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Whereas films are widely used as instructional tools, applications tend to be undertheorized, limited to illustrating ideas and motivating students. Our perspective draws on narrative theory, organizational representation, and processual theory, to develop an approach to the critical interrogation of film as thesis. Film selection criteria are identified, and two films are considered: 12 Angry Men and Thirteen Days. These films advance a thesis concerning interpersonal influence and decision making. Researchbased accounts of influence are decontextualized, dyadic, episodic, apolitical, and practical. These films depict interpersonal influence as a multi-layered phenomenon, shaped by contextual, temporal, processual, social, political and emotional factors. Rather than presenting a trivialized, sensationalized, glamorous account, these films demonstrate the complex integration of issues typically covered discretely by mainstream texts.
Keywords: influencing; decision making; narrative methods; film analysis; process theory
BEYOND ENTERTAINMENT
If accuracy is nice but not necessary in sensemaking, then what is necessary? The answer is, something that preserves plausibility and coherence, something that is reasonable and memorable, something that embodies past experience and expectations, something which resonates with other people, something that can be constructed retrospectively but also can be used prospectively, something that captures both feeling and thought, something that allows for embellishment to fit current oddities, something that is fun to contrast. In short, what is necessary in sensemaking is a good story. (Weick, 1995, pp. 60-61)
This article advocates the promotion of feature film analysis, from the entertaining sidelines of classroom gimmick to mainstream organization theory. This advocacy has four main elements. First, we argue that although pedagogical applications of film are well established, they have been undertheorized, focusing on the valuable but limited aims of concept illustration and student arousal. Second, developments in narrative theory, organization representation, and process theorizing, collectively demonstrate how narratives present contextualized sequences of events from which causal explanations can be established, leading to the central theme of this article concerning film as thesis. A synthesis of these research traditions leads to the development of a pedagogical approach to film analysis that goes beyond the identification of how ideas are illustrated. This critical interrogation approach seeks to establish the arguments or thesis that a film advances. Third, criteria for film selection are considered. Fourth, two films are analyzed using a...