Sidney Lumet’s, 12 Angry Men was one of his earliest and perhaps one of his greatest films. The film takes place inside a jurors’ room at the New York County Courthouse in lower Manhattan. When we first meet the jurors they are about to take a vote on the guilt or innocence of an 18 year-old who had murdered his father. We are told that all 12 jurors must agree on a verdict, otherwise it would be a hung jury. A guilty verdict would lead to the boy being sent to the electric chair.

When we meet the juror played by Henry Fonda, we see him from the back and staring out the window. We know that this is the character that will be the protagonist that he will change the course of the events in the room. When the vote is first taken, eleven jurors vote for conviction and juror number eight, Henry Fonda votes against conviction on the basis of reasonable doubt, forcing jurors to question their decision and values.

We spend the next hour and 20 minutes listening to the Jurors one by one discussing the crime. Fonda questions the testimony given during the trial by two witnesses. One by one jurors move from being certain of the teenagers guilt to having doubts. Throughout the film votes are taken on the guilt or innocence and the jurors gradually change their votes. The last character to change his mind was juror number 3 who was played by Lee J. Cobb. This juror had a son age 16 who he had decided to toughen up after his son had not fought back during a school fight. An altercation when the son was older led to the dad getting punched in the jaw, which resulted in the son no longer talking to his father. The parallels between the verdict and juror number three have clearly biased his judgement.

Just as juror number three is forced to evaluate his own actions so too are we the audience forced to examine our own self-image, personality and experiences relative to the question to guilt or innocence. Though it seems unfathomable at the start of the film that one person could change the opinion of eleven, it is indeed the power of that one person to change each other’s decisions and moves the entire room to question their group decision.

I enjoyed this film and the many films and readings throughout the semester. The lectures were stimulating and assignments were helpful in analyzing the content that was presented in class. There was a lot of ground covered in this one short semester. I could see wanting to take more in depth classes on several of the others in class. It is a monster of a class, however it gave me an appreciation of the many aspects and issues surrounding mass media. I spend my day on mass media in one form or another. I believe this class has given me insights into how and why that happens and what it all means. It also gives me an appreciation of the evolution of mass media and its impact in the world in which we live.

Thank you Professor Schlegel for these learnings.

We are told in our told in our readings that fan culture began with baseball. As a baseball fan myself I totally understand how this might happen since became hooked from watching one game five years ago. The word fan comes from fandom which means fanatic which is what I am with baseball. Fandom takes many forms and it is what motion pictures and television try to develop and nurture.

We saw in the Galaxy Quest documentary and in the Jaws 45th Anniversary parody, fandom can take a cult-like appearance. The documentary discuss many aspects which lead to this, from a strong and convincing plot to costumes and makeup which are somewhat realistic but not over the top. The characters need to believable and authentic. It is a peculiar blend between realism and fantasy, novelty and consistency. The Jaws Wemake takes this one step further with by integrating parody into the mix.

The slide presentation examines the uses and gratification that the media has on people. These include: cognitive needs, affective needs, personal needs, and tension free needs. Media should not only make us think but it should also makes us relax and engage us on a personal level. This is what happens when one enters the realm of fandom. You may not only identify with the characters, but you are emotionally drawn in by them and you may begin dressing and acting like them, maybe even joining a club or attending a conference of like-minded individuals. From a marketing perspective it is what people in marketing dream about. How do you hook someone into a story. Soap Operas learn this formula in the 1950s by hooking housewives into daytime dramas. Now we have Netflix with its ten part series. It’s just long enough to get you hooked and even binge watch, but not too long as to lose you along the way.

Henry Jenkins talks about the movement from participatory culture to a political culture in the Big Thinker series. Jenkins start with Folk Culture and how quilts were started within a community with various people contributing to different pieces of the quilt. They would learn from each other, with one person who knows something more about something teaching another person. He then compares this to the Internet Culture where people are sharing information and demonstrating their expertise while teaching others how to do what they do. It is a community on a global scale engaging in dialogue and sharing information. He uses the Harry Potter Alliance as an example. writing on the heels of this enormously popular series in organization formed to recognize and eradicate some of the evils and ills of the world. They call themselves Dumbledore’s Army. This group of 100,000 help fight human right violations in Dafour, the earthquake in Haiti, and advocate for gay rights. Jenkins also talks about how to move engaged students into action such as changing the Moby Dick entry on wikipedia and helping students find the right evidence to convince scholars of the need to make changes in the entry.

