8/9/22 - Calvin University Receives Grant To Study Impact Of Movies

A $1 Million dollar grant will help Calvin University study how movies shape our morals.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich.—(Calvin University Press Release) - Carl Plantinga, professor of film and media at Calvin University, along with a team of experts has received a $1 million grant to explore how movies shape one’s moral understanding. 

See full story: https://calvin.edu/news/archive/research-teams-1-million-grant-explores-how-movies-shape-morals

Under what conditions this impact occurs is what Plantinga and his colleagues Allison Eden, Daniel Levin, and Murray Smith will be working to understand. Plantinga, who has spent much of his 22-year career at Calvin studying and writing about the impact of movies on viewers, including in one of his books Moving Viewers: American Film and the Spectator’s Experience, is the project director. Eden, a professor at Michigan State University, who has spent her career thinking about the effects of media on people’s moral lives, is project co-director. Levin is a psychologist at Vanderbilt University, bringing a specialty in viewer’s bodily engagement with films and how that relates to their thinking. And Smith is a film theorist with expertise in how viewers engage with characters in a story. 

"Films and film characters can move us deeply, can leave an impression, can imprint themselves into our memories," said Plantinga. "These stories we see on screens are pervasive and powerful. They aren’t going away, so we are asking ‘is there some way to understand their power on us better and how they might have a positive impact on our lives?’"