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By Any Media Necessary: Mapping Youth and Participatory Politics

Considering Your Story's Afterlife

Considering Your Story's Afterlife was the fourth webinar in the Storytelling and Digital-Age Civics series, held on January 28, 2014. Moderator Derek Williams was joined by Lissa Soep (Youth Radio), Wajahat Ali (Domestic Crusaders), Joan Donovan (Occupy), Jonathan McIntosh (pop culture hacker and remix artist), Peter Fein (Anonymous), Jasmeen Patheja (Blank Noise), and Luvvie Ajayi (Red Pump Project) to explore how to react to unexpected responses to your story, and how to sustain the conversation your story generates.

The participants discussed the following questions during the webinar:

Once you release your story, you can often lose control of who shares it or with what message attached. Can you point to some examples where things took on a life of their own and moved beyond the meaning you intended? What did you do to respond to this situation?
How well do you prepare your supporters to be able to defend your cause or rebut critiques from haters?
How do you manage unexpected responses?
How do you know when your story is over?
What would your advice be to someone who is just getting started on using stories for social activism?
Media lives forever online--you can’t hit delete on the internet. There’s no flush function! How do you deal with that?

The fourth webinar focused on how participants navigate their stories’ “digital afterlife” and lasting impact. Wajahat Ali explained how he became an ‘accidental activist’ and created Domestic Crusaders after a domestic violence murder case. He explains how something that started locally can quickly grow into a national campaign. Because of this potential to go viral pop culture hacker and remix artist Jonathan McIntosh cautioned that mainstream news organizations will usually reprint your story in whatever form it takes in the beginning, so he advised taking the time to write and frame it how you want it from the outset. When trying to use the digital afterlife of your story to drive change, Luvvie Ajayi of the Red Pump Project advised activists to make sure their story is more about people than statistics so that it resonates and drives people to act. However, one concern for young activists is that the digital afterlife of their work will somehow have consequences down the road, whether it be for school, employment or even government surveillance. After saying “Hello, NSA” Wajahat suggested looking at surveillance as an educational opportunity that keeps you on your toes and encourages you to be smarter in your activism.

Don’t have time to watch the full webinar? The MAPP team also published highlights from this series on Henry Jenkins’ blog, and key moments from Webinars 1 & 2 and Webinars 3 & 4.

Looking for an overview of the series as a whole? MAPP Project Director Sangita Shresthova also published “Learn to Listen. Really Listen: ‘Storytelling and Digital Age Civics’ Series Artists and Activists Share Seven Key Insights” on Digital IS.

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CLTV - Storytelling & Digital-Age Civics: Considering Your Story's Afterlife - 1/28/2014