“In a recent citywide poll, fifteen percent more residents said that they

watch television programs about the visual arts than was the case in a
poll conducted five years ago. During these past five years, the number
of people visiting our city’s art museums has increased by a similar
percentage. Since the corporate funding that supports public television,
where most of the visual arts programs appear, is now being threatened
with severe cuts, we can expect that attendance at our city’s art museums
will also start to decrease. Thus some of the city’s funds for supporting
the arts should be reallocated to public television.”

According to the argument since the corporate funding that supports public
television, where most of the visual arts programs appear, is now being threatened
with severe cuts and as a result, they will now see a drastic shortfall in the number
of people visiting art museums. Therefore the derived conclusion is to transfer
municipal funds to public television to continue the response the local art museums
are getting in terms of footfall. However, this statement has a few flaws in its
assumptions while coming to the conclusion, which seems completely irrational as
it ignores the other factors which could have attracted visitors to the museum.
To start with the argumentation, the first flaw while concluding is based on a
presumption that the increase in art visual channels on public television is directly
correlated with the increase in the attendance of the art museum, because the
increase or decrease in the attendance of the art museum may be due to several
other reasons. For instance, the rise in numbers at the museum may be because of
some policies that have been revised, such as the timings of the museum have been
made more relaxed or the entry fees could have been made reasonable.
Furthermore, maybe new kinds of events inspired the public to come, and
experience the art museum as those events may have educated the residents about
the history of that town, and that is why there is an increase in interest in the
general public to visit such events. Additionally, some exhibitions of works of
famous artists may have motivated the public to attend the museum. Therefore,
these are some of the reasons, which may have increased the attendees to the
museum.
We can also see a possible scenario, where, because of the severe cut in the
funding for public television, people would have more time so they could visit the
museum more in the future, which resultantly would increase the attendees to the
museum in opposition to what is presumed by the author.
Moreover, the author suggests reallocating the funding of the city’s arts to public
television is very illogical. This faulty conclusion of the author weakens the
argument itself because the funding which is allocated to arts, if, is transferred to
public television then the culture of the art may lack the required support and the
importance of the art would not be appreciated by upcoming future generations.
In conclusion, I strongly disagree with the author’s reasoning as
the argumentation seems based on a simple and obvious conclusion at a first
glance. However, when studied in detail from all the perspectives seems to have
missed considering several aspects which may have been critical in deciding the
interest of people in art museums them watching art on television.