Professional Documents
Culture Documents
"University of Michigan
Health System." Television
University Website
Website
Background
Counterargument
2) Identify and discuss the intended audience for this project and what this audience
has at stake in the topic you are researching. Questions to help you identify an
audience: Who will benefit? Who will lose something? Who is in a position to be
persuaded to follow the new course of thinking/action for which you plan to argue
This paper would be geared towards parental audiences, who wish to know
more about the effects this form of media has on their child. It would gather
information this information and release it to this audience for them to make
use of it at their will. This audience has their most prized possession at stake,
their kids, and given the amount of television watched by most families now
At this point I picture my essay diving more into the possible positive side
effects of watching television, just because it is widely believed that
television is bad for kids and should be replaced with outdoor activities. Im
not choosing to argue either or, Im just presenting information about this
phenomenon and possibly focusing on the positive effects.
Outline:
a) Intro: Background info about how important television is to the lives of
families today
i. News Broadcasting
ii. Entertainment
b) Information about how much television younger age group watches now
a day.
i. Infant amount of hours
ii. Child amount of hours
iii.
Teenager amount of hours
c) Discuss general conception of televisions influence on youth
i. Bad to physical health
ii. Violence
iii.
Sexuality
iv. Explicit Language
d) Show the possible beneficial side affects
i. Education
ii. Stimulates creativity
iii.
Language development
iv. Cultural
e) Conclude with what the findings could possibly mean for parents/kids
i. Television not so bad, goes against popular conception that it is
(other than physically)
ii. In fact it might be good (psychologically)
iii.
Allow for kids to find balance between television and outdoors
4) Discuss what sources youve found so far and what other ones you would like to
look for. What kind of evidence will your audience expect? How will you
accommodate those expectations? Who do you anticipate might disagree with
you, and why? What evidence will they likely point to?
Ive found three different web sources that have different viewpoints. One discusses the
supposed benefits, another the role of television in lives of kids, and the last one shows
the widely accepted harmful effects. Id like to find more print sources, possibly from a
scholarly journal, which would discuss and analyze observations on the relationship
between television broadcasting and the mental process of kids. My audience will largely
expect to hear about the negative effects, and these I will incorporate in the amount of
television that kids watch portion of the paper. Conservative minded parents will
disagree and prefer that their kids stay away from television and stick to the outdoors,
because it is the traditional thing to do, and not something that they are willing to adopt.
They will largely point to the high obesity rate, but Im focusing on the psychological
effects not the physical ones.
5) Fifth section: Share any concerns or questions you have about the project. Where
do you anticipate running into problems?
My one concern may be in organizing and narrowing down the scope of my paper. There
are many outlets to consider, and still room for adapting my thesis, as I said I might just
focus on the positive effects.