DJ Johnson, MFAStorytelling for Social Impact

Storytelling for Social Impact focuses on designing media engagement strategies to stimulate meaningful participation among audience communities. The masterclass explores techniques for developing compelling stories and media campaigns across multiple media platforms that have the power to inspire people to engage in forms of personal, social, and political action. The Civic Imagination — defined as the capacity to imagine alternatives to current cultural, social, political, or economic conditions — is explored as a theoretical and practical approach to creating powerful stories of change. Representation and ethics in storytelling and media advocacy are examined. Tools for developing media engagement strategies are introduced. The workshop does not focus on the craft of creating specific content. 

DJ Johnson is Associate Professor of Practice in the Division of Media Arts + Practice at the USC School of Cinematic Arts.
He is a filmmaker and educator with over twenty years of experience in media education, specializing in media strategies for social change. DJ serves as Associate Director of Critical Media Project, a media education initiative at the intersection of critical pedagogy and critical media literacy.
He has worked with universities and governmental institutions internationally to design media education curricula and implement media production training programs, particularly in the Middle East and West Africa. DJ has served as an American Film Showcase (AFS) envoy to Burkina Faso (2017, 2019), Niger (2017), Mauritania (2018), and Senegal (2021). He will be an AFS envoy to Timor-Leste in October, 2023.