Statement of Solidarity from the Center for Media & Social Impact
We, the team at the Center for Media & Social Impact at American University’s School of Communication, stand in solidarity with our cherished BIPOC collaborators, colleagues, and friends – creative makers, social justice organizations and leaders, researchers and communicators – and Black and Brown communities across the country and around the world, who rightfully demand change. We affirm this call to fight for racial equity and justice.
Please read our complete statement of solidarity here.
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Resource Highlight:
Movies and Documentaries to Use (and Avoid) When Teaching Civil Rights
We highly recommend this thoughtful and substantive overview and guide of documentaries and scripted films about the African American experience, created by Professor Hasan Kwame Jeffries, associate professor of History at The Ohio State University, where he teaches courses on the Civil Rights and Black Power Movement.
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Documentary Film Premiere:
Unbreathable: The Fight for Healthy Air
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Faculty fellow Maggie Burnette Stogner is launching her new documentary film, Unbreathable: The Fight for Healthy Air, which documents the ongoing struggle for clean air in the United States and shares stories of communities fighting for justice. The film premieres with a screening and live panel event on June 18th at the DC Environmental Film Festival from 5-6 pm EDT. We invite you to join us at this important screening and event.
The panelists include Mustafa Santiago Ali, VP of Environmental Justice, National Wildlife Federation; Bill Reilly, former EPA Administrator; Shashawnda Campbell, Free Your Voice, Baltimore; Beth Gardiner, author of “Choked;” Maggie Burnette Stogner, director of Unbreathable and Executive Director of the Center for Environmental Filmmaking; and, Paul Billings, National Senior VP of Policy, American Lung Association (moderator).
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ICA Award for Research on Homelessness News Portrayals
Our study about homelessness, housing security, and gentrification in U.S. news media received the Top Poster Paper Award from the International Communication Association’s Journalism Studies Division for “’The Rent Is Too Damn High:’ Housing Security and Homelessness Portrayals in U.S. Print News Coverage,” authored by Caty Borum Chattoo, Lori Young from the University of Pennsylvania, and David Conrad and Aras Coskuntuncel, both researchers with CMSI. The award was given at the 2020 ICA convening, the leading international academic conference for communication and media.
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Keeping it Real:
Towards A Documentary Film Policy for the UK
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 CMSI is proud to have offered counsel to this crucial survey of UK feature documentary filmmakers. This report continues in the spirit of our field building and strengthening efforts that we carry out through our biennial State of the Documentary Field research in collaboration with the International Documentary Association, which examines systemic trends and realities for documentary professionals in areas of career sustainability, economics and funding, diversity and representation, and platform evolution.
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Look for us next month with more updates and resources.
Take care and be safe,
Team CMSI
Caty, Varsha, Bethany, and David
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