Community Engagement and Your PLN

Introducing… Markiel Simpson

  • Building manager at BC housing
  • Involved with BC Community Alliance- not for profit dedicated to dismantling systemic racism
  • Member of World Economic Global Shapers Vancouver Hub 
  • Lower mainland rep for NDP indigenous, black and people of color committee
  • Created and implemented a Canadian black history curriculum throughout BC 

Social Media

Interview with Markiel

Key Points (Miller & Simpson, 2021):

  • “You are the expert of your own lived experience”
  • Intention: use social media how you intend it to be used (Ie. for advocacy, networking, joining in on discussions)
  • Be authentic. Share or post things online that you want to. Don’t feel the need to base things off others. 
  • Participate. Join in on discussions 
  • Stay informed: Using social media to keep up to date.
  • Positioning messages equally is often not attainable since the audience is always changing. 
  • Social media is vital for networking, building relationships and expanding advocacy 
  • Twitter: there are niches, find allies and people that position with your message. Build a community.
  • Amplify voices: continue dialogue and identify leaders in community. Support them.

What are the benefits of a diverse and inclusive PLN in social media sharing that understands where you are coming from with messaging that impacts the community? 

Clarke and Aufherheide (2011) believe that while commercial media remains dominant as a platform, when discussing media, as a society, we are progressing into more participatory media. The creation and expansion of multimedia- saturated environments allow for more opportunities for people to share, engage with others, and collaborate. 

According to Clarke and Aufherheide (2011),

Public Media:

  • Keeps democracies democratic
  • Holds a society accountable
  • Surrounds itself around issues and problems: a start to looking for ways to improve 

Partisan and activist media:

  • Provide information, framing media, and platforms for debate, discussion, and negotiation 

Issues in Public Media:

  • Inclusion 
  • Must be accessible to and representative of entire population
    • This is not the case for public broadcasting and mainstream news system 

Coordinating Body:

  • Platforms should be reliable and safe for public participation
  • Staff at a national level should look into way to improve public engagement 
  • Tracking emerging technologies and platform to secure potential for public media 2.0

References 

Clark, J., & Aufderheide, P. (2011). A new vision for public media: Open, Dynamic, and Participatory. In S.C. Jansen, J. Pooley, & L. Taub-Pervizpour (Eds.), Media and Social Justice(pp. 55-67). Palgrave Macmillan New York. https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/10.1057/9780230119796

Miller, J., & Simpson, M. (2021). EDCI – 338 Markiel Simpson. Youtubehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsoDHGaXNNs&ab_channel=MILLER

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