Alan McKee takes an academic look at fandom and examines not only the history of fandom and reminds us of Cicero and how the masses consume culture. McKee discuss the Buffy The Vampire Slayer and notes that this popular TV series has a journal of Buffy studies and website dedicated to fan and academic studies of Buffy. It is in this realm that McKee sees the blurring of “humanities intellectuals” such as those studying Buffy to the fan. Ironically, he concludes by saying: ” we are the fans who are lucky enough to get paid to be fans.”

People have been asking for years if watching violence on TV makes people violent. This is particularly concerning for parents with young children. One researcher, George Gerbner, studied violence in the media for 40 years. his view was not that violence causes violence but watching violence desensitizes us to violence and somewhat paradoxically more violence we see the more fearful we are of violence. In the film “Mean World Syndrome” it is stated that children see 8,000 murders on TV by the end of elementary school and 200,000 violent acts by the age of 18.

Gerbner states that most of the violence we see is “happy violence.” This is violence that is meant for a laugh. Death without the consequences. A cartoon showing someone slipping on banana peel or someone getting hit on the head with a pan. This type of violence has been around as long as media has existed.

In the film “Mean World Syndrome” we learn about the broadcast of Orson Welles’ “War Of The Worlds.” This broadcast was about the martian invasion of earth. So realistic was the broadcast that people actually believed it and panic ensued. Some people in fact jumped out of windows.

The mean world syndrome is one where people perceive the world to be more dangerous than it is. In the slides Gerbner talks about the three groups of TV watchers which are Heavy (4 hrs or more), Medium (2-4 hrs, and Light (2 hrs and less). In Gerbner’s world heavy watchers perceived the world as more violent and dangerous than light viewers.

In the slides we also learned about the effects media has on people. We learned that the audience is not passive and that TV satisfies needs which might be cognitive (knowledge acquisition) , affective (using media to satisfy emotional needs) , personal integrative ( social validity and credibility) , social integrative ( needs to socialize with family and friends and develop or retain relations in society) , or for tension free needs (people often use media as escapism).

In the film “Human Behavior Experiments” we learn about the Bystander effect and the famous Kitty Genovese case where in 1964 Kitty Genovese was stabbed outside the apartment across the street of where she lived while people looked on and apparently ignored cries for help.

We also learn about the famous Stanley Milgram experiment in obedience to authority which looked at the administration of punishment of affected learning. Another famous experiment called the Stanford Prison experiment investigated the psychological effect of perceived power and its impact on how “prisoners” were treated. This famous experiment showed that though people knew they were an experiment those who were randomly assigned to being guards became increasingly violent and brutal with their “prisoners.”

It is clear from the Milgram experiment and the Stanford Prison experiment, and the many clips shown in this film that authority and insensitivity to violence can induce some bizarre behavior. One of the most recent examples of this was at the Abu Ghraib in Iraq where prisoners were openly tortured and humiliated by American soldiers in an effort to extract information from them. These guards were given orders some implicit and some direct to do what it takes to get information out of the prisoners. This, along with other atrocities shown in this film are very regretful and sad aspects of the impact that power and the subjugation of violence has on society.

The general theme of this week’s readings was independence: from the wild, crazy, and sexually loose movies of the 1920’s to the censored movies by the Motion Pictures Association of America (MPAA). During this period movies went from big studio motion pictures to independant art movies. The 20’s also had their period of censorship with the enactment of the Motion Picture Code and the formation of the independent United Artist by Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D.W. Griffith.

Though I am familiar with the silent films of the 1920’s, including those of Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd, I did not realize that there were movies produced during that period that were sexually suggestive. In ” Why Be Good” they discuss the careers of Louise, Brooks, Greta Garbo, Clara Bow, Mae West, Gloria Swanson, and Norma Shearer. So wild were these pictures that the industry felt that they had to establish their own code to create standards for how sex was portrayed on the screen.

