The text I am going to analyze is a blog’s contribution in “The Economist”. The blog’s name is “Cassandra”: it refers to the name of a prophetess in Greek mythology, whose predictions were true but nobody believed in them. The blog aims to make predictions about the world in 2013, in particular about politics.
The contribution deals with Italian politics and its title is “Mario and Silvio… “. The title introduces the main protagonist of the article (Mario Monti) and the one considered to be his counterpart in the Italian politic scene (Silvio Berlusconi). The three dots leave the reader curious to know more about the topic and pushes him/her to read further. The ideal reader is supposed to know about current Italian politics to understand who “Mario” and “Silvio” are. Anyway, the article is going to give a little information about them.

The body of the article is made up of four paragraphs and a picture. The picture portraits Mario Monti: it helps the reader recognizing who the article is going to deal with. Mr Monti’s smile in the picture contrasts with the difficult situation depicted by the article and it is linked with the idea of a “calm and measured character” as said in the first paragraph.

The first paragraph introduces Mario Monti, his role in Europe and Italy and the blog’s attitude towards him. It also gives a reference about the “political turmoil” that was happening in Italy. The first paragraph depicts Mr Monti as a calm, measured, admiration-worthy man.

This paragraph lays the basis for the second one, that deals with the problems Mr Monti in facing in politics. The question posed by the article is wether Italian voters share with the blogger the same admiration of Mr Monti. The answer of the article in a negative one, and it is supported by the opinions of both another blog in “The Economist” and the “New York Times” itself. The two sources are quoted to give more reliability to the article’s point of view. The article goes on detecting the two main difficulties Mr Monti has to face: the first is Mr Berlusconi (the article refers to him as “a certain Silvio Berlusconi”, but also as “famously not admired”, together with the expression “as ever”. This underlines the negative attitude of the blog towards him and a negative vision of the common Italian political system); the second problem is something Mr Monti himself has written.

The third paragraph is an extract in “The World in 2013” by Mr Monti, dealing with retirement age and pensions. The language used belongs to the specific field of economy.

The fourth paragraph concludes going straight to the main point. It compares the reaction of the Economist’s ideal reader and the medium Italian voter towards Mr Monti’s move: readers of “The Economist” are “sensible” towards his speech and can understand his moves; the medium Italian voter (that represents an “awful lot of voter”) won’t fully understand it, object it and therefore not share the same admiration of the blogger towards Mr Monti.

The structure of the text is very efficient for its purposes: reflecting about the political situation in Italy and the difficulties Mr Monti has to face because of naïve voters. The first paragraph provides the reader with a  positive vision of Mr Monti, the second one proposes a question and the blogger’s answer, supported by reliable sources. The third one provides material to analyze in order to support the blogger’s answer. As said in the fourth paragraph, “you don’t have to be a psychological genius” to understand the effects Mr Monti’s speech is going to have on naïve voters, so the article’s message is simple and clear to understand.