Social Media Story Plan Update

For my social media story, I want to do an op-ed style piece that covers the development of the extremist group “Islamic State” known as ISIS and their opposition. Through Adornato’s strategy of tailoring the reporting dependent on the medium and its audiences, I will utilize our different platforms to tell a powerful story about a region in despair that can potentially motivate my readers to engage in the dwindling issue.

For the produced story I want to make a short documentary that explains the current situation in the Middle-East where ISIS forces are still found throughout the region. The documentary will also explain how the opportunity for ISIS rise came with the Arab Spring and autocratic rulers clinging to power (Basher al-Assad in Syria). The information in the documentary will be presented through voice and maps, and will be accompanied by powerful B-roll of the chaos and turmoil to grip the viewer emotionally.

The blogging element will consist of posts with info graphics that will further explain the struggle of the Kurdish and Syrian people against the ISIS movement. The blogs will dive into the deeper issues of ethnical divisions in the region and the political boundaries caused by earlier conflicts. Since the blogs offer a medium that can effectively relay more extensive information, I am going to use it to inform the reader about the less obvious factors that will help offer a fuller comprehension of how the brutality of ISIS can gain such traction in the region.

The blogs will also contain a piece on how the giant migrations (5 million Syrians), market instability (Oil) and the need of humanitarian assistance (approx. 20 million Middle Easterners) have affected the world around the directly affected region.

In the live element I will conduct an interview with Saman Ali beg, talking about how he as a Norwegian contributes to the fighting efforts in his home country Iraq. Saman being a Norwegian that saves up his money and risks his life to travel back to the warzone to contribute to the struggle adds a powerful perspective to the story, adding to the sentiment that outside assistance is not satisfactory. Using a live interview with a direct participant of the war will give the viewers a memorable face to tie to the seemingly distant struggle.

For my tweet strategy I will carefully monitor current developments with ISIS and the American military effort in the region. A development or tragedy relevant to American interest shared in a timely manner over twitter can offer a huge influx of interest on the wider story.

I will have tweets with the relevant info graphics and maps to accompany my blogs and the video for them to reach a wider audience through twitter.

For my CWA, I will attend the “International Terrorism — The Next Chapter” conference on April 9, and tweet a comparison between the daily acts of terror the Middle-East experiences compared to the Western World.

A retired Ambassador of Turkey is one of the speakers, and I might be able to tie a relevant tweet to the 3300000 Syrian refugees Turkey is sheltering, compared to the 16000 Syrian refugees that the United States is currently sheltering.

For my experimental platform, I initially wanted to make a story map and post it to reddit, but through class feedback I decided that the better choice would be to contain the maps and info graphics to the blog posts where they can effectively be fully explained and put into context. Adornato continuously underlines the importance of a mobile friendly story, so for my experimental platform I will do an image story or slide show on Imgur, but it will still be posted on reddit. The image story will contain the most crucial information to the understanding of the Middle Eastern struggle, accompanied by contextual maps and powerful photos of various elements of the Struggle. Using an image story on reddit will increase the chances of readers retaining the important details that are coupled with the emotionally evoking images because of our ever decreasing attention spans.

As my story developed, I found out that the more productive approach to the story did not focus as much on Saman’s story, but rather to offer a fuller context that will be emotionally complimented by the story of Saman. Saman’s story is very powerful in that it offers a unique first-hand experience, but becomes hard to relate to without context, which is why the deeper story with a visual reference can offer a more relatable perspective to the distant struggle.