2020 – Fall

Methods and Practice: Opinion and Advocacy Video

Course Number: JOUR-UA 203, section 1

Day & Time: Mon | 2:00pm PM – 5:40 PM

Location: 20 Cooper Square, 750

Prerequisites: none

Non-fiction film has proven time and again it has the power to change the world. In this course, students will learn to develop, produce and distribute online a 3-7 minute video that powerfully advocates for a policy or point-of-view.

As a way of approaching their own projects, students will case-study the development, production, and distribution of several successful uses of non-fiction video journalism to promote an idea or policy position to a broad audience. Titles might include Titicut Follies (1967),The Thin Blue Line (1988), The Daily Show (1996), An Inconvenient Truth (2006), and Kony 2012 (2012). We will pay particular attention to how these works were designed to propagate through the existing distribution networks of their time. Guest speakers will talk and answer questions about their own experiences making social impact through non-fiction video.

At the same time, students will be develop, produce and distribute their own opinion or advocacy short video work promoting a cause. Over 14 weeks, students will go from treatment to pre-production, production, editing, and online distribution.

Notes: Counts as an elective for the journalism major and both journalism minors.