Initial Understanding

Looking at the human rights topic (which is the area I’m most interested in for this portion of the research analysis), I found that regarding knowledge of the Rwandan genocide (related to film Sometimes in April), 12% of the students were already very familiar with the event, 68% knew a little bit about it, while 9% had no familiarity.  Regarding the abuse and torture by American soldiers at Abu Ghraib in Iraq (Standard Operating Procedure), 12% were also very familiar with the events, 42% knew a little bit, and 46% had no familiarity at all.  This was extremely surprising since the second event was directly about the United States and the war in Iraq and was much more recent (2004), while the first event was in a foreign country in 1994.  These results were useful since my analysis of the writing and blackboard assignments for these two films showed a greater understanding of the causes and international relations concepts related to the Rwandan genocide than to the Abu Ghraib abuse (see below).  Not enough context and background was provided for Standard Operating Procedure, thus when added to the majority’s lack of knowledge about the event, the results were that students were more confused by this film, they focused more on the personal aspects of it, and liked this film least (the film was not a standard documentary that presented the chronological facts about this event, but was a blend of fact and fiction with a focus on soldiers’ personal stories). 

Main research question

How is feature film useful in an international relations class?

Sub-question

To what extent does film help students interpret or illuminate a theory or concept in international relations, in addition to potentially illustrating something?

The post-surveys and all the writing assignments (blackboard and take-home essays) assisted me in answering these questions.  First, the results of the post-survey illustrated the following.  Students were asked: To what extent do you believe that watching films in this class was useful to you in:

Thus, if we combine both categories of usefulness, we find the film’s most important role was in helping students understand the topic (97%), while the least important role was ‘becoming more interested in the topic,’ but this was still a strong 81%.  Thinking about class discussions and the related teaching journal, I discovered that the majority of students repeated what they wrote in their Blackboard responses – that the personal nature of both of the human rights films, the up front stories and narratives of individuals they in some way could even identify with, made the issue come alive for them, increased their interest, and helped them understand the political concepts.  There was some controversy in class, however, with a couple students stating that  graphic, violent images and emotional narratives can have the opposite effect of turning students away (see reflections for more on this).  

Analyzing Writing Assignments/Essays

Analyzing the first essay related to international relations theory revealed some interesting results that speak to the main research question.  Despite the results above that where a majority of students see film as helping them understand the topic, results from written essays reveal a somewhat different story.  As noted below, the vast majority of the students did not make use of the film to answer the essay questions.  This does not necessarily mean that the film did not help them understand the topic though (see reflections section).  Of the students that referenced the film, I coded their use based upon three criteria: (a) Illustrate – brief or minimal use of the film as an example of brief illustration of a point; no analysis or deeper explanation; (b) Interpret – a deeper use of the film to show meaning, clarify a political concept, explain fully how the film relates to a political concept studied; (c) Illuminate – the student’s written analysis illustrates that the student is engaged in deeper reflective thinking and that the film has really illuminated something new for them or has altered their perspective on an issue, or has caused them to think about something in a newly discovered way.  

Essay 1 on International Relations Theory

(Films: Lord of the Flies and Rashomon)

(Note: numbers add up to over 100 because some students mentioned films more than once and used them in more than one way in a single essay).

Essay 3 on Human Rights

(Films: Sometimes in April and Standard Operating Procedure)

(Note: numbers add up to over 100 because some students mentioned films more than once and used them in more than one way in a single essay).

These results illustrate that the specific films shown and whether or not students “like” the film may have an impact on how useful students find them to be in understanding and interpreting the material and how in.  Given that Rashomon was the least liked film of all five and the hardest to understand and apply to the theoretical concepts (post-modernism), this may partially explain the high number of students who did not use any film in essay 1.  Of the students who used film in the essay, many more used Lord of the Flies, a film they liked better and which was much easier to understand.  By contrast, Sometimes in April was the top film choice for the majority of students that may explain why more students discussed this film in the third essay.  (Note: Sometimes in April was almost exclusively the film students chose to examine in this essay, not Standard Operating Procedure, a film that was not generally liked).   However, there may be other explanations for the difference. It could be that by the time students got to the third essay and the last two films, there were more comfortable in general with analyzing film and so more of them used film in their essays.  In short, most students wrote more traditional essays that answered the questions using their reading material, as opposed to the film.  Or, in the case of essay 2, most students made a passing reference to Sometimes in April to illustrate the tragedy and example of genocide, but also almost a third did some deeper interpretive analysis. Finally, almost no one was able to use the film in a way that showed deep reflective thinking.  This may also be perhaps because most students reacted on a more emotional than cognitive and intellectual level. These results, at least for the Sometimes in April film, are confirmed by analyses of Blackboard responses below and survey results above.

