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Sunday, February 26, 2006

Media Literacy

source: Media Literacy Education, Center for Media Literacy, developed and written by Elizabeth Thoman (founder) and Tessa Jolls (President/CEO)

Five Key Questions

“Who created this message?”

“What techniques are used to attract my attention?”

“How might different people understand this message differently from me?”

“What lifestyles, values and points of view are represented in, or omitted by from, this message?”

“Why was this message sent?”

Five Core Concepts

“All media messages are constructed.”

“Media messages are constructed using a creative language with its own rules.”

“Different people experience the same message differently.”

“Media have embedded values and points of view.”

“Media messages are constructed to gain profit and/or power.”


Are you satisfied with this interpretation of “mass media”? What are its strengths and weakness?

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Nineoneone.

The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (Official Government Edition)

Summary and related links at Reference.com

Conspiracy Theory (Check out the external links at the end too.)

You should evaluate (for yourselves) the strengths and weaknesses of conspiracy theories: should you believe them? why?

Top Ten Conspiracy Theories of 2002: The year following the Sept. 11 attacks has seen a staggering proliferation of conspiracy theories — some alarming, some intriguing, and many just plain wacky.

the fifth estate: Conspiracy Theories: Uncovering the facts behind the myths September 11th 2001.

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) News: the fifth estate.

CBC News: the fifth estate (article on Wikipedia)

(If the the “fourth estate” is the news media, and the mass media in general, what are the implications of having a “fifth estate”?)

(What effect is intended by insisting “the fifth estate” be spelled in lower case?)

The Fifth Estate: “an anti-authoritarian magazine of ideas and action”

(The website calls itself “anti-authoritarian”; Wikipedia calls it “anarchist” — what is the difference?)

Thursday, February 23, 2006

Why surprise exams are impossible.

A teacher announces to his class that he will hold a “surprise” exam on exactly one of the five days (Monday to Friday) of the next school week. The exam will be a “surprise” (the teacher goes on to explicate) in the sense that the students will not know the day of the exam until that day arrives.

Most of the students sigh and resign themselves to a weekend of studying. But one clever student argues instead that what the teacher says is impossible. “No such surprise exam can take place!”, he exclaims, offering the following reasons:

“Clearly, the exam cannot be held on Friday (the last day of the school week), because, if it were held on Friday, then we would know about this by the end of Thursday, seeing that no exam had yet been held, and only one day was left. But the teacher said that we would not know the day of the exam until that day itself. This shows that the exam cannot take place on Friday.

“But in that case, the exam cannot be held on Thursday either! For if it were held on Thursday, then we would know about this by the end of Wednesday, seeing that no exam had yet been held and only two days (Thursday and Friday) were left, but we have already ruled out Friday! But the teacher said that we would not know the day of the exam until that day itself. This shows that the exam will not take place on Thursday either.

“The exam cannot be held on Wednesday either, because by the end of Tuesday we will know that the exam must be on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday; but having already eliminated Thursday and Friday, the exam must be on Wednesday. The exam therefore cannot be on Wednesday.

“Tuesday seems the most promising and probable day, but in truth it is also impossible to hold the exam on Tuesday, as by Monday evening we will have safely dismissed the possibility that it will be on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday; leading us to conclude on Sunday night that Monday must be the exam, from which conclusion we therefore infer that the exam cannot be on Monday.

“As you can see, it is not allowable by the laws of the logical universe to have a surprise exam next week. Quod erat demonstratum”

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

SHORT PROJECT

SHORT PROJECT
Power of the Press: Using Confidential Sources
Considering Current and Historic Examples

Nineteenth-century historian Thomas Carlyle referred to the British Parliament’s reporters’ gallery as the fourth estate. He was describing the power of the written word in fulfilling the important role of guarding democracy and defending public interest. There is no question that the press is still a powerful entity in modern American society. Some argue that the American media have truly become the fourth branch of government, keeping the executive, legislative, and judicial branches in check. Others are concerned that the press has become too self-important and now undermines the efficacy of the government when, among its many practices, it withholds sources.

This is a great topic for debate and discussion. You will prepare for it by assessing instances in which journalists have relied upon government sources and how important it was to their reporting to keep their sources’ identities confidential.

