Today we’d like to introduce you to Johanna Blakley
Hi Johanna, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
Hi! My name is Johanna Blakley and I’m a scholar who studies the intersection of creativity, commerce and culture. That includes things like the social impact of entertainment, news, social media and disinformation. I also study how things like copyright and digital technology affect creativity in the fashion and media industries. I work on quite a few international projects, often studying how films and TV shows can communicate cultural values across international borders. A lot of people are really surprised by my backstory, because I grew up poor in rural America, but I ended up getting a PhD in English. I planned to teach but, in the mid-90s I became completely convinced that the Internet was going to change everything. I ditched teaching for an Internet start-up and eventually made my way to Vivendi Universal games. Then I ended up on the radar of USC’s Norman Lear Center, a think tank devoted to studying the social impact of media and harnessing its power to make the world a better place. Twenty-five years later, I’m still there and I think it’s safe to say our mission is more urgent now than ever before.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Like I said, I grew up poor in the sticks and so finishing high school wasn’t expected, necessarily, and going to university was really rare. There were a couple of great teachers at my high school, but it was the kind of place where a super-religious teacher could give girls extra credit for wearing dresses and boys could get it for eating breakfast. I couldn’t wait to get the hell out of there and, thankfully, I was a really good student, so that was my ticket out. College was really stressful at first because I had zero money and I hadn’t traveled anywhere, I didn’t know how to drive, I knew no foreign languages, I’d never read the New York Times, or heard of The New Yorker magazine – I couldn’t even understand the cartoons! I don’t think I’d ever seen an independent film. I never had an avocado or a mango – I was kind of racing to catch up to the mostly middle- and upper-class kids around me. Ultimately, I found my footing, and I feel quite lucky because I’ve found in the Norman Lear Center a place where I can work on things I’ve been passionate about my whole life. A couple examples: as a kid, I felt really out of place and so I lived much of my life through media, where I tried to learn about the world I had little access to. It was through a TV show that I realized I wanted to be a scholar – little did I know that what I’d ultimately study would be the powerful role that media plays in shaping the human experience. Over my life, I’ve became increasingly aware of the critical role that class plays in this country, and so it was gratifying to work with the Gates Foundation on a major project devoted to understanding the media narratives about poverty that help shape social attitudes.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
Part of the Lear Center’s mission is engaging the public in a much more serious and informed conversation about the role that entertainment and media plays in our lives. We don’t just turn our brains off when we watch Real Housewives or Squid Games. We enter into parallel worlds that give us the chance to explore “what if” scenarios: What would I do in that situation? How are my values similar or different? Our research has demonstrated that engaging with a story can alter our attitudes, and even affect our behavior. People often ask me about media and entertainment trends and I’ve had the same answer since I worked in the game industry – the trajectory is toward complete immersion. The drive is to create media experiences that engage all of our senses and that are, ultimately, indistinguishable from reality. We have already witnessed the effects of an exponential increase in media content in our daily lives – imagine how this could become a lot more seamless and all encompassing. Will it become increasingly difficult to tell the difference between fiction and reality, online and offline, avatar and physical body? I think that’s likely. Will it happen in the next 5-10 years? I think that’s possible. That’s one reason I think the work at the Lear Center is so vital to our future. We need to understand the media stories we’re swimming in and how those stories shape our lives. We need to develop tools to navigate our increasingly complex media ecology, which AI will make exponentially more complex. Our research reports are public and I encourage people to check them out and share them broadly!
We love surprises, fun facts and unexpected stories. Is there something you can share that might surprise us?
Oooo, most people don’t know that I’ve just finished a novel! Much of it is based on my work at the Lear Center and so it explores how the forces of entertainment and AI may fundamentally change the world.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://learcenter.org/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/learcenter/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/usclearcenter
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johannablakley/
- Twitter: https://x.com/Mojojohanna
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL49618B710D22A72E
- Other: https://www.ted.com/speakers/johanna_blakley
Links:
https://www.ted.com/talks/johanna_blakley_lessons_from_fashion_s_free_culture
https://www.ted.com/talks/johanna_blakley_social_media_and_the_end_of_gender
https://www.mediaimpactproject.org/ideologyandentertainment.html
https://www.mediaimpactproject.org/poverty.html
https://learcenter.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/Contagion-Report.pdf
https://www.mediaimpactproject.org/africa.html
https://www.mediaimpactproject.org/virtualreality.html
https://www.mediaimpactproject.org/mena.html
