Contributor

Vivian Norris

Dr. (Ph.D.)

Vivian Norris is a filmmaker, journalist and academic teaching Global Communications and Policy at Tulane University in New Orleans. She has lived, worked and studied in Paris, Rome, Seattle, Austin, Oslo and now New Orleans for most of her adult life. She holds a PhD, focusing on Globalization Studies, and wrote a dissertation on Globalization and Media. She co-founded the Women in Cinema Film festival in 1996 in Seattle, where she was a Programmer and Development Director for the Seattle International Film Festival. Currently Dr.Norris is an independent producer and recently directed and produced a feature documentary, Obama Mama, on the life of Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, and her work with Microcredit, co-produced with Brian Woods of Truevision UK being distributed by www.herflix.com. The film is traveling internationally to universities and film festivals. She also writes freelance on Business, Film and Technology for BBC Online. Previously she worked as a co-producer on a feature film about Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for his work fighting poverty. She founded Vigilante VNM Productions to produce independent documentaries with social messages, which campaign for women's rights, integrity in economics and business, and transparency in media among other topics. Her next project focuses on the Geopolitics of a Changing Texas, her home state. Dr. Norris has been teaching Global Policy and Communications at Tulane University in New Orleans since Fall 2015. Dr.Norris also has a strong background working in the Media Content , Curation and Social Media. Dr. Norris has lived in and travelled to many different parts of the world looking at the effect Media and Cinema has on societies, and how commercial (Hollywood) cinema can be used (or abused) in terms of communicating social messages. She has written about and lectured on the use of entertainment to help create a better world and the educational use of cinema in classroom for the past two decades at the university level and at film festivals (Transformational Media Conference-London, GEN (Global Editors Network-Social media team-Paris), University of Texas, Rome Filmstudio Nordic film festival, HEC Business school,...). Post-doc research includes the future of Digital Distribution, and issues related to Biotechnology and the Oil Industry, as well as the Epidemic of Narcissism and its Effects on the Financial Industry, Individuals and Politics.