Critical Response Exercise 3.6

What is the picture?

The cartoon is showing a unattractive teenager holding a game controller and most likely connected to a computer. Around the boy are the words "kill" that covers most of the cartoon, but the cartoon also shows the boy's facial features of his crazed smile and dilated eyes. We can presume that these facial features are because of the game he is currently playing.

What is the cartoon conveying? 

The author is seemingly supporting that media violence, such as games or television, are disturbing the children's minds with the intentions of murder. The author is trying to appeal to parents to help reduce children playing violent video games because the author presented a unattractive boy and this is appealing to parents' emotions with pathos by making them consider if their children become unsociable and become a shut in(a person spends all of their time indoors).

With the word "kill" appearing across the cartoon, it seems like that the boy is having thoughts of killing because his dilated eyes and crazed smile indicate that killing is appearing in his game and/or mind. The display of violence in the teenager appeals to parents' emotions by having them acknowledge if their children could be or are this violent. The cartoon uses pathos to establish the author's opinion of media violence by using a young teenager, who we can assume spends most of his time playing violent games.

Are the methods logical and fair?

The author created a logical and fair cartoon because it displays that playing violent could correlate with a more aggressive mind and its fair because any child could be become addicted to playing violent games. The author used the teenager to connect the word "kill" and games together by showing the boy playing a game with "kill" around the the teenager; the method logical because it helps establish that game is causing the boy to "kill" our thinking to "kill".