In a recent citywide poll, 15 percent more residents said that they wa

Question - The following appeared in a memorandum issued by a large city’s council on the arts:
“In a recent citywide poll, 15 percent more residents said that they watch television programs about the visual arts than was the case in a poll conducted five years ago. During these past five years, the number of people visiting our city’s art museums has increased by a similar percentage. Since the corporate funding that supports public television, where most of the visual arts programs appear, is now being threatened with severe cuts, we can expect that attendance at our city’s art museums will also start to decrease. Thus some of the city’s funds for supporting the arts should be reallocated to public television.”

Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. In your Discussion be sure to analyze the line of reasoning and the use of evidence in the argument. For Example, you may need to consider what questionable assumptions underlie the thinking and what alternative explanations or counterexamples might weaken the conclusion. You can also discuss what sort of evidence would strengthen or refute the argument, what changes in the argument would make it more logically sound, and what, if anything, would help you better evaluate its conclusion

My AWA essay :

The argument claims that 15% more residents watch visual art programs on the television than five years ago and in these past 5 years the number of visitors in the art museums have increased as well. Further, due to lack of corporate funding for supporting television the number of visitors in the art museums are likely to decrease. Hence, the city’s funds for Art museums must be reallocated to to support the Television. This plan is likely to fail due to the flaws in the reasoning and logic.

First, the argument readily assumes that there is a strong link between residents watching visual art programs and the number of people visiting the art museums. This statement is logically flawed as there is no evidence that showcases the link between them. The argument could have been clearer if there is some quantifiable data that represents the whole population of the city showcasing the link between watching visual art programs and visiting the museums. For example – if the data revealed that the residents have developed an interest in the world of art by watching visual art programs making them actually visit the museums then the argument would presented some evidence. Hence, this assumption is unconvincing and lacks evidence.

Second, the memorandum presumes that the increase in the footfall of the art museums only depends on the residents watching Visual Arts programs on the television. This is again a very weak and unsupported claim. While, watching visual art programs can be influential to increase the footfall it is not the only factor that explains the increase in the number of people. To illustrate, the tourism in that city might have been promoted in the past 5 years and many tourists must have visited the art museums showing the rise in the number of people visiting the museums. This assumption is questionable as there is not much information available to find the correlation between visual arts programs and increase in the number of people at the art museums.

Lastly, the author concludes that the funds for the art museums must be reallocated to television in order to expect rise in number of people visiting museums. This conclusion is extremely flawed as there is no gurantee that the funding of public television will enhance footfall. TO further explain, if the funds have been allocated there is no assurance that the corporate television will still telecast visual art programs, What if the visual art programs have been scrapped from being telecasted on the television? Without convincing answers to these questions and illustrations, we can state that the arguments conclusion lacks substantive evidence.

In conclusion, the whole argument is flawed for the above-mentioned reasons and is therefore unconvincing. It could be strengthened if the author clearly mentioned all the relevant information to pose as evidence and support the conclusion made. Without this information, the argument remains open to debate.

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