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UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Social UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Social Impact and Storytelling and Hollywood: Public Health and Social Justice Advocacy in Popular Media A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology by Jennifer Austin Walton-Wetzel 2018 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Social Impact and Storytelling and Hollywood: Public Health and Social Justice Advocacy in Popular Media by Jennifer Austin Walton-Wetzel Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology University of California, Los Angeles, 2018 Professor Elinor Ochs, Co-Chair Professor Christopher J. Throop, Co-Chair Social impact entertainment advocates and participants in Hollywood’s nascent ‘social impact storytelling’ scene attempt to leverage the cultural influence of popular media on behalf of prosocial and public health causes: they promote, facilitate consultations on, and attempt to integrate social impact content into entertainment programming. The central questions of this dissertation, based on sixteen months of ethnographic fieldwork, involve what kinds of ideologies of social change and theories of communication shaped participants’ everyday practices, structured advocate-industry relationships, and influenced the popular narratives that emerged from advocate-Hollywood collaborations. The project sought to understand how so- called “social impact” topics – primarily issues regarding public health and the social determinants of health -- were being formulated, resisted, transformed, and articulated through ii and alongside popular narratives. Of particular interest were how the practices and ideologies operating in these contexts might relate to larger cultural discourses about social justice and social change, the potentialities of narrative, contemporary humanitarian ideals, and ideas about responsive ethical subjectivity in relation to others’ stories. Through an ethnographic investigation of social impact media advocacy in contemporary Hollywood, this dissertation explores the landscape and configuration of contemporary social impact media/social impact storytelling movements, their antecedents, recent evolutions, and some of the implications of their current trajectories. iii The dissertation of Jennifer Austin Walton-Wetzel is approved. Douglas W. Hollan John Heritage Christopher J. Throop, Committee Co-Chair Elinor Ochs, Committee Co-Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2018 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vii CURRICULUM VITAE viii CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1 An Anthropological Investigation of Entertainment Advocacy 5 Fieldwork at the Center 18 Structure of the Dissertation 23 CHAPTER TWO: METHODS 27 Field Sites & Participants 27 Participant Observation & Recordings of Focal Activities 29 Interviews 33 Textual Materials 34 Corpus & Data Analyses 35 CHAPTER THREE: FROM “ENTERTAINMENT-EDUCATION” TO “SOCIAL IMPACT STORYTELLING” 38 Early History & Foundations of Entertainment-Education 38 Middle Years: from the Developing World to the West 46 From Health to Justice: Social Impact Storytelling 59 CHAPTER FOUR: A NARRATIVE THEORY OF SOCIAL CHANGE 65 A Narrative Theory of Social Change 69 Stories Reach People 76 Seeing the Unseen and Hearing the Unheard 77 Stories Inspire and Empower 79 It Adds Up 81 CHAPTER FIVE: NARRATIVE ECONOMY AND NARRATIVE CAPITAL 88 Disappearing Capital in a Narrative Economy 90 Division of Labor in a Narrative Economy 100 CHAPTER SIX: NARRATIVE TRANSFORMATIONS AND NARRATIVE DEMAND 114 Narrativization 115 From Collective to Personal 119 From Chronic/Structural to Emplotted 123 From Bleak & Fragmented to Hopeful and Coherent 126 From Othering to Humanizing & Relatable 130 Theoretical Implications 135 Visibility, Regulation, & Reification ______________________________136 The Exclusion of Chronicity, Fragmentary “Experience,” & NonNarrative “Subjects” 142 Displacement, Disposession, & Alienation in a Narrative Economy 146 Narrative Demand 151 CHAPTER SEVEN: SOCIAL IMPACT STORYTELLING AS AN ETHICAL PROJECT 155 Theoretical Tendencies & Tensions 156 SIS & Narrative Ethics 161 v Ordinariness/Unreflective Norms versus Breakdown/Reflective Practice 161 Canonical Plots & Cultural Templates versus Individual Experiences 165 The Setting versus The Unexpected Event 169 First-Person/Humanist Ethics versus Poststructural Perspectives 173 Ethical Demands, Ethical Resistance; Narrative Demands, Narrative Resistance 177 CHAPTER EIGHT: SO MANY FEELINGS: THE PROBLEM WITH AFFECT AS A SOCIAL CHANGE CATALYST 188 Resistance 195 From Compassion to Inspiration; From Sufferers to “Survivors” 203 Affective Demand and Feeling as Ethical Action 207 CHAPTER NINE: CONCLUSION 212 A Summary 212 The Bigger Picture 216 APPENDIX A: TRANSCRIPTION KEY 222 BIBLIOGRAPHY 