Mic Drop: Class of 2016 Rocking Communities with #SocialJ

By Sabrina S. Gordon and Gloria Medina

From Sabby G…

As the first semester of our Social Journalism program at CUNY J-School comes to a close, we thought we’d reflect on the great strides our talented cohort has made in such a short time, as demonstrated by the varied and impressive presentations we saw on Monday. New distinctions about reporting, listening, community engagement emerge throughout our presentations. Lessons from the fields of anthropology to computer technology also find their way into our methodology and new lessons learned.

Simon kicked things off with his student debt project. He thought outside the box by deciding not to replicate the reporting or advocacy being done on the issue already, to not “add to the clutter.” Instead, he has found a way to support the many people affected AND create direct and measurable impact for at least two students in his community, by developing a paid fellowship through his platform, Muckgers. It will enable the fellows to do reporting on issues that matter to them — even if not related to student debt. Nevertheless, he will have made a difference for these fellows and their debt through this program, while making a statement about compensation for student journalism. He’s also taking a page from his work at the Bernie Sanders rally to use Facebook Live to reach his community. He has figured out how to serve his community, both by addressing the issue of student debt, as well as being responsive to its needs.

Allen is definitely our SocialJ King of Enthusiasm. As demonstrated in his presentation, he has great passion for his community and the issues they face. He is already using immersive media tools and connecting with organizations to better understand them. He’s reaching out to stakeholders and other actors that impact his community, from correctional officers to families. Like most of us, he is trying to both get their stories out and provide them with resources to help make their lives better.

Katelyn is on her way to being a nonprofit mogul, by co-founding Wire the Wise. She’s bridged creating community and serving a need through informal get-togethers that combine bagels, Frank Sinatra, tech support and training. The community is kept engaged by these activities, as well as by a feedback survey given out at each session so that they can share what they’ve learned and/or what they need. These surveys have helped to identify community concerns such as privacy, tech fear, and building interpersonal connections. Katelyn’s vision has grown from bringing seniors and young professionals together, to inviting professionals and thought leaders in tech for panel discussions and demonstrations, as well as a new Medium publication which provides a platform to our sometimes taken-for-granted senior folk to share their wisdom and life lessons.

There were a few surprises, and new avenues explored. Noa, who first identified her community as Spanish Harlem street artists, has decided to follow her greater passion, which is the Israeli-Palestinian community. It will certainly be interesting to see what can be made possible as she applies social journalism principles to this volatile and complicated terrain. Is there a Nobel Peace Prize in her future?

By teaching camera and video production to favela residents in Brazil, Núria is literally putting storytelling tools in the hands of her community, empowering them to shape their own narratives. Is it the Hearken model of listening taken to its logical conclusion? How wonderful would it be if her camera and storytelling training project could be a permanent program. You can make it happen, Facebook!

Gloria has found a particular focus within her community “New immigrants in New York City” by focusing on their relationship with the criminal justice system, one that is wrought with fear and misunderstanding. She is making use of an impressive number of social media tools: Pinterest, Nuzzle, Hearken, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Storify, Facebook and Instagram. And, she’s done an excellent job finding personal stories, understanding that we connect to issues more powerfully when we care about the people behind them.

Sasha and Ashley streamlined their communities to better serve them. Sasha focused on Spanish-speaking Afro-Latinx in NY, and identified new issues in her community, such as invisibility in the immigration conversation. And Ashley, honed in on #BlackGirlMagic to address a part of the #BlackLivesMatter community that sometimes gets eclipsed as police misconduct and brutality toward Black men dominates headlines. And, she gave us a valuable lesson in production planning by booking the historic Schomburg Library for her final SocialJ project next year!

Take it away, Gloria….

In our presentations, we all focused on our community’s needs, as it was shown by Colin-Pierre in his presentation. Very clearly, Colin has been using design thinking to engage with his community. He did a splendid mapping prototype using ThingLink to create the interactive graphics. Also, he already had some solutions for his community. It was very clever that he used the collaboration of an architect to build his “busking map.” Lots of luck in your future plans on the busking tours throughout New York City.

In four slides, Martika was able to give a very informative and interesting presentation about her community ‘Cultural Preservation in Upper Manhattan.’ It’s a great idea that Martika explored the cultural aspect of her community, especially her idea of joining the older generation with the younger to combat gentrification.

Sabrina touched on the very delicate issue of urban communities impacted by gun violence. Her images were impressive and very moving, showing the cruel reality that we are living. Kids killed by guns and police brutality, now inside schools. Very complete presentation with statistics.

Philip took us through the process and the issues of travel that his community faces. From basic needs to very important issues, such as safety. Also, very interesting how he explained the history behind black travel with great images. It’s a community we didn’t know much and he made sure we got useful information like not being able to get a passport if you owe child support. He shows us with the screenshot the way he is engaging with the community through crowdsourcing.

Anna-Michelle brought to light a not much known community, the gaming community. She seems very enthusiastic talking about diversity in the video games and how she will plan to work with this community and take part in looking for solutions. Annie has already created a blog named “The Nerd Castle”, a space to discuss diversity and facilitate conversation.

In a totally different topic, our specialist in nutrition and health, nancy.spiccia, did her presentation on Women with chronic health issues that are unresolved through traditional medicine. She is using social journalism to serve her community. One of the main points of her presentation was the idea of following a person with a chronic illness to document the patient’s daily life. Her presentation was very informative about both traditional and nontraditional medicine.

Joe’s presentation demonstrated good use of visuals. It was an amazing and passionate presentation about his community, Digital Publishers in New Jersey. He is very knowledgeable about the issue, and Joe is an example of the good use of Hearken, due to the amount of feedback he got. And his video tutorials were very useful for all of us in class!

We would like to wrap up our final Medium post with Bettina’s presentation. First, because she did a very dynamic presentation that goes from Crown Heights to the poet community. In her presentation we can see her journalistic professionalism, where she combined poetry and politics, poetry and activism and opened an interesting discussions on issues in a more creative style. Second, because we are saying goodbye to her.

Questions:

What did you learn from your classmates’ presentations that you might be able to apply to your own project and community?

Name one principle, idea that came up in Community Engagement that has most influence your approach to your work?

What would you change from our first semester for next year’s new SocialJ class?