12 Angry Men Analysis - 3

12 Angry Men, a 1957 film directed by Sidney Lumet, based off of a teleplay by Reginald Rose, exemplifies various forms of human communication amongst a small group of men. After the court dispute, the jury had been announced to their destination. Twelve strongly expressive men accumulate into a small group in the court where they will all come to a consensus on whether a boy is to be charged guilty or innocent. The group of twelve men that gathered into this small room, all displayed unique and strong personalities—whether it was a strong aggressive attitude, a strong devoted will, or even a strong mouse personality. Their objective was to all agree towards one single decision—guilty or innocent. If only one person decides to say otherwise, then by law they must convince their side of the story until all have reached one single conclusion; that is the jury law. The court case was about a boy who was convicted of murder. It was pronounced that the boy had stabbed his father with a switch knife in an apartment area near L-tracks. Throughout the whole film, the group of men had a debate on the two options as one person decided to on the idea that there was room for innocence—that there was a vast idea of mistakes that could have happened. The whole film was solely based on this particular case and thus the group had to come to a consensus. However, despite being a film for entertainment purposes, the film offered many ties to human communication. The main communicational focus of 12 Angry Men was group decision making. One of the group decision methods that were utilized was consensus which “occurs when all members of a group support a decision” (244). A consensus is used when a group is “decid[ing] on critical or complex matters” (244). Since the whole basis of the storyline was for the group of men to decide on whether this boy was guilty or innocent, the whole group had to act as one and come up with only one final decision. By doing this, the group must come to