Blog 4

“Gun Fever Too: Still Hot”

The episode starts with Frank in the news talking about getting robbed but having guns to defend himself. He urges people to buy guns from Gunther’s Gun store to defend themselves. Charlie and Mac argue that owning guns helps people protect themselves while Dennis and Dee argue to get them off the street. Mac and Charlie decide to work as security at a school to protect them from shootings. While trying to teach the kids how to defend themselves they realize how crazy they go with objects and that if many people had guns the outcome would be worse. Dennis and Dee go to a gun store and try to buy a gun to prove how easy it is to get one. They get denied because of their background checks and they try to get one illegally but they get robbed. They come to the conclusion that to stop a bad guy with a gun a good guy needs a gun .When they all meet up they argue against what they first thought was right until Frank arrives. Frank tells them that he was just appealing to the public so that the stake he bought in Gunther’s Gun store would make him rich. Frank admits that he didn’t care about the gun issue at all.

This episode explains how much impact the news has on society and how the appeal to emotion works to push an agenda. People buy into these appeals and react irrational without trying to solve the issue at hand. People might exploit a political issue by creating narratives that persuade people to act without critically thinking about the problem to gain money. These people don’t care about actually solving the problem and are more concern on making profit. The show explains that to an extent both sides could be correct but the issue is never truly discussed. As the article ” The Relationship Between Television and Culture” states, ” Critics argue that partisan news networks cause viewers to have less understanding of opposing political opinions, making them more polarized.” The issue is that partisan news aren’t able to discuss the issue at hand which leads to people not knowing what the problem really is. The article “Culture and Hegemony” states, “Hegemony can only be maintained so long as the dominant classes succeed in framing all competing definitions within their range.” Frank represents the upper class who frame their arguments to maintain control over the lower class by making them fight over what should be done and not on other social issues.