Category Archives: Film & Media Analysis
Future Direction of Media Research
The overarching argument presented in Into the Blogosphere: Rhetoric, Community, and Culture of Weblogs is that the web has merit and should be considered a scholarly resource for study (with a peer review process). Noted is that blogs allow for … Continue reading
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Media and Politics
To some, the Fox network was a bad guy for removing its African American programming at a time when it seemed many of the shows had just hit their stride and were finding success. As Zook points out, these programs … Continue reading
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Consuming the Media
Schor lays out an artificial consumer culture cycle that lacks true human satisfaction, resulting in the perpetuation of social inequities. She argues that income is not a solution to keeping up with the Jones’ but instead, is part of the … Continue reading
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Rescue
The components Leni Yahil’s rescue triangle – acknowledgement, information and action – serve as a useful tool for evaluating the process of the making of the film “Schindler’s List” (1993). The result of this analysis positions its director Steven Spielberg … Continue reading
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Gender, Race and Class
Collectively, the readings provided excellent perspectives on the evolution of the portrayal in the media – primarily television – of predominate minority groups: women, Blacks and members of the LGBT community. In retrospect, I wish I had read “The Whites … Continue reading
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Making Sense of the Media
Issue 1: Are American Values Shaped by Mass Media? Engaging in the readings cited above is a lot like how I imagine a master’s program in Minority Studies. It’s difficult to consider the perspectives of an audience who may interpret … Continue reading
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Death Camps
That “The Grey Zone” (2001) strays from the truth and fails to maximize the conventions of filmmaking to tell a compelling story doesn’t make it bad film. That it delves into the bowels of the Nazi death camps more vividly … Continue reading
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The Ghettos
“The Pianist” (2002) is a survival story. A duality of survival stories actually, that when married result in a film that is considered one of the most important recent films to address the Holocaust. Although it is the protagonist Wladyslaw … Continue reading
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Organizing the Final Solution
Filmmaking is subjective. Documentary or narrative fiction, short or feature length, foreign or domestic, the primary constant in all films is choice. In “Conspiracy” (2001), acclaimed filmmaker Frank Pierson demonstrates he knows how to make decisions. Conspiracy, as a story, … Continue reading
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The Third Reich
“The Harmonists” (1997) is a deceptive film. Not deceptive in that it’s false or misleading or because director Joseph Vilsmaier takes artistic liberty with the story of the personal lives of the group members and sometimes deviates from fact, but … Continue reading
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