The Social Construction of Reality, Rewired: Platformization & Epistemic Strategies of Action in the Documentary Field

Speaker Bio: 
Christine Delp is a PhD Candidate and cultural sociologist whose interdisciplinary research focuses on nonfiction media industries, particularly the cultural production of knowledge in the digital age. She received a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship to support her dissertation project, Documentary Disrupted: Ethics, Power, and the Symbolic Construction of Reality in the Streaming Era. This project examines the impact of platformization on the U.S. documentary film industry, connecting the symbolic construction of real-life events to ongoing media disruption, labor precarity, and inequality within the documentary field. Her work has been published in Poetics and Sociological Forum, with additional publications currently under review and in progress. She has taught in both the sociology and journalism departments at the University of Minnesota, receiving a teaching excellence award in 2025.

In addition to her work as a sociologist, Christine is an award-winning documentary producer and director. She recently produced the documentary feature Magic & Monsters, which was named Runner-Up for the 2024 Library of Congress Lavine/Ken Burns Prize for Film, as well as the 2023 four-part documentary series Burden of Proof (HBO/Max), which received Emmy, Critics' Choice, and International Documentary Association Award nominations. Her credits also include Santuario (PBS, Al Jazeera), the Emmy, Peabody, and James Beard Award-winning series A Chef's Life (PBS, National Geographic Europe), as well as Road to Race Day (Verizon go90/Complex Networks). Her work has been supported by the Sundance Institute, Field of Vision, Tribeca Film Institute, Women in Film LA, Working Films, the New Orleans Film Society, the Producers Guild of America, and others.