“A Face in the Crowd”: a very interesting movie. I was able to see the growing success of one man and his ability to influence large communities of people into following his interests and beliefs. Seeing this happen from an outsider’s point of view, I looked at all the people who were literally obsessed with this guy and I even laughed at some of the crazy things people would do just to be like him. The funny thing is that Lonesome was a hopeless prisoner in a small southern town. Although he did time in prison, he ran into someone who was able to change his life around through broadcasting. This young lady found Lonesome a name and a career that boosted him to fame. Of course, Lonesome would not have been as popular without his ecstatic personality and humor. But he was also an attractive man and charmed many women into following him. The more popular Lonesome became, the more corporations wanted to work with him. Many tried to get him to sell their products, which was a smart idea being that everyone was tuning in specifically to watch Lonesome. It was exciting to see how one small local broadcasting station and a mass group of people were able to change a useless prisoner’s life into a luxurious one.
“Our Democracy is in Danger of Being Paralyzed”: Bill Moyers brings up many appealing points about media in our world today. Moyer is arguing that our media is basically a monopoly and the government is working with media as one to regulate what information is being exposed to the people and what information is remaining behind the scenes. This is a very unprofessional way of running a democracy because, “democracy can’t exist without an informed public” (Moyers). And if we are not given “truth” then how can we call ourselves a democracy? Moyers is right, not very many young people care much about voting, and “only % 13 of young people cast ballots in the last presidential election.” For me, voting isn’t important because I do not feel like I can make a difference in our society, and I believe that is how many of us young people feel. I would like to go back to the earlier times when journalism was more independent and not manipulated or corrupted by the mighty-media-government boss. Moyers makes it seem like there is not as much truth in writing as there used to be and the government is controlling every little thing about media and what comes out of it. I am a little convinced by this reading that government’s hands are too much in the media and journalism should be how Moyers said it used to be.
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