Over the past year, we have been preparing to shoot a short social documentary titled, “Who are the vapers?” The film is considered a social research documentary that delves into the vaping community. Recently, the home page for this project was launched at whoarethevapers.com. The film will focus on a series of interviews with regular vapers.
Sociology
Yes, some of you may be wondering “What is Sociology?”. The concept of sociology is actually quite simple, it’s just that we don’t hear about it very often. To put it in more detail, sociology is a form of social research that uses methods to understand the prevailing practices within a group of individuals. Sociology is often used by social researchers to produce quality research and that’s what we’re going to do.
Target
The main goal of this project is to popularize knowledge to people from a new perspective, different from what they usually hear or are forced to hear - to be able to raise people's awareness of vaping and it has become something representative and very meaningful to vapers who have successfully quit smoking. In short, to give a different way of thinking for the community to accept vaping, just like vaping has given a different way to quit smoking.
A social research, conducted through a social strategy that includes interviews during filming, can produce the most accurate results when conducting social research on the vaper lifestyle. In the case of this film, it can be an effective tool to convey the authentic thoughts and experiences from the real stories of each vaper to non-vapers. This will help many people realize that those who are considered representatives of the vaping community are just ordinary citizens, no different.
Reason
Essentially, this approach to filmmaking is a very powerful way to communicate information. Social documentary has proven to be a powerful influence in a number of prominent social research works. In fact, the Center for Social Science Research at DePaul University has successfully found a place for this type of research. Among them, the Journal of Video Ethnography, now the official journal for this type of research, publishes data and results from selected social films that have become valuable research materials.
This journal provides students and teachers with available research to refer to for reliable information with reputable research results. It is extremely important for those in academia to show more progress in research on the vaping phenomenon.
Therefore, this social research project is designed to not only be a published academic study for reference, circulated among faculty and students, but also a tool to raise awareness about the real effects of vaping on individual users.
Theory
This is just my opinion and I believe that once a majority of American citizens can empathize with vapers, just by watching short interviews, discussing how switching to vaping can change their lives, then we can gain social acceptance. Gaining more consensus from the general public should be the top priority of advocacy groups.
Conclude
Most vapers were previously heavy smokers. It can be said that switching to vaping has had a very positive impact on former smokers who were haunted by the health effects of smoking. It is clear that the health effects of smoking weaken the smoker's body, so after switching to vaping, they can see for themselves how they have changed. With this film, hopefully it can really make non-vapers see the situation with vaping in a more positive light.
The research project for this film will be summarized and completed in spring 2017.
This article was published on Vapingpost by Tony Ottomanelli II and translated by The Vape Club
