Find a Media, Find a Voice

Or All The Ways to Tell a Story

I’ve written a lot this semester about how many different ways there are to tell a story in 2017. Social media and the rise of the internet and technology have opened up so many doors for innovative and creative story telling. As time goes on, media influencers and journalists can only hope that we’ll continue to move in the same direction.

With increasing media and the ability to reach more people, comes a bigger responsibility to ensure that the information coming out is accurate. With that, we’re also tasked with making content that people have a desire to consume; that its interesting and fun and tailored to every kind of media user. Thats’s where concepts like “community engagement” come into play.

It’s the responsibility of journalists to properly represent the voices of those who don’t have the same reach. That can’t be possible if journalists aren’t interacting with those communities in a real way. Going into neighborhoods, talking to those who live there, getting a tangible look at their lives and how they perceive their world. It’s this lack of representation now that plays into how the media portrays certain communities today. Changing that outlook, is the responsibility of every journalist who has that power.

With representing proper communities, journalists are also tasked with ensuing that users are involved in the content that gets out online and on TV. Companies like BuzzFeed have spearheaded a movement of getting content straight from their users. Twitter and Facebook, platforms used to engage personally with consumers, have been integral in connecting with people. Many media companies directly talk to the people who read their content in an effort to make them part of the story. That reach, is also why in 2017 there’s no real excuse for not creating content that directly relates or represents a myriad of people. Talk to them, ask them what they want, ask them what they’re interested in and going through, and make it a part of the stories that you tell.

I used Instagram this semester to tell parts of my story. Social media reaches so many people in such a short amount of time, and that impact can be so powerful. Speaking about my mental health on a public forum helped me to be honest with myself, and helped dozens to reach out and speak candidly about their own issues as well.

There is something very significant about the power that journalists have to make people feel represented and not alone. Everyone wants to feel like they’re not the “only one,” and what better way to put that out there than to see parts of yourself in the people and stories that are said to be the “fourth estate”? A perfect representation of that is the #MeToo movement.

Hundreds of women have used that hashtag to talk about their lives, and loop themselves into this powerful community of people who have been hurt. That feeling of belonging and using that to bond with other people is something that journalists in this time have an obligation to uphold.

That same feeling is why my friend Silvia choose to represent DACA in her final, a community that she is a part of. As a part of the #MeToo movement myself, I chose to use the stories of those women in my final video. This semester helped me to embrace the responsibility that journalists have as interactive parts of the community, and to be unapologetic about using my voice and my story to represent those who can not speak for themselves.