Bias and the angry man

Keeping on the subject of influential movies, I have decided to talk to you about 12 Angry Men.



The movie which debuted in 1957 is about the deliberation of the jury for a capital murder case. The case involves an 18 year old Spanish-American who supposedly stabbed his father and murdered him. The case which originally seemed open and shut turns out to be more complicated though as one brave juror tries to convince the other 11 that when reasonable doubt is present, you must vote not guilty.

Besides being a truly interesting watch, this movie is great for analyzing persuasive elements. As the movie takes place entirely in the deliberation room of the court house it is nearly a hour of straight debate and persuasion. There is pretty much every type of argument present in this flick, emotional, logical, ones that use evidence and even some that are driven by pure bias and racism.



I urge you strongly to go out and rent this movie if not for a powerful performance by Henry Fonda than for an in-depth study of elements of persuasion that are useful for anyone in the communications field.

Michael Clayton

George Clooney starred in this movie as an attorney and fixer for a large American law firm. I am not usually a fan of Clooney, I find he plays the same role in every flick but depicting broken down Michael Clayton he really shines.

The central theme of the movie is business ethics, though as the scenes progress it becomes far more sinister as high level employees at a corporation do whatever it takes, including murder, to conceal the truth.

Michael's law firm is the representative of this corrupt corporation and he spends his time wrestling between his need to be loyal to his job and make money and his need to be an ethical man and father.

Though this movie is incredibly exaggerated for the sake of being entertaining it deals with some issues that can be very true to life, namely what to do if you feel your ethics are tested. In my program we deal a lot with ethics because as public relations professionals we could be torn between our need to protect our companies reputation and our need to be transparent and honest communicators.

As a small side note this movie is interesting because Tilda Swindon's character (She always seems to play villains) is shown preparing for media interviews in quite a few scenes which can be a stressful part of any communication job.

When it comes down to it this is a genuinely engaging film that I feel speaks loudly to those in public relations in particular. Check it out my friends.

"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up." Pablo Picasso

This will be a quick and entry but I thought it was important to do a post on one of my favourite things. Since I was a child I have loved art. I love to draw, especially cartoons. I will not boast too much about my skills because my portfolio mainly contains simple sketches of monsters. I have never been much for a variety of mediums, pretty much just a pencil and pen kind of artist.

I find doodling helps me think, I will draw little pictures in class because I feel it helps me get the right side of my brain in gear. I feel sketching is important to do even if you feel you aren't artistically talented because it opens up a part of your imagination that is essential to creativity and in public relations, creativity is key.

I guess I will showcase a few pieces of work that I am proud of and that I have actually taken the effort to upload to my photobucket account.

Some great campaigns

I thought I would point out a few of my favourite websites for online campaigning.

I have been an advocate of the World Wildlife Fund for many years and I have stayed active through the "take action" page of their official website. By signing up for the e-newsletter you are able to take part in many ongoing campaigns. WWF organizes online petitions, letter writing campaigns and offers a surplus of information on environmental issues.

WWF: Take action

WWF has recently introduced a new separate website concerned with reducing the effects of global warming. The good life allows users to create a profile and track how they have reduced their carbon footprint through a series of challenges and pledges. I really love how this campaign allows users to see the difference they have made rather than just promising them that the change has occurred.

The Goodlife

Finally David Suzuki, a personal hero of mine, has created a foundation with an extremely involved website. The David Suzuki Foundation is dedicated exclusively to reducing man's carbon footprint and combating climate change. This website primarily offers information on how an individual can reduce their impact on the world through easy day to day changes.

David Suzuki Foundation

As you can see the internet offers a multitude of opportunities for campaigning. The great thing about it is that you can become involved with a variety of causes, not just the environment and though this is true off line, the internet allows you to find and connect with these causes at a far greater rate.

Over 130 million can't be wrong

In the 2008 presidential election between John McCain and Barack Obama, 130 million eligible people turned out to vote. That is roughly 64% of the electorate and by leaps and bounds the largest voter turn out in American history. Now on top of this the Democratic representative Obama received more than twice the amount of electoral votes.

Now I am going to let you in on a little theory I have on why this happened. I believe the turnout for this election was based on two factors.

The first factor is that this election followed 8 years of rule by one of the most widely ridiculed and questioned presidents of all time. The Republican party entered into this competition like a dog with a wounded paw and that wound did not heal.

