In response to these two articles discussing the effect of television, there are clearly two ends of the spectrum. On the one hand you have the conservative Steven Johnson claiming T.V. is "nourishing" the mind. On the other hand you have the more liberal Dana Stevens arguing most of Johnson's points to be "deeply, hilariously bogus" with several criticisms.
I have several comments regarding Johnson's article, Watching TV Makes You Smarter, that I would like to emphasize. Johnson's example of the dialogue in ER is a good description of engaging dialogue that makes the viewer think about the storyline. This argument makes sense to me as the more engaging and complex the "threading" is in these stories, a more intuitive approach the viewer can take from the experience. Other portions of Johnson's article appear to be somewhat ridiculous. For example, the graphs of threading in modern television shows depicted by shaded squares in a coordinate plane (graph). These arbitrary graphs do little to reinforce the author's point and have little explanation as to how these graphs were conceived. Overall, Johnson's article seems to point out some advancements in the television content explained today, but generally does not prove the point that TV actually makes you smarter. His article also seemed to drag on, and towards that latter parts of the article, stagnated a bit.
Dana Stevens' response to Johnson's article, Thinking Outside The Idiot Box, aims at tearing down Johnson's argument. For the most part, from a literary perspective, I find Stevens' article to be more convincing. She criticizes Johnson for failing to address the racial profiling and torture depicted in "24", which seems to be a valid point. I particularly like the stance she takes against the anti-tv puritan groups. To my understanding, she finds it hard to sympathize with a group of people that is actually promoting a remote control that can deactivate most public televisions. In my opinion, no one has the right or authority to go into a public place and tamper with commercial products, (a t.v. in an airport for example) just because you feel strongly about the issue! I think that it is absolutely ridiculous, I can just picture some angry disgruntled parent walking into a bar and switching off monday night football because they felt the need to be righteous today.
Stevens' conclusion is most convincing for me, "But shouldn't grown men and women be trusted to judge their own dosages, just as they would decide on the number of drinks they can handle at the bar?" Grown men and women can make the judgements about how much t.v. they should or should not be watching, its a simple as that. I find Stevens' article to be most convincing of the two articles. Her article seems to better written and developed as a piece of literature. She also conveys an open minded response in between the two extremes of anti/pro t.v, while limiting the length of the article to maximize its effectiveness.
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I wholeheartedly agree with your point. Personal responsibility cannot simply be forgotten, by adults least of all.
ReplyDeleteI agree that turning off public TVs is ridiculous. Not everybody is going to share the same view points on television viewing, but nobody has the right to just decide for everyone in a public place that the TV should go off.
ReplyDeleteBut should we blame children for being influenced by commercials from Fast food restaurants? or commercials of women posing pretty much naked in Victoria secret adds? Parents can't control the little t.v ads that slip by but, I think that if a program that is shown in a public area is obviously offensive, then the parent has the right to switch it off. If my family was sitting in a waiting room at the dentists office and there was Jerry Springer on or something, I think it would be definitely okay to switch it off! Especially since there are children around.
ReplyDeleteThis point could be argued for the sake of children, but typically public areas will not be showing offensive shows, such as Jerry Springer, because it could hurt the business that owns the television. Also, the business is the owner of the television, and should have the right to operate it as it sees fit. If you owned the establishment would you want every other person disabling you're equipment as they saw fit?
ReplyDeleteJohnson's first name is Steven, and Dana's last name is Stevens. You said that you find Steven's argument more convincing, which would be Johnsons. If you mean Dana's, you might want to change Steven's to the plural form of Stevens. I don't mean to be nitpicky :) I agree with your point that watching TV should be about personal judgement, though, and the part about a parent with the need to feel righteous that day made me smile.
ReplyDelete--christina g
You're definitely right about that Christina. Thanks for pointing that out. I didn't realize that her last name ended in an s while I was writing this. I'll edit this. Yes, a parent should be able to assess how much or little tv they should be watching, if not they have much greater problems on their hands. Children I think are the ones that may have problems monitoring these activities.
ReplyDelete