A Reformation of Christian Education, Pt. 5: Networked Advocacy & PA General Assistance

Just as a recap, this series of blog posts was written as an assignment for a Technology and Adult Education Seminar led by Pastor Keith Anderson at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia.  So far, over four posts I've introduced the series, explained the old "broadcasting church" system of communications, shed some light on the emerging "networked church" system, and critiqued to #Kony2012 movement in light of the tenets of networked communication.  In this final post, I intend to take what I've learned from the seminar, the book Tweet If You <3 Jesus by Elizabeth Drescher and my own writing process to help cultivate a community around advocating against Gov. Tom Corbett's planned removal of the General Assistance program from this year's Pennsylvania state budget.  As I am currently in the final months of my time as a field intern for Lutheran Advocacy Ministries of Pennsylvania, this is also exploring the use of social-networking technology in my own ministry context.

Photo: Neal Santos/City Paper

The PA General Assistance fund is a program of last resort for the state's 68,000 most needy residents, providing a maximum of $205.00 each month in most counties to folks like battered women fleeing abusive households, children living with unrelated adults, adults in intensive drug and alcohol treatment programs and those waiting to receive long-term disability benefits from the federal government.  Many citizens receiving benefits from PA General Assistance only can do so for up to nine months, so its essentially serves as a transition program that helps folks on the road to recovery.  Whether or not you agree with supporting PA General Assistance from a moral perspective, from a financial perspective it makes sense as well.  While the Corbett administration would argue that cutting the program could save the state $150 million a year, as this calculator from PA Cares for All shows, the program would result in many more individuals landing in homeless shelters, mental hospitals, foster care and prisons, resulting in a net loss of millions for Pennsylvania.  For instance, folks like Anthony Grasso (pictured above), who runs Next Stop Recovery house in Philly's Frankford neighborhood, runs his program largely on PA General Assistance funds... without the program, he would likely have to close his doors to addicts seeking recovery.

There is current coalition website PA Cares for All supported by over religious and social justice organizations, and they've already done a great deal to foster community around supporting PA General Assistance by following the tenets of networked communication.  Their website already features many stories of folks who have received help from the program (including some pictures).  There is also a great media section that compiles editorals, radio broadcasts and the like from local media on the subject.  PA Cares For All also operates a pretty decent Facebook page that provides links to many of the same stories the website does.  Finally, the website makes direct advocacy fairly easy by helping you sign-up for alerts to email Gov. Corbett.

That said, there's a lot folks can do (especially ordinary citizens... the folks running the program are already really swamped, I imagine) to further cultivate community around supporting the PA General Assistance program.  First, after a number of searches on Twitter it seems like there is very little conversation on the subject.  Folks should be encouraged to use a specific hashtag, lets say #KeepPAGA, to help develop an affinity group around the subject online.  Second, Governor Corbett's Twitter username, @GovernorCorbett seems to used fairly frequently... advocacy messages that are publicly visible could be directed there as well.  Third, you can't underestimate the power of narrative and video in the networked communications era... instead of just writing quick tweets to the governor, folks could be encouraged to tweet links to YouTube videos they post of either stories about how they have benefited from general assistance or their reasons for why the PA General Assistance program should be maintained.  Finally, those running PA Cares for All could encourage people to make sure all those tweets and videos were also posted on the group Facebook page.  They could also continue to encourage real-life meetups on the subject across the state.

As Elizabeth Drescher in Tweet If You <3 Jesus states, "... as the online encyclopedia Wikipedia testifies, the relatively small efforts of a very large number of people aggregate in support of a very small number of people who provide the larger commitment necessary to make things happen."  While there will only be a small number of professional advocates running the #KeepPAGA campaign, those folks can cultivate and attend to wider advocacy community around the subject through practicing the tenets of networked communication.  Finally, please feel free to post additional ideas about ways to cultivate a #KeepPAGA community here or any questions about the program you might have.  Happy advocating!

God's peace,
Dustin

Dustin is a Masters of Divinity candidate in his second year of study at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin really likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

A Reformation of Christian Education, Pt. 4: #Kony2012 As An Advocacy Model

Sure, say what you will about the #Kony2012 movement... it may oversimplify the issue, it may do a bit of the "great white savior" thing and it may encourage unnecessary militarization in central Africa, but whether you think its important or not, you now know who Joseph Kony is... Jason Russell and the rest of the folks at Invisible Children have already succeeded in making Kony famous, no matter what folks decide to do on April 20th.  Essentially then, no matter what you think about the aims of the #Kony2012 campaign, it's pretty fair to say that it can provide folks involved in advocacy ministries with a really powerful model to conduct their own social justice campaigns.  Following the pattern of our emerging system of networked meaning-making, what did #Kony2012 do right?  Furthermore, how could folks involved with advocacy improve upon that model in their own ministries?

Before doing so, if you haven't already seen the #Kony2012 film, here it is:


So #Kony2012 definitely picked up on the meme of web-based activism and ran with it.  Time's 2011 Person of the Year, after all was the The Protestor, a new type of activist largely propelled by social networking technology... think #Occupy and the Arab Spring.  Furthermore, #Kony2012 also took very seriously the idea of teaching through personal narratives... the promise Jason makes to Jacob early in the film and the conversation with little Gavin are both extremely powerful.  Part of their success was also one of their greatest weaknesses... they were able to boil down a very complex issue into an extremely simple one... "Joseph Kony is the worst," and he must be stopped.  They also made contacting policy makers very easy, and specifically by listed folk's Twitter names, they made those advocacy actions publicly visible to other Twitter users: "Engage Your Policy Makers."

Finally, despite very strong push back, Kony2012 was able to engage their critics in conversation, at least somewhat through their #AskICAnything tag and responses on YouTube.  Here's an example:

Unfortunately, many of #Kony2012's weaknesses come from its use of broadcast era communication strategies in the emerging era of networked communications.  Essentially, most of the campaign's communications were largely one-directional... they came up with a great film, have a great website and a pretty decent Facebook Page, but they haven't spent much time attending to the folks involved in the movement.  If you look carefully at their Facebook Page for instance, it's made of "announcements" from Invisible Children, but folk's comments are never really responded to.  Perhaps this wasn't always the case, but at this point comments on their YouTube page are entirely turned off and its the same thing on their blog.  While the #Kony2012 video argues that a "bunch of littles could make a big difference," all they ask of folks in the video is to 1) sign a pledge, 2) buy a kit and wear a bracelet,  3) donate money and 4) share the video.  There's no invitation to learn more through conversation, share personal stories and create content.  Why not supply folks with an image to make their own stickers and posters with?  Why not help folks to design their own posters?  Why not ask people to tell stories of their own activism through YouTube and communal blogging?

Let me be clear... except for the "great white savior" thing, I really appreciate what #Kony2012 is trying to do, and overall, they created a very powerful model for web-based advocacy.  I'm interested to see a second video they're publishing this Thursday, and excited to see what happens on April 20th.  As they say at the beginning of the first video, their movement was an "experiment" at the beginning of the networked communications age, and it was largely successful.  Still, even for folks as smart and creative as the ones at Invisible Children, letting go of all our broadcast-age habits can prove pretty difficult.

God's peace,
Dustin

Dustin is a Masters of Divinity candidate in his second year of study at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin really likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.