Make It Better

For individuals without a background in Journalism, or who have not gone through the tumultuous J202, writing a piece of journalism can be a daunting task. With the advent of participatory sites like YouTube and citizen journalism hubs, as well as the increasing accessibility of video recording tools, citizen journalism is taking on the form of personal opinion/testimony videos.

A good example of this is the "It Gets Better" project. Earlier this year, popular sex columnist Dan Savage and his partner started a YouTube channel called the “It Gets Better” project, in response to increasing coverage of queer-related youth violence and suicides. He encourages people from around the world to share their personal stories of triumph over high school bullying, or for allies to come forward to express support. Groups from the employees of Google and Facebook to President Obama himself have posted videos for the campaign.

Scouring through these videos, I find myself frustrated. As a victim of some pretty emotionally debilitating bullying for being gay during middle and high school, I think the campaign is too simple. Yes, it did get better for me, but I didn’t just wake up one morning and find myself completely out and accepted. It was an on-going process where I had to gather courage to come out to friends and family, make an active commitment to reaching out to self-affirming queer communities in my hometown, online and in Madison, and search for ways to involve myself in advocacy.

Then I found the "Make It Better" project, a smaller spin-off of Dan Savage’s campaign that asks the question, “how can you tell people it just gets better without giving them tools to make it better?” Leaving a queer youth with the empty promise that it just miraculously gets better leaves them with no concrete tools for fighting through the isolation and fear.

So I submitted a video to the “Make It Better” project, outlining my involvement here on campus. This semester I am working as the Educational Outreach Coordinator at the LGBT Campus Center am facilitating the Mentorship Program which pairs queer students who might be just coming out, or freshly navigating LGBTQ life in Madison with an “out” student who can relate to their experiences. The idea is to build connections within the queer community as a means of identity development: the Mentor and Mentee are supposed to meet weekly just to chat about life, dating, telling friends and family, finding community, or anything else that may come up. I currently have thirty-two Mentors to which I provide guidance, fourteen of which are currently paired up with a Mentee.

Even though I am openly gay, it is still a task for me to publicly “out” myself in order to share some of the things I work on. Posting a video of myself just talking is an especially vulnerable endeavor when speaking on subjects so deeply personal.

I have to wonder why the “It Gets Better” campaign has hundreds of videos, but “Make It Better” has only five. I think a lot of the problem with citizen journalism efforts, especially around advocacy in the context of this issue, is that it gives people a way to feel like they’ve really made an impact when they haven’t. Online activism that tries to make itself accessible doesn’t hold its supporters accountable for actually doing anything. To me, it’s just a step above “liking” something on Facebook: sometimes good intentions just don’t cut it.

Attempted Citizen Journalism

I came across a lot of challenges when participating in citizen journalism. The assignment said I had to contribute a story to a news site, so the first challenge became coming up with something that I could write about. I decided to write a first hand account of efforts going on around campus to get students to vote in the upcoming election. Next, I searched for an online place to put my story. I tried accessing "OhmyNews," but it came up in Korean, so I decided to try another one. I found CNN's "iReport" which looks to be a great source for participatory media. CNN makes a point to notify readers that everything within iReport is directly from citizens and not an official news source. I tried several times to make a log in name so I could upload my story. For whatever reason, I was completely unable to make a name on this site. Every time I tried registering (no matter which Internet browser I used) the form came up with an "error" that the password I was choosing could not have a "space" in it, and needed to be 6-10 characters long. While I followed all of those rules, it never accepted my password. Next, I decided to see if I could find an English version of Ohmynews. The good news is that I found it (english.ohmynews.com), but the bad news was that the site no longer allowed new content to be added in. At this point, I felt pretty frustrated. I finally looked for Helium. This site looks great - there are tons of ways to contribute a news story! Writers can even get paid for their content, because publishers can register and buy content from the site for their publication or organization. To sign up, you had to enter in a lot of personal information, so I opted out.

