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key role in
Undergraduate students play into film and gender
research
When communication professor Stacy Smith needs to cast her research team, she knows just the people for the part.
Undergraduate students made an important contribution to a research team assembled by communication professor Stacy Smith when she was analyzing the gender of speaking characters in family films. “Students really get to understand the empirical process in a way that makes their education more meaningful,” Smith says. “They’re not just reading scientific articles, they’re contributing to the generation of knowledge.” The study, titled “Gender Disparity on Screen and Behind the Camera in Family Films,” was a joint effort of Smith, project manager Marc Choueiti and the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media Research. After examining films released between 2006 and 2009 and rated G, PG or PG-13, the team showed there were 2.42 male speaking characters for every female. Films with women behind the camera, either as directors, writers or producers, were more likely to feature women characters. “We have found—across different studies—diversity behind the scenes may translate into more diversity on screen. That is important,” says Smith. Smith and Choueiti trained students to code movies for multiple variables, including race, gender and body characteristics. Between three and six students code each movie individually, and then discuss any coding discrepancies as a group led by Choueiti to come to a conclusion. Jessica Stern (B.A. Communication ’10), who was a research assistant during the Fall 2009 and Spring 2010 semesters, says she
Ford Foundation grant
Diane Winston
16 annenberg agenda
Communication professor Stacy Smith (third from left) and researcher Marc Choueiti lead a discussion on gender in film with a group of undergraduate students.
has no doubt the study she helped research will have an impact on the future of the entertainment industry. “As an extension of her project, I feel like I was part of something big and take great pride when I see and hear the support and attention given to it,” Stern says. “I learned that we’re far from reaching gender and race equity in Hollywood—on screen and off—and I am grateful that there are people like Stacy doing something about it.” Communication student Cynthia Momdjian said researching with the team helped her to develop as a student and person. “The fact that I could be a part of defining the entertainment industry has had a lasting effect on me,” Momdjian says. “This wasn’t just reading a book. It’s through practical applications like this that you truly learn about the entertainment industry and everything else in life.” “It’s a great opportunity for undergraduates to be involved with quantitative research in the field of communication,” Choueiti says. “They are motivated, interested and passionate. Our work is better because of them.” To learn more, visit annenberg.usc.edu/studentresearch
boosts reporting on religion
Knight Chair in Media and Religion Diane Winston received a $300,000 grant from the Ford Foundation to promote excellence in journalism. The project, “Promoting Excellence in Journalism Reporting on the Intersection of Religion and Domestic Issues,” aims to expand and enhance exemplary coverage of an underreported topic across media platforms. Winston is using the Ford grant to team with the Poynter Institute’s e-learning project, News University, to launch a new online course titled “Religion,
Culture and Society: Getting Beyond the Cliché.” The course is aimed at general assignment reporters, independent journalists and others who do not primarily cover religion as a beat. In addition to the Poynter course, Winston has established a fellowship for reporters: the Knight Luce Fellowship for Reporting on Global Religion. The fellowship offers stipends ranging from $5,000 to $25,000 for American journalists to report and write stories that illuminate how religion crosses geographic, temporal and ideological
borders as well as how it establishes real and virtual boundaries. “These opportunities encourage working journalists to consider what these dynamics reveal about personal identity, political power, the nature of conflict and the construction of community, and provides them with the means to report and distribute these stories,” Winston says.
To learn more about the Knight Chair in Media and Religion, visit www.trans-missions.org