Nine for IX—Branded: From Affect to Action

Documentary films have the ability to significantly impact individual attitudes toward social and cultural issues; but to date, little research has sought to empirically measure these impacts. The film Branded, the last film in the Nine for IX series, explored gender equity in sports post–Title IX. The key question for films focusing on social issues is whether they ever reach beyond the already converted audience to move viewers from affect (emotion) to action (doing). This paper utilized the evaluation framework proposed by Yates, Alameddine, Gheissari, Ta, and Karlin (2012) to analyze whether Branded contained the elements needed to move viewers to action related to the issues around gender equity in sports. Results of this analysis indicate that while the film did contain many of the required elements, it fell short by failing to delineate a specific task for the audience or desired behavioral response from viewers of Branded.