Effective A/V media impact campaigns rely on a great story well told.  Impact strategy is about how to reach and engage audiences and inspire action. How has the pandemic affected this work, and what do practitioners need to learn to move forward?  How might academic researchers share actionable information so that those stories that have the power to advance positive social change, actually do so?

Let’s start with the essentials. First, story matters, and visual storytelling is particularly powerful.  After leaving the White House Barack and Michelle Obama (who know a thing or two about communicating and leading change) created a media production company, “We created Higher Ground to tell great stories,” noted the former President.  Their first documentary “Crip Camp” was Oscar-nominated, which led to the first fully accessible Oscar ceremony, and a revitalised conversation on disability rights.

Second, the pandemic made undeniable the need for human connection. Media Impact Producers have long known the value of the shared viewing experience. “Community screenings” are the sine qua non of this work.

The virtual gatherings that replaced in-person experiences offered the benefits of expanded reach and greater access, if not the beautiful contagion of laughing together in a movie theatre.

The new reach and access were amplified by a global reckoning on racial justice, all  highlighting the necessity of equity from production through distribution.  As storytellers and impact producers we are accountable to the communities whose stories we document and share. Indeed, campaigns that are not co-created with communities may be doomed to fail.

From a practical perspective, campaign strategy starts with identifying goals and key audiences to help achieve them, then mapping how to reach the relevant people. Impact Producers rely on partner organisations to reach both off-line and on-line audiences. Evaluation is both qualitative and quantitative, and notoriously challenging.

In this talk, we will explore how campaign strategy and activation changed during the pandemic, and ask what we should carry forward from this collective experience?  (And what do we leave behind?)  As society returns to a new normal, how might we reimagine community in a post pandemic world?

Online links to Sue Sudbury’s work

Film practice (a selection)

Publications (a selection)