The Center for Communication and Civic Engagement has just released a new report that catalogs and describes many of the most prominent youth civic engagement resources on the web. It is crucial for civic practitioners and scholars to be aware of the wide range of online projects dedicated to youth engagement, and the purpose of this report is to contribute to that goal. We gratefully acknowledge the Surdna Foundation Digital Advocacy Skills project for sponsoring this project, which was researched and compiled by Becoming Citizens interns under the direction of Scott Brekke Davis.
The following points of advice come from our experience in developing, marketing, and extending the Puget Sound Off youth engagement web site. We hope some of it will be helpful for others seeking to develop youth civic sites of their own.
Think carefully about the aesthetic lay-out of your site, and consult youth in its design
Take care to align the goals of different partners in the project
Ensure technology expertise on your core partner team
Be aware of the legal/policy tension between developing an open engagement system and making more conservative decisions based on safety concerns for youth
Take care to ensure staff continuity
Define the roles of different core partners carefully and keep them in mind as the project develops
Plan your site design carefully; bring on a developer in the beginning
Create curricula for both teachers and youth
Technology access in schools and local organizations may be an issue
Be patient regarding barriers partner organizations face to collaborating or quickly incorporating your site into their activities
Be aware that youth organizations and schools may be slow to adapt their existing conceptions of citizenship
Carefully structure and provide support for good project management
Emphasize the planning and development phase of your project
Provide more design funding than we did
Establish a consistent for of technology for project management and team communications
Engage diverse communities and local partners
Bring on people with expertise in writing for education for curriculum development
Focus on issues that matter in your community on your site
Leverage local media to promote your site
Plan events and conferences
Seek research funding to support your project
Develop your project collaboratively between organizations
Invest in diverse content during the development phase of the project
Involve youth and experts in the site design phase
I find it very interesting how often people believe that social networking sites simply take off on their own, unaided and without any nurturing. I met with an advocacy group that is creating their own social networking site (of course, we all need our own sites since no other social networking sites exist!) They were so very concerned about the functionality of the site - do the buttons work right, is the navigation good, etc. Great, I said, so why exactly do busy people need more friends and if they do, why do they need to be on your site to have them?
I had just read Britt Bravo’s excellent piece on questions groups should ask themselves about building online communities. I think the questions apply whether one is working within an organization or just with a bunch of friends. The questions are easy and clear, although it’s always astonishing to me how seldom groups actually ask themselves things like, “why would our users/members/participants/donors want or need this new tool?” and “how will we engage people?”
If we want people to come together and build relationships around issues, it’s critically important that we designate people to be what Valdes Krebs calls, “network weavers.” The weavers have to give the network purpose, they have to connect people, stoke conversations, share information and organize on land meetings when necessary (and as
much as I hate them, they are actually necessary!) Too often, we think that these functions are simply going to happen, organizers have to make sure they happen. Communities rarely form themselves, they have to be nurtured. As Seth Godin points out here, online organizing is a crucial, poorly understood, but critical position. If I were counseling a young person interested in a career in social change, I would strongly suggest they train and practice being an online organizer since it includes all of the organizing, listening, facilitating, communicating and connecting skills that will make them successful in whatever else they do.
Using the Internet for games, instant messaging, and Myspace is second nature to many young people, yet the medium’s rich civic potential for this tech-savvy demographic remains untapped. In this video (available below the jump), Lance Bennett discusses the potential for digital media to connect young people with public life.
For more information, an executive summary of our MacArthur-funded work is available here. Puget Sound Off, the Seattle youth media commons website, will launch in mid March. For more info on the site, click here.
