HSE University Launches Project on Impact Media
On November 17, the official launch of the educational project ‘Impact Content Laboratory’ took place at HSE University on Pokrovsky Bulvar. The project was created by the HSE Faculty of Creative Industries together with the National Media Group, the largest private media holding in Russia, the ‘Third Sector’ Laboratory of Social Communications, and the ‘Headliners. Impact Media’ club. The course starts in November 2022.
Impact content is high-quality entertainment, professional, and UGC content with a powerful personal story. This content aims to raise socially significant topics, change the audience’s attitudes to relevant topics, and inspire a wide audience to solve social, environmental, and economic problems affecting the audience and the environment.
As part of the ‘Impact Content Laboratory’ educational project, students of the HSE Faculty of Creative Industries can enrol in the elective ‘Impact Media and Social Communications’, while fourth-year students of the programme in ‘Journalism’ can take part in the project seminar ‘How Media Changes the World for the Better: Producing Impact Content’. In addition, students can apply for paid internships in the production agencies of the ‘Headliners. Impact Media’ club on the project's website.
The laboratory’s experts will speak about socially significant content that inspires positive social changes, how the social effects of such content are measured, how to create and produce it, and where to find money for its production. Students will discuss the features of films, TV series, documentary projects, television shows and short social videos. Fourth-year students of the programme in ‘Journalism’ will meet leading producers, directors, and film analysts, hold pitch sessions and even create their own impact projects.
Nikita Tikhonov-Rau, producer and director, General Director of the ‘Third Sector’ Laboratory of Social Communications, notes that the launch of the project at HSE University is important for the industry. ‘For the first time in Russia, a large educational programme on impact media and socially significant content is being launched at HSE University. We have a lot of interesting things ahead,’ he says.
Alexander Akopov, Director of the HSE Film Institute, says that all authors working in cinema strive to capture a certain human condition. ‘It is the moment when you want to either cry or laugh, but keep on watching what is happening and, if possible, get involved, try to reach the screen and cheer for what is happening,’ he explains. ‘Fortunately, there are no contradictions between the slogan "let's make socially responsible content" and good, responsible dramaturgy that understands why it exists.’
Alexander Akopov also added that the topics that are currently covered in impact projects are truly important. ‘Therefore, we must move in this direction,’ he says. ‘We need this; our students need to understand how such projects are created. We know that HSE students are people who want strive for good.’
Maria Zalunina, Head of Corporate Social Responsibility at the National Media Group (NMG), says that the group has been creating social impact content in Russia for almost three years. She adds that it’s important for NMG to help current students in the field of media to become high-level professionals. ‘We see that HSE University prepares strong students. We understand that in a few years, they will find themselves in responsible positions in the media. And we want them to be eager to change the world for the better today.’