Позитивные изменения. Том 3, № 2 (2023). Positive changes. Volume 3, Issue 2 (2023)
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Currently the state support is segmented – there are areas of support for entertainment films made for commercial distribution; auteur cinema – the so-called art of cinema, where the skill level prevails over the commercial potential; documentary film; animation. Social impact films can fall under any of these categories, so allocating them under a separate segment, as done by the Ministry of culture, is, according to the expert, more of a PR move, focusing on the fact that the films receiving state support must produce a certain impact on the society.
“I think the most obvious assessment property of social impact cinema is the audience size. We are not concerned about revenue generated, or awards given – the key is that as many people as possible watch the film, and, more often than not, it’s about a specific target audience. And unlike entertainment and auteur films, the success of which is determined in the first weeks and months of its life, the influence of social impact films can be assessed after a very long time. Probably the best example is the film “Doctor Lisa” – it gathered a huge audience, and the “Fair Help” foundation has confirmed that hundreds of people joined them as volunteers after seeing the picture,” Galina Sytsko says.
The President and the Government of the Russian Federation regularly give orders for systemic support of films dedicated to socially impactful topics, and for development of the National Cinematography Development Concept. The drafts of the Concept focus heavily on the issues of support and assessment of socially important content, but because all the KPIs have become unpredictable since February 2022, Galina Sytsko believes we should not expect the Concept to be adopted any time soon. Moreover, the thesis about increasing state support for cinematography is quite debatable, because while formally the funds allocated by the state are indeed increasing, these efforts are in fact aimed not at making more films, but rather at preventing a drop in their numbers. “There’s always inflation, rising production costs, catastrophic losses of the film industry in the years of the pandemic and a further drop last year, the problems of attracting extra-budgetary funding, equipment, supplies, software and unpredictable currency exchange rates,” the expert explains.
We can definitely be confident about the feasibility of assessing the impact of children’s cinema, because in this case, we could and should use the tools from pedagogy and child psychology. In addition, this year there will be a significant change in the system – the maximum public funding limit of children’s films will be raised from 70 % to 100 %. Accordingly, producers will no longer have to be concerned about economic performance, so we are hoping there will be more high quality films aimed specifically at children. But since the film production cycle is 2–3 years, the effect of this law will not become clear until 2026.
Galina Sytsko also believes that the production of films popularizing the professions of teachers, engineers, doctors, etc. will gain momentum in the near future. The effect of such films can be measured by comparing the percentage of school graduates entering specialized universities, or by comparing the age profile of those who work in a particular profession now and some years later.
Maria Mokina, journalist, producer, member of the Coordinating Council on Social Advertising and Social Communications at the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation, Public Council at the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of the Russian Federation, noted that the modern media market has evolved from an emotional joy of someone finally integrating a social theme into the media product, to a conscious introduction of social context to develop new positive social habits, change lifestyles, and create comfortable spaces around oneself. The result of this evolution has been the total incorporation of a social idea into the body of the media product. This has become a mandatory “burden” on the part of customers and creators.
Today, society is entering the next stage of development, when it is necessary not only to rejoice in the casual effect, but to form an effective social impact entertainment industry [20] , which will produce products aimed at solving specific social and humanitarian problems.
“There is virtually no qualitative research on this topic in the media production market today; only quantitative studies are available. The assessment market is still in its infancy. The key players in this area are the Positive Changes Factory, the Higher School of Economics, and the National Media Group,” says Maria Mokina.
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Social impact entertainment is the international name for the system involving production and distribution of entertainment content that draws the audience’s attention to socially significant issues.
The state has created an extensive system of grant, financial, and infrastructural support for the film industry; but when the experts are deciding on whether to provide this support, they are focused on the traditional set of criteria such as increasing audience coverage or popularizing a certain issue. The introduction of an end-to-end assessment system at all stages of the creation and production of an audiovisual work will make it possible to multiply its qualitative impact, to see how effectively the money was invested, not only through the emotional impact, but by expanding the impact from Call-to-Action [21] , which is mainly used in advertising today, to the introduction of social decision and behavior models that contribute to the sustainable development of society.
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“Call-to-Action” includes all the elements that call to take a targeted action – for example, buy a product, order a service, or subscribe to a newsletter.
As part of the activities of the Coordinating Council on Social Advertising and Social Communications at the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation, social advertising currently undergoes assessment based on the criteria described in the “Evaluating the Effectiveness of Social Advertising” methodological manual from 2018, the only scientific publication to date that takes into account anything other than the economic result (Gladkikh & Vainer, 2018). Regular expert examination and evaluation also takes place within the framework of IDI and Yandex competitions on social advertising for NGOs [22] .
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Internet Development Institute. (2023). Documentation of competitive selection for support of projects for creation (production) and (or) placement (distribution) of public content aimed at strengthening civic identity and spiritual and moral values, in the Internet information and telecommunications network, including those aimed at young people. Retrieved from:(accessed: 17.05.2023).
“I can highlight several cases in the domestic industry. First of all, it is the #thiscannotbecured #cancercanbecured advertising campaign by Konstantin Khabensky Charitable Foundation, aimed at fighting fear of cancer [23] . The Foundation’s creative team conducted baseline research before launching the campaign and summarized its results, which made it possible to develop a strategy for the Foundation’s activities in the future. Some of the more recent cases are “Teenagers” and “Aunt Martha” projects made by NMG,” Maria Mokina continues. “In addition to integrating social messages into the series, they were surrounded by support services for the target audience, which were based on the studies of viewing statistics and viewer feedback on the media product. However, it is too early to say that a systematic assessment of qualitative results at the level of content impact is present in the media industry. This new, deliberate approach has yet to be created, tested, and implemented.”
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You can read more about this advertising campaign on pages 54–59 in this issue of the magazine.
Ksenia Leontieva, associate professor of production management at the St. Petersburg State Institute of Film and Television (SPbGIKiT), believes that impact assessment must be closely linked closely tied to the authors and investors’ goals. Because goals can be very individual, evaluation criteria cannot be universal. For example, the impact of films designed to increase the number of volunteers can be measured either by surveying viewers, or by measuring the number of volunteers nationwide before and after the show. In the case of videos about domestic violence or AIDS posted on bloggers’ channels with large audiences, one can measure the expansion of knowledge about the issue (by counting the number of views, likes, reposts, etc.); or, one can also look at the long-term change in disease rate, or support for passing a law. But this is much more complicated, because the society can be influenced by multiple factors at once, and the effect of a single audiovisual work on social indicators cannot be directly extrapolated.
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