Friday, February 5, 2010

RA Intro Tyler B

In any large industry there has always been a problem with too much power developing within certain companies. These monopolies are now policed and controlled by government regulations, limiting their potential for corrupting markets and influencing too many people. The media industry is claimed by many to have become controlled by these type of large corporations and is supposedly corrupting the information given to the general public; therefore, leading to a more globalized world that is controlled by specific people. Benjamin Compaine’s article, “Global Media” fails in proving that large “media barons” (37) are not overrunning the global media market by only stating statistics and trying to establish ethos rather than establishing strong pathos and utilizing literary devices to get more general appeal.

Although I do agree with his argument and I feel that he gets the necessary facts out to back up his claims, only stating statistic after statistic really wears on a reader and even causes confusion at times. Just in the first section of his article, he names 19 different companies and speaks of different sales and acquisitions they made in recent years. For most people, an argument would be just as strongly made if he would have used fewer names and gone into more detail about that company and the importance of those statistics behind each company. Having large amounts of data is important, but it needs to be used in manner that is easily understood and that proves a point very clearly.

4 comments:

  1. I like that you are looking at this from the other side (it fails). I also like the part about how too many statistics can wear on its reader. I think that is very true and a good point to bring up.

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  2. I think its well organized and I think you make some very good points. You bring up a clever opposing argument, I like how you contrast the your literary devices.

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  3. You have good points. I am doing this same article and was going to say that it failed for the exact same reasons you pointed out, except for then I realized the audience. "Foreign Policy" is read by intelectual and educated citizens, so logical appeals are the best way to reach this audeince. Professors of political science aren't often swayed by emotional appeals.

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  4. One thing to consider is to maybe "leave yourself" out of the argument. What i'm referring to is the first line of the second paragraph. instead of saying you agree, you could say something like "although a good argument is made and backed up by the necessary facts, stating stat after stat..." (or something like it) it seems like not saying "i agree" or "i feel" would be a more effective way of interacting specifically with the argument, rather than the content/subject of the article.

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