Network (1976)

 

• How does this film frame the idea of what network news is supposed to do? Does it become entertainment or informative, or is there some argument to be made about how entertainment can be informative?
  
  
• Where is the audience in this film? Does the audience seem to be a real factor, or is the audience relegated to a ratings point? And if so, what does that say about the network’s view of its audience?
  
  
• This film was made in 1976; four years later a media regulation backlash would occur, making network news compete with entertainment, and many network (especially radio) cut their news divisions altogether because they tend not to generate revenue. In what ways do you see this film predicting the current state of news media? Where does it get it wrong?
  
  
• How does this film fall on a fiction/reality scale? In other words, how does this film depict fiction being presented as reality, and how does it depict reality being fictionalized? (Think spin, when what we know should be true is made false through the television medium and what we believe or assume to be false is presented as true.)
  
  
• How could you sketch out a map of how this film depicts ironic engagement and ironic detachment? Does the film itself exist as ironically engaged? Do certain characters present models of ironic engagement or detachment? How?
  
  
• Consider the owner Arthur Jensen’s speech to the cracked anchor Beale, which strangely predicts the new age of globalization; do you see what he claims in that speech happening today in any way? How? (Note: If Wal-Mart, the self-styled all-American company, were a country, it’d be China’s 8th largest trading partner, meaning they do more trade with Chinese manufacturers than with American manufacturers.)
  
  
• What might Marshall McLuhan make of Arthur Beale's use of the television medium?

 

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Hating Network TV Can be Fun | Washington Post, Oct. 24, 1976

TV Will do Anything for Ratings | New York Times, Nov. 14, 1976

Chayefsky's 'Network' Bites Hard | New York Times, Nov. 15, 1976

Network is Satirical Overkill | Washington Post, Dec. 16, 1976

NBC Strikes Chayefsky from Preview List | Chicago Tribune, Dec. 19, 1976