Media for Social Change: The Piloting of an Interprofessional, Immersive, and Experiential Co-Curricular Initiative  

Overview: This presentation describes the development, implementation, and initial evaluation findings of the Media and Social Change Institute (MSCI), a pilot interprofessional, co-curricular initiative. A week-long immersive, experiential opportunity, the MSCI includes partnership with community organizations to identify local social issues and supported students in learning both media and advocacy skills.Proposal text:

Background: Historically, students in majors outside of communications or the arts have had limited opportunities to learn how to make and use digital media effectively, opportunities to learn documentary filmmaking skills are being introduced in a variety of disciplines. This approach allows students in the social sciences and helping professions to learn creative ways for scholarship and how to use visual media to analyze and dismantle structural inequalities (Benmayor, 2008; Hess & Macomber, 2021; University of Southern California, 2021).
Responsible and skillful methods of media creation involve both technical and advocacy skill-building to effectively raise consciousness about issues of concern to the profession. Further, media can be a powerful means to examine disenfranchisement, oppression, and marginalization.

Presentation Purpose and

Overview: The purpose of this presentation is to describes the development, implementation, and initial evaluation findings of the Media and Social Change Institute (MSCI). MSCI is a week-long, immersive experiential learning opportunity designed to combine media and advocacy skill-building. Open to undergraduate and graduate students, the MSCI involves connecting with community partners to identify pressing issues in the local community and support students teams in creating media to highlight those issues. Students of all majors and media experience levels were invited to apply to work in interdisciplinary teams under the instruction of an award-winning documentarian with experience focusing on social justice. The interprofessional and community-based nature of the MSCI is intended to promote a rich and thoughtful dialogue on social justice and social change.

The data collection protocol includes both quantitative and qualitative methodology via survey and interview strategies, respectively. Evaluation data presented will focus on understanding students’ experiences of the institute in terms of interprofessionality, technical and advocacy skill building, connection to the community, and other salient themes. Challenges and lessons learned will be presented. The presentation is most closely related to the conference themes of social, economic, and environmental justice.

Significance to Social Work Education and Practice: Social work has been slower than other disciplines to integrate interprofessional education opportunities, and it is noteworthy that the majority of this integration focuses on healthcare (de Saxe Zerden, Lombardi, Fraser, Jones, & Rico, 2019). While social work education has also not yet capitalized on the possible benefits of media in service of the profession’s mission, both the interprofessional and media-based pedagogical approaches hold great promise for social work education to better equip practitioners for advocacy.

de Saxe Zerden, L., Lombardi, B. M., Fraser, M. W., Jones, A., & Rico, Y. G. (2018). Social work: Integral to interprofessional education and integrated practice. Journal of Interprofessional Education & Practice, 10, 67-75.

Benmayor, R. (2008). Digital storytelling as a signature pedagogy for the new humanities. Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, 7(2), 188-204.

Hess, A., & Macomber, K. (2021). ‘My parents never read my papers, but they watched my film': documentary filmmaking as feminist pedagogy. Gender and Education, 33(3), 306-321.

University of Southern California School of Social Work. (2021). Documentary Filmmaking for Social Change. https://dworakpeck.usc.edu/alumni/continuing-education/documentary-filmmaking-for-social-change