Blackboard Film Responses

After carefully analyzing the responses for the two human rights films, a number of interesting conclusions can be made about the role of film in an international relations/international studies classroom that include and go beyond the 4 main roles of film noted above.  First, the qualitative analysis of responses related to the Rwandan genocide and the topic of humanitarian intervention (Sometimes in April) reveal the importance of emotional or affective learning, in addition to cognitive learning.  Using highly personal, dramatic, and emotional narrative films may seem inappropriate in an academic setting, however this research tentatively shows that there are some benefits.  

45 out of 52 (or 87%) of students explained how the emotional and dramatic nature of the film on Rwanda positively affected their interest level, their capacity to connect to the issue and learn more about it, and helped their understanding of the wider academic topics.  (Note that the prompt asked them to consider what role, if any, this had). The film does an excellent job of both providing factual information about all aspects of the genocide, while at the same time bring the viewer closer through a compelling personal story of an ethnically-mixed family tragically affected by the genocide.  A few student comments illustrate the powerful effect the film has had on their interest, understanding, and even action:

"There are countless documentaries on the genocide, providing figures and graphic images but a story, people can relate to more and it creates a greater effect. The movie did not deter me from understanding the genocide but it interested me more to look into other genocides that happened and why. I want to understand why people could be a savage, as the men in the movie, killing women and children, but also that nobody stopped the situation."

"Though it was a fictional account, the fact that it was a personal narrative rather than a documentary of facts contributed to the incredible impact it had on me.  The images of dump trucks filled with corpses and the massacre of innocent people in front of family members made the statistics, such as that of 8,000 people dead at the end of day one of the conflict, much more real to me."

"This movie, Sometimes in April, once again gave me motivation to continue with my studies and extracurricular activities here at Elon in order to better positively affect the world once I graduate."

"As Anne-Marie was dying outside of Kigali in between two cement pillars as her best friend and mentor watched, I got a text message on my brand new iPhone. Quite frankly, I wanted to throw it out of the nearest window. There I was sitting in a digital theater at Elon University checking my iPhone while tragedies just like the Rwandan genocide were occurring around the world. The guilt I felt after watching Anne-Marie die stuck with me through the rest of the film and it continued to make me completely outraged."

"This film put a human face on the human rights that were being violated. Instead of hearing about women getting raped and children slaughtered you witnessed it."

Horror from the Rwandan genocide, 1994.

Another important conclusion is that film may be more useful when carefully paired with a substantive related academic reading, particularly if students are required to do the reading in advance or at the same time as the film screening.  40 out of 52 students (77%) were able to correctly explain the causes of non-intervention in the Rwandan genocide and specifically show how the related reading added to these explanations.  In short, they successfully made connections between a written text and a visual text and they often noted contradictions related to policy-making and conceptual dilemmas (e.g. the concept of sovereignty and human rights).  I consider these two tasks to be high-level analytical thinking for this introductory class.  These analyses frequently referred to and applied theories and concepts learned earlier in the class. Below two students illustrate multi-perspectivity and nuance regarding these issues, something that most students in a course like this do not or cannot do.  Most students come at the issue of genocide emotionally and are almost always in support of military intervention, not seeing the complexity of the issue.

“The issue of human rights is not black and white.  While genocide is wrong and it was terrible that no one stopped it in Rwanda, becoming involved in such crimes is not as easy as just stopping what is wrong.  A war would cost billions of dollars and many of our own citizens’ lives and years of clean up.  It was not an easy decision for our government to make.”

“If it were my son or daughter, my brother or sister, I would not want them to go to Rwanda, because it is too dangerous. They signed up to protect the US and not some other state. After reading the article though, I do see the other side. There is a “duty to protect” other lives and we are increasingly becoming a more globalized nation.”

Research sub-question

Do students see film as conveying or illustrating a theory or perspective or teaching something?  The answer to this based on the written assignments discussed above seems to be “yes” generally.  In the Blackboard responses to Sometimes in April, almost all of the students saw the film illustrating concepts from class, such as realist theory and the dilemmas of international law, humanitarian intervention, and state sovereignty.  

Regarding the purposes that film can play in society (other than for entertainment), the majority of students stated in the pre-survey that film can (1) illustrate how society and politics work and can (2) critique some aspect of the political and social world, but they were less inclined to think that film can (3) inform or educate or (4) act as a metaphor for larger theories and concepts.  This was expected and I was curious to see how their views might change by the end of the course.  In the post-survey by contrast, almost every student reported that film did all 4 of these things, with even slightly more students stating that the purpose of film can be to critique the political and serve as a metaphor than to inform or illustrate.  

In conclusion, what is film good at doing in an international relations class?  A lot!  It is useful for piquing students’ interest in a subject, for increasing their knowledge and understanding of an issue through specific narratives, examples, persons/characters, and images, for illustrating relevant political concepts and theories, and for revealing the complexities, contradictions, and important subtleties of some of those concepts.  While the majority of students did not, on their own, make use of film in their essays, I am hesitant to conclude that this means they didn’t get anything out of the film.  I believe this was more due to the specific films in question and the general reluctance students may have to “count” a film as legitimate text and source of evidence for a formal essay, compared to written text, i.e. “required reading.”