In discussing the “Two Hollywood’s” in our reading, “The Structure of New Hollywood,” it’s clear that the fault lines developed during the 1920’s with the perceived need for independence and the growing star system that allowed actors the freedom to set their own rules. That start system continued in the 1970’s and 1980’s with directors such as Stephen Spielberg forming Amblin Entertainment and later DreamWorks and forming alliances with Universal pictures and successful films like Steven Soderbergh’s “sex lies and videotape” that the lines were blurred between money making highly profitable independent films from small studios and blockbuster movies with blockbuster budgets. Spielberg could make the blockbuster “Jurassic Park” and small picture “Schindler’s List,” win Oscars and be highly profitable.

During the 1970’s the MPAA took hold of the movie industry. In “This Film Is Not Yet Rated” It talks about the different ratings there are in the movie industry as well as the breakdown of how certain films are rated. In this film private investigators were hired to go around Los Angeles and get names of the raters who were secret and find out who they are, their marriage status and number and age of children. Each of the raters would represent a type of individual, for example, they may have young children or they may be middle age and may be single. There was one individual who was representing a woman with children but it turned out that her children were in their twenties. The film also discussed the process of appeal of a rating. One of the points that was made of the rating board was that it was more concerned with sex than with violence. In fact, violence without blood was perfectly fine. One of the person’s interviewed made the point that violence with blood should receive a lower rating since it would discourage young people from being violent. Rather, the opposite is the case with the more blood the higher the rating. In Europe violence gets a higher rating over sex.

” A Decade Under The Influence” tackles the emergences and the development of the independent film industry. As Julie Christie says in the film ” The roots of independent films started in England” in the early 1960″s with filmmakers like: Lindsay Anderson and Tony Richardson. In the U.S. it began with filmmakers like Dennis Hopper (“Easy Rider”) and Roger Corman. In France there was Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut. In Italy there was Roberto Rossellini Michelangelo Antonioni, Vittorio de Sica, Luchino Visconti and Federico Fellini. In Japan there was Akira Kurosawa. All of these individuals and many more had lasting influences on independent cinema.

Our reading ends with a short discussion of the convergence of old media and new media. With the internet, the entertainment landscape is being rapidly transformed with new media powerhouses like Google, YouTube and, though they don’t mention it, Netflix. But that’s a chapter we’ve already discussed.

It is difficult to compress the history of the motion picture industry into 500 words. Our assignment this week started with Thomas Edison and his invention of the kinetoscope in 1891 which introduced motions pictures to a mass audience. Later, Auguste and Louis Lumiere invented the cinematographe which allowed motions pictures to be projected for an audience. By 1910, the nickelodeon had been established allowing people to pay 5 cents to see a movie.

With the creation of the motion picture industry, movies took off. A majority of the population was going to the movies. Silent pictures initially were short in length and focused on comedy and romance. Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd and other writers/directors/actors became household names. Studios controlled the actors and the flow of movies. In 1919 Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D.W. Griffith founded United Artist so that they could make their own movies without interference and pressure from the studios.

By 1927, silent pictures had run their course and talkies became the rage. The first of these was The Jazz Singer with Al Jolson. Twelve years later came color with the Wizard Of Oz and Gone With The Wind. Hollywood studios such as Paramount, Twentieth Century, RKO, MGM, and Warner Brothers dominated the industry. The Thirties and early Forties became the golden age of cinema.

The History of Metro Goldwyn Mayer as depicted in MGM: When The Lion Roars was fascinating. The combination of the scrappy Louis B. Mayer and the sauve, quiet and unassuming Irving Thalberg were a match of opposites but they were the perfect match to run this important and influential studio. MGM discovered actors such as Clark Gable, Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, and Spencer Tracey. Established names such as Buster Keaton, Lon Chaney and Wallace Beery joined the studio. Top directors such as King Vidor, Erich von Stroheim joined as well.

The 1950’s brought about TV. Why should people go to the movies when they could sit at home with their family watching TV? Though some great movies were released in the fifties and sixties such as Singing In The Rain, All About Eve, An American In Paris, To Kill A Mockingbird, and Bridge On The River Kwai.

During the sixties and seventies there was a rise in films including Jaws, Star Wars, The Godfather, and Indiana Jones: Raiders Of The Lost Ark. The 1980s brought about the adoption of the VCR which brought movies into our households. The 1990’s further brought about improvements in computer animation and special effects with movies like Jurassic Park, Toy Story, and the Matrix.

