Paper 2 Source

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2006/sep/14/news.uknews

WATCO having an online social account of exposure to pornography and online-bullying
Claim: having an online social account will dramatically increase ones exposure to pornography and online-bullying
Reason: Because social networks are unable to effectively monitor interactions between their various users

Goal: To get parents to monitor and restrict online social account using by teenagers.

Audience: This would be parents of new teenagers, meaning that they have their oldest becoming a teenager, who are fairly conservative and feel the need to intervene in their child’s life for their child’s protection. This would most likely be a two parent house hold with a more traditional set up. These parents would also have strict rules concerning curfews, grades, and demeanor.

Ethos: The author of this argument develops credibility through having personal experience to rely on. By citing a shopper’s magazine who participated directly in the social networks the author brings up real life situations which children can and do experience. The author is not talking in hypothetical’s but in real life time, that parents can understand that these dangers are prominent in these social networks, which builds a relationship and credibility with the audience.

Pathos: Since this argument is geared toward parents of new teenagers they are apprehensive about the troubling time that is about to happen in their hormonal teenagers lives. The author accentuates this fear by enlisting the “mean world syndrome” or making the social networking sites appear more vicious and scary than they might actually be. By enlisting this fear present in our dangerous world today parents are going to be more open to listening to adopting the claim as their own.

Sufficient: The author does a great job of incorporating the perspective of MySpace and Bebe (the two cites the discuss exclusively) this changes the argument changes a little bit to emphasize that these sites are not inherently bad or evil, but instead shows that these sites are dangerous because of the content that cannot always be prevented.

Conclusion: This argument is fairly effective especially because of the sufficiency of the argument. If this argument had been completely one-sided unwilling to concede that these sites attempt to control their pornography and bullying content reasonable parents would have viewed this argument as unrealistic. By appearing more reasonable and having a lot of personal evidence to back up their claim the author is able to effectively persuade their audience.