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Director Marty Kaplan standing at a podium ready to present.

Marty Kaplan’s ‘Big Idea’

Director Marty Kaplan shared his Big Idea at Aspen Health 2025: accuracy should be a core value for health influencers. With millions turning to TikTok and YouTube before doctors, Kaplan called for a new kind of Hollywood, Health & Society — one that supports creators who put science and public health first.

Hands holding a smart phone with a darkened background

Big Tech is Off the Hook in New Study

How do news and entertainment media cover the harms of social media—and what stories do audiences want? Our multi-country study, supported by Luminate, reveals that while tech’s negative impacts are widely covered, especially on youth, the role of corporations is often left out of the conversation.

Pride, Pop Culture & Norman

Pride LIVE! Hollywood opened with a tribute to Norman Lear and his pioneering LGBTQ+ TV legacy at Emerson College Los Angeles. “I wish I could say to Norman, ‘Can you see this?’ I know he’d love it,” said Lear Center Director Marty Kaplan.

The Pitt Crew

Hollywood, Health & Society provided expert briefings to the writers of The Pitt, Max’s new medical drama starring Noah Wyle, to ensure authentic storytelling on critical healthcare issues. These insights helped shape one of the most realistic portrayals of emergency medicine on TV—now renewed for a second season.

Some Key Projects

Hollywood,
Health & Society

Providing the entertainment industry with accurate and up-to-date information for storylines on health, safety and security. We offer briefings and consultations with experts, case examples, panel discussions and an expanding list of tip sheets written for writers and producers.

Media
Impact Project

The research and evaluation arm of the Lear Center. We research how entertainment and news influence our thoughts, attitudes, beliefs, knowledge and actions. We work with researchers, the film and TV industry, and nonprofits and share our research with the public.

The Cronkite Awards for Excellence in TV Political Journalism honors outstanding journalism that debunks disinformation, promotes public health, advocates science, exposes inequities, empowers citizens and serves as a watchdog for voting rights and election fairness and transparency.

The Walter
Cronkite Awards

Popular Music Project

The Popular Music Project takes popular music seriously as an object of sustained critical inquiry through a mix of research projects, course development, public events, videos, publications and artists’ residencies.

Everett M.
Rogers Award

Presented since 2007, the Everett M. Rogers Award award honors the late USC Annenberg professor whose Diffusion of Innovations is the second-most cited book in the social sciences.

Image of the Journalist in Pop Culture

IJPC analyzes the conflicting images of the journalist in film, TV, radio, comics, video games, music, art and other aspects of pop culture to understand their impact on the public's perception of newsgatherers.

The Norman Lear Center is a nonpartisan research and public policy center that studies the social, political, economic and cultural impact of entertainment. On campus, from its base in the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, the Lear Center builds bridges between schools and disciplines whose faculty study aspects of entertainment, media and culture. Beyond campus, it helps bridge the gap between the entertainment industry and academia, and between them and the public. Through its scholarship, research and partnerships; its events, publications and outreach to the creative community; and its role in formulating the field of entertainment studies, the Norman Lear Center works to be at the forefront of discussion and practice -- and to illuminate and repair the world.

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