Have you ever been in a situation where your vote could mean life or death for someone else?  It is a crazy situation, but that is the place that twelve men are put into in the movie, 12 Angry Men.  The men are on a jury, and they need to decide whether to convict this boy to death for killing his father.  As they leave the courtroom, they are given the instructions that they must have a unanimous vote of either “guilty,” or “not guilty.”  Only one man has the courage to admit that he is not so sure the boy really did the crime, and as the movie goes on, slowly, he is able to pull more and more, and finally, all of the men to his side. 

               12 Angry Men is a great example of “Groupthink,” which is the idea of everyone in the group making bad decisions because they were pressured into giving up their morals to stick with the group (Comm Power Point).  The movie also showcases “herd mentality,” which has to do with the idea of being influenced by your peers to make certain decisions (Comm Power Point).

               It is hard to stand alone and fight groupthink or herd mentality, especially if people are vehemently against you.  That one man was not very popular at the beginning of the movie, but he stood firm.  It is easy to go with the crowd, but what is easy is not always right.  One of my favorite quotes pertaining to this idea is from the movie, Captain America: Civil War, when Sharon Carter says, “Compromise where you can. Where you can’t, don’t. Even if everyone is telling you that something wrong is something right. Even if the whole world is telling you to move, it is your duty to plant yourself like a tree, look them in the eye, and say ‘No, you move’.”

               As for an overview of the semester, this class was awesome.  I really liked how each week we focused on one specific thing.  I think it is hard when you try to fit so many different topics in one week.  I really enjoyed the week that we did on radio and music.  I also really enjoyed the week we talked about Old Hollywood.  Old movies are my favorite things, so I thought it was awesome to talk about how old movie studios were run.  I especially loved the MGM documentary.  I do think it would have been really fun to talk about comics and video games, but I understand that it was not possible with the short semester. 

               The other thing that I really enjoyed was the Media Journal.  It felt relevant to do, considering this is a mass media class.  I had never logged my media intake like that before, and I thought the results were interesting.  I especially liked that it was easy to do and it actually taught me something.  I also enjoyed doing the weekly blogs instead of doing lots of quizzes like some of my other classes.  I felt like with the blogs, they made me think through all we had watched and talked about in class.

               The BEST thing about the class though, was Dr. Schlegel.  He is a very cool person and very knowledgeable about so many different topics.  It was a joy to take this class from him, and I am looking forward to taking more classes from him the future.  He made me excited that my major is communications! Thanks, Dr. S!