Audience Engagement
I couldn't have told you a thing about audience engagement entering high school, but as I've worked in a changing media landscape, I've become extremely attuned to ensuring students can digest and interact with our content. This has primarily taken place on social media, where the majority of our student audience consumes their news, but it also happens in daily interactions with our school and local communities. I've also engaged in academic research to understand the opportunities and challenges of audience engagement journalism.
Social Media
Ever since my sophomore year as Sports Editor, when I began to produce content for the ODYSSEY Media Group's social media platforms, I've understood that social media is the foremost arena for publications to interact with our audience. In that spirit, I've made it a priority to produce engaging content that encourages student interaction while maintaining high ethical standards.
01
Understanding analytics (the good)
I've learned to analyze the analytics behind the OMG's social media posts, which has helped determine what content we promote. I've learned that photos often always work better than graphics, while readers appreciate in-depth content with a carousel as well. Reels work better when posted with music, and a variety of faces can make even a dull post pop.
02
Understanding analytics (the bad)
Conversely, I employ the same approach with posts that don't work as well. The post on the left explained President Trump's inauguration, but compared to a fair use image in another post, the illustration did better, showing the importance of human faces. The post on the right was a collage of photos promoting a Black History Month package, but once again, the lack of student faces made it less relatable to students.
03
Awards posts
In terms of stories, we cut promos and post on our social media in order to showcase successes we’ve had. For example, after awards from the National Scholastic Press Association were announced, I did a post celebrating those who were recognized. These posts help show others outside the program what happens and gives them a ‘why’ in terms of our motivation.
04
Question posts
Occasionally, I've created posts specifically designed to generate interaction with the post. The example shown was posted on Teacher Appreciation Day, with the simple text and graphic being a digestible way for students to comment on the post. These posts, though not informative, keep students engaged with our platform when we do have more impactful news.
05
Website analytics
Like social media analytics, web analytics have also shown me the content students like to see. Spiked in readership occurred especially during the fall semester, which included our most widely read story of the year, my editorial "Can we be safe?" (1.2k views). Viewing the website trends helps us understand which stories students are passionate about and how better to create our content for SEO.
Community Outreach
Digital interaction is well and good for the planning of our content, but any good journalist knows that real relationships are formed through outreach and in-person connections. From a student perspective, I've used events like the Clarke Middle School class visits to not only recruit, but to establish a positive relationship between rising students and the audience. With adults, attendance at school events keeps up a positive impression of the OMG and its students.
Middle School Recruiting
I've made a concerted effort to get middle schoolers to join the program. We started presenting during their free periods at Clarke Middle School, showing them why they should join and getting them more involved with us at a young age. I did many of these presentations, directing them to our Instagram page and helping many of them with their journalism projects – in essence, creating a good first impression so they’ll want to come back later.
Classic City Dawgs
Along with several members of the OMG Editorial Board, I volunteered with the Classic City Dawgs, CCHS' adapted basketball team. The team only has two full-time players, so they often look for volunteers, and we saw an opportunity to reach out to a community often underrepresented in our coverage while also forming connections with the team staff.
Trunk or Treat
CCHS hosts a Trunk-or-Treat festival for kids to get some free candy every October, and I've volunteered at multiple of these to help set-up the OMG's car -- themed Scooby Doo and Black, White, and Read all over, respectively. The event allowed me to connect with younger students and little kids, but also to establish stronger personal connections with teachers and administrators who brought their children.
Chasing Ploopy: A case study
Picture this: You've just posted a seemingly random Instagram reel promoting the Southern Interscholastic Press Association's upcoming conference in early March when, for seemingly no reason, an Instagram account credited to one Josh Heyel comments one word: 'Ploopy.' You check the location -- this account has no ties to Clarke Central High School, no mutual followers, only a vague "BHS '25" in his bio. After mild-mannered speculation, you let 'Ploopy' go, until...
It happens again. And again. And again.
In fact, for the better part of two months, this mysterious user comments 'Ploopy' on every single OMG post without rhyme or reason. You view these comments with humor, but are always secretly curious as to why this random fellow would comment a nonsensical word on an Instagram account he has no connection to.
So, I called him, and thus was born the story "Chasing Ploopy."
Chasing Ploopy
After the brief phone call interview