Though 3-D had played a role in the cinema of the 1950’s it received a renaissance in the 2000s. Today, 3-D has also entered the TV realm with an increasing number of programs in 3-D. At first 3-D was a cool profit making center for the motion picture industry with movies like Journey To The Center Of The Earth earned sixty percent of its revenue through 3-D sales. Some of the top grossing movie of all times such as Avatar and Alice in Wonderland were released in 3-D helping them get top grossing status.

Todays movie theaters not only have 3-D but have surround sound, motion seats, wind, fog, lighting, bubbles, water, scents, beds, sofas, playrooms, and lunch and dinner. What’s next is anyone’s guess.

This weeks readings focused on many of the negatives of social media in particular Facebook. Among the many disturbing issues was a story about a lawsuit against an 8 year-old who had jumped in his aunts arms and caused her to fall and break her wrist. The aunt ended up suing for $127,000 for her medical bills. in an effort to pay for the surgery had to sue the nephew who would be covered by homeowners insurance. When the news media got a hold of this they interpreted it as “aunt sues the nephew for hugging her.”

Once the reporters wrote their story, a social media frenzy kicked in. Stories about the “worst aunt ever”, “the auntie christ” and calls for her have her legs and other wrist to be broken circulated on twitter, facebook and other outlets. The misinterpretation of this story had to be counteracted by the aunt going on the today show with her nephew to explain the facts about the suite.

This was one obvious example of the damage of social media. The rest of our assignments focused on the subtle forms of social influence. Facebook being the largest social media outlet was discussed in almost all of the other assignments. One of PBS stories focused on “Facebook Dilemma” and how its algorithms are used to gather information on people who use Facebook. This information could be who you vote for, what you buy, what celebrities you like, what your politics is, who you message, what sports teams you like, etc. Armed with this data they can sell it and once they sell it they have no control how that data is used.

In another PBS Documentary the “Generation Like,”Douglas Rushkoff interviewed teenagers who became influencers as a result of Facebook, Instagram, Youtube and other outlets. These overnight sensations were able to increase their likes from hundreds to millions simply by doing funny things and making commentary. These kids began to indorse products and make money from their endorsements.

Two New York Times editorials focused on Facebook. One talked about how news has shifted from being very broad to being very segmented to the viewer through social media. Now you can read the news the way you want to read it and in a Wall Street Journal article they actually had two columns of news interpreted by liberal and conservative outlets. Whether it was ISIS, abortion, guns, healthcare or Trump. The liberal and conservative outlets reported entirely different takes on the same story. This is segmentation that leads people to hear what they want hear and read what they want to read. It is an example of birds of a feather flocking together.

In another opinion piece Ross Douthat discussed that Facebook is neither liberal or conservative or Republican or Democrat. It is what we make it. It is a neutral outlet which only shapes opinion in very subtle ways through its algorithms and what it post and what it removes from their site.

Finally, a lengthy report by Pew Research Center shows that people are actually selective in what they discussed in social media. Looking at the Snowden NSA episode people were hesitant to discuss their opinion on social media outlets. They would rather talk about it amongst their family and friends. As we learned from one of the other videos what you put on the social media, even if it’s removed it still stays there forever. I would imagine that people do not want their opinions on someone who is perceived to be a traitor forever online.

Reading these assignments and watching these videos gives you great pause about what you say on social media, whether it is controversial or not. This information can ultimately be seen by U.S. intelligence agencies, foreign governments, or used by organizations to use that data for nefarious purposes. Not having that control of that information is indeed a fighting thought.

In the readings and the video “Who invented the internet and why?” we learn not only who invented it, but we learn the definition of the internet and about the world wide web. The origins of the internet date back to the development of packet switching developed by a British group named, The National Physics Lab and research commissioned by the U.S. Department of Defense. The network was called ARPANET. Contributions were also made by the French organization called CYCLADES.

The Internet is the global system of interconnected computer systems. The world wide web is an information system on the internet which allows documents to be connected to other documents. In the early 1970’s, the term used to describe the internet was called the “information superhighway.” It opened rural areas to global connections and made trade and communication much easier. Today, it is hard to imagine a world without the internet. What person does not use Google, YouTube, Facebook or shop on Amazon?

