CSM Blog

Documentary film was pushing traditional boundaries at the 2012 International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA). From the DocLab's exhibitions to the intensity of audio, IDFA is leading the way in creative spaces for meaningful documentary that thinks outside the silver screen. Read more...

Co-authored by Matt Shor

Internationally acclaimed Magnum photographer, Larry Towell, recently featured his most popular bodies of work in a talk at American University as part of the Camera As Catalyst series co-sponsored by the Center for Social Media and the School of Communication. Towell, whose business card reads ‘Human Being’, is part poet, part folk musician, part photographer and part social activist; all of which provides a unique perspective as he focuses his lens on documenting human rights issues around the globe. 
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Obama and Romney own 2012 – they essentially bought it – having spent record sums of money on advertising and campaign stratagems designed to magnetize our attentions and motivate them towards a desired set of actions. As year end features and retrospectives squeeze their way into our nation's newspapers, one worn out phenomenon will predictably dominate the annual backward glance: the election. Read more...

In this month’s fair use question, a student librarian discovers an old photo album in his library’s special collection and wants to make it available online.

Dear Center for Social Media:

I work at my university's library. The other day, working on our special collection, I discovered an old photo album from the 1971 – 1972 county ensemble theatre's performance season. Read more...

Filmmakers from the fall 2012 Human Rights Film Series sat down with our graduate fellows to analyze the fundamentals of their films. Answering questions about structural elements, character arcs, creative content, and social impact yielded some surprising results. Read more...