Annenberg School for Communication

Peter Decherney, a professor of cinema and media studies and English in the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Arts & Sciences, shines a spotlight on the history of Hollywood with a free online class. 

Smartphones and other high-tech gadgets let people of all ages shoot and edit videos and post them online. But, to tell a story well, more thought has to go into the process.

The video shows a Jordanian pilot in an orange jumpsuit standing in a cage, his head bowed. A match hits unseen gasoline, and what follows is unspeakable. The pilot burns to death at the hands of the Islamic State, multiple cameras recording it in detail. The event itself was perhaps a minute, but the official edited video drags on for 22 minutes.

University of Pennsylvania political scientist Diana Mutz, music professor Timothy Rommen and theoretical

Sophie Beren, a junior communications major at the University of Pennsylvania, is a natural connector. 

WHO:             Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi are two of the three co-founders of the Black Lives Matter movement.

When Peter Decherney led a team of filmmakers and scholars to Myanmar in 2014, he quickly realized that there was a compelling story to tell about the country’s vibrant and, until recently, government-censored movie-making industry.

Looking back at her undergraduate days, University of Pennsylvania alumna Leanne Pyott Huebner, who represents the first generation in her family to attend college, remembers feeling “differently prepared” than her peers.

John L. Jackson Jr., dean of the School of Social Policy & Practice at the University of Pennsylvania, is harnessing the power of faculty and student expertise to address some of the most pressing social justice issues in America.

Social networks affect every aspect of our lives, from the jobs we get and the technologies we adopt to the partners we choose and the healthiness of our lifestyles. But where do they come from?