Media plays a big role in how our society is shaped today as most of the information that people get are from the things seen and heard from the news, television, music and other media forms. However, some of these bits of information we get from different forms of media have the potential of contributing harm to the society. Two essays discuss these adverse effects of media to our society. The essay “Calling the C-Word the C-Word” by James Poniewozik discusses how a State Department analyst treats the information reported in the news as something that would make United States more vulnerable to its attackers.
Poniewozik criticizes how Dennis Pluchinsky reacts on US media’s way of reporting about terror vulnerabilities since the September 11 attack. He mentions in his essay that Pluchinsky believes that journalists endangers the country more by reporting certain vulnerabilities to terrorists or the mistakes these terrorists made in the past. However, Poniewozik thinks of it differently in a way that these open sources and reports from journalists can actually help the country be a little less vulnerable to attacks.
He argues that these pieces of information are also available to the government and should be a tool for them to act and implement security measures for the protection of everybody.
The second essay, “The Issue Isn’t Sex, It’s Violence” by Caryl Rivers, discusses how music in this genre somehow have an effect to the increasing cases of violence against women. She states that there is nothing wrong with rock music today.
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She even thinks that most of them are funky, sexy and even witty. However, there are just really some songs that are just not so “friendly” to women. She even mentioned one theme of an AC/DC ballad that allegedly had inspired a Californian killer who was suspect to a series of murders in the state. Rivers argues that teenagers now believe what they hear in the radio and music channels. It can be a disturbing fact because of the worldy lyrics some of the rock songs have yet they are still being aired. Rivers dislikes the fact that people do not do anything with it. When it comes to the issue of violence against women, even when some rock song clearly implicates the topic in its lyrics, people just ignore it and remain silent. She wants to put an end to the silence. Rivers suggests keeping the issue alive, making women speak against it, have disc jocks refuse playing of songs which have lyrics that are against women’s rights, and for men to also be involved in the issue.
Summary Response Paper
The two essays show how different forms of media shape up our society today. I, for one, believe in what these authors mentioned in their works. I somehow believe that giving out information about some vulnerability to terrorists can protect us in a way. Whenever media tells us that malls are vulnerable to attacks, for example, mall security gets more stringent in conducting inspections of mall goers. Security personnel have also become more visible. Thus, with the information that media provided us, safety of everyone can be assured. Music, on the other hand, can definitely affect one’s moods. Though I can say that I do not easily get so into the words of the songs, there are some who are just naïve enough to believe them and some, live by them. It is true that a killer could have been inspired by the lyrics of a particular rock song because there are just some people like that. And whether we like it or not, that is how media that we deal with everyday affects our thoughts and actions.
Both authors wrote such insightful essays. Poniewozik supported his arguments by criticizing an article written by a State Department analyst, while Rivers, being a professor of a few lady students who were murdered, cited different examples of music lyrics that could be a cause of the issue she raised. Poniewozik’s work evolved more on his evaluation of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack which he connects to Pluchinsky’s (the analyst) analysis of the media. His tone is conversational, involving himself and his readers in his writing. I personally like his choice of words when describing things, such as “knee-jerk” and “scenario-spinning,” which are not so ordinary yet not highfaluting either. Caryl Rivers, on the other hand, wrote her article in a non-conventional manner having it in bulleted form. In her work, she shared her own thoughts about violence against women using the first person point of view. Hers is also a conversational one and can relate to any type of reader because of her use of more common words. Her article cited examples of music to establish her stand on this type of media being one cause of violence against women. Both of them used words appropriate to the thoughts that they want to share and to their audience, not too aggressive or harsh, yet not too soft either. Their articles clearly show their stand on the issue that they are talking about. Poniewozik shared his thoughts about the media with his counter arguments of another person’s ideas, while Rivers did hers by basing her assumptions on alleged reports. Both made sense and I think no one is more credible than the other.
Summary Response Paper. (2019, Dec 05). Retrieved from https://paperap.com/paper-on-essay-summary-response-paper/