In your groups, check out the one of the following sources:


1) Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s reliance on Deep Throat as a confidential source in reporting on the Watergate scandal U.S.News & World Report, “Out of the Shadows” (June 13, 2005) <<http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/050613/13deep.htm>>

2) New York Times reporter Judith Miller’s refusal to name the source who revealed the identity of undercover CIA agent Valeria Plame
U.S.News & World Report, “Jail Time Likely for Journalists” (June 27, 2005) <<http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/050627/27miller.htm>>
U.S.News & World Report, “A Murky Case Takes a Bizarre Twist” (July 18, 2005) <<http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/050718/18press.htm>>

3) New York Times reporter Tim Golden’s reliance upon confirmed and named sources in reporting on the treatment of Guantánamo Bay detainees
Columbia Journalism Review, “Tim Golden on Digging Deep, Timing, and Sourcing” (May 27, 2005) <http://www.cjrdaily.org/archives/001553.asp>


Questions you should be answering in your presentation


 What was the story the journalist(s) was (were) reporting?
 Why did the journalist(s) rely upon government sources to complete the story?
 How did the journalist(s) treat the sources? Why?
 How important was the treatment of sources to the public response to the story?
 What was the official government response to the story?
 Do students agree or disagree with the reporters’ decisions regarding how they handled their sources?

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Monday, February 20, 2006



What do you think is to the right of the photo, outside the photo?


AlterNet.

What AlterNet claims to do.

Some criticism of AlterNet.

On blogging.

"Everyone should have a blog. It's the most democratic thing ever."

I liked Butterworth's distinction between "the pornography of opinion" on blogs and the "eroticism of fact" of good writing. (In that vein, I suppose GP teaches you how to be seductive.)

But you might think, as Karl Marx has thought, c’est magnifique, mais c’est ne pas la guerre. Yes, writing essays about world issues does not eventually solve them; but before you do anything, talking about, in the spirit of open debate, tends to minimize risk of stupid mistakes.

(One should not, however, dignify "flaming" with the label of "open debate".)

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Reading material for 22 Feb 06

LOVE IS A FALLACY

Max Shulman (1919 – 1988)

