Empowering Media That Matters

Reports

Beyond the hashtags: #Ferguson, #Blacklivesmatter, and the online struggle for offline justice

Black Lives Matter (BLM)—ignited an urgent national conversation about police killings of unarmed Black citizens. Online tools have been anecdotally credited as critical in this effort, but researchers are only beginning to evaluate this claim. This research report examines the movement’s uses of online media in 2014 and 2015. To do so, we analyze three types of data: 40.8 million tweets, over 100,000 web links, and 40 interviews of BLM activists and allies.

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Dangerous Documentaries: Resources for Filmmakers

Many of the issues most important for our society to recognize and discuss are also those that powerful people or institutions don’t want made public. Non-fiction filmmakers who tell truth to power often face aggressive attack from powerful individuals, governmental bodies, businesses and associations. 

This collection of resources below is intended to support filmmakers facing such attacks and promote investigative work that combines the best practices of documentary and journalism. The collection was created as part of the Center for Media & Social Impact's research project and report "Dangerous Documentaries: Reducing Risk when Telling Truth to Power," funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. 

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Assessing the Social Impact of Issues-Focused Documentaries: Research Methods & Future Considerations

The resources available to assess the social impact of issues-focused documentaries have increased during the digital era. And yet, making the decision about which research methods (and tools) to use to examine the social impact of storytelling may be a challenge within the ecosystem of creators and strategists working in the pursuit of storytelling for social change. At the same time, research methods from social science – in the fields of communication/media studies, social psychology, political science and sociology – have been tested in decades of published studies. This white paper provides a breakdown of social science and market research methods to clearly explain the benefits and limitations of using each one to understand issue-focused documentaries in particular. We examine a group of branded media-impact tools now available, dissecting their underlying research approaches and the ways in which they work optimally to help tell a story about the social impact of storytelling.

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Go to: Assessing the Social Impact of Issues-Focused Documentaries (PDF)

Social Justice Documentary: Designing For Impact

Designing For ImpactThe transition from 1.0 to 2.0 opens opportunities for documentarians to fulfill and expand their missions—not only informing individuals and leading public conversation but also building community cohesion and participation. This working paper aims to synthesize current efforts to develop comparable evaluation methods for social issue documentary films. Authored by two researchers who have been jointly documenting the field’s transformation over the past five years, this paper offers a framework for planning and evaluating the impact of these films in a networked media environment.

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Social Issue Documentary: The Evolution of Public Engagement

Hate Has No Home

Documentary films are serving as the core for innovative spaces and practices that mark a new kind of public media – accessible, participatory and inclusive. This article examines the campaigns surrounding three films: Not in Our Town, Lioness, and State of Fear to uncover how emerging strategies for online and offline engagement are laying the groundwork for "public media 2.0."

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