Story Update #2: Volunteer Firefighting Decline
Time for another update! This time I wanted to expand on some research, as well as discuss my meeting with Professor Ryan and definitive uses for each platform, plus a platform change.
Research
Through my further research since my last update, I have found that the volunteer fire service has seen a decline in members of about 12% in the past 30 years. The National Volunteer Fire Council stated in a 2015 report that, “The declining number of volunteers coincides with an increased call volume that has tripled in that time, and an increased public expectation for more and better quality fire and rescue services.” This statement alone should scare everyone. Simply put, 70% of our country is experiencing a decrease in quality fire protection. A general statement but statistically, it’s eerily correct. Many states and individual departments are working to mitigate this decline by providing incentive programs such as tax breaks. These incentive programs will hopefully be effective as, for example, the state of Colorado’s fire departments are 77.6% all volunteer or mostly volunteer. This came as a huge surprise to me, as we are surrounded by many large career departments. An even bigger surprise was that Hawaii is the only state with a larger percentage of career departments than volunteer departments. This percentage is close to even only in Arizona, Florida and Massachusetts, while every other state has significantly more volunteer departments than career departments.
As a reminder, for my produced story, I am posting a series of 9–12 photos of volunteer firefighters on an account I created called ‘Faces of Volleys,’ with a caption below stating what they do for their career, where they started in the volunteer service and a story that has stuck with them through their years of service. This is going very well. So far I have posted seven stories with at least two more on the way. Most of the feedback on the stories has come from my friends and colleagues back home who enjoy reading about how their fellow firefighters came to where they are now. I have also received positive feedback about being able to display that volunteers are just regular people who do extraordinary things. I have now linked all my Instagram posts to my Twitter of the same name.
I have definitively decided that I will be using Facebook Live for my live element. Originally, I thought this was going to be very difficult due to the lack of volunteer departments in the Boulder area, but Professor Ryan made me aware that Facebook Live allows users to go live with other people who are Facebook users, creating a group video-type situation. This is perfect for me because my key interviewees are at home in New York. Early next week I will be interviewing two of my fellow volunteer firefighters to discuss issues of recruitment, retention, the reasons why these are issues and how to mitigate these issues. I am very excited for this interview.
To utilize Twitter for my story, I have linked my Instagram and Medium accounts to my Twitter feed. For Instagram, I have found that the posts are much better when I copy and paste the link with a little introduction and the photo, instead of directly utilizing the account sharing features. I have also changed my Twitter handle from my name to ‘Faces of Volleys,’ keeping with the uniform style from my Instagram. I have also been directly linking my Medium posts with Twitter to provide these updates to my Twitter followers. I will also be setting Google News Alerts from articles about volunteer firefighters to share on Twitter. My final use of Twitter, as of now, will be to countdown to my Facebook Live interviews, hopefully to gain interest.
Medium
I have not made any changes to the way I have been using Medium. I am focused on providing new research I come upon, as well as updating everyone on the progress of my platform uses. I have also linked my Medium account to Twitter to provide those users with updates on the story. It was suggested that I create infographics for these posts, but I haven’t had time to work with that software yet so I hope to provide an infographic with some research for my next update. I will also share that infographic on the other platforms.
Tableau
During my meeting with Professor Ryan, we discussed how finicky Google Maps can be, especially for the purpose I am using it for. She suggested that I check out Tableau, a software that “helps people transform data into actionable insights.” In Tableau, there is a mapping function, which displays data geographically. I haven’t played around with it yet but plan to this weekend. Ideally, I plan to plot specific heavily-populated areas of many states that rely on the volunteer service to show how widespread and important the volunteer service still is, even with the declines occurring.
Presentation
This weekend, I also plan to start working on my presentation. In my presentation, I plan to discuss the topic of volunteer firefighting in general, some of the research I have found, the use of each platform and why it was used in that specific way, what worked and didn’t work when creating my story, what I would do differently, a summary of the process and platform analytics and finally, a self-reflection on how I felt with this story.
I am very excited to see the final result of this story and I hope you are too!
National Volunteer Fire Council. Volunteer Firefighter Recruitment and Retention Formative Research Results. SalterMitchell Inc. 2015. https://www.nvfc.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/NVFC_Formative-Research_2015_Report_v1f.pdf
Fifield, Jen. “Volunteer Firehouses Struggle to Find Recruits.” The Pew Charitable Trusts, Jan. 11AD, 2017, www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2017/01/11/volunteer-firehouses-struggle-to-find-recruits.