Cool was I and logical. Keen, calculating, perspicacious, acute—I was all of these. My brain was as powerful as a dynamo, as a chemist’s scales, as penetrating as a scalpel. And—think of it!—I was only eighteen.
      It is not often that one so young has such a giant intellect. Take, for example, Petey Burch my roommate at the University of Minnesota. Same age, same background, but dumb as an ox. A nice enough fellow, you understand, but nothing upstairs. Emotional type. Unstable. Impressionable. Worst of all, a faddist. Fads, I submit, are the very negation of reason. To be swept up in every new craze that comes along, to surrender oneself to idiocy just because everybody else is doing it—this to me, is the acme of mindlessness. Not, however, to Petey.
      One afternoon I found Petey lying on his bed with an expression of such distress on his face that I immediately diagnosed appendicitis. “Don’t move,” I said, “Don’t take a laxative. I'll get a doctor.”
       “Raccoon,” he mumbled thickly.
       “Raccoon?” I said, pausing in my flight.
       “I want a raccoon coat,” he wailed.
      I perceived that his trouble was not physical but mental. “Why do you want a raccoon coat?”
       “I should have known it,” he cried, pounding his temples. “I should have known it they’d come back when the Charleston came back. Like a fool I spent all my money for textbook, and now I can't get a raccoon coat.”
       “Can you mean,” I said incredulously,” that people are actually wearing raccoon coats again?”
       “All the Big Men on Campus are wearing them. Where’ve you been?”
       “In the library,” I said, naming a place not frequented by Big Men on Campus.
      He leaped from the bed and paced the room. “I’ve got to have a raccoon coat,” he said passionately. “I’ve got to!”
       “Petey, why? Look at it rationally. Raccoon coats are unsanitary. They shed. They smell bad. They weigh too much. They're unsightly. They...”
       “You don’t understand,” he interrupted, impatiently. “It’s the thing to do. Don’t you want to be in the swim?”
       “No,” I said truthfully.
       “Well, I do,” he declared. “I’d give anything for a raccoon coat. Anything!”
      My brain, that precision instrument, slipped into high gear. “Anything?” I asked, looking at him narrowly.
       “Anything,” he affirmed in ringing tones.
      I stroked my chin thoughtfully. It so happened that I knew where to get my hands on a raccoon coat. My father had had one in his undergraduate days; it lay now in a trunk in the attic back home. It also happened that Petey had something I wanted. He didn't have it exactly, but at least he had first rights on it. I refer to his girl, Polly Espy.
      I had long coveted Polly Espy. Let me emphasize that my desire for this young woman was not emotional in nature. She was, to be sure, a girl who excited the emotions, but I was not one to let my heart rule my head. I wanted Polly for a shrewdly calculated, entirely cerebral reason.
      I was a freshman in law school. In a few years I would be out in practice. I was well aware of the importance of the right kind of wife in furthering a lawyer’s career. The successful lawyers I had observed were, almost without exception, married to beautiful, gracious, intelligent women. With one omission, Polly fitted these specifications perfectly.
      Beautiful she was. She was not yet of pin-up proportions, but I felt that time would supply the lack. She already had the makings.
      Gracious she was. By gracious I mean full of graces. She had an erectness of carriage, an ease of bearing, a poise that clearly indicated the best of breeding. At table her manners were exquisite. I had seen her at the Kozy Kampus Korner eating the specialty of the house—a sandwich that contained scraps of pot roast, gravy, chopped nuts, and a dipper of sauerkraut—without even getting her fingers moist.
      Intelligent she was not. In fact, she veered in the opposite direction. But I believed that under my guidance she would smarten up. At any rate, it was worth a try. It is, after all, easier to make a beautiful dumb girl smart than to make an ugly smart girl beautiful.
       “Petey,” I said, “are you in love with Polly Espy?”
       “I think she’s a keen kid,” he replied, “but I don’t know if you call it love. Why?”
       “Do you,” I asked, “have any kind of formal arrangement with her? I mean are you going steady or anything like that?”
       “No. We see each other quite a bit, but we both have other dates. Why?”
       “Is there,” I asked, “any other man for whom she has a particular fondness?”
       “Not that I know of. Why?”
      I nodded with satisfaction. “In other words, if you were out of the picture, the field would be open. Is that right?”
       “I guess so. What are you getting at?”
       “Nothing, nothing,” I said innocently, and took my suitcase out the closet.
       “Where are you going?” asked Petey.
       “Home for weekend.” I threw a few things into the bag.
       “Listen,” he said, clutching my arm eagerly, “while you're home, you couldn't get some money from your old man, could you, and lend it to me so I can buy a raccoon coat?”
       “I may do better than that,” I said with a mysterious wink and closed my bag and left.
       “Look,” I said to Petey when I got back Monday morning. I threw open the suitcase and revealed the huge, hairy, gamy object that my father had worn in his Stutz Bearcat in 1925.
       “Holy Toledo!” said Petey reverently. He plunged his hands into the raccoon coat and then his face. “Holy Toledo!” he repeated fifteen or twenty times.
       “Would you like it?” I asked.
       “Oh yes!” he cried, clutching the greasy pelt to him. Then a canny look came into his eyes. “What do you want for it?”
       “Your girl” I said, mincing no words.
       “Polly?” he said in a horrified whisper. “You want Polly?”
       “That’s right.”
      He shook his head.
      I shrugged. “Okay. If you don’t want to be in the swim, I guess it’s your business.
      I sat down in a chair and pretended to read a book, but out of the corner of my eye I kept watching Petey. He was a torn man. First he looked at the coat with the expression of waif at a bakery window. Then he turned away and set his jaw resolutely. Then he looked back at the coat, with even more longing in his face. Then he turned away, but with not so much resolution this time. Back and forth his head swiveled, desire waxing, resolution waning. Finally he didn't turn away at all; he just stood and stared with mad lust at the coat.
       “It isn't as though I was in love with Polly,” he said thickly. “Or going steady or anything like that.”
       “That’s right,” I murmured.
       “What’s Polly to me, or me to Polly?”
       “Not a thing,” said I.
       “It’s just been a casual kick—just a few laughs, that’s all.”
       “Try on the coat,” said I.
      He compiled. The coat bunched high over his ears and dropped all the way down to his shoe tops. He looked like a mound of dead raccoons. “Fits fine,” he said happily.
      I rose from my chair. “Is it a deal?” I asked, extending my hand. He swallowed. “It’s a deal,” he said and shook my hand.
      I had my first date with Polly the following evening. This was in the nature of a survey. I wanted to find out just how much work I had to get her mind up to the standard I required. I took her first to dinner.
