Article 1 for Blog Submission 2: Term 2
Article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/19/AR2007051900457.html
Review of Article:
After reading this article, I am shocked at how the president can close opposing channels just to keep himself at a distinct advantage over opposition parties. This article described why the opposition channels are closed, and the reactions to the closing. If RCTV is closed, then the opposition parties will have no medium to communicate with the citizens, causing a huge blow to the "democracy" of Venezuela. A democracy is supposed to allow genuine alternatives to the current party such that fair elections could be held. However, if the media is controlled completely by the state government, then they could spread unfair propaganda without any opposition, as the media is now fully theirs. This will surely give an unfair advantage to them which could well be the deciding factor in the next election. From the article, we can also see that many of the Venezuelans disagreed with this decision, as it risks collapsing the democratic society that is Venezuela. Even though I agree with the article, I must say that the article provides inconclusive evidence. For all we know, RCTV might have added immoral content in their soap operas, the article did not clearly state what RCTV's soap operas are about. Also, this article may be distinctively biased against the current party as it did not present much of the perspective of the current government as compared to the opposition party. Also, from the article, we can see how most people support RCTV because of sustaining their jobs, or because they don't want their favourite soap operas being cancelled instead of genuine political reason. Of course, I know that being a Singaporean, I do not know anything about media run by opposition parties, as Singapore does not have opposition-run media, thus my view could have been different from the author. I do realize that I have limited knowledge on this topic, having only learnt about democracy this year, and the evidence in the article was not conclusive, thus my view could have been wrong. The author could have known things that I don't, since he must have had more experience in the field of politics than I have. However, I can use the knowledge in this article to learn more about the conditions that fulfill a democratic society such that I can discuss more about democracy with other more knowledgeable people and thus learn more about democracy and maybe even educate others about democracy so they can learn how to read articles like these more effectively. Lastly, since I do not live in Venezuela, my thinking should be modified to suit this article by learning more about democracy in Venezuela and about democracy itself in general so that I can discourse about it more intensively next time.
Word Count: 457 Words (Checked by Microsoft Word)
Review of Article:
After reading this article, I am shocked at how the president can close opposing channels just to keep himself at a distinct advantage over opposition parties. This article described why the opposition channels are closed, and the reactions to the closing. If RCTV is closed, then the opposition parties will have no medium to communicate with the citizens, causing a huge blow to the "democracy" of Venezuela. A democracy is supposed to allow genuine alternatives to the current party such that fair elections could be held. However, if the media is controlled completely by the state government, then they could spread unfair propaganda without any opposition, as the media is now fully theirs. This will surely give an unfair advantage to them which could well be the deciding factor in the next election. From the article, we can also see that many of the Venezuelans disagreed with this decision, as it risks collapsing the democratic society that is Venezuela. Even though I agree with the article, I must say that the article provides inconclusive evidence. For all we know, RCTV might have added immoral content in their soap operas, the article did not clearly state what RCTV's soap operas are about. Also, this article may be distinctively biased against the current party as it did not present much of the perspective of the current government as compared to the opposition party. Also, from the article, we can see how most people support RCTV because of sustaining their jobs, or because they don't want their favourite soap operas being cancelled instead of genuine political reason. Of course, I know that being a Singaporean, I do not know anything about media run by opposition parties, as Singapore does not have opposition-run media, thus my view could have been different from the author. I do realize that I have limited knowledge on this topic, having only learnt about democracy this year, and the evidence in the article was not conclusive, thus my view could have been wrong. The author could have known things that I don't, since he must have had more experience in the field of politics than I have. However, I can use the knowledge in this article to learn more about the conditions that fulfill a democratic society such that I can discuss more about democracy with other more knowledgeable people and thus learn more about democracy and maybe even educate others about democracy so they can learn how to read articles like these more effectively. Lastly, since I do not live in Venezuela, my thinking should be modified to suit this article by learning more about democracy in Venezuela and about democracy itself in general so that I can discourse about it more intensively next time.
Word Count: 457 Words (Checked by Microsoft Word)
posted by the one at 5:55 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home