Reparative Media Projects supports healing our media ecosystem through creative projects, public education, and consulting social justice storytellers and organizations. Based in Bronzeville, Chicago, the company is the public engagement entity for Dr. Aymar Jean Christian, Margaret Walker Alexander Professor of Communication Studies at the Northwestern University, and works in collaboration with his lab, the Media and Data Equity (MADE) Lab.
Dr. Aymar Jean "AJ" Christian is the Margaret Walker Alexander Associate Professor of Communication Studies and Director of the Media and Data Equity (MADE) Lab at Northwestern University. He serves as President of Reparative Media Projects.
His research focuses on the political economy of legacy and new media, cultural studies and community-based research. He published his first book, Open TV: Innovation Beyond Hollywood and the Rise of Web Television (NYU Press, 2018), and is currently writing his second book, Reparative Media: Cultivating Stories and Platforms to Heal our Culture (MIT Press, forthcoming), which explores how to repair systemic harm and discrimination in media, technology and research. His scholarship has been published in numerous academic journals, including the International Journal of Communication, Television & New Media, Social Media & Society, Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, among other journals and edited collections.
Dr. Christian engages industry and community-based organizations as part of his research. He served as an executive producer of Desire Lines (dir. Jules Rosskam), which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2024. He has given lectures for and collaborated with the Sundance Institute, Vimeo, the SAG-AFTRA Foundation, Black Public Media, and more. He has juried television and video for the Peabody Awards, Gotham Awards, and Tribeca Film Festival, among others. His work has been recognized by the MacArthur Foundation & Field Foundation (Leaders for a New Chicago, 2019), Variety (Top 50 Entertainment Instructor 2020 & 2021), Filmmaker (25 New Faces of Indie Film, 2018) NewCity (Film Leader 2017 & Film Hall of Fame 2020), Chicago magazine (New Power List, 2021) and Seed&Spark (Filmmaker to Watch 2018).
Dr. Christian co-founded OTV | Open Television, a platform for intersectional television. OTV programs have received recognition from the Television Academy (Emmy Awards), Webby Awards, Streamy Awards, Gotham Awards, among others. Its programming partners have included the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the Sundance Institute, and the city of Chicago, along with numerous galleries, community organizations, and universities. Artists supported by OTV have received offers from leading studios and distributors, including HBO, CBS and Hulu. From 2015-2020 while leading OTV’s transition from experiment to independent non-profit, Dr. Christian and Executive Director Elijah McKinnon raised over $1 million in multi-year support to sustain its operations. Building on the success of OTV, he co-founded an incubator for intersectional film & television, with Stephanie Jeter and Lilly Wachowski.
He started his career in journalism in the mid-2000s, writing for Newsweek, The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Slate, Altanta Journal-Consistution, and The Plain Dealer. From 2008 to 2014 he ran the blog Televisual focused on the evolution of TV and internet.
He received his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania.
You can read his full CV here.
Photo credit: Felton Kizer