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12 Angry Men

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Submitted By lizherrera
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Elizabeth Herrera
April 23, 2014
Comm 151
12 Angry Men: Communication Analysis In the film, 12 Angry Men, viewers come across a group of men who display the different communication dynamics – both the positive and negative sides. Chapter 7 encompasses the idea of Group and Team Communication Skills and how one should communicate effectively among others. To help better understand, 12 Angry Men is centered on a jury’s deliberation in a murder case. A group of men are given the job to deliberate the life of a young boy who has been accused of murdering his father. With only a knife that’s been left behind in the murder scene and a few witnesses who claim they heard the boy scream and run out of the room; these 12 jurors will have to come up with a reasonable doubt in favor to spare the boys life or cast him guilty. Eleven of the jurors vote guilty while Juror 8 is the only one who votes “not guilty.” As the story starts to unfold, viewers get a glimpse of the juror’s personalities, communication approach, culture, preconceptions, and background and how theses factors influence their deliberation and their treatment towards one another. We can draw from the film that poor Conversational Style was used, the book notes, “Sometimes barriers are not in words but in how they are delivered” (145). These men were not respectful with one another when it came to speaking their turn due to their difference in opinions; which led them to lash out at one another. The book encourages waiting our turn politely and patiently. Also, Fact-inference confusion was an issue in the film. This occurs when, “people respond to something as if they have actually observed it, when in reality they have merely drawn a conclusion” (144). Lets take the woman for example, she claims she saw the boy run out of the room, but she didn’t have her glasses; so she can’t possibly make that

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