Research and Impact

A new study reveals a dramatic improvement in black directors working across the 100 top-grossing films, though there has been little change for other industry positions.

Black Panther or BlacKkKlansman could take home a Golden Globe on Sunday, but they are also signs that 2018 delivered some much-needed change to Hollywood. For the first time in over a decade, Hollywood studios hired a greater percentage of black directors to helm top-performing films. A new study out today sheds light on the phenomenon and documents areas where progress is still needed.

The telenovela-style comedy Jane the Virgin, which airs on the CW, centered several of their fourth-season storylines around immigration — specifically, the undocumented status of Jane’s grandmother. According to USC Annenberg researchers, that show’s nuanced, accurate handling of immigration is the exception, not the rule in Hollywood. Far more common are stories that perpetuate false, negative stereotypes about immigrants.

With another holiday season upon us, lots of eager fingers will be unwrapping the latest mass-market technological marvel: a smart speaker system. The number of homes in the United States with an Amazon Echo, Google Home or other such device reached 50 million this year, according to an August report by the research group CIRP. As people interact more and more with these digital assistants, what effect will that have on how we interact with each other?

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Why should we care about how journalists have been portrayed in media? What makes such an area worth studying? Those are the questions that Joe Saltzman, professor of journalism and communication, answers in this short video. For the past 20 years, he has studied film, television and books and has created a worldwide resource on this subject. He explains why this subject is important and what the image of the journalist tells us about the health of U.S. democracy.

A journalism class, led by Mary Murphy and Sandy Tolan, takes on the homelessness issue in Los Angeles County. Students spend the semester learning about the various issues and then do field reporting, creating stories, digital projects and videos. Their work was also featured in the Huffington Post. For more information on the project, click here.

Manuel Castells, University Professor and the Wallis Annenberg Chair in Communication Technology and Society, talks about how his research charts the new global world emerging from the communication and information technology revolution, and how globalization both connects some and disconnects others.

Courtney Cox, a PhD candidate at USC Annenberg researches the lived experiences of athletes and how global frameworks offer us new ways to think about the ways in which the exchange of culture, economy and politics can operate within this sphere.