turn use them. They grew up with this stuff in their lives, and they accept
these tools at face value, as features of the natural landscape. Not so. They were
made by companies whose interests go far beyond helping kids express
themselves and make friends. Our kids are not the customers here; they are both
the product and the unwitting labor.
Our social media platforms are embedded with values that shape our perspectives
and our behaviors. If we live in the social media landscape without an awareness
of what it really wants from us, no one is really being empowered at all.

In terms of length, the article by Rushkoff is the longest. With eighteen

paragraphs, Social media and the perils of looking for 'likes' successfully discusses the
very contemporary issue of the disadvantage position that kids nowadays have put
themselves in just to be socially accepted. Of the three articles used as variables/
examples in this study, this third article is the one that is written in efficient scholarly
manner.
Fundamentally, the third article started in the same fashion that the second
article did. It made use of the pronoun you as a reference to the online reader of the
article. Rushkoff made sure to address the issue of his article directly involving the
online readers as immediate affected party of the social media concern that he tackled.
He also, very early in his article, made use of the conjunctions but and or to present an
adversarial point about the advantages and disadvantages of the advent of sites like
Facebook and Twitter. Aside from that, it is very evident that Rushkoff made use of the
pronouns I, me, my, we, and our all throughout the article to establish the atmosphere
that he is also part of the issue, basically the one primarily discussing it.
In terms of reference, a number of linguistic elements in the article are employed
by Rushkoff to create a balanced reference to his ideas. Here are some of the reference
elements used:
1. it currency value
2. they, their kids
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3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

it game
those companies
its social media universe
they musicians, writers
their companies
he skateboarder
herself girl
they social media users

All the references enumerated above are cataphoric. They easily connect the
ideas for a smooth flow of understanding. Rushkoff is successful in this regard in
establishing connections between and among his ideas.
If the article will be analysed paragraph by paragraph, one will notice that more
than one cohesion device is employed to contribute to the comprehensive idea of the
article. Many tools for substitution and ellipsis are also employed in the article to arrive
at a point to make sure certain terms arent simply repeated.
The number of conjunction is also of great importance to note in the article. Aside
from the but and or in the first paragraph, many other conjunctions are used throughout
the article. Some of these conjunctions are as the following:
1. Now there's a number letting kids know how popular they are, how well a photo
is resonating with their friends, or whether their video stands a chance of
vaulting them into the professional world of singing, skateboarding or twerking.
2. What they may not understand, however, is that this game of likes is not taking
place on a level playing field.
3. In a sense, major parts of our economy (or at least the inflated valuations on the
NASDAQ exchange) are now depending on the social media activity of kids.
4. And they get paid back with a new path to popularity or even fame.
5. Sometimes, the exchange is explicit.
6. And this isn't just some virtual game.
The use of these conjunctions obviously contributes to the overall meaning of the
text. The connectedness established in the text is greatly enhanced by the presence of
the additive and adversarial functions of such conjunctions. Essentially, these
conjunctions create very good transitions between and among paragraphs. They do not
only serve as ties for transitional purposes, but they also serve as marks for the readers
to pause when a particular minor point is given.

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In terms of lexical cohesion, Rushkoff employed a handful of terms that fall under
either repetition or cohesion. The following table shows some examples of these
linguistic elements.
Repetition
coin currency value
economy inflated valuations
corporate commercial
price money
popularity fame
ad promotion
customers influencers
likes followings
star talent artists
tricks antics
articulate saying
tools platforms

Collocation
photo video
game playing field
likes follows favorites
channel remote control
clicks keystrokes
meticulous tweaking
virtual real
distribution sponsors
star talent
musicians music
art culture
commerce advertising
teens adults
product labor
values perspectives behaviors

It is very important to note that these lexical cohesion elements that are found
throughout the Rushkoffs article contribute to the wholeness of the texts. With these
terms, major points about the writers theme in his article are greatly elaborated. These
are terms that effectively portray the deceptive glory found in social media subscription.
It should be taken into account that Rushkoff is an editorialist; so much of his work
would espouse very sharp commentaries that can be very resonating to the readers.
Among the three articles used and examined in this study, this one written by
Rushkoff is the one with the most effective use of cohesive devices. It is generally
agreeable that the cohesion devices employed in this article are richly and substantially
used to contribute to the thematic point of the writer in his opinion about a particular
social media issue. The level of connectedness and cohesion that is present in his
expository is somehow an ideal one for a cohesive and coherent editorial article.

Conclusions
This study can only arrive at a few conclusions in terms of its arduous process of
examining three online articles and their cohesion and connectedness.
1. The involvement of the writers in online articles or blog is necessarily personal.
Much like nonfiction, an online article dealing with a particular subject matter
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would tend to have a very personal note coming from its writer. This was greatly
shown in all the three articles examined in this study.
2. The brevity of an online article contributes to its less utilization of ellipsis and
substitution as cohesion devices. It is highly noticeable that the three online
articles examined in this study made use of the aforementioned cohesion devices
the least. The three articles made substantial of use of reference and lexical
cohesion. Both the first and the third article also have a substantial amount of
conjunctions utilized in their respects. The manner in which substitution and
ellipsis are left out is a case of mishap for these two cohesive devices are also
very effective tools to show connectedness and cohesion.
3. As an educational suggestion, there should be a great inclusion of all five
cohesive devices in writing an online article. These articles are very
contemporary. The landscape of writing is continuously expanding with the
advent of the digital age. Much attention should be given in the further creation of
many forms of media that are consumed online. There are many other online
articles that do not have the same level of connectedness and cohesion as the
ones used in this study. It will be a great effort to devote time for developing
certain guidelines on how to draft, write, edit, and publish articles online,
especially the ones that are considered blogs.

References
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Halliday, M.A.K and Hasan. R. Cohesion in English. London: Longman, 1976
Hinkel, E. Matters of Cohesion in L2 Academic Texts. Applied Language Learning, Vol.
12, No. 2, pp. 111-132. Seattle: Seattle University Press, 2001.
Martinkova, P. Means of Coherence and Cohesion in Spoken and Written Discourse.
Prague, 2012.
Sanders, T. Cohesion and Coherence: Linguistic Approaches. Utrecht: Utrecht
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Sargood, H. et al. Measuring Narrative Cohesion: A Five Variables Approach.
Southampton: University of Southampton Press: 2004.

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