The following is a summary of an interview with Nancy Meza regarding a project with the Center for Civic Media at MIT on the role of Media and Technology in Social Movements.
Sound Bytes
Immigration is a controversial issue, and Dream Team LA is frequently contacted to give statements regarding the subject. However, the constrained format of mass media news coverage can disfavor the perspectives of average people because interviewees are only given a few lines of print or seconds of airtime to express their opinions. “In traditional media you have very little space to…get your point across,” says Nancy. Dream Team LA has steered around this constrained format by strategically utilizing “sound bytes.” According to Nancy, “Sound bytes are quick…sentence and a half phrases that we make sure no matter [what]…we always hit.” Sound bytes are thus short and concise statements that are meant to frame key aspects of immigration discourse in only a few seconds of airtime or lines of print, depending on the medium. A sound byte example that was used for the California Dream Act campaign in 2011 was “The California Dream Act only impacts 1% of the financial aid pool,” which was a response to the idea that undocumented students are “draining the economy.” The strategic use of sound bytes can serve as a means of dispelling misconceptions surrounding the immigration debate, but they also have more practical strengths for those not familiar with mass media interaction. “They [sound bytes] are really helpful when you’re training people that have no idea what to say,” states Nancy.
Top Three Most-used Media
The top ranked forms of media used by the communities that Dream Team LA works with are: 1) Twitter 2) Facebook and 3) Traditional Print and Televised Media. “Our social media is really how we get a lot of support…but…we’re very intentional about keeping our communities involved,” says Nancy. While the role of social media in social movements was brought to attention on global proportions in 2011, maintaining a close connection to older generations in the community has led Dream Team LA to not forget the central role of traditional media in their outreaching efforts. As mentioned before, a generational divide seems to be present in the consumption and usage of media. Some of the barriers in new media usage along generational lines may be due to steep learning curves, inaccessibility to the Internet, and lack of communication technologies, notes Nancy. Others may simply be due to the routinization of traditional media consumption: “For the older generation…we definitely use traditional media…because they’re still picking up a newspaper and just gonna read, for example, La Opinion every morning…and they’re gonna turn on Univision at six and at eleven.”
Tracking Effective and Ineffective Media Practice
One of the ways that Dream Team LA is able to track effective and ineffective media strategies is through the use of a “media hotlist.” According to Nancy, the Dream Team LA’s media hotlist consists of “about eighty media sources, both traditional and non-traditional…[including] bloggers or people who we know who tweet…[and] have a large reach or have a…Twitter reputation.” The sources on this media hotlist have been deemed reliable and are called to actions, events, and to “send out any sort of communication.” In Nancy’s words: “those are the people that we can count on to…1) be there [and]…2)…write something and send it out.” Moreover, Dream Team LA uses internal memos during campaign brainstorming sessions to track their overall goals and to maintain movement towards a given direction. These memos track “how we [DTLA] agreed to frame the message and key comments that we’re going to use,” says Nancy. In addition to internal memos, Dream Team LA also receives and disseminates memos throughout their networks in order to collaborate on a campaign and to “train people in their groups.” While these tracking methods have been effective for Dream Team LA, Nancy asserts that they continue looking for ways to improve.
Networks: The California Dream Team Alliance
The final section of my interview with Nancy Meza involves the role of networks. The network that Dream Team LA collaborates the most with is the California Dream Team Alliance. Various diffused Dream Activist groups in the Southern California area joined forces to create the California Dream Team Alliance in 2010. “We realized that we weren’t really working together… in a strategic way,” comments Nancy. The California Dream Team Alliance thus emerged as a means to “push campaigns forward” through the collaboration of youth led groups.
“It was really important to have something that was…youth led. People wanted to do it because it was their passion, not because…they were paid for it or things like that. Even Dream Team LA was completely volunteer led…it was completely youth led. We kind of wanted to create that because…there was not anything present at the time.” –Nancy Meza.
Currently, the primary aim of the California Dream Team Alliance is “developing the leadership potential of other groups.” The San Fernando Valley Dream Team, Dream Team South Bay, and other groups in the Fresno area have grown from the focus on development that the California Dream Team Alliance provides. While Dream Team LA has been working on the Administrative Relief Campaign through the United We Dream national network, most of their focus has been at the local level.
Pros and Cons of Networked Collaboration
There have been pros and cons in terms of working with networks for Dream Team LA. “The positive is that it has given us a stronger base…[and] I think that has definitely made us a lot stronger and given us the opportunity to train younger undocumented students. We really wanna make sure that we’re developing…a new generation of leaders,” stated Nancy. She went on to add: “We’re able to strategize together and come up with a consensus of how we wanna see California through the eyes of undocumented students…so I think definitely that’s been amazing.”
Some of Dream Team LA’s challenges to being part of a network can involve incentivizing reciprocal organizational development, along with geographical and economic barriers. “The challenges are that people are at different levels, and making sure everyone is growing and learning and that…organizations that are stronger at one thing are able to train others,” commented Nancy. Mutual and reciprocal support among organizations within networks seems key to a healthy collaborative relationship. Furthermore, being a youth led network, geographical and economic barriers can pose a challenge to network involvement. “We’re not able to physically…connect with people in the bay because we don’t have the resources to drive up there [and] to fly up to train people…so…we definitely have a stronger impact here in…SoCal than in NorCal because of resources,” said Nancy.
Communication Flow Through Networks
Rogelio: Can you describe how communication flows through the network?
In order to stay connected to the network, Dream Team LA conducts conference calls twice a month through the Steering Committee. The Steering Committee consists of one representative from each organization and is “responsible for staying connected and making sure that groups are updated on what each other is doing.” In addition to conference calls, two yearly organization retreats serve as a means of maintaining communication and collaboration in the network. During these retreats, the different organizations in the network “come together and figure out strategies.” These strategies include coming to consensus on collective goals and planning future campaigns to name a few. In terms of the media that facilitates the communication through the network, a member-wide listserv exists, along with Facebook, Twitter, and Google “group pages.”
This concludes Part 2 of 2 of this interview summary blog.
I would like to thank Nancy Meza yet again for agreeing to collaborate with the Center for Civic Media: Thank you Nancy!