This document discusses using documentary films as boundary objects to connect different social groups and leverage opportunities for pro-environmental benefit. It outlines a framework for using storytelling, engagement, and activism strategies with films. Specifically, it examines whose stories are told in films, how the viewer experience impacts engagement, and how to leverage existing social networks for activism rather than just social media. The goal is to use documentaries to translate environmental issues across groups and transform individuals, communities and systems.

1. From Climate Science to Climate Impacts:
Exploring the Role of Film as Boundary Object
Beth Karlin
Transformational Media Lab

2. Transformational Media Lab
1. Technology and new media are changing how people
interact with our natural, built, and social worlds.
B. Karlin

3. Transformational Media Lab
1. Technology and new media are changing how people
interact with our natural, built, and social worlds.
2. There are potential opportunities to leverage these
changes for pro-social / pro-environmental benefit.
B. Karlin

4. Transformational Media Lab
1. Technology and new media are changing how people
interact with our natural, built, and social worlds.
2. There are potential opportunities to leverage these
changes for pro-social / pro-environmental benefit
3. A psychological approach provides a theoretical base
and empirical methodology to study this potential.
B. Karlin

5. Transformational Media Lab
1. Technology and new media are changing how people
interact with our natural, built, and social worlds.
2. There are potential opportunities to leverage these
changes for pro-social / pro-environmental benefit
3. A social scientific approach provides a theoretical base
and empirical methodology to study this potential.
B. Karlin
Mission:
Our lab studies how media is (and can be) used to
transform individuals, communities, and systems.

6. Transformational Media Lab
Documentary
Campaigns
B. Karlin
Mission:
Film
Home Energy
Management
Our lab studies how media is (and can be) used to
transform individuals, communities, and systems.

7. History of Documentary
“We believe that the cinema’s capacity for getting around, for
observing and selecting from life itself, can be exploited in a
new and vital art form”
John Grierson
First Principles of Documentary, 1932
B. Karlin, 2012

8. History of Documentary
Romanticism
historical
cinéma vérité
Propagandist

9. Documentaries Today
“docu-ganda”
Director as subject
Philanthropic ventures
Theatrical release
B. Karlin

10. Documentaries Today
B. Karlin
Food Films
- Food Inc
- Fresh
- Food Fight
- Ingredients
- Food Matters
- Supersize Me
- The Future of Food
- The Garden
- King Corn
- What's on your plate?
- Deconstructing supper
Water Films
- Flow
- Blue Gold
- Tapped
- Thirst
- Blue Legacy
- Story of Bottled Water
- Last Call at the Oasis
Climate Films
- Everything's Cool
- An Inconvenient Truth
- 11th hour
- No Impact Man
- Collapse
- Radically Simple
- Blind Spot
Transportation Films
- Who Killed the Electric Car?
- Revenge of the Electric Car
- Fuel
- Crude

11. Documentaries Today
"specific social action campaigns for each film and documentary
designed to give a voice to issues that resonate in the films”
B. Karlin
(Participant Media, 2010)

12. Documentaries Today
"specific social action campaigns for each film and documentary
designed to give a voice to issues that resonate in the films”
B. Karlin
(Participant Media, 2010)

13. Boundary Objects
B. Karlin
“plastic enough to adapt to local
needs, yet robust enough to
maintain a common identity”
“different meanings in
different social worlds,
but structure is common
enough to make them
recognizable”
“a means of translation”
(Star & Griesemer, 1989)

14. Film as Boundary Object
B. Karlin

15. SEA Change Framework
Storytelling
- Show and Tell
Engagement
-Target and Reach
Activism
- Involve and Activate
Change
- Measure and Assess

16. Three Key Insights
Storytelling
- Whose story is it?
Engagement
- Viewer Experience
Activism
- Leverage Social Networks

17. Storytelling – Whose Story is it?

18. Storytelling – Whose Story is it?

19. Storytelling – Whose Story is it?

20. Storytelling – Whose Story is it?

21. Storytelling – Whose Story is it?

22. Storytelling – Whose Story is it?
Goal: Raise $20 for Caine’s Scholarship fund

23. Storytelling – Whose Story is it?

24. Storytelling – Whose Story is it?

25. Storytelling – Whose Story is it?

26. Storytelling – Whose Story is it?

27. Storytelling – Whose Story is it?

28. Storytelling – Whose Story is it?

29. Storytelling – Whose Story is it?

30. Three Key Insights
Storytelling
- Whose story is it?
Engagement
- Viewer Experience
Activism
- Leverage Social Networks

31. Engagement - Viewer Experience
1. Theatrical
2. Festivals
3. Event release
4. DVD
5. Product Sales
6. Screenings
7. Broadcast
8. Digital
9. Viewing parties
B. Karlin

32. Engagement - Viewer Experience
B. Karlin
1. Theatrical
2. Festivals
3. Event release
4. DVD
5. Product Sales
6. Screenings
7. Broadcast
8. Digital
9. Viewing parties

33. Engagement - Viewer Experience
B. Karlin
1. Theatrical
2. Festivals
3. Event release
4. DVD
5. Product Sales
6. Screenings
7. Broadcast
8. Digital
9. Viewing parties

34. Engagement - Viewer Experience
1. Where is the viewer? (spatial)
2. Who are they with? (social)
3. Do they have to pay? (financial)
4. Is it part of an event or experience?
(organizational)
B. Karlin

35. Three Key Insights
Storytelling
- Whose story is it?
Engagement
- Viewer Experience
Activism
- Leverage Social Networks

36. Activism - Leverage Social Networks
Social Media ≠ Social Networks
B. Karlin, 2012

37. B. Karlin
Activism - Leverage Social Networks

38. Activism - Leverage Social Networks

39. Activism - Leverage Social Networks

40. • Schools
• Places of worship
• Community groups
• Online forums
B. Karlin
Activism - Leverage Social Networks

41. Thank you!
Beth Karlin
Transformational Media Lab
bkarlin@uci.edu