Scandals are useful because they focus our attention on problems in ways that no speaker or reformer ever could.
Nowadays, as our attention span becomes increasingly narrow due to increased number of daily messages being received through new technologies, media vehicles are showing more and more scandals in the headlines. Politicians, celebrities, businessmen, even scientists, who should know better, are frequently using scandals to gain our attention and drive public opinion to their objectives. Nevertheless, this is a negative phenomenon. Although scandals are powerful ways to focus our attention on problems that would otherwise not receive the proper look, they harm more than they build. That is mainly because of two reasons: they polarize the public, making it harder to achieve a consensus on the best solution for the problem; and they sometimes bring the focus to irrelevant problems, driving the attention out of problems that we should have been looking at. Let's look at both reasons in more detail.
First, when a scandal is done to bring attention to a specific problem, usually the people doing the scandal appeal to emotional arguments, which evoke passionate discussions about different opinions. This generates a polarization effect, strongly dividing public opinion in two or even more unique points-of-view. Therefore, although the scandal focus the attention of the masses to the problem, it divides the public opinion more severely, making it harder to everyone reach a consensus towards the best solution, which usually involves compromises from both (or all) the parts involved. Polarization is a barrier to compromises.
Second, scandals bringing attention to irrelevant problems are unfortunately very often. There are several examples of this in politics, where politicians frequently use this strategy to shift the public focus out of an area they do not want people to look at. This is very dangerous: people who have high media exposure can use scandals to manipulate public's perceptions, thus taking the focus out of problems that should have been receiving attention.
Although it is true that scandals are useful because they focus our attention on problems in ways that no speaker or reformer ever could, there are other ways to drive attention without incurring in the risks explained above. Scandals usually use emotional arguments, which are based on little or no data at all; driving the attention to problems by making strong arguments, heavily based on data, with emotional support, is a better way to achieve the same result. That is because strong arguments based on data, told in a balanced way, using emotions just to support the facts, is more likely to avoid polarization. Finally, this alternative would only bring attention to relevant problems, as irrelevant ones would be clearly seen by the supporting data.
Whenever telling a story, making and argument or trying to sell an idea, in order to focus the public's attention on problems, we should always prefer making strong arguments, supporting them with proper data, over scandals. This will ensure we will always do our best to bring everyone who is listening together towards reaching the best solution to the problem, avoiding polarization, and that we will be always looking at relevant problems.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 865, Rule ID: LETS_LET[1]
Message: Did you mean 'Let's'?
Suggestion: Let's
...ms that we should have been looking at. Lets look at both reasons in more detail. ...
^^^^
Line 9, column 96, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'publics'' or 'public's'?
Suggestion: publics'; public's
... to sell an idea, in order to focus the publics attention on problems, we should always...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
finally, first, if, look, nevertheless, second, so, therefore, thus, it is true
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 23.0 19.5258426966 118% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.4196629213 97% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 14.8657303371 67% => OK
Relative clauses : 16.0 11.3162921348 141% => OK
Pronoun: 36.0 33.0505617978 109% => OK
Preposition: 65.0 58.6224719101 111% => OK
Nominalization: 21.0 12.9106741573 163% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2704.0 2235.4752809 121% => OK
No of words: 505.0 442.535393258 114% => OK
Chars per words: 5.35445544554 5.05705443957 106% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.74048574033 4.55969084622 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.81216286415 2.79657885939 101% => OK
Unique words: 243.0 215.323595506 113% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.481188118812 0.4932671777 98% => OK
syllable_count: 838.8 704.065955056 119% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59117977528 107% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 10.0 6.24550561798 160% => OK
Article: 0.0 4.99550561798 0% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 3.10617977528 225% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.77640449438 113% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.38483146067 68% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 20.2370786517 94% => OK
Sentence length: 26.0 23.0359550562 113% => OK
Sentence length SD: 71.8818282316 60.3974514979 119% => OK
Chars per sentence: 142.315789474 118.986275619 120% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.5789473684 23.4991977007 113% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.15789473684 5.21951772744 80% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 4.97078651685 101% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 7.80617977528 26% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 10.2758426966 49% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 13.0 5.13820224719 253% => Less negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.83258426966 21% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.408978050625 0.243740707755 168% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.127092139379 0.0831039109588 153% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.154463841096 0.0758088955206 204% => The coherence between sentences is low.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.220385060602 0.150359130593 147% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.129468878066 0.0667264976115 194% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 17.1 14.1392134831 121% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 36.63 48.8420337079 75% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.92365168539 111% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 14.6 12.1743820225 120% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.05 12.1639044944 116% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.83 8.38706741573 105% => OK
difficult_words: 125.0 100.480337079 124% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 11.8971910112 97% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 11.2143820225 111% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.7820224719 102% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 54.17 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.25 Out of 6
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.