In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit I have never blogged before in my life. This is a truly new experience for me, so please bear with me as I learn the ropes. My online presence is very sparse, consisting of merely a Facebook and a very new Twitter account. My interest in media and communications is relatively recent. And I had no idea what civic media even was until I found this course and did some research.
I’m an International Relations major with a concentration in Political Science at Wellesley College and president of our chapter of Amnesty International. My interests have always included international relations, foreign policy, diplomacy, and human rights issues. I’m particularly intrigued by the cross-section of human rights, international law and international security. But recently I found myself drawn to the possibilities of media applied both to global problems and local concerns.
Over the summer, I interned at a women’s organization in my hometown. They had just started a domestic minor sex trafficking initiative and needed help getting their campaign off the ground. That’s where I came in. Throughout the next three months, I not only compiled a statewide cohort list in order to create an exhaustive anti-trafficking coalition and did research to keep tabs on the latest developments to do with domestic minor sex trafficking, but I began their online campaign via a virtual Facebook event. While so far our virtual event has been well received, garnering a total of 235 attendees in just a few weeks, and is succeeding in spreading awareness to the local community about the issue, I have always felt there was something missing. That point of engagement and participation, where discussion can be spurred and debate instigated, isn’t there yet. It hasn’t become a call to action. Yet.
But participating in the creation of this campaign’s online presence and seeing all this happen made me intrigued. How does one go about turning awareness raising efforts into points of civic engagement and action using social media and online tools? Can this be magnified towards global efforts? I’m here, in this course, to attempt to find the answers to these questions, and to ultimately satiate my curiosity about what these new tools and technologies can come to do to spur change locally, nationally and internationally.
What then have I come to understand civic media to be? It is the use of media tools and technologies that engages the citizenry in discussion, debate, and conversation, which impels to action that will come to change a community, local or global, for the greater good. As Beth Noveck (2007) highlighted during the “What is Civic Media” forum, we need to “not simply [be] about talking about talk but also talking about action.” Civic media must give the entire populace the tools to access and share information, as well as “do something about it.” Individuals must first have access to information to be able to engage with the material and their peers to then take action, whatever that may be. Access, engagement, and action are key to the ability of civic media to inspire people to seek change.