       “Gee, that was a delish dinner,” she said as we left the restaurant.
      And then I took her home. “Gee, I had a sensaysh time,” she said as she bade me good night.
      I went back to my room with a heavy heart. I had gravely underestimated the size of my task. This girl’s lack of information was terrifying. Nor would it be enough merely to supply her with information. First she had to be taught to “think”. This loomed as a project of no small dimensions, and at first I was tempted to give her back to Petey.
      But then I got to thinking about her abundant physical charms and about the way she entered a room and the way she handled a knife and fork, and I decided to make an effort.
      I went about it, as in all things, systematically. I gave her a course in logic. It happened that I, as a law student, was taking a course in logic myself, so I had all the facts at my fingertips. “Polly,” I said to her when I picked her up on our next date, “tonight we are going over to the Knoll and talk.”
       “Oo, terrif,” she replied. One thing I will say for this girl: you would go far to find another so agreeable.
      We went to the Knoll, the campus trysting place, and we sat down under an old oak, and she looked at me expectantly. “What are we going to talk about?” she asked.
       “Logic.”
      She thought this over for a minute and decided she liked it. “Magnif,” she said.
      Logic,” I said, clearing my throat, “is the science of thinking. Before we can think correctly, we must first learn to recognize the common fallacies of logic. These we will take up tonight.”
       “Wow-dow!” she cried, clapping her hands delightedly.
      I winced, but went bravely on. “First let us examine the fallacy called Dicto Simpliciter.”
       “By all means,” she urged, batting her lashes eagerly.
       “Dicto Simpliciter means an argument based on an unqualified generalization. For example: Exercise is good. Therefore everybody should exercise.”
      “I agree,” said Polly earnestly. “I mean exercise is wonderful. I mean it builds the body and everything.”
       I said gently, “the argument is a fallacy. Exercise is good is an unqualified generalization. For instance, if you have heart disease, exercise is bad, not good. Therefore exercise is bad, not good. Many people are ordered by their doctors not to exercise. You must qualify the generalization. You must say exercise is usually good, or exercise is good for most people. Otherwise you have committed a Dicto Simpliciter. Do you see?”
       “No,” she confessed. “But this is marvy. Do more! Do more!”
       “It will be better if you stop tugging at my sleeve,” I told her, and when she desisted, I continued. “Next we take up a fallacy called Hasty Generalization. Listen carefully: You can't speak French. Petey Burch can't speak French. I must therefore conclude that nobody at the University of Minnesota can speak French.”
       “Really?” said Polly, amazed. “Nobody?”
      I hid my exasperation. “Polly, it’s a fallacy. The generalization is reached too hastily. There are too few instances to support such a conclusion.”
      Know any more fallacies?” she asked breathlessly. “This is more fun than dancing, even.”
      I fought off a wave of despair. I was getting nowhere with this girl, absolutely nowhere. Still, I am nothing if not persistent. I continued. “Next comes Post Hoc. Listen to this: Let’s not take Bill on our picnic. Every time we take it out with us, it rains.”
       “I know somebody just like that,” she exclaimed. “A girl back home—Eula Becker, her name is. It never fails. Every single time we take her on a picnic...”
      “Polly,” I said sharply, “it’s a fallacy. Eula Becker doesn't cause the rain. She has no connection with the rain. You are guilty of Post Hoc if you blame Eula Becker.”
      “I'll never do it again,” she promised contritely. “Are you mad at me?”
      I sighed deeply. “No, Polly, I'm not mad.”
      “Then tell me some more fallacies.”
      “All right. Let’s try Contradictory Premises.”
      “Yes, let’s,” she chirped, blinking her eyes happily.
      I frowned, but plunged ahead. “Here’s an example of Contradictory Premises: If God can do anything, can He make a stone so heavy that He won't be able to lift it?”
       “Of course,” she replied promptly.
“But if He can do anything, He can lift the stone,” I pointed out.
       “Yeah,” she said thoughtfully. “Well, then I guess He can't make the stone.”
       “But He can do anything,” I reminded her.
      She scratched her pretty, empty head. “I'm all confused,” she admitted.
       “Of course you are. Because when the premises of an argument contradict each other, there can be no argument. If there is an irresistible force, there can be no immovable object. If there is an immovable object, there can be no irresistible force. Get it?”
       “Tell me more of this keen stuff,” she said eagerly.
      I consulted my watch. “I think we’d better call it a night. I’ll take you home now, and you go over all the things you’ve learned. We’ll have another session tomorrow night.”
      I deposited her at the girls' dormitory, where she assured me that she had had a perfectly terrif evening, and I went glumly home to my room. Petey lay snoring in his bed, the raccoon coat huddled like a great hairy beast at his feet. For a moment I considered waking him and telling him that he could have his girl back. It seemed clear that my project was doomed to failure. The girl simply had a logic-proof head.
      But then I reconsidered. I had wasted one evening; I might as well waste another. Who knew? Maybe somewhere in the extinct crater of her mind, a few members still smoldered. Maybe somehow I could fan them into flame. Admittedly it was not a prospect fraught with hope, but I decided to give it one more try.
      Seated under the oak the next evening I said, “Our first fallacy tonight is called Ad Misericordiam.”
      She quivered with delight.
       “Listen closely,” I said. “A man applies for a job. When the boss asks him what his qualifications are, he replies that he has a wife and six children at home, the wife is a helpless cripple, the children have nothing to eat, no clothes to wear, no shoes on their feet, there are no beds in the house, no coal in the cellar, and winter is coming.”
      A tear rolled down each of Polly’s pink cheeks. “Oh, this is awful, awful,” she sobbed.
       “Yes, it’s awful,” I agreed, “but it’s no argument. The man never answered the boss’s question about his qualifications. Instead he appealed to the boss’s sympathy. He committed the fallacy of Ad Misericordiam. Do you understand?”
       “Have you got a handkerchief?” she blubbered.
      I handed her a handkerchief and tried to keep from screaming while she wiped her eyes. “Next,” I said in a carefully controlled tone, “we will discuss False Analogy. Here is an example: Students should be allowed to look at their textbooks during examination. After all, surgeons have X-rays to guide them during an operation, lawyers have briefs to guide them during a trial, carpenters have blueprints to guide them when they are building a house. Why, then, shouldn't students be allowed to look at their textbooks during examination?”