In my experience, I definitely found www.helium.com to be the best example of a participatory media site. For each topic, several people have posted articles so readers can find a lot of different perspectives on the same issue. This helps readers become more informed and serves as a check for citizen journalists to write accurately. While this is a great aspect of the site, it can also hinder readership. For example, the topic "winning the war against terrorism" has 62 articles listed under it. I'm not sure that anyone has the time or patience to read through 62 articles on one topic, and there is no way to filter through the articles to find which is most relevant to what you are looking for.

Textaurant

I just saw this on Fox News and thought it was interesting. Do you think texting your "spot" in a restaurant line is a good idea? Does this have any hope of catching on right now?

http://video.foxnews.com/v/4391994/introducing-textaurant/?playlist_id=87264

Crazy time with MAPS!

Hey guys,

Check out this video. It is MIND-BLOWING how they combined user-generated content with mapping....

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/blaise_aguera.html

-Michael

Social Media Sells

This semester, I had to run a fundraiser for an organization I am apart of. To raise money, we sold cheap magazine subscriptions through a program called "Campus Fundraiser." Individuals could follow a link, pick a cheap subscription to a popular magazine, and my organization would raise money - everyone wins. I thought it would be easy to spread the word about the fundraiser because it gave people discounted subscriptions to something they may purchase anyway. I chose to mobilize people to find out about the fundraiser in 4 different ways: on my Twitter feed, on my Facebook page, using word of mouth and by personally emailing close friends and family.

Twitter did not attract any individuals interested in purchasing a magazine subscription. This did not surprise me because I am not an avid Twitter user, so I can't imagine many people really pay attention to my tweets. Total Magazine Subscriptions Sold = 0

Word of mouth did not attract any individuals either - this did surprise me. I thought that face-to-face I'd be most successful, as I could personally answer any questions the person had and convince them to buy magazine subscriptions. Total Magazine Subscriptions Sold = 2 (my own family)

Emailing close family and friends paid off more than I thought it would. This was a simple method that they could then pass along to their friends and people they thought were interested. All the information was clearly laid out and all they had to do was click a link to buy magazines. Total Magazine Subscriptions Sold = 3

Facebook proved to be the most successful outlet to mobilize people towards this fundraiser. I created a Facebook event and invited all of my friends. While hundreds responded "attending" only a few actually bought subscriptions. Even though this discrepancy was so large - people knew about the fundraiser and some actually acted on it. Friends would write on my wall after buying one to let me know they participated, my Aunt posted a question about the fundraiser on my wall, I responded on her wall and within 10 minutes she bought 2 magazine subscriptions! Total Magazine Subscriptions Sold = 6

All in all, I think the key to public mobilization is using every outlet possible. Use each way of communicating to reinforce the message and make sure it gets to people.

Public Mobilization Doesn't Have to be Boring

Last semester I worked for an environmental startup based in Madison and we did a public mobilization campaign via social media for Earth Day. To commemorate the 40^th annual Earth Day and raise awareness for renewable energy, we launched an Earth Day scavenger hunt. Special stickers were placed around busy areas on UW-Madison’s campus, and students were encouraged to find a sticker, snap a picture and upload it to the Powered Green Facebook Page. The participants were then automatically entered into daily drawings for a chance to win sustainable products from participating sponsors. We used Facebook, Twitter and a page on our website to publicize the event and drive traffic to the Facebook page. Our tweets and status updates included event updates, prize announcements and hints about sticker placements.

Hundreds of pictures and comments appeared on Powered Green’s Facebook page, the story was picked up by several popular green blogs, and we got tons of traffic to our website and Facebook fan page. I think it was successful because the event provided people with an easy way to get involved in the Earth Day celebration, peoples’ Facebook friends could see their environmental efforts, the social media platforms were popular among our target, and there were prize incentives.

