Argument153 向大家请教

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153The following is from an editorial in the Midvale Observer, a local newspaper.

"Ever since the 1950's, when television sets began to appear in the average home, the rate of crimes committed by teenagers in the country of Alta has steadily increased. This increase in teenage crime parallels the increase in violence shown on television. According to several national studies, even very young children who watch a great number of television shows featuring violent scenes display more violent behavior within their home environment than do children who do not watch violent shows. Furthermore, in a survey conducted by the Observer, over 90 percent of the respondents were parents who indicated that prime-time television—programs that are shown between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m.—should show less violence. Therefore, in order to lower the rate of teenage crime in Alta, television viewers should demand that television programmers reduce the amount of violence shown during prime time."


In this editorial, the author concludes that if television programmers in Alta reduce the amount of violence showing during 7 pm and 9pm, which is supposed to be prime time, the rate of teenage crime there will decrease correspondingly. To support this conclusion, the author points out that both the rate of teenager crime and children's violent behavior parallel with the violence shown on TV. Meanwhile, the author cited a survey showing that 90% parents indicated less violence should be shown on TV during prime time television. I find the argument flawed in several critical problems.

First, the author concludes based on an unfairly assumption that TV and the violence shown should be assigned blame for the increasing crime rate of teenagers. Perhaps, at the beginning, TV programs merely involved the ones related to news, economics, and some education-related ones. Or perhaps, teenagers even failed to watch the violence shown on TV in a latter time. With our considering and ruling out these possibilities, the time-related connection does not necessarily indicate and causal relationship between the TV and violent TV program with teenagers' participation in crime.

Second, the argument lends little evidence to gurantee the statistical reliability of the national-wide studies showing the correlation between the time extremely young children spend watching television with violent scenes and their violent behavior at home.
It is entirely possible that the respondents in the study are not representative of the overall expected individuals. Moreover, we are not informed how the study defines the concept “violent behavior "to the very young children, by shouting at others, or breaking toys, or others. For that matter, it is quite possible that the so called "violent behavior" children may just prove to be a little active that the other ones, if further studied.

Even if it is the violent TV programs that results in teenager's increasing crime rate and the young children's violent behavior, the author seems a little too optimistic to assume that reducing the amount of violence showing during prime time would attribute to a lower teenager crime rate. Perhaps, teenagers have more chance to watch the violence programs during other times but prime time. Also, the author overlooks the possible that teenagers can get touch with the violent program through other means, such as the internet or some books. Either the scenario will determine the argument that the proposed method could help lower teenage crime.

Finally, the author fails to consider many other factors that could serve to reduce teenager crime. Strengthening education, for instance, may be much more effective and efficient than the proposed way. Or, perhaps, more attention and care on the young teenagers about their psychological evelopment from either government, society, or the parents could be useful.

In sum, the argument is unconvincing as it stands. To bolster it, the author should provide more evidence to prove the correlation between the TV, TV programs with the teenager' crime and young children's violent behavior. Also, the author needs to persuade us that the proposed methods would be useful to reduce teenager crime rate. Further more, other factors that would help to lower teenager' crime should be taken into consideration.



不是很清楚这样的文章能得几分，写了45分钟才写出来，请高人指点。十分感谢。