       “There now,” she said enthusiastically, “is the most marvy idea I’ve heard in years.”
       “Polly,” I said testily, “the argument is all wrong. Doctors, lawyers, and carpenters aren't taking a test to see how much they have learned, but students are. The situations are altogether different, and you can't make an analogy between them.”
       “I still think it’s a good idea,” said Polly.
       “Nuts,” I muttered. Doggedly I pressed on. “Next we’ll try Hypothesis Contrary to Fact.”
       “Sounds yummy,” was Polly’s reaction.
       “Listen: If Madame Curie had not happened to leave a photographic plate in a drawer with a chunk of pitchblende, the world today would not know about radium.”
       “True, true,” said Polly, nodding her head. “Did you see the movie? Oh, it just knocked me out. That Walter Pidgeon is so dreamy. I mean he fractures me.”
       “If you can forget Mr. Pidgeon for a moment,” I said coldly, “I would like to point out that statement is a fallacy. Maybe Madame Curie would have discovered radium at some later date. Maybe somebody else would have discovered it. Maybe any number of things would have happened. You can't start with a hypothesis that is not true and then draw any supportable conclusions from it.”
       “They ought to put Walter Pidgeon in more pictures,” said Polly, “I hardly ever see him any more.”
      One more chance, I decided. But just one more. There is a limit to what flesh and blood can bear. “The next fallacy is called Poisoning the Well.”
       “How cute!” she gurgled.
       “Two men are having a debate. The first one gets up and says, 'My opponent is a notorious liar. You can't believe a word that he is going to say.'... Now, Polly, think hard. What’s wrong?”
      I watched her closely as she knit her creamy brow in concentration. Suddenly a glimmer of intelligence—the first I had seen—came into her eyes. “It’s not fair,” she said with indignation. “It’s not a bit fair. What chance has the second man got if the first man calls him a liar before he even begins talking?”
       “Right!” I cried exultantly. “One hundred per cent right. It’s not fair. The first man has poisoned the well before anybody could drink from it. He has hamstrung his opponent before he could even start ... Polly, I'm proud of you.”
       “Pshaw,” she murmured, blushing with pleasure.
       “You see, my dear, these things aren't so hard. All you have to do is concentrate. Think—examine—evaluate. Come now, let’s review everything we have learned.”
       “Fire away,” she said with an airy wave of her hand.
      Heartened by the knowledge that Polly was not altogether a cretin, began a long, patient review of all I had told her. Over and over and over again I cited instances, pointed out flaws, kept hammering away without letup. It was like digging a tunnel. At first, everything was work, sweat, and darkness. I had no idea when I would reach the light, or even if I would. But I persisted. I pounded and clawed and scraped, and finally I was rewarded. I saw a chink of light. And then the chink got bigger and the sun came pouring in and all was bright.
      Five grueling nights this took, but it was worth it. I had made a logician out of Polly; I had taught her to think. My job was done. She was worthy of me, at last. She was a fit wife for me, a proper hostess for my many mansions, a suitable mother for my well-heeled children.
      It must not be thought that I was without love for this girl. Quite the contrary. Just as Pygmalion loved the perfect woman he had fashioned, so I loved mine. I determined to acquaint her with feelings at our very next meeting. The time had come to change our relationship from academic to romantic.
       “Polly,” I said when next we sat beneath our oak, “tonight we will not discuss fallacies.”
       “Aw, gee,” she said, disappointed.
       “My dear,” I said, favoring her with a smile, “we have now spent five evenings together. We have gotten along splendidly. It is clear that we are well matched.”
       “Hasty Generalization,” said Polly brightly.
       “I beg your pardon,” said I.
       “Hasty Generalization,” she repeated. “How can you say that we are well matched on the basis of only five dates?”
      I chuckled with amusement. The dear child had learned her lessons well. “My dear,” I said, patting her hand in a tolerant manner, “five dates is plenty. After all, you don’t have to eat a whole cake to know that it’s good.”
       “False Analogy,” said Polly promptly. “I'm not a cake. I'm a girl.”
      I chuckled with somewhat less amusement. The dear child had learned her lessons perhaps too well. I decided to change tactics. Obviously the best approach was a simple, strong, direct declaration of love. I paused for a moment while my massive brain chose the proper word. Then I began:
       “Polly, I love you. You are the whole world to me, and the moon and the stars and the constellations of outer space. Please, my darling, say that you will go steady with me, for if you will not, life will be meaningless. I will languish. I will refuse my meals. I will wander the face of the earth, a shambling, hollow-eyed hulk.”
      There, I thought, folding my arms, that ought to do it.
       “Ad Misericordiam,” said Polly.
      I ground my teeth. I was not Pygmalion; I was Frankenstein, and my monster had me by the throat. Frantically I fought back the tide of panic surging through me. At all costs I had to keep cool.
       “Well, Polly,” I said, forcing a smile, “you certainly have learned your fallacies.”
       “You're darn right,” she said with a vigorous nod.
       “And who taught them to you, Polly?”
       “You did.”
       “That’s right. So you do owe me something, don’t you, my dear? If I hadn't come along you never would have learned about fallacies.”
       “Hypothesis Contrary to Fact,” she said instantly.
      I dashed perspiration from my brow. “Polly,” I croaked, “you mustn't take all these things so literally. I mean this is just classroom stuff. You know that the things you learn in school don’t have anything to do with life.”
       “Dicto Simpliciter,” she said, wagging her finger at me playfully.
      That did it. I leaped to my feet, bellowing like a bull. “Will you or will you not go steady with me?”
       “I will not,” she replied.
       “Why not?” I demanded.
       “Because this afternoon I promised Petey Burch that I would go steady with him.”
      I reeled back, overcome with the infamy of it. After he promised, after he made a deal, after he shook my hand! “The rat!” I shrieked, kicking up great chunks of turf. “You can't go with him, Polly. He’s a liar. He’s a cheat. He’s a rat.”
       “Poisoning the Well ,” said Polly, “and stop shouting. I think shouting must be a fallacy too.”
      With an immense effort of will, I modulated my voice. “All right,” I said. “You're a logician. Let’s look at this thing logically. How could you choose Petey Burch over me? Look at me — a brilliant student, a tremendous intellectual, a man with an assured future. Look at Petey—a knothead, a jitterbug, a guy who’ll never know where his next meal is coming from. Can you give me one logical reason why you should go steady with Petey Burch?”
       “I certainly can,” declared Polly. “He’s got a raccoon coat.”

