Political Advocacy

[hphuong]

Political advocacy groups have begun to use information services to disseminate information that is then accessed by the public via personal computer. Since many groups are thus able to bypass traditional news sources, whose reporting is selective, and to present their political views directly to the public, information services present a more balanced picture of the complexities of political issues than any traditional news source presents.

Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument above depends?

A. Information services are accessible to enough people to ensure that political advocacy groups can use these services to reach as large a percentage of the public as they could through traditional news sources.
B. People could get a thorough understanding of a particular political issue by sorting through information provided by several traditional news sources, each with differing editorial biases.
C. Information on political issues disseminated through information services does not come almost entirely from advocacy groups that share a single bias.
D. Traditional news sources seldom report the views of political advocacy groups accurately.
E. Most people who get information on political issues from newspapers and other traditional news sources can readily identify the editorial biases of those sources.

OA is C. I'm confused.

Please help.

[esledge]

It would help me to know which answer you leaned toward, and a little bit more about why you are confused.

For now, I'll suggest that "Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument above depends?" is stricter than "which of the following supports the conclusion?" There may be several choices that support the conclusion, at least a little bit.

Instead, you should translate this question as "Which of the following MUST be true if you are to have any hope of reaching this conclusion?" or "Which of the following, if ELIMINATED, would kill the conclusion?"

(C) is correct because if information on political issues disseminated through information services WERE almost entirely from advocacy groups that share a single bias, then you COULD NOT claim that information services present a more balanced picture of political issues than traditional news sources.

[rohitmonga83]

why E is wrong/.

[RonPurewal]

why E is wrong/.

remember that an ASSUMPTION needs to be something that is ABSOLUTELY REQUIRED for the argument to work at all.

choice (e) is a terrible choice: not only is it not required, but it actually weakens the argument.

to wit:
the point of the argument is that, basically, people get a more balanced idea of issues from the use of "information services" (vs. traditional media).
therefore, the main drive in the argument is to show that "information services" give a MORE balanced idea, and, equivalently, that traditional media give a LESS balanced idea.

according to choice (e), people can figure out the bias in traditional media on their own. this would lend support to the idea that people will be able to obtain and maintain a balanced idea even from the traditional media coverage, because they'll be able to see through the bias - which runs exactly counter to the spirit of the argument.

so, not only is this choice clearly not REQUIRED, but it's actually detrimental to the argument.

[tanyatomar]

Hi Ron,
WHy is A wrong.. i chose A thinking that if the information is not reachable to many (enough) people then partly their purpose of choosing info service will be wasted since it is mentioned in stimulus that "Since many groups are thus able to bypass traditional news sources, whose reporting is selective, and to present their political views directly to the public, "

so if info services are also not reaching enuf people then political advocacy is not reaching the number of people they want to..

please explain how to reject A..
i also always get confused while applying POE.

thanks in advance

[bhupijaat]

Choice A is wrong for two reasons which I can think of :

First reason : Argument never discussed about percentage or number of people advocacy group wants to reach. So this out of scope of argument...Remember, an Assumption SHOULD NEVER go outside scope of argument.

Second Reason : extension of First reason, Here purpose of group is to present information or ideas in a different way not to increase followers base. So argument is not concern with How Many?

Hope that Helps..

[tim]

thanks; let us know if there are any further questions on this one..

[shreerajp99]

Choice D states that 'Traditional news sources seldom report views accurately'.If i negate it to 'Traditional news sources report views accurately',the argument collapses and if traditional news themselves accurately depict political views,what is the need for information services?
Also,is it that in assumption/must be true questions,we should avoid answer choices using strong words(in this case the word seldom).

Thanks,
Shreeraj

[RonPurewal]

Choice D states that 'Traditional news sources seldom report views accurately'.If i negate it to 'Traditional news sources report views accurately',the argument collapses

nope -- this won't make the argument collapse. in fact, it doesn't affect the main line of reasoning in the argument.

the argument doesn't claim, or rely on, the idea that traditional news sources are inaccurate.
check the argument again:
"traditional news sources, whose reporting is selective..."
--> in other words, the problem isn't that traditional sources distort certain views; instead, the problem is that those sources omit those views.
("selective reporting" means that not everything is reported; certain things are reported, others aren't.
same with "selective" anything else. for instance, "selective completion of assignments" would mean that some of the assignments get done but others don't.)

and if traditional news themselves accurately depict political views,what is the need for information services?

same issue.
according to the argument, the information services are valuable because they present views that the traditional sources don't present. the notion of accuracy isn't involved in this argument.

Also,is it that in assumption/must be true questions,we should avoid answer choices using strong words(in this case the word seldom).

that may work as a guessing method in some situations. however, note that seldom actually isn't a "strong" word in this sense; in fact, it's the opposite. (the corresponding "strong" word would be never.)

[shreerajp99]

Thanks Ron!
I find Assumption problems that deal with statistics (numbers and percentages) quite difficult.Any general tips on how to deal with them?
Is there any link you would like to redirect me to where i can get more practice/learn such problems?

Thanks,
Shreeraj

[tim]

i don't see how this question deals with numbers, but in general you should not be overly concerned with the specific numbers you see in CR problems. they are usually there only to give context and a general sense of magnitude..

[shreerajp99]

Thanks Tim!
No i made a general statement;it wasn't related to this problem as such.

Thanks,
Shreeraj

[tim]

:)