This interview first appeared on the website of America Amplified and is republished here with permission.
GBH in Boston is interested in reaching more people who identify as Gen Z — that generation born after “millennials,” currently in their late teens or early twenties. And Boston is full of Gen Z’ers — there are more than 60 colleges and universities in the city or nearby suburbs. Station producers recognize that to reach a younger audience they need to put younger voices on the air and center younger people in their coverage. Plus, GBH is already a pioneer among public media stations when it comes to multi-platforming! So this year they’ve launched a new video series called “Politics IRL” that features Gen Z individuals talking about their passions and interests, especially as those interests revolve around politics in the lead-up to the November election. Alexi Cohan is a Digital Producer at GBH and is the lead producer on this series. She talked to us about the project, its goals and what she is learning.
Tell us about your engagement initiative or project?
For our video series “Politics IRL” we pair up two Gen-Z individuals with differing political perspectives. We ask them to tell us about the issues that are driving them to the polls in 2024 and what they care most about. We’re hoping that the people who appear in the videos can find common ground despite their differences. The first one we produced was on the eve of the New Hampshire primary in January, featuring two conservative college students, one of whom supports Donald Trump, and the other one does not. The conversation in the second video is about abortion, with a pro-life Republican man and a pro-choice Democratic woman. These are hard conversations to have because they get very personal very fast; it can get very heated. I’m learning so much as we’re producing this series about how to have these conversations without letting them get personal. That’s kind of the secret sauce — powerful conversations about issues that people really care about, but don’t let them get personal.
What was the main objective?
The main objective is to engage Gen Z voters in our community. This is a group of people that GBH really misses. The station wants to engage them in this project and in the newsroom in general. They also want to bring people together to have important discussions and to be motivated by the project. When we started the project we thought the best group to reach out to would be young people who are politically engaged. We found that that group really did want to participate — they are planning to have a career in politics, and were willing to step up. Now we are trying to shift that focus and find non-political folks, and that is more difficult.
Did the collaboration between America Amplified and your public media station help shape your engagement strategy?
The training that America Amplified offered in the fall was really eye-opening. I was especially motivated by the ideas about how community-engaged journalism was different from the traditional journalism model. I really like the idea of letting your community and your audience determine the story, tell you what the story actually is. Originally the video series was going to focus on a predetermined topic each month. After the training we decided to let our sources decide what they wanted to talk about. They would tell us what really mattered to them, picking the topics and then running with them. So the America Amplified training really changed the station’s entire approach to the series.
How are you building trust in the communities you serve?
GBH is really just at the beginning of this project, and we believe that trust will grow. Having subjects choose what they want to speak about really has put people at ease. They don’t see GBH coming in with an agenda, looking for some kind of loud disagreement or fight. We are open and transparent about how the videos are made and that seems to create trust, especially with the subjects of the video driving the bus! We’re also working hard to stay in touch with our subjects and get feedback on the videos and on the project as a whole. After the November election we plan to host a listening session with all the video participants to talk about election outcomes. This type of event can build trust so that the participants will continue to keep in touch long after the project has ended, and will know that GBH is a place they can share their thoughts.
What challenges did your station face when trying to reach the community?
The hyper-politically engaged young people really want to participate in this project. But the non-political folks are much tougher to find and tougher to get them to agree to be on camera. People say they don’t want to look dumb, they don’t know much about politics or policy. We explain that what qualifies them to be part of the project is simply that they have the right to vote. It’s not about political knowledge, it is about how you feel! But, with all the polarization, it is a tough sell these days to convince people to be in a video about politics. People don’t want to be “Google-able.” The other problem is that Gen Z is not typically tuned into public media, so it takes time to make any headway there.
Were partnerships with local organizations and community leaders part of this work?
We didn’t form any formal partnerships when we first reached out to this community, but we made contact with college clubs and organizations to find participants, as well as statewide and regional organizations such as Mass Dems, Young New England Conservatives, etc. Now, as we are trying to widen the group of participants beyond the super politically engaged, we are examining pockets of low voter turnout, finding out if there are community organizations helping to get out the vote, and tapping into those groups as well as unions and trade schools.
What lessons do you take away from this work in terms of strengthening engagement?
It is still early, but the No. 1 lesson is that this demographic of people, Gen Z, are starved for connection and they really want to talk about politics! They are really pleased that they can choose the topic of the conversation and they are eager to have these conversations in person. So, it is super exciting to see that people really want to engage.
Lesson No. 2 is about platforms — Gen Z is getting their news in so many different places. To reach them the station has to take many different approaches. We have to reimagine how to reach Gen Z and retool our engagement strategies to find them. In the past we may have sent out an email blast to find participants. But with this community, maybe a text would work better? We have to be flexible and listen to this audience!
Alisa Barba is managing editor of America Amplified.