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Sunday, February 19, 2006

"With the media's great power comes its great responsibility." How far do you agree?

Define “power”

1) Definition of “power” — ability, capability, resources, monopoly on something, influence, sway. Most essays were good at showing how powerful the media is.
However, is that always the case?
What about the power of the consumers to influence what they consume?
What about the power of the individual to discern and evaluate the information he is receiving?
What about the power of regulatory organizations and “watchdogs,” like the government, censorship boards, consumer associations?
If the mass media is the watchdog for the government, does it have watchdogs of its own?



Define “responsibility”.

2) Definition of “responsibility” — “The mass media should be responsible — towards whom? to do what?
“Responsibility” to provide what? ensure that what quality or standard is fulfilled? enforce that what action is carried out or prevented?
You could have the “responsibility” to reveal something, or the responsibility to hide something, to encourage or to suppress.
Specifying these parameters goes towards improving the quality of your premises.

3) If the defined role of mass media is to preserve stability, full employment, safe streets, etc, then it has the responsibility to suppress certain damaging information, etc.
But if the defined role is to bring the “truth,” and preserve freedom of speech, then it has the responsibility to uncover all information, no matter the effect or ramifications.
The “responsibilities” depend on the “accepted ideal.” — Who does this defining? Who is doing the accepting?

4) Many essays put “freedom of expression” in binary opposition with “responsibility,” “accountability” and “self-censorship.” This arrangement is true if
(a) the responsibility were towards ideals other than “freedom of expression” — many forms of media feel they have a “responsibility” to preserve and champion “freedom of expression”;
(b) you assume there is no middle ground, no spectrum between the two extremes;
(c) you define “freedom” as “irresponsibility” — “freedom” is another word that is highly charged with varying definitions that requires careful exploration.

