The MEDIA IMPACT PROJECT is the research and evaluation arm of The Norman Lear Center at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. We are a hub for collecting, developing and sharing approaches for measuring the impact of media in order to better understand the role that media plays in changing knowledge, attitudes and behavior among individuals and communities.
We study stories -- in film, TV, documentaries, games, art and news -- and their impact on audiences. And we help media makers, cultural change organizations and foundations understand audiences and how to engage them. |
Climate Podcast Engagement Study
We're conducting a study of the newly launched podcast series, Electric Futures, produced by the Center for Climate Journalism and Communication, which explores lesser-known stories about energy transition, told from the perspectives of the people most impacted by the changes.
Read more. |
The Lear Center at Sundance 2024
We’re excited to be at this year’s Sundance Film Festival in Park City, UT, where we’ll be participating in several events hosted by The Impact Lounge, a space that brings together filmmakers with those who believe entertainment can make a difference.
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INCITE for Narrative Change Evaluators
How do you measure narrative impact? We partnered with the Pop Culture Collaborative to research and design a system for field members and funders working in narrative change to evaluate progress.
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Asian Representation in Streaming
Our study with Gold House dives into depictions of Asian characters in scripted streaming. There is progress in casting Asian actors beyond tokenized characters, but these roles emphasize proximity to whiteness over authentic cultural specificity.
Read the report. |
End-of-Life Issues Lacking on TV
We collaborated with End Well to study end-of-life depictions on television. Through a character and keyword analysis, we found that scripted TV skews heavily toward violent death, with over 80% of television deaths caused by violence.
Read the study. |
Shifting Narrative Change into Gear
Funders interested in narrative change often ask variations of the question: How do we really know what strategies are working? Our latest report distills 25 best practices that make narrative change efforts more likely to be successful.
Read the report. |
The Norman Lear Center's Media Impact Project researches how entertainment and news influence our thoughts, attitudes, beliefs, knowledge and actions. We work with researchers, the film and TV industry, nonprofits, and news organizations, and share our research with the public. We are part of the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.
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