Discussion Groups / English Usage / July 2010

Hi,

I'm preparing my GRE test and this is my latest composition.  This
time I think I've corrected most of the grammar mistakes but I am not
quite sure if the words are accurate and if the logic sounds
reasonable.

So any suggestion or criticisms will be appreciated.

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Issue 88: In many countries it is now possible to turn on the
television and view government at work. Watching these proceedings can
help people understand the issues that affect their lives. The more
kinds of government proceedings – trials, debates, meetings, etc -
that are televised, the more society will benefit.

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These days more and more government proceedings are broadcasted on
television around the world because it's believed that the more people
know about how their government works, the more the society will
gain.  But this postulation is precarious because what is televised
might deliberate and blatant propaganda of a corruptive government.
And even if these programs really disclose the details of public
affairs, the audience is unlikely to be fascinated.

If everything broadcasted on television was true, you would be able to
see enormous alien space ships from science fiction dramas flying on
your head every day.  Even news reports provided by television
channels as respected as are CNN and BBC are often accused of
prejudice and distortion.  In countries where there's no freedom of
speech, where most television channels are controlled by the
government, more often than not, the situation is worse. In these
countries, the political programs are almost entirely propagandas in
order to deceive their people into believing they are living in the
most prosperous nation and to boost their loyalty to the authority,
such as the intensive television reports of the annual session of
National People's Congress (NPC) in China every year.  As the
ostensible legislators of the country, representatives of NPC rally
every spring for about a month and there would be all day long live
broadcast of their meetings on almost every television channels across
the country.  However, the audiences are only interested in gossips,
which are reported during the intermission, such as the catering, the
memorial gifts, the beauties and the celebrated representatives
because everyone knows that the rally is merely an artificial and
delicate drama guided by the government.  Every law, every proposition
will be authorized, and every candidate will be elected as they are
already approved by the authority.  Last year, an old lady who has
been a representative of NPC since 1970s even brazenly declared on
television that she was proud of having never voted against anything
in these 40 years.  Seeing the government and legislature cooperating
fluently without noticing the noisome hypocrisy of the television
reports and the unpleasant dark side of the communist regime could
indeed entertain some people, but in long term the more programs of
propaganda the people absorb, the more the shows would impair the
public interests.

In countries where the television channels are independent of the
authority, even it's possible to unpretentiously elaborating
government and legislature's proceedings on television, these programs
are unlikely to have a large audience across the country.  Nowadays,
we have countless, varied and engrossing television channels, like
sports, music television, films, dramas, comedies, cartoons, science
fiction, soaps, news, etc.  With so many viewing choices, it's no easy
feat to get audiences to tune in to a program about government's daily
work, which is riddled with dull speeches, protracted discussions and
abstruse terms. C-SPAN, Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network, which
airs non-stop coverage of U.S. government proceedings and public
affairs programming, is a typical example of how boring this kind of
programs could be. Wining dozens of awards during its 30-year run, C-
SPAN's CEO still confessed the monotony and prolixity of the network
and that they have to consistently try to make attendants of
conferences look more animated on screen in order to alleviate the
tediousness of their programs. And not long ago, a famous American
comedian, Joe Wong, also joked in a C-SPAN program that the channel
was an excellent hypnotic and that if you couldn't get to sleep by
watching C-SPAN, then maybe C-SPAN2 and C-SPAN3, which belongs to the
same network, could treat your insomnia.  Comparing to 100 million
viewers of Super Bowl in 2010, the audience of C-SPAN is definitely
the minority of the populace and any effect trying to improve the
society by setting up television networks broadcasting only government
proceedings, like C-SPAN, will be at least limited or rather
fruitless.

Television is known as idiot box for a good reason.  Since the day it
was introduced to common people, it has been either an instrument for
propaganda where there's no freedom of speech, or a vulgar
entertainment where people could choose what to watch.  The
instinctive propensity of human to prefer ravishing lies than foul
truth, to enthusiastically chase amusement, determined that only
showing more and more government proceedings on television could never
considerably ameliorate the society.