5) To have a great responsibility is not the same as to have a great task— responsibility implies obligation, enforced work; while to have a task might mean no more than having something big clogging up your to-do list.

6) Responsibility — (a) “accountability” or (b) “obligation” —
“ he is responsible for the murder” versus “he is responsible for the child’s upbringing” —
(a) refers to something that has happened,
(b) refers to something that is in the future.



Define “mass media”.

7) Define “mass” — Majority? Large percentage? Domestic? International? Public? Opposite of “private circulation”?
Let us examine the use of “mass” in another context. When it is reported, “Mass Hysteria over News of Tsunami,” what do you understand of the term “mass”? Everyone in the world? Everyone in the South-East Asia region? Were you hysterical?

8) Do not make the mistake of treating and talking of the “mass media” as a single, monolithic, coherent, undifferentiated entity.
Especially in the modern era, it is multiple, varied, variegated, conflicting, competitive, self-contradictory, non-coherent (not the same as “incoherent”), disrespectful of boundaries and codes.
There are many different forms of media — newsprint, magazines, TV networks, radio, advertising, books, official webpages, online forums, blogs, podcasts — anything and everything that is a means of disseminating information may be named “media”.

9) “Media”: plural of “medium,” an agency by which something is accomplished, conveyed, or transferred.
“Mediums”: plural of “medium,” a person who communicates with spirits of the dead.

10) When you say things like “the mass media inculcates values in its audience,” you should be specific — who is using the mass media to do the inculcating?
After all, “media” or “medium” means “channels,” “methods,” “the in-between space,” “the space of transition”.
“Media” by definition does not do anything by itself — people or organizations use it to do things. These people may be media moguls using media to make money, government using media to disseminate public education or propaganda (however you wish to interpret it), businesses using media to advertise, etc.

11) “If the tools of mass media fall into the wrong hands, there will be [insert disaster of choice]… Therefore, the mass media must bear the great responsibility of not letting its powers be abused…” — so, who exactly is bearing the responsibility? Who is this “mass media”?



Other things you have to specify.

12) Does many multiple sources of information guarantee credibility of information?
What about the problem of self-referencing?
Circular logic?
Unless you specify the context of these sources, you can’t be sure.

13) Many were of the opinion that the mass media should be “objective.”
First, how do you define “objective”?
Some were able to achieve the definition “objective = neutral viewpoint,” at which point my question was, “neutral” in what context?
Politically neutral — what does that mean? Is that even possible? According to Marxist theory, there is no such thing as being apolitical.
Morally neutral — does that mean withholding judgment? Being amoral? Conform to “prevalent” morality? What defines “prevalence”?
You will find that “objectivity” is used as a brand name, a description that is more rhetorical than real.
Second, you should recognize that the statement — “objectivity is ideal” — is an assumption, a value judgment. Should we accept “objectivity” as ideal? Are “white lies” permissible? Is “objectivity” the same as “the whole truth”? “the brutal truth”?

14) “Technology has replaced letter-writing as a means of communication…” What technology?
Students are very fond of large, abstract nouns (it seems to me) while not very apt at grasping abstractions.
Technology can refer to anything from the stone axes Cro-Magnon protohumans used to hunt mammoths to time machines — a vast gamut of things.
Which of these, you will have to be more specific, has replaced letter-writing?

15) “Instant” information — what is that? Unedited? Instant = instantaneous? —
“Instant information” is the myth that quick information is information that has not been filtered through the lenses of agenda, political or otherwise.



About language.

16) Everyone’s favourite word seems “should” — “The government should regulate the media”; “the mass media should be honest and accurate.”
“Should” implies a duty — duty to whom?
“Should” implies that someone has authoritatively said it — who is this someone? What is the source of his or her authority?
“Should” implies adherence to certain moral / ethical / social codes / standards — what are these codes / standards?
Without providing these contexts, and presuming that your reader accepts your “should” assertion, shows confusion between premise and inference — what should have been an inference you used as a premise.
Providing weak or inaccurate or ill-explained contexts means you have provided premises of poor quality.

17) Students presume that words like “undeniably,” “undoubtedly,” “indubitably,” “indeed,” add force to their arguments. Indeed, such students presume wrongly.
The rhetorical ploy is transparent, even laughable.
You have to earn the right to use such words — you earn it by building strong, cogent arguments, with inevitable inferences growing out of solid premises.
Even then, few if any arguments are 100% indisputable.

