Katherine Keating
Publisher ∙ VICE, IMPACT
We’ll be talking to New York based, Australian Katherine Keating on how she’s picked up the torch in the fight for awareness and action on global issues, with youth media powerhouse VICE.
Katherine Keating is the Publisher of VICE Impact, VICE Media’s social impact platform, driving the company’s advocacy efforts on pressing global issues.
The creation of VICE Impact stems from a simple observation: There is an abundance of available content on pressing social, economic and political issues, but it is not prompting viewers to take action.
VICE Impact tackles pressing issues most relevant to our audience, and feature action-oriented content that addresses social, economic, and environmental challenges.
Working in government for a decade, I became increasingly aware of policy officials’ limited capacity to drive change and steer social movements, and defiant towards the top-down and vertically integrated structure and approaches that lie at the heart of policy and decision-making. Having worked closely with think tanks, policy institutes and research organizations dealing with global issues, I could see they had limited access and resonance with Millennials. It is for this reason that I turned to media and new media to build narratives and compelling stories that spread knowledge, democratize concepts, raise awareness and produce measurable outcomes for society.
VICE Impact launched on April 24, with the worldwide premiere of The Third Industrial Revolution, at the Tribeca Film Festival. The documentary feature lays out social and economic theorist Jeremy Rifkin’s roadmap to overcome climate change, the exhaustion of natural resources, low productivity and jobless growth.
VICE Impact will produce content and campaigns on specific initiatives, tackling issues including climate change, water reform, criminal justice reform, social equality and LGBTQ rights.