Tuesday, January 26, 2016

TOK Presentation Reflections

  1. 1. What is the real-life situation and knowledge question? How are they connected? Does the KQ arise naturally from the RLS?



The first real life situation the group discussed was concerning the Syrian Crisis. Their knowledge question was "In the dissemination of knowledge should we always strive for objectivity?" The sub questions they presented were "is bias detrimental". The group connecting objectivity in the media that provide us different ways of knowing to how we know what we know from the news. Because of the recent BBC articles which have different pictures and perspectives of how the Syrian crisis is portrayed, it can play a part in peoples sense perception, reasoning, language and emotions. The knowledge does show how we should question reality and that objectivity is beneficial in the pursuit of truth. 


  1. 2. How is the KQ explored? What is the evidence? How certain is it? What were the other ways of looking at it? Give at least two details to explain why you think this presentation did or didn’t show a good understanding or had a lack of analysis of the KQs

It was explored through looking at sub branches of sense perception, reasoning and emotions that we gain from the media. The group talked about Sapir Whorf's linguistic determinism in connection to language, common sense realism in relation to sense perception and how imagination can affect emotions. However we can never be certain of things if we only apply our sense perception and emotions to them, because with common sense realism there are some limitations that come with it. So do emotions because the media can exaggerate and manipulate them to make us feel a certain way. They also talked about how objectivity in that aspect is not so good because the people behind the news article are making us think and feel according to them. They also looked at confounding variables like hoe people might have used sources like those pictures in the news reports to support their claim or an innate desire for subjectivity. I thought the presentation did show understanding and explanation of the KQ however they should have used more sources to back there statement up.



  1. 3. What impact does the conclusion have on the real-life situation? What other real-life situations were used to explore the conclusion and its implications?

At the end, since it was a pair presenting, they used to real life situations; one was concerning war songs and the other about Donal Trump. Their conclusion was that we should always strive for objectivity (defined as "consensus between large groups of people" and a way that limits transparency in knowledge) as this allows the knower to make rational judgements and also give negative sides to the argument. For the war song situation they said that tho it was objective it does not inform a large audience ( I didn't really understand this part) and it doesn't let the audience take action. For Donal Trump they said that he is subjective and irrational, because he uses the media as a platform to raise awareness.