TFY Chapter 8 Summary

1. Critical thinking means learning to recognize viewpoints and how they shape the content of any message.
2. Viewpoints- like assumptions, opinions, and evaluations-can either be consciously or unconsciously assumed.
3. We communicate best when we are aware of our own viewpoint and can understand and respect the viewpoints of others as well.
4. Writers shape their stories through their choice of a point of view; their choices include third-person, first person, and multiple points of view. These viewpoints may be omniscient or humanly limited.
5. Unconscious viewpoints include the egocentric, ethnocentric, religiocentric, androcentric, and anthropocentric.
6. U.S. politics cannot be defined in terms of a simple left-to-right spectrum of viewpoints.
7. In alternative periodicals and on the internet a far wider range of view points is available than on U.S. network television and mainstream publications. Such viewpoints include third political parties, feminists, gays and lesbians, ethnic minorities, workers, environmentalists, religious groups, and immigrants.
8. Periodicals can express viewpoints through images, words, and in the framing given to information. Framing decisions made by an editor can exercise a hidden influence over the reader.