The End of the Line – A Social Impact Evaluation

How much impact did the film The End of the Line really have in the UK – on citizens, their politicians, customers and businesses?

Drawing on qualitative and quantitative analysis, focus groups and media analysis, an 18 month long study was conducted by Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation and supported by Esmée Fairbairn Foundation.

Why Study the Impact of a Documentary?

In the last 10 years, documentaries are increasingly being recognised as a key medium for communicating social justice issues and inspiring social change. There have been high-profile examples, including Supersize Me, An Inconvenient Truth, Sicko, Jamie’s School Dinners, The Cove, The Age of Stupid – and many more such films are being made.

But there is widespread lack of understanding about how the social impact of such media should be monitored and reported and a lack of templates and tools to assist them. Many films rely on anecdotal evidence or common sense to establish their impact and the lack of hard evidence presented can lead to cynicism that films achieve anything other than entertainment.

This detailed report into the impact of The End of the Line is intended to contribute to the growing, and important field of work on media impact assessment. We hope it can be a template for other film projects giving best practice examples of gathering and presenting quantitative and qualitative data.

For more information about this study please contact Beadie Finzi, Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation Director at beadie@britdoc.org

Or read more here.