The Social Documentation Program is a two-year, full-time, graduate program in the Film and Digital Media Department. The SocDoc Program is dedicated to equipping students to address social change and human rights through the creation of professional-level projects that aim to expand public discourse, change perception, craft new voices, and help to advance social change. The program provides students with the knowledge and training necessary to carry out the creation of engaged documentaries in the medium of film/video, photography, new digital media, or audio/radio. Other genres (oral history, creative non-fiction, written ethnographies; historic exhibitions for museum or other public display; web, DVD or cross-platform projects and/or digital archives) are possible in consultation with faculty.

Students are expected to arrive with a project already identified and to spend two years in researching their subject, expanding their knowledge base, and carrying out the production of a completed work to be exhibited as the final requirement of the degree program.

Students work with filmmakers, photographers, sound design artists, film/digital-media scholars, documentary historians and, crucially, with a range of scholars drawn from across the campus for their expertise in the projects’ target areas. With a dual-advisor system emphasizing both medium and subject, students produce substantive researched proposals, go out in the field to capture their material, and spend the second year in post-production and further knowledge-acquisition. The curriculum follows a cohort model and emphasizes collaborative methods.

Upon completion of the program, Master of Arts degree holders will be qualified to enter the documentary profession as directors, producers, and other related crafts. Alumni may also work on the creation and delivery of documentary content for multiple platforms including public broadcasting; in the documentary film business as independent producers and artists, or for archival centers, NGOs, or museums. A number of graduates have chosen to pursue a PhD in a field related to their thesis documentary in the Arts, Humanities, or Social Sciences.

For application deadlines and other information on the program, please visit our website or contact the  Graduate Program Coordinator