Now this is probably the most highly regarded theory on the numbers presented above but I don't feel like this is the sole reason for the turn out. So what could it be that brought these numbers you might ask and frankly the answer might seem a little absurd.

Viral videos and why I believe they are one of the most powerful publicity tools

Yup that is honestly what I believe. Now let me explain myself. During this election I spent a lot of time monitoring the viral website Youtube. Over the many months of this campaign thousands of videos were posted on websites like Youtube, everything from simple webcam diatribes to full out celebrity produced musical numbers . Now this is probably not strange in itself, wherever there is an election there will but commentators. The strange thing in this case is the sheer volume of these videos and that they overwhelmingly focused on Obama as well as being overwhelmingly positive in nature.

Now here is where Obama supporters have shown themselves to be clever creatures, they have reached for a demographic that is honestly ignored because it is viewed as uninterested, this demographic is of course: young voters.

Young voters are viewed as being apathetic and a waste of time by politicians in both America and Canada, Canadian comedian Rick Mercer explains in this video.



This video also proves that if you post something online someone will watch it. Now lets say a celebrity or political support of Obama realizes that there is an amazingly large audience on youtube and produces a video promoting Obama, not only will that video be viewed on the website but the video can also be embedded in blogs or on the wildly popular networking site facebook.

Here is a prime example on the power of viral videos to gather an audience and promote discussion.



This Video produced by musician Will I Am and other celebrities put one of Barack Obama's speeches to music and was viewed in all its forms over 15 million times. Think about this for a second, 15 million views of a 4 minute video uploaded for free online. Can any advertisement offer these sort of numbers?

Ok, I'll admit that maybe viral videos didn't win the election for Obama but it is hard to deny that the internet is riddled with videos in his support and that he controlled the hearts and minds of over two thirds of the 18-24 voters. Sites like youtube are something that needs to be explored by future business communicators because as this election has shown it is a powerful tool to reach a younger demographic and as more and more people join the information age feet first, it will eventually be an important tool to reach all demographics.

Musing on Buzzing

Before I began my communication studies at Conestoga College I was improving myself at Sheridan College. I graduated from that institution with a diploma in advertising and while ultimately that was not what I wished to do with my life, I find a lot of the things I learned cross over nicely into my current program. One of my favourite concepts was the notion of "buzz marketing."

Buzz marketing is traditionally defined as promoting a product, service or idea through word of mouth or by recommendation, especially when an opinion leader or celebrity is involved. A prime example of this would be Oprah's favourite thing campaign.



Will you listen to that crowd? Companies live for this sort of thing. A kind word from Oprah will send sales through the roof. After all, if it is good enough for Oprah it must be good enough for her viewers.

Though buzz marketing doesn't necessarily need a celebrity to be effective, a recommendation from a co-worker, neighbour or friend is likely more believable.

Buzz marketer is also nice because it often doesn't cost that much money. Some free product sent to the right person can lead to more publicity than a million dollar advertising campaign.

I feel buzz marketing is probably the most effective form of promotion available to any sort of communicator because I for one would believe a trusted friend or a beloved celebrity over an advertiser or salesman any day, and if you think of it you probably would too.

Meet the Media Panel discussion

Last night I attended IABC's (International Association of Business Communicators) meet the media panel at the Accelerator Centre in Waterloo. Originally I didn't know what to expect and I was mainly interested in attending because I really like watching panel discussions.

The panel consisted of Michael Melling and Joel Bowey from CTV news, Joe Pavia of AM 570 News and Bob Vrbanac of the Waterloo Chronicle Newspaper.

I attended the event with Mike Christie and Jocelyn Lagerquist, two classmates of mine and it was nice to have them there because we were able to compare notes afterwards on what we found useful.

Basically the theme of the night was how to best get your story picked up by the media. A lot of the items were things I had learned in various classes from school but it was certainly nice to get a fresh perspective on things from actual practicing journalists and editors.

There were two concepts in particular I found enlightening. The concept of "head, heart and health" was mentioned. This basically means:

Does it improve/affect your life?
Does it tug the heart strings?
Does it have to do with health or well-being?

These are things that are apparently of immediate interest to a reporter or news editor and you should ask yourself if your story has one or more of these elements.

Another notion was that of the human element. Journalists can like a story but what will put it over the edge is if you can provide them with a real person to talk to, especially if that person is effected by whatever is going on. Journalists like to show someone their audience can relate to.

Many more interesting points were discussed and I will definitely keep them in mind the next time I begin to write up a story pitch.

IABC Grand Valley Chapter