Passage Discussion

[andrewgong01]

Hi,
Is there a scale for this passage because this passage seems to be one point of view and no contrasting views.
The passage map seems to be 1) Origins of the issue 2)What the issue looks like today 3)Problem and consequence of the issue.

However, it doesn't seem like there is two contrasting views unless we use the final paragraph as the gauge where the author sides with saying the relationship with the media/drive for profit is a problem and the other side saying this is not a problem.

Thank you

[ohthatpatrick]

I think you nailed it!

You could invent the other side of the scale by making the passage into
"The symbiotic relationship between Hollywood movie makers and mass media publicity: Good or Bad?"

Even though there is no person to whom we could assign the "Good" side, there is a lot of evidence in the first two paragraphs that this system works out pretty well for both the movie business and the magazine/news/TV business.

The negativity about the system comes in the last paragraph, from the author.

So we could still think about the central topic in terms of a Scale, "good stuff about the system" vs. "bad stuff about the system".

But overall, I'm never going to "force" there to be a Scale if it feels unnatural. It's just a reading tool to organize the central issues at play. For this passage, some readers might find it useful to organize the Good stuff vs. the Bad stuff about the movie-media industrial complex in a scale. Others might just find it sufficient to see the author giving the historical background on a situation before ultimately indicating her critical opinion about where the situation has currently gotten us.

I would personally have called the purpose of this passage "To Describe a Problem".