A weekend or so after Earth Day, my roommates and I were having a Mifflin pre-game party and a friend of a friend noticed my (Powered Green branded) water bottle sitting by the sink. After he found out it was my water bottle, he came up to me and told me how great he thought the event was and he had fun searching for stickers on his way to class. I was so excited he recognized our efforts that I did what anyone in my position would have done. I poured him a shot and we threw one back to going green.

Where the Homos At?

Navigating Madison as a gay male I often find myself wondering, “where the homo’s at?” In a city that prides itself on “liberalism” and “diversity,” I experience a queer community decentralized: spread out into pockets of social comfort that are characterized more by other common identities (race, class, gender, religion) that intersect queerness, rather than a city-wide sense of sexual identity-based cohesion.

But then I heard about “Grindr,” a free iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch dating application that caters exclusively to a gay market. Because there is no Grindr for my Palm Pixi, I rented an iPad from the JRR and went to work, creating a profile for myself.

At first log in, a grid comes up with pictures of real gay men, sorted in order of geographical distance to me. I can see what they look like, chat with them, read their “stats” (age, height, weight, short bio), and am shown the amount of miles (or more excitingly, feet) they are from me at that particular moment.

Grindr has the potential to deeply revolutionize the way we date. Instead of other sites like eHarmony that facilitate an online relationship that only suggests the potential for personal interaction, Grindr encourages you to get off your ass and actually go out together, because the person is literally close by.

Founder Joel Simkai writes, “Grindr... [is] real. It is not a Second life. It is not a virtual world. It’s a tool. It enables real life, it doesn’t replace it” (guardian.co.uk, 2010).

Once people look past preconceived notions of Grindr as a space exclusively for hooking up, we can more critically evaluate the new and exciting potential it has for individuals seeking human interaction to make friends, court one another, and find community.

I must have been a new face for seasoned users, because within the first 20 minutes of creating my profile, I received six messages from local gays of close proximity. With J676 in mind, I asked Grindr users if they see any potential for the application to be used as a tool for public mobilization. I got a range of responses from “absolutely!” to “people are on here just to hook up, kid. You got a nude pic?”

After some continued research and Grindr chat “interviews,” I asked interviewee's to meet me that night outside “Plan B” on Williamson street: Madison’s only gay dance club. I wrote:

“Hey, I’m looking to make more gay friends! My boyfriend lives in Chicago and I’m feeling a lack of gay male camaraderie, you know? If you’re free, meet me outside of Plan B at 11PM. My name is Jake, I’ve got wavy brown hair and I’ll be wearing a black v-neck and black jeans.”

The boyfriend in Chicago is not real... just a protective measure...!

That night I headed to Plan B in promised attire, and stood outside.

Three interviewee’s showed up, and after some casual and semi-awkward conversation, we headed into the club, and actually had a great night hanging out together. While Grindr did not so much live up to my expectations as a tool for public mobilization, I came out of the experience with three new friends.

When looking at my failure in using Grindr for public mobilization, I have to think of the deeper reasons why people use the application. Grindr re-affirms for gay men that others are around them; it’s appeal is enhanced for individuals who don’t have many other venues to reach out. Because the focus is more on personal interaction as a means for social/sexual gratification, the “plutonic” group dynamic I proposed might not be salient to its users.

I also have to think about who is/is not represented on Grindr. In its current form, it exempts many people. I only perceived two of the total local users to be queer men of color. The grid of faces tells these men that if they’d like to meet other queer men of color: good luck trying to find them here.

Heterosexuals, lesbians, transgender individuals, and most importantly, people without access to Apple products, are not represented. The gay men you find on Grindr are those with enough disposable income to own an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch, denying individuals with lower socio-economic status access its services: quick and modern social interaction that can be quite self-affirming, especially for the marginalized, fragmented queer community we have here in Madison.

A question I have for J676 blog readers is, do you think this product could translate well to a straight market? What sorts of realities that are specific to the ways heterosexuals date, make this an application that might not be successful for straight people? Or do you think it's not so different, and would work?