StudentCam

The aim of the competition, as stated by C-SPAN, is to provide an opportunity for young people to voice their opinions on current events.^[3] Middle and high school students can compete alone or in groups of up to three, entering a video documentary between 5 and 6 minutes in length, which presents more than one side to the selected topic and includes related C-SPAN programming.^[1] Each year a new theme related to current affairs is provided, and competitors must use this as the basis for their entry.^[4] Subjects have ranged from video game violence to illegal immigration.^[2]

The deadline for entries is in January each year^[5] and the StudentCam winners are announced live on C-SPAN's Washington Journal, usually in March each year.^[6] Following the announcement, the top 25 entries are shown on C-SPAN,^[7] one documentary each weekday morning, accompanied by a telephone interview with the student filmmakers.^[2] All of the winning documentaries are available on the StudentCam website.^[2] The winning filmmakers receive cash prizes typically totaling $150,000, with the grand prize-winner receiving $5,000, in addition to being featured on C-SPAN. As of 2014^[update], 150 entries each year are chosen as prize-winners, and 11 teacher awards are given to teachers who incorporate the competition into their classes.^[6]

The sponsor of the StudentCam competition is C-SPAN Classroom, a free membership organization providing teachers with C-SPAN materials for classes and research.^[6] Promotion of the competition is often supplemented by local cable providers.^[8]

The StudentCam competition developed from a documentary competition called CampaignCam, run by C-SPAN during the 2004 presidential campaign as a way of including students' views about the election. The StudentCam forerunner won a Beacon Award in 2005, conferred by the cable industry for excellence in communications and public affairs.^[9]

In 2006, StudentCam was launched by C-SPAN, adding a requirement that students include relevant C-SPAN programming.^[1] The 2018 competition received the most entries to date, when over 5,700 students from 46 states and Washington, D.C. submitted a total of 2,985 submissions.^[10] The grand prize winner of the 2009 competition, Sawyer Bowman, a 10th grade student from Davidson, North Carolina was congratulated by President Barack Obama via a specially-recorded video message.^[3] A first-prize winner in the 2010 competition, Matthew Shimura, met First Lady Michelle Obama at the White House in April 2010 during a town hall meeting for her "Let's Move!" initiative, to talk about fighting childhood obesity, which was the subject of Matthew's video.^[11]