Why not WhatsApp?
If you’d asked me about the uses of WhatsApp (or messenger apps, in general) before I started thinking like an engagement journalism student, I’d have said that the app is most useful for a) getting added to multiple group chats for a friends-forever trip that nine times out of ten might not materialize, 2) staying in touch with loved ones 3) gossiping about hated ones. (2 and 3, coincidentally, overlap quite a bit).
WhatsApp, and apps similar to it that felt ‘personal’ and ‘administrative,’ (see: Google Forms, calendars) felt wholly personal to me—its value as a tool in journalism wouldn’t have occurred to me. I drew a careful line between what was personal and what was professional: Email was professional; WhatsApp was not. Calls were professional; DMs were not. Publishing an article on a news site was journalism; putting out flyers asking people to get in touch about, say, the potholes in the roads outside their homes was…something, but not journalism.
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If it isn’t apparent already with all my exercise-in-contrasts-ing here, I’m now learning there are so many more innovative ways to work with the public to ensure news flows both ways and is something that can be participatory, not passive. To that end, we talked this week about listening to communities, assessing their information needs and how journalists can approach communities in non-extractive ways. Some of these are from the very helpful Community Information Needs Assessment Toolkit by the Listening Post Collective.
I’m all ears
How might one listen to a community? Besides trying to educate and inform oneself through research, reading, and existing material, we can also expand the ways we gather information as primary sources: immersing yourself in the community you’re working with by becoming a familiar face, walking around (or biking around, if my *planned* choice of community works out. More on that soon.), and making conversation that is anchored by curiosity, not a deadline. Identify where and how people commune and whom they trust, connect with and rely on. Learn the community, meet them where they are, get their pulse.
(Respectful) Curiosity
Being curious is, of course, different than being intrusive or making someone uncomfortable with too many questions or being over-familiar. My peer Brianna pointed out that we should prep with research and the requisite understanding, but go in with a blank slate/open mind as far as conversations and questions go. Zakiyyah and Ashley also stressed that it’s important to reassure people whom you speak with — that you are just there to learn more. And if people don’t readily engage, the onus is on you to convince them that your motives are not suspect. Give people opportunities to reach out to you as and when they feel comfortable—leave information about your work on postcards or flyers and let people know how they can get in touch if they’d like to share what’s on their minds.
Qs we’ll be asking ourselves
As engagement journalists: where is the available data about this community— Existing articles, studies, government reports? What are the media sources — writers, publications, bloggers, videographers —covering this community, if any? Who are the leaders or influential people in this community—local business owners, union leaders, volunteers, non-profit workers? How do they connect with each other—speaking when out for a walk, participating in group chats, meeting each other at neighborhood stores?
As I said at the beginning, I used to draw distinct lines between what were “permissible” and “no-no” methods in reporting. Asking these questions and learning how to better work with communities necessarily blurs these lines…but for the better, I think! After all, why not use WhatsApp group chats to accomplish the goal of connection not just with personal communications, but with public collaboration? If it works, it works.