With all of its potential positives there is a downside. which is illicite and unwanted information can spread as quickly as a positive and needed information. The world of the internet is a flat world. The lack of authorial information on online forums can give the impression that the source is authoritative. What one person says on Twitter or Facebook can spread around the world in minutes. Damage done can be irreparable. We know of many cases where misinformation leads to bullying, suicide or severe depression. The internet also is fraught with stalkers, hackers, thieves, and spies. This is the underbelly of the internet.

On the positive side, the internet is a place where people can have discourse. People can express their opinions about politics, the economy, sports, music, film, and most anything that’s on their mind. People can publish their own books, start their own business, and become influencers before they are teenagers. These days, Twitter is the place where our President communicates. He communicates their because he can express his opinion succinctly without it being edited or misinterpreted.

Certainly there are privacy issues with social media and sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, are trying to make sure that people are comfortable with the information that they release in the open and that a reasonable standard of privacy is lowered. In the PBS documentary called Digital Nation there was an examination of multitasking and its impact on the brain. The filmmakers make it clear that multitasking has a negative impact on memory. They discuss how teenagers think in paragraphs. Unlike a book, when they write, there is no beginning, middle, and end. People write in unrelated paragraphs. There is no thesis that one builds upon. The filmmakers also take issue with the way in which video games are used to lure teenagers into the military.

In the Ted Talk, Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck discuss the terror of internet, the murders, rapes, and other horrors. While image recognition software can pick up images of blood how can they differentiate between surgery and a beheading? Should these images be cleaned up and disposed of or should they be cleaned up and cataloged so that they can be used for prosecution of criminals? What impact does this cataloging have on the cataloggers? How can one spend eight hours looking at these horrible images?

Clearly much has happened in the 50 year history of the internet. The issues are not simple and there is much more thinking and regulation that must be brought to bear on this powerful tool. It has changed our lives for the good and the bad. There are no simple answers and there is a lot more to discover.

From the Pioneers of Television Called Funny Ladies to the episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer called Hush women in TV have moved to comical figures to saviors. The funny women in Funny Ladies are hilarious. The film did not need to introduce me to Lucille Ball and I Love Lucy. I have watched every single episode of these 6 season in addition to The Lucy Show. I Love Lucy is my dad’s favorite show. Lucy’s Italian movie with her stomping on grapes and the episode where she and her husband Ricky change jobs and she goes to a chocolate factory are two of the funniest shows I have ever seen on TV. I have probably seen those episodes ten times each. If I ever have children, I suspect that they will watch these episodes as well.

Lucille Ball’s work has and will undoubtedly live on for generations to come. I suspect that some of the other women in this documentary will also live on for generations. Carol Burnett, Mary Tyler Moore, Betty White, and Joan RIvers will have lasting appeal. They not only made their mark in comedy but they paved the way for other women such as Tina Fey and Margaret Cho. What amazed me were the sheer number of women who were successful comedians in the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s. These women started an era that predated women’s liberation and activist like Gloria Steinem. They were the true revolutionaries. They were writers, actors, directors and studio heads in an era where this was unheard of. They were true pioneers.

Fast forward to late 1990s and we have woman as vampire slayer. As they say “You’ve come along way baby.” Buffy is the hero of the Hush episode she is the person with brains and strength. She is a superhero. She was a superhero long before D.C came up with the film Wonder Women, which was considered groundbreaking. Buffy doesn’t look like a superhero which is a deceit. She is short, thin and petite, yet she is strong and resilient.

In the episode of Hush the characters have their voice taken away by the “Gentlemen.” “The episode is largely silent. Each of the characters have to find a way to communicate. They use white boards, hand gestures, mouth movements and props. The fact that they can’t talk adds additional scare moments to the episode. Not only is it scary, it is amusing. It is a different amusing than I Love Lucy, but there are many of the same facial movements, hand gestures and props as comedy.

“In addition to being one of the scariest episodes of TV ever produced, ‘Hush’ showcases everything that makes ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ one of the best shows of all time,” wrote Jacob Hall in Screen Crush. Hall ranked Hush in the top ten episodes of the series. Indeed writing an episode without words these days is a challenge, and making it both scary and funny is exceptional.