Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Callicles and Television
In their free time, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation Study reported in newspapers today, children ages eight to eighteen spend 4.5 hours watching television, 2.5 listening to music, 1.5 on the computer, and 1 with video games. If we follow Callicles’ argument that rhetorical victories should and do go to the stronger, is the television still the winner as the medium that is most rhetorically compelling? Why is that so? Or is it just more available? What do you think that these young people are watching in their 4.5 hours? Do you think that there would be different results by gender?
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My mother has always boasted about being one the first on her block to have a color television set. Our generation, though, is entirely unfamiliar with a life without TV reception. Most hardly remember a time without high-speed Internet, or afternoons spent without social media websites, Google, and Wikipedia.
ReplyDeleteWith this is in mind, we can agree that many, if not most, of our assumptions about the real world have been obtained from watching violent sitcoms, reality shows, and news reports on television. Although the Internet is rapidly growing as a source for entertainment as well as knowledge, there has and always will be an appeal to hearing and watching another person speak.
I would say, though, that children today might watch television most frequently because they are so accustomed to it. The sound of a studio audience’s laughter blaring in the background of a room has become more comfortable by far than the silence of a library or the tranquil sounds found of ocean waves. It is hard to avoid television given the vast expansion from innocent fictional storylines to outrageous dating shows, high-tech sports broadcasts, high stake game shows, how-to specials, and, of course, reality TV series. There seems to be no reason to listen to the radio at home if there are channels that play music videos 24 hours a day. It is hard to go outside and play basketball with friends when one can listen to unemployed 20- something’s talk about their sex life. Television is convincing, engaging and ever changing.
Although many argue watching television is entertaining but not influential, I find this to be impossible. Everyone has consciously or unconsciously changed their opinions about many aspects of life, whether it’s be what is in style, what slang is trendy, which countries are enemies, and which product is best for hair from watching television. We are we being fed this information constantly and forcefully and the majority of it is indeed in the form of rhetoric. We have discussed countless forms of rhetoric in class, whether it’s political speeches, advertisements, religions, charities, or even graduate school ads. All are displayed in this medium, heard from every different voice tone, seen with every different facial expression and mannerism imaginable, and all of which persuade us in one way or another.
In saying this, I do believe that TV is still the greatest form of rhetoric, because of the constant blaring in almost every home, subjecting innocent viewers to rhetoric whether they are aware or not.