Insights on Digital Media and Higher Education

The 2016 State of Digital Media in Higher Education Survey, gathered insights from more than 300 current educators, administrators, and students that hail from more than 200 universities. The survey examined topics critical to today’s universities, including digital literacy, media usage and access, and copyright compliance.

VideoBlocks EDU, the premier provider of royalty-free digital media for higher education, today announced the launch of its market research survey: The 2016 State of Digital Media in Higher Education to further advance its mission of delivering creative freedom to U.S. and international college campuses while encouraging the ethical use of digital content.

While most people have learned to guard themselves against believing everything they read on the internet, it is still all too common to see figures, charts, and quotes that are inaccurate or simply not true. We usually find misleading memes or articles on our own social media feeds, but copy and paste has made it easy for false ideas to appear anywhere. Even in industries made up of intelligent, critically minded people, such as education.

Across multiple mediums and with increasing popularity, filmmakers have started to blur the line between journalism and documentaries. Some of the most well-received and popular productions of last year turned traditional investigations into documentaries with significant emotional and stylistic punch. HBO’s The Jinx, Going Clear, and Netflix’s Making a Murderer have not only made an impact on the public but also have unearthed new facts and even reopened legal investigations. This year’s Sundance entry Citizenfour from Laura Poitras, in which she documents her own journalism on Edward Snowden, prompted a panel discussion with a great question for the future of media: what really separates documentaries from journalism?

From dazzling animations never before possible to traditional shorts made with the finesse of a much more experienced director, festivals around the world have seen a steady increase in the quality of work produced by film students. We saw some of these high quality works firsthand during our recent student film competition. Advances in digital media, 3D printing, and even tablets have allowed these fifteen student filmmakers to make engaging projects that show off their technical savvy and give us a glimpse into the future of filmmaking.

Congratulations! You’ve made your first film! So what should you do now? Where can you get exposure? Most beginning filmmakers will use this opportunity to play the festival circuit. At film festivals, your film will screen in front of dozens of people and you will make valuable connections by meeting agents, film industry professionals, festival programmers, and other filmmakers. However, before you start dreaming about red carpets, awards, and distribution deals, it’s important that you understand the current film industry scene and how difficult it can be to break into.

RESTON, Va., July 28, 2015 -- VideoBlocks, the first subscription-based provider of unlimited royalty-free stock video, today announced the launch of its Digital Media Action Grant to further advance its mission of delivering creative freedom to college campuses across the U.S., while encouraging the ethical use of digital content. For the first time, VideoBlocks will be awarding two grants of $10,000 to higher education researchers to study how digital creative content can help students build 21st century skills.