Critical Reading Final 2

After reading the article on Image busters by Todd Gitlin you will see that the author provided the best argument. The Authors purpose in this article was made clear and supported by the evidence. The author’s purpose was to educate the reader on the severity of who is to blame for the amount of violence in society today and is it to blame on television. TV is being called a “major determinant” regarding media violence. The author is matter of fact and provides support in the majority of his statements. The premises of this article are on if television contributes to the violence in our society today. When reading this article it gives you a lot of insight on how the media can contribute to a lot of violence on the street. The author states in the conclusion that, for that matter the drug epidemic, the crisis of the family and the shortage of serious jobs that the image busting campaigns permit without having to take on specific associations. The author seems to have a mutual bias in this article he seems to support his facts with evidence but at the same time also justifies how television shows could not be to blame for all the violence in America. He seems to be open minded and take all of the facts into consideration when writing this article. This gives the reader a fair shot at making up their own decision by having information on both sides of the story. After reading Imagebusters the article has some assumptions from the author such as he states in his first sentence that “ I consider Hollywood’s slashes, splatters, chain saws and car crashes a disgrace, a degradation of culture and a wound to the souls of producers and consumers alike. He also gives a conservative argument in paragraph six by saying that our culture looks to violence to resolve conflicts, and parental authority so the author is giving a broad range of things that actually could be contributing to the violence in America today. A metaphor is used to describe how today’s censorious forces smell smoke; it is not in the absence of fire and again in paragraph five by saying a child who shoves another child after watching a fistfight on television is not committing a drive by shooting. Todd Gitlin uses a couple different forms of fallacies in his article. You will find in the paragraph two shows a hasty generalization that says that the Senator and Attorney General against violence on television are only cheap shots. Then if you read onto paragraph three there are bandwagon techniques that show two other authority type figures have signed on to the traditional pastime. This article does also use some cross clarification when presenting its facts by stating that television is to blame for the violence then going on to say it is caused by other actions such as parenting and authority such as in paragraph nine. After reading and reviewing again the article IMAGEBUSTERS I am still in the middle on whether I think that television is a factor in the violence in society today. The author made very good points and did not have a bias in this article because he was able to provide information from both points of view. With having to young children I do not feel it is in their best interest to watch violence on TV or movies but at the same time it is so common on television and even in cartoons that it is impossible to prevent them from seeing it. I agree with the author on parenting and authority at the end of the day you are the main example and role model in your child’s eyes and by teaching them right and wrong and by them having a understanding of what is right and wrong will help them to see that violence is not the answer and does not solve problems. Overall this was a great article it covered many points of views and made me as the reader consider different scenarios of why or how violence is interpreted today and what is the cause and who is to actually blame. I feel out of the two articles this one carried the best argument because in the first article “TV ISNT VIOLENT ENOUGH” by Mike Oppenheim the author seems to already have a bias and provides a lot of information and to me it was kind of misleading because it went into detail about stabbing and arteries and was kind of all over the place. Todd Gitlin did a better job in organizing his thoughts and supplying significant support and was open minded in his article leaving it to the reader to decide what their thoughts where on the subject.