Good Night And Good Luck : A Cultural Impact

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.

The main character of the film is Edward R. Murrow, the elegant and severe face of CBS News See it Now. Costumed in sharp suits and stylish patterned ties with glossy slicked back hair, the noir filter exhibits him as an imposing ostentatious figure, flamboyantly smoking a cigarette between his fixed positioned fingers. His voice is a perfect imitation of the real Murrow’s hardened scowl with dry drone-like delivery, expelling gravitas, courage and confidence as he devotes himself to report the truth in the face of McCarthy’s corruption. This nostalgic view of Murrow steals the attention of viewers from his era, especially when reciting his famous monologues on air revealing McCarthy for what he is doing. McCarthy however, is only displayed through existing historic footage of him. This is accompanied by his gravelly and rather grating, monotonous voice, of which becomes repetitive and intrusive as the news team periodically look through footage of his speeches to use against him. This contrast of characterisation between Murrow and McCarthy clearly shows that they are respectively good and evil counterparts of one another.

“Good Night, and Good Luck is George Clooney’s warning to today’s post-9/11 YouTube culture that civil liberties and rights can slip away with mass hysteria” - (Caulfield, 2007). George Clooney’s Good Night, and Good Luck (2005) is a huge alert and warning to todays post terrorist attack (of the Twin Towers in 2001) society, in which civil liberties and human rights of each and any person can slip away as an effect of mass hysteria.

In his speech to the public audience, V calls upon the people and empathizes with their feelings towards the government: “I know you were afraid.” V uses a rhetorical and persuasive approach with the use of pathos, connecting to the audience’s feelings when he acknowledges their fear of competing against the government. Comparably, Murrow also persuades his own audience by directly calling upon their efforts to see the importance of knowledge: “let us exalt the importance of ideas and information.” Murrow has a confident tone that is utilized to coerce the audience into thinking that information is something that is crucial to a part of their everyday

To be a extravagant broadcaster like Murrow, he was successful because of his skills. An audience does not want to be bored out of their seats, Murrow told his stories with all his heart and spend tons of time meticulously researching. For example, if Murrow report something about

In Good Night and Good Luck, director George Clooney follows the conflict between outspoken television journalist Edward R. Murrow and anti-communist Senator Joseph McCarthy during the hard times of the Red Scare. Murrow uses his television show to expose McCarthy’s fallacious arguments, while providing his own opinion on the matter. He begins by defending former Air Force pilot Milo Radulovich as not being the Communist agent McCarthy charges him to be. Due to his radical messages against McCarthy, advertisers begin pulling their advertisements. Thus Good Night and Good Luck was placed at an undesired time slot on Sunday afternoons, and allotted five last episodes. The conflict between Murrow and McCarthy is so deep that due to his

Good Night and Good Luck, and Badlands are two very unique movies. Both poses very interesting narratives, with underlying messages and symbolism. But, what makes them stand out the most, is their artistic and technically driven visuals. One is full of beautiful and romanticized colors. The other uses black and white to portray depth and struggle. Two vastly different approaches, but equally powerful in their own ways. Good Night and Good Luck and Badlands, both use their visual ascetics to motivate and strengthen their stories. Demonstrating that every part of filmmaking is detailed, and every piece is an intricate part of the result.

Though it is set in the 1950s, George Clooney's film Good Night and Good Luck is still remarkably relevant today as an example of the

In March 1954, journalist Edward R. Murrow, in his show See It Now, depicted a fault-finding portrait of U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy. The journalist pointed out inconsistencies in the senator’s from Wisconsin speeches and expressed concerns that McCarthy’s aggressive campaigns were a potential threat to America’s freedoms. Murrow’s show on Joseph McCarthy led to reprimanding and censuring of Senator from Wisconsin by the U.S. Senate, thus ending of hysteria of McCarthyism. In this way, like Newton Minow said, “When television is good, nothing is

Over the centuries, the media has played a significant role in the shaping of societies across the globe. This is especially true of developed nations where media access is readily available to the average citizen. The media has contributed to the creation of ideologies and ideals within a society. The media has such an effect on social life, that a simple as a news story has the power to shake a nation. Because of this, governments around the world have made it their duty to be active in the regulation and control of media access in their countries. The media however, has quickly become dominated by major mega companies who own numerous television, radio and movie companies both nationally and

Therefore, what we mostly see on the screen is what the sponsors promote, which are usually mechanisms to keep society stable. This exactly what American media was doing from the muckrakers of the 20's to the war in Kosovo in the 90's. Let us now look at some examples of the use of TV as a mean of control over society. Before January 1991, public opinion polls showed that the American public was split into two groups, 50% each, about whether the U.S. should attack Iraq or not. Historians say however, if any anti-war voices had been heard in the mass media at this time, the outcome could have been completely different. The second example turns out to be a tragic one, when we talk about the freedom of speech. After the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the pictures of the irradiated Japanese were not made available to the American public until the 1980's. In both cases we see the control of society through TV, by those who control it, and directing society toward a certain destination, which is found to be the "way forward for the humanity", and keeping the system together by creating a popular culture based on consumerism; turns out to be a modern way of practicing authority in our lives.

As discussed in class, one of the most influential agencies of socialization is the media. The way we see ourselves or the way other people see us come from what we are told by others and what we tell ourselves. In the Better world handbook, the chapter on media states that “the way we think and act in our daily lives is inextricably linked to the information we receive about the world” (Jones, Haenfler and Johnson). The chapter continues to discus how information delivered to us can be bias and this raises the issue on who controls the media and what we see through it. The problem with this could be that that whoever controls the media does not necessary have our best interest in mind and the content that is transmitted through the media is profit driven. . In the article “Lies my teacher told me: Everything your American history textbook got wrong” gives a perfect accept of how easy it is for information to get omitted based on what people what you to know and what they don’t want you to know. From a young age, people decide what they want you to know, so that they can decide on what they want you to think about certain topics whether its American history or something else, its like the

     The media provides the public political issues, which sets the agenda for political discussion. In theory the media tries to attune themselves to the interest of the public, but “in most instances the media severs as conduits for agenda-setting efforts by competing groups and forces” (Ginsberg, Lowi & Weir, 1999, p. 298). To gain public support, groups and forces need media coverage to promote their ideas. However, the media has great control over which issues they televise. The issues must have media appeal or be considered newsworthy.

"Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one." This quote by A.J. Liebling illustrates the reality of where the media stands in today's society. Over the past twenty years there has been an increase in power throughout the media with regard to politics. The media's original purpose was to inform the public of the relevant events that occurred around the world. The job of the media is to search out the truth and relay that news to the people. The media has the power to inform the people but often times the stories given to the public are distorted for one reason or another. Using slant and sensationalism, the media has begun to shape our views in society and the process by which

At the beginning of television news an arrangement existed between television journalists and the public. It was look at as that in modern times promotion journalism was normal. The United States was the modern, broadminded leader of the free world. When Walter Cronkite reported on the daily count of deaths of American soldiers in Vietnam, in lead to the antiwar disapprovals of the 1960s. One man changed how the United States look at the war with his power and influence to change people opinions. (Mann)