Are you looking for good sources of documentaries, full feature length films, and instructional video content that doesn't bore the life out of you (or your students)? Try these collections of high quality streaming content. NOTE: Some of these are accessible only from Arkansas Tech University campus.
Allegience
The Truman Show
Capital in the Twenty-First CenturyKoyaanisqatsi has been a staple of Arkansas Governor's School for almost 40 years. For many students, it can be a bewildering movie--perhaps their first experience with a film lacking dialog or plot. If you are struggling to understand its meaning or significance, you are not alone. Here are some resources that might help put it all in balance.
Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out of Balance by The Truman Show may be a movie from the late 1990's, but it envisions a world where technological surveillance is both personal and network television. As we continue to put our lives on social media, flip through endless reality TV shows, and grow up in a world increasingly lacking in privacy, this film is more relevant now than ever. Do you sometimes feel you are being watched? And how does it end?
The Truman Show by The Social Dilemma takes a deep dive on how social media platforms are designed to addict and manipulate people. This docudrama weaves interviews with tech whistleblowers with a narrative drama of an average family to create a compelling story of how excessive social media polarizes our society, destroys self-esteem, and spreads conspiracy theories. While it is not unusual to see a documentary finger-point at social media as the root of all societal ills, this film goes a step further by exploring the nuanced ways technology companies have designed their platforms specifically to manipulate and addict users. After watching, do not be surprised if you want to delete your social media apps.
The Social Dilemma by Time of Fear is a documentary concerning two Japanese-American internment camps in Arkansas during World War II: the Rohwer Relocation Center (Desha County) and the Jerome Relocation Center (Drew and Chicot Counties). The documentary includes archival footage from this period and interviews with former internees, Arkansans who lived near or worked at the camps, and scholars. It originally aired on PBS stations in 2005. It is a joint production of UALR and Ambrica Productions and it was funded by the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, the Arkansas Natural and Cultural Resources Council, the Arkansas Humanities Council, and the Department of Arkansas Heritage.
Time of Fear
