The Rebel Sell
What message is being sent?
The beginning of a non-fiction text usually does what it can to attract the receivers’ attention. Here are the illustrations and headlines very important. The most important elements in the story or message are presented first.
Also form and content should correspond in a message. * Specific vocabulary like slang may disturb the focus on the message. * Using too complex words in a text may make it difficult for the receivers to understand it.
A successful message does not make the receiver think about the form. If you are annoyed about the spelling mistakes or strange words you don’t know, the form has tripped up the content of the message.

Illustrations and Headlines
On the front page we see a coffee cup with a picture of Che Guevara. The Coffee cup is a symbol of something everybody has and use, it’s no big deal. But we see that this coffee cup is branded with a man who is a symbol of freedom, though he actually was a very violent man and dictator. The meaning of this simple cup, suddenly has a whole new meaning to it; * We don’t buy the cup because we need it, we buy because it’s branded. * Che Guevara is a symbol of freedom, freedom to buy whatever you want, but his actually not a very good example of freedom, he is a symbol of brainwash.
There is only one headline for our excerpts; * September 2003 marked a turning point...

Here, is the first part of the sentence used as headline. This is something we typical see in non-fiction books. Where you mark the first part as an introduction for the whole chapter. The headline only tells us a little information about what we are about to read; - We get a location and date, for the happening.
As said before; “The most important elements in the story or message are presented first”, our excerpts are build up by nine pages of ‘’Introduction’’ for the whole book. Here, we get background information such as; * The different head characters in the book. * The company names * The conflicts and issues.
We get a presentation of each of the main points, with equivalent information.
Form and Content
The form in our excerpts is in a fine English spelling and language. It’s written in a formal tone with no slang or such thing to disturb the main points and conflicts;
“Founded in 1989, Adbusters is the flagship publication of the culture-jamming movement. They are perhaps best known for having started ‘Buy Nothing Day’, which has since spread to over 55 countries.’’
With this little excerpts, we see a good example of what tone the whole text is written in; they use complex words as “flagship publication” and “culture-jamming”, but it is presented in such way, that we can easily understand it – it doesn’t get too complex.
Then we talk about a successful message;
A successful message does not make the receiver think about the form. If you are annoyed about the spelling mistakes or strange words you don’t know, the form has tripped up the content of the message.
In the “Introduction” the message is clear and understandable. There is no disturbance or too complex words. It’s a good introduction to the rest of the book, filled with information that we are capable of reading.

Overall, is the way the message is being sent; very good.