Edward R. Murrow Sociology

Through time, educational information has been passed on using films otherwise known as documentaries, which are illustrated through pictures, interviews and recordings of real life events to provide a factual record or report.

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As I sat in my apartment and waited for my guest I opened up my laptop to skim my notes. Edward R. Murrow, radio broadcast legend and American hero. This man survived London during World War II and now he’s coming over to my house for an interview. So many thoughts circled my head while I waited. What questions will I ask? How will he answer? Will I be able to use this interview at all? I kept frantically flipping through my notes when I heard a knock at the door.

According to Martha Rosler (1989), documentary photography started in the early twentieth century with Lewis Hine and Jacob Riis in United States. At that time, it acted as a visual medium to reflect social conscience through liberal sentiment expression.

Reflexive documentaries do not aim to hide their objectivity and instead encourage viewers to embrace “documentary for what it is: a construct or representation” (Resha 2). Morris’s highly constructed shots and reenactments do not try to give the viewer a false reality but instead are used to progress the narrative. The reenactment sequence is the most groundbreaking characteristic of the film. The stylized shots of a milkshake flying through the air, the officer falling to the ground, and the car speeding away bring drama and excitement to the film in a way a simple retelling never could. The reenactments replay multiple times, highlighting the atypical path along which Morris is retelling the murder’s narrative.

Since the advent of documentary film with Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North (1922), those with power have sought to use it as a tool in their arsenal to reach people. Advances in communications technology in the early twentieth century allowed it to be used as a one-way message delivery system to the masses, however the ways in which this has been implemented have varied hugely based on context and political viewpoint. Through consideration of Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will (1935), and Lorentz’s The River (1938) this essay will analyse the concepts of persuasion, education and propaganda in documentary film, discussing the similarities and differences between these areas by.

Edward R. Murrow was born on April 25, 1908, in Polecat Creek, North Carolina. He went to Washington State University and studied political science, speech, and international relations (Edward R. Murrow Biography). He began news broadcasts in 1928 and continued throughout World War 2 (Edward R. Biography). He graduated Washington State University in 1930, and went on to work for the International Institute of Education. He married Janet Huntington Brewster in 1935, five years after graduating university. (Edward R. Murrow Timeline). Murrow later then left broadcasting in 1961 and died on April 27, 1965 in New York.

There have been many issues with journalists being honest or dishonest in our generation. Not all of journalist are bad, there are many great ones who have impacted society in positive ways. Journalism is the activity or profession of writing for magazines, newspapers, news websites, or they prepare news stories to be broadcasted to the public (Journalism.org). Edward Murrow said, “To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; credible we must be truthful.” This holds true because the world does not want to hear false stories, they want to hear credible ones, Edward Murrow shows that by his truthfulness and his dedication to journalism. Murrow has impacted society in positive ways including his accuracy, political knowledge, and his social impact.

Edward R. Murrow is a universally recognized, courageous news broadcaster who brought stories to life through radio and television programs. He developed the term “broadcast journalism,” earning creditability with his eyewitness coverage of the London bombing which gave him the public acclaim “As Kendrick noted, he was recognized as “a proficient debater, and preferred the spoken word, never having been a writing journalist” (Kendrick, p.214).

Documentaries also include films which are intended to ‘expose’ and often carry interviews, for example Michael Moore’s films on social concerns

The creation of a documentary is a fine balance. One must be cognisant not to have misconstruing messages within the film, while still not trivializing those very same messages. It must strive to present its case with as little bias as possible. Moreover, that message must succeed in reaching the audience. With this in mind, Andrew Morgan succeeds in being a skilled documentary filmmaker with The True Cost; a documentary with hard hitting commercial implications, social/political implications and manages persuades the audience using facts and figures to its advantage.

(SLIDE 1) According to the Oxford dictionary, documentaries use pictures or interviews with people involved in real events to provide a factual report on a particular subject. However, documentaries are much more than that, they educate the general public and make them aware of what is going on in the world and within our society, some are for entertainment purposes or can just be observational. Good morning / afternoon fellow documentary filmmakers, my name is Charlotte Thompson and the documentary I am presenting to you is ‘Food, Inc’. ‘Food, Inc.’ is about how the production of food has drastically changed since the 1950s, how it is controlled primarily by a handful of multinational corporations and it has changed my perspective on food consumption as it has shown the negative consequences of cheap fast food.

The brutal 1998 movie American History X, directed by Tony Kaye, follows former skinhead Derek Vinyard while he is trying to prevent his younger brother, Danny, from going down the same path Derek was led down. While leading a violent white supremacist cult and being a large part of many racial crimes throughout the L.A. area, Derek was sentenced to three years in prison for killing two black men who attempted to break into his truck. Throughout the three years, Derek learns that there are good and bad people in every race and becomes more open and friendly to those he believed he was superior to. After getting help in prison, Derek is released on parole and tries to cut ties with his old “brothers,” it is then that Derek realizes how much

C.Wright Mills or Charles Wright Mills was born on August 28, 1916 in Texas. He attended the University of Texas where he got his bachelor 's degree in 1939. Before even graduating, Mills had already been published in the two leading sociology journals in the United States, the American Journal of Sociology and the American Sociological Review. After his bachelors degree, he pursued his Ph.D at the University of Wisconsin in 1941. During his time in Wisconsin, he met his wife, Dorothy Helen Smith. While he went to school, Dorothy worked and supported the two of them until he obtained his Ph D. During his years at Wisconsin, Mills began contributing well known “journals of sociology” and opinionated pieces to intellectual journals such as The New Republic, The New Leader and Politics. After obtaining his Ph.D, Mills became a professor of sociology at The University of Maryland, College Park until he began teaching at Columbia. A year after obtaining his job he became assistant professor in the university’s sociology department. Mills teached there until his time of death in 1962.

Throughout the last couple of years a major world wide debate has been if students should have smart phones. It has been said that cell phones have been very helpful to not only the students but some of the teachers as well. The podcast states “But these devices are being integrated into lessons.”(00:18) These devices can be just as helpful during class then after class. Many students need the cell phones to do calculations, research, show up on time, and to keep up with their schedules, buy parents also want their children to have cell phones so they can directly message them in case of an emergency and so they can just communicate with their children. Technology can be a powerful tool to help students learn and many students benefit each day from technology use. The podcast states “I feel like it is important for them to learn how to cope with having a powerfully addictive engaging device”(15:38) This teacher stated that he mostly teaches college bound 18 year olds, so this quote means that for these soon to be adults smart phones are a big responsibility step into becoming an adult. In short many teachers believe that smartphones are a big help and a big tool in the classroom and they help with the development of these students.