Channel One
Name:
Institution:
Channel One
Introduction
In the article, Stealth TV: Channel One Delivers News and Advertising to the Classroom, Russ Baker, and Kimberly Smith highlight the negative impact of the allowed provision of advertising in the classroom setup. They argue that the mandatory obligation of the advertising companies and forceful manner to the students is not an ideal practice aimed at improving the education standards and quality in the system. The authors assert that the content made available on the screens of television set is ideally not synchronized with improvements towards the syllabus, curricular activities and overall general knowledge of the students. Mandatory advertising and news provision by the Channel One should be scrapped off from the classrooms.
Discussion
One of the strategies used to support the argument by the authors is the use of interviews and observation. At the beginning of the article, the authors dedicate their time to observe the response of students in class at Clifton High School (Moton and Dumler, 2010). They observe and note that the students do not pay attention to the mandatory viewing of the advertisements being aired. The teacher has to yell at them constantly to have their awareness on the proceedings. In addition, the authors use interviews of stakeholders, related figures in the management of the systems and several respondents to support their arguments. For example, the vice president of the channel’s firm defends the company on its policy of providing equipment to schools.
The second strategy used to support the argument is through use of statistical data. It is said that the population of almost eight million school-going children in about twelve thousand institutions are able to watch the advertisements and news. Majority of them however, do not inform their parents on the same. The company made $346 million ion revenues from the advertisements in the year 1999 (Moton and Dumler, 2010). The estimated price for every thirty-second advertisement is about $200,000. The amount of money that was used in lobbying at the senate in order to ward off the advances of cancelling the advertisements and news avenues in schools was about $1 million during the year 1999.
The overall structure of the article is slightly not organized in a coherent manner. The authors begin by providing an observation of the subject matter of advertisement and news provisions within classrooms on a mandatory basis. Throughout the article, they provide for compelling evidence that support and further the argument on the negative impacts. With the inclusion of statistical evidence, response from the stakeholders and action taken from the past years, the article enables critical thinking on the detriment of the subject. This is vital in support of the argument since it is not biased on the positive and negative outlook towards the education system.
Conclusion
Stealth TV: Channel One Delivers News and
Advertising to the Classroom article assumes that the readers have knowledge
that the advertisements and news viewing is mandatory in schools as well as the
equipment provision to the institutions. It also assumes that majority of the
students do not support the idea of obligation towards Channel One views. The
argument is convincing since such an avenue has turned out to be more of a
business entity, rather than an informative platform to improve the quality of
education. In addition, with the statistics provided, little or no improvements
have been realized on the utility provided by mandatory advertisements and news
in classrooms, thereby requiring it to be scrapped.
Reference:
Moton, D., & Dumler, G. (2010). Navigating America: Information competency and research for the twenty-first century. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Higher Education.