Pre-bunking misinformation and engaging with influencers
By Carrie Cullen, Program Director and Claudia Garcia, Digital Ads & Research Program Director
In our digital, post-pandemic world, there is nothing quite like sharing ideas and lessons among real live human beings.
We came away from the 2024 Netroots Nation conference in Baltimore earlier this month deeply inspired by thousands of progressive activists from around the country.
While we were proud to represent Resource Media – and delighted to share some of the lessons we’ve learned – we came home with so much more. We want to share some of our experiences here.
Netroots Nation is perhaps the largest gathering of progressive activists in the United States. Some 3,000 people gathered both in person and via online discussions. Participants included folks from across the spectrum of environmental, social justice and economic issues. We hugged and laughed with many people who we had previously only seen via computer screen. We met not just fellow communications professionals, but designers, social scientists, organizers and strategic thinkers.
Netroots Nation organizers tapped Resource Media to present on two topics. We presented case studies that we hoped would bring fresh tactics and thinking to today’s challenges. (Shout out to our colleague, Managing Director Refugio Mata, who helped shape our proposals to Netroots.)
First, we presented a case study and strategy tips on how to engage with social media influencers to reach BIPOC audiences and build BIPOC power. Engaging with independent social media content creators is a well established tactic in the commercial world, but we think there is room to do more of this in non-profit advocacy as well.
We highlighted a Resource Media project called La Madre Tierra, where we partnered with a Latine advocacy organization called Presente. They wanted to reach out younger, BIPOC audiences to education them and raise awareness around #StopCopCity, happening in Atlanta, GA. Since we knew that younger audiences are drawn to TikTok, we went there. But unlike other social media platforms, TikTok is all about personal videos, not shared memes, static images or branded videos. So, we contracted with content makers who matched our audience — young, bilingual and socially aware.
Second, we worked with Resource Media colleague Olivia Blocker on a virtual presentation. This one focused on another concern that keeps all kinds of communicators awake at night – dealing with misinformation and disinformation that is becoming more prevalent in our public discourse. In short, we think it’s easier to inoculate audiences from misinformation by “pre-bunking” it before it spreads, than to have to respond with the difficult and endless task of debunking false narratives after they spread.
We shared an example of a project we worked on in North Carolina, advocating for offshore wind projects. Such projects are worthy of public debate, but disinformation serves no one. We knew from earlier experience in New Jersey and New York the kind of false narratives that were likely to emerge in North Carolina and tried to preempt the nonsense by establishing credible and factual story lines early in the process.
It’s always gratifying to present our expertise to an open and appreciative audience. But the Netroots Nation gathering was special because it drew people in from so many different fields and skill sets. For example, it turns out that countering misinformation is a top-of-mind concern, whether people are focused on climate, reproductive rights, social justice or any other topic.
While we offered our gifts to our friends and colleagues in Baltimore, we received much more.
Our world is flooded with chaos, outrage and bad news, especially since so much of our time is spent taking in information from the cold and distorted world of the internet.
We were particularly taken with a point from Zainab Chaudary, of New Heights Communications. She emphasized the importance of imaging and presenting a shared vision of a better future. In this chaotic world, it’s easy to focus on the bad things we are trying to stop, instead of the good things we are trying to create. But it’s that vision of a better future that truly motivates people. This really resonated in a time where the news seems more and more unsettling by the day.
Netroots Nation also reminded us of how much more powerful our campaigns can be when we work together. Our issues overlap in the real world, but too often we fail to connect in the workaday world. We came home with a sense of solidarity and support for one another as we saw how our issues increasingly intersect.
As we head deeper into a tumultuous election season, that felt like a particularly valuable lesson.
