A documentary co-created by BU staff and students considers the past, present and future role of NATO in European security.
Deterrence is a feature-length documentary written, directed and produced by Dr Roman Gerodimos and co-created with staff and student members of the Faculty of Media & Communication.
It introduces the concept of deterrence to a general audience and probes its relevance in the 21st century.
The documentary features interviews with senior NATO officials, journalists, historians, defence consultants and experts from leading think tanks, filmed in the run up or during the 2019 NATO Leaders’ Meeting and the pre-summit NATO Engages conference in London.
It also features BU students, who are studying the ‘Global Current Affairs’ unit across BA (Hons) Multimedia Journalism, BA (Hons) Communication and Media and BA (Hons) Politics courses.
Throughout the project, the students participated in co-creation and project design workshops, contributed to the background research and were interviewed for the documentary.
The students also accompanied the production team to London for the 2019 NATO Leaders' meeting and NATO Engages conference, acting as production assistants, setting up camera, lights and sound, assisting with interviews and identifying pressing issues and points of debate.
The documentary website also features learning resources, including indicative reading and lesson plans. The resources are bespoke for every one of the documentary's seven core chapters. The lesson plans are aimed at students aged 13+ and 16+ as well as undergraduate and postgraduate students. All resources are free to use.
Dr Roman Gerodimos said: "This is a documentary that will be of interest not just to educators and students or the security, foreign policy and international affairs community, but to the general public as well, as it engages with the major security challenges facing us today, how they affect our everyday life and what we can do to address them.
"The coronavirus pandemic has made it painfully clear how vulnerable we are to global security challenges and how much we depend on each other, both within our communities and across countries, for our physical security.
He added: "Deterrence is scripted and edited so that the viewer can watch the introduction and each of the seven chapters either in sequence, or as stand-alone episodes over time. This is a new way of producing documentaries and of sharing them with viewers within a very changing media landscape.
"What motivated us to produce this documentary was the need to explain how these questions of security affect each and every one of us in tangible ways - and then to ask difficult questions about the role of our international organisations, such as NATO and the European Union, in addressing those."