223 vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Special thanks to my co-chairs, Elinor Ochs and Jason Throop. You are both incredible at taking ideas seriously while also finding ways to play -- it has always been a pleasure to see how you think and an honor to have you think with me. I am so grateful for your particular steadiness and patience with me over the past decade. Thanks also to Doug Hollan, Linda Garro, and John Heritage for the way you have given so freely to me and to your intellectual communities. I have been deeply influenced and inspired by years of conversations between and with you all at Mind, Medicine and Culture, Discourse Lab, and the Center for Language, Interaction and Culture. I can say unequivocally that without your generosity, I never would have finished this project. To my dear friends Dr. Hadi Deeb, Dr. Misa Dayson, and Dr. Megan Bayles, I am so glad you wrote your dissertations before I did. Thank you sincerely for your routine real-talk. You are all formidable taskmasters. I love you so much. Now lay off me! Dr. Anna Corwin and Dr. Rachel George, thank you also for your gentle and consistent knowingness, openness, and support. Dr. Sampada Aranke, you offered some of the biggest signal boosts in the final stages. Thank you. Thanks to my parents, Dr. Marsha Walton and Dr. Chris Wetzel. You taught me to think flexibly, to always revere humanness but to always practice irreverence when it comes to humans’ dogma. I am pretty sure that our family culture accidentally socialized me into an anthropological stance. I love you very much. Finally, Laurie, thank you above all. I know that I am insanely lucky to be married to my favorite person, but I am especially lucky that you are brilliant, steadfast, wild-minded, and manage to summon belief when I am full of doubt. I love you and look forward to you every day. vii VITA EDUCATION 2017 MSW Clinical Social Work, Smith College School for Social Work Thesis: ‘Social Justice’ Discourse in American Social Work: A Critical Discourse Analysis of ‘Social Justice’ in Social Service Review, 1927-2013 2008 MA Social Sciences, University of Chicago Thesis: Referential Frustration: Chronic Pain and the Pressure to Represent 2004 BA English, Macalester College ACADEMIC POSITIONS 2011-2013 Assistant to Director, Dr. Elinor Ochs, UCLA Center for Language, Interaction and Culture 2010-2011 Teaching Assistant, UCLA Anthropology Department Research Methods in Cultural Anthropology (Fall 2010) Gender and Language Across Communities (Winter 2011) Culture and Communication (Spring 2011) 2009-2010 Research Assistant, Dr. Carole Browner, UCLA Semel Neuropsychiatric Institute Center for Culture and Health 2007-2008 Research Assistant, Dr. Marsha Walton, Rhodes College Psychology Department 2003-2004 Research Assistant, Dr. Russel Wigginton, Rhodes College History Department 2003 Course Preceptor, Dr. James Dawes, Macalester College English Department Introduction to Creative Writing (Spring 2003) 2001 Research Assistant, Dr. Sue Jackson, Victoria University Psychology Department 2001 Course Preceptor, Dr. Robert Warde, Macalester College English Department Memoir and Narrative (Fall 2001) REFERREED PUBLICATIONS 2013 “Utilization of Genetic Testing Prior to Subspecialist Referral for Cerebellar Ataxia.” Genetic Testing and Molecular Biomarkers 17(8):588-94 2013 “Reported Speech and the Development of Authorial Voice in Middle Childhood.” Narrative Inquiry 23(2):388–404. viii GRANTS AND AWARDS 2013-2014 Pauley Fellowship, UCLA 2011 Lemelson/Society for Psychological Anthropology Pre-Dissertation Research Grant 2011 Department of Anthropology Research Grant, UCLA 2010 Graduate Research Summer Mentorship Award, UCLA 2009-2010 Pauley Fellowship, UCLA 2004 Bennet-Cerf Endowed Prize for English, Macalester College 2003 Earl Ward Prize for English, Macalester College ACADEMIC SERVICE 2011-2012 Co-Chair, UCLA Center for Language, Interaction and Culture Graduate Student Association 2010-2011 Student Representative, UCLA Anthropology Department Diversity Committee 2009 Submissions Reviewer and Planning Committee Member, UCLA Conference On Language, Interaction and Culture SELECTED PRESENTATIONS 2012 Making Trouble: hospital clowns and therapeutic mischief. UCLA Discourse Lab, Los Angeles, CA 2009 Referential Frustration: Chronic pain and the pressure to represent. UCSD UCLA Conference and Workshop Series on Culture and Mind, San Diego, CA 2008 Reported Speech and the Development of Authorial Voice in Middle Childhood. Georgetown University Roundtable on Linguistics, Washington, D.C. 2008 ‘So on I go with my story’: Development of meta-narrative voice in middle childhood. Society for Text and Discourse, Memphis, TN 2004 Critique as Mimicry: possibilities for creativity in a critical practice. Associated Colleges of the Midwest Conference,
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