18) Avoid sanctimonious ranting.
By “sanctimonious” I mean adopting a tone of being on the moral high horse, judgmental rather than judicious, without giving proper context of these judgments — by what standards? According to whose moral or ethical system? Is this system universally accepted? Are there alternative systems?
By “ranting” I mean heaping assertion upon baseless assertion, opinion upon unsupported opinion, in a bid to numb the reader’s mind.
I (for one) am not so easily taken in, I assure you.

19) The spurious “therefore” — People abuse the word “therefore”
Just because you insert it between two sentences does not automatically mean the former is the cause of the latter — it is not a magic word.
“The media has great potential for abuse, therefore we should curb its power, install harsh controls.” —
No, there is no inexorable link between risk of abuse and preemptive action; you need more justification. —
Perhaps something like “in the current political climate, where preemptive strikes, jumping at shadows, seem to be the norm, it would not be unpalatable base one’s decisions on the adage, Prevention is Better Than Cure.”
The use of “therefore” follows very stringent criteria — what comes before “therefore” must be irrefutably proven and supported by what comes before.

20) Narrating rather than arguing — the difference between expository and argumentative. Look out for a later entry discussing the difference in more detail.

21) Sayings, proverbs, parables, clichés—these are not proofs.
“A picture is worth a thousand words, therefore television conveys more information”
No, it is because pictures convey more information, that’s why there is the saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words”.
Curiosity killed the cat; therefore we should not be curious.”
No, give concrete evidence; a proverb or idiom only give your essay style, humour—not an argumentative short-cut.
With the world changing every moment, we have to keep up by updating ourselves.”
The use of “with” (and words like “because,” “since,” “seeing that…”) implies that you are using the cliché as proof — which it is most definitely not.

22) To convince (verb) — he is convinced (adj)—he is filled with conviction (noun)
To convict (verb) — he was convicted (adj) of the crime — the High Court overturned the conviction (n).



What really is an inference you mistook for a premise.

23) The question is: “With great power… comes great responsibility. How far do you agree?”
that is: Does great responsibility necessarily come with great power?”
You are not answering the question when you simply assert, “The media does have great power, therefore it has great responsibility” — you are merely repeating the question without the question mark.
Most of you spent your entire essay proving that the media does have great power; but the crux of the essay is in proving the “therefore”. I got tired of writing this in every essay—ALL of you made this mistake.

24) “If the mass media provokes war, then it is bad…” — this is assuming that war is unequivocally bad, so much so that there is no need for discussion whether if there are exceptions —
this is an example of confusing inference for premise, opinion for fact, assertion for proof.
“War is bad” is an assertion requiring proof — not proof in and of itself.

25) “In this age of info-tech, we are forced to keep up with the latest happenings, or else we will lag behind others”implying that progress is unequivocally good—can you think of exceptions?
We can improve this argument by specifying “lag behind others in what aspect.


Generally faulty logic.

26) “Is X irresponsible? If X is irresponsible, then there will be chaos, catastrophe, the seas will turn to blood, etc. Therefore X has to be responsible.”
Does this sound right to you?
Does this argument satisfy your “common sense”?

27) “We don’t want our newspaper to reproduce the government’s position” — does this statement necessarily imply that “our newspaper” is not already reproducing the government’s position?
Does it necessarily imply “we” are not coercing the newspaper into reproducing the government’s position?


General note on Logic.

28) According to certain epistemological theories, there can be no end to skepticism — no fact is 100% watertight.
It will still come down to a leap of faith, a decision based on the probability of validity.
The point here, is to decide for ourselves, what is our tolerance of improbability?
What is our appetite for risk of error?
How sound must the facts be, how sound must the arguments be, before we give them our belief?



One last note.

29) Deconstructing arguments and premises like this, might seem immoral to some: but never confuse amoral for immoral—such dissection is dispassionate, an effort at “objectivity,” that is, to examine as many perspectives and domains of facts are possible before coming to a (contingent) conclusion. In fact, this can be argued to be the most moral thing of all, to consider all possibilities and probabilities in order to make the best decision—being led by knee-jerk passion is often and wrongly taken to be compassion.

30) Recap:


a) Why do media have so much influence—what is the consequence of having
influence?
b) What does being responsible entail? — responsible to whom?
responsible to what? who to enforce (self, someone else)?
c) Does influence necessarily entail responsibility?
d) Does responsibility necessarily curtail freedom of expression?
e) What is the price are we willing to pay —
for “freedom of expression”? Conversely, what is the price are we willing to pay
for “being responsible to [whatever]”?
f) If consumer power is significant (through their spending power) then the mass media is not all-powerful? So they are “responsible” because otherwise they lose sales? But again we can ask, what or whom are they responsible to/for? To the consumers’ taste? For their “good”, i.e. education? To their demand, no matter what shapes this demand?

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