15 percent more residents said that they watch television programs
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21 Jun 2020, 05:46
Hello everyone,
It would be incredibly helpful if you can share your reviews on this AWA attempt.
"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."
The following argument is flawed due to various reasons. It is structured around an unwarranted assumption that is based on the results of a survey and it is being compared to a change in the actual scenario about the people’s preferences in the city about visual arts.
First off, the argument gives us vague information about the “a citywide poll” and throws in a percentage that 15% more people said that they watch visual arts programs on tv as compared to a poll conducted 5 years ago. First of all, a survey cannot be trusted completely to draw concrete conclusions. Secondly, we need more information here, like the sample sizes of both the surveys, the change in population of the city over the last 5 years, the age groups being considered for the survey (if any), etc. These factors would give us deeper insights about whether or not there is “real” growth in the number of people who watch visual arts programs.
The argument further loosely mentions that “there is a similar increase in the percentage of people visiting the city’s art museums during these 5 years”. However, we don’t have any basis of comparison because we aren’t given any real numbers. It would be better if the argument provided solid numbers about the number of people visiting art museums 5 years ago vs the present scenario. Even then, it would be better if more information is given about the population and economic changes. For instance, maybe the city had an economic boom, and with it, the city saw a change in people’s tastes towards art because they could now indulge in finer things such as art. But none such information is given and the statement is ultimately not very insightful.
Another gaping flaw in the argument is that it assumes that because the corporate funding that supports public television, where most of the visual arts programs appear, is being threatened with severe cuts, it can be expected that attendance at the city's art museums will also start to decrease. This is incoherent on 2 levels. First, it assumes that because the corporate funding is being threatened with cuts, there will be a loss in visual arts programs. There is no basis to assume that this will definitely be the case because it doesn’t explicitly say that the threats will result into actual cuts, and even if they do, then the cuts will take a toll on the public television. Even then, there is no information on whether the visual arts programs will be affected. Coming back to the 2nd level of incoherence about the argument, even if every assumption above is true, there is no basis to assume that this will have any effect on the number of people going to art museums but the argument seems to conclude that there will be a decrease in that number.
Thus, because of these flaws in the statements, which don’t provide deeper insights about any actual changes to people’s tastes and preferences about art, we can conclude that this argument could have been better constructed if more information, on the lines that have been discussed above, was provided.