Citizen Media and My Campaign: A Learning Experience

Four months ago, I walked into a Windows computer lab, not knowing what to expect. What did “Citizen Media” mean? Citizen media is more than just a class and a book title. It is a knowledge base. In this class, I learned more about my society than I have in any history class; I learned more about my abilities to recognize and understand societal movements like those of the modern, interactive media era; I learned a new language: html; I learned how to interact with a group to produce something truly special: a campaign to make our campus safer, a campaign to promote smarter decisions regarding late night transportation at IU.

At first I seemed skeptical of this campaign project. In high school, I had always been the type to hate group projects because I always had to do all the work, but not this time. Citizen Media was a truly unique learning environment in this way, which, in turn, fostered the production of a complex, multi-faceted campaign promoting the use of a bus called the “Midnight Special,” a bus that runs Thursday thru Saturday night from 11:00 pm until 4:00 am. The idea of having an open-ended project where we could formulate our own plan of action regarding how to reach out to IU students incited motivation and sparked our creativity.

Every member of my group contributed to all aspects of the campaign, a characteristic that made this experience exciting and opened my eyes to forming a system of equitable work distribution in the learning environment. As such, I think it is unfair to say “I did this” or “I did that” but accurate to say, “I contributed to this” and “I contributed to that.” For instance, I was a primary contributor to the “Hoosier News” skit, as I spent many hours over the course of two intense days working to edit the segment. I do, however, acknowledge that many of my group mates also contributed to this piece. I also contributed to the “Drunk Bus” commercial as I wrote the skit and offered my ideas to the film and editing crew when necessary or called upon for advice. So, while everyone else might be trying to remember what he or she specifically created, why not simply explain what I was a part of? I know I was a major contributor to the designing the “Drunk Bus” campaign, but I believe we all can say we were all a part of the whole.

P.S. Thom, I know you asked for suggestions, so here it goes. Start the campaigns early! Like the first week. I know you wanted to let us explore the media first, but there’s no time to wait. These projects take a long time and you should get your students started on the projects, then start teaching them about topics like html and flash. Perhaps in class, they can begin integrating these techniques into their campaigns. This way the Citizen Media students will have enough time to design well thought out, effective, and complete campaigns by the end of the semester that utilize all of the skills taught in this class.

Josh