Summary Of Social Media As A Cultural Landscape

The Defense of Arguments in “Social Media as a Cultural Landscape”

In the article “Social Media as a Cultural Landscape”, authors Lauren Louie and Alladi Venkatesh introduce a thesis to describe the main topic in their paper—social media is defining the modern era’s digital culture (2013). To help support this thesis, the authors provide information on the connection between social media and digital culture, along with six arguments that are relevant to the main topic. Of the six arguments presented, four are successfully defended, one is moderately defended, and one is poorly defended. By supporting their thesis with examples of how social media influences digital culture, along with giving information to support most of their arguments, Louie

According to author Steven Frank, a thesis statement is a simplification of a larger or more complex idea (2005). Having a thesis that is very specific, as opposed to one that is broad or very complex, is essential in a paper as it allows the idea to easily be understood by a reader. In “Social Media as a Cultural Landscape”, the authors take a broad concept, social media, and create a thesis that describes a specific aspect of social media; this allows the reader to easily comprehend the topic at hand. Also, Strongman (2013) states that the information provided in a paper or article must be related to the main idea for the thesis to be supported. Including information that is appropriate in regards to the thesis is imperative, as a thesis that is not further supported in a work will end up being unprovable and unconnected to the rest of the writing. The six claims that the authors provide in the article each aid in providing facts to both reinforce the thesis and connect it to the rest of the writing. Overall, Louie and Venkatesh successfully constructed and provided enough information for their thesis in “Social Media as a Cultural

Along with the initial claim, the authors provide only one other piece of rhetorical evidence (gathered from two other papers) as support—user generated content can allow for communication between a sender and a receiver (Louie & Venkatesh, 2013). Essentially, the evidence that the authors provided just restates what was said in the claim, and does not add any more explanation to the statement. As described by Brem and Rips, explanations are useful and essential parts of a claim, as they allow a reader to comprehend what is being presented and add more structure to the claim in general (2000). This claim, which lacks more varied evidence and a more detailed explanation, is fairly weak and does not provide a great deal of support for the thesis pushed by the authors of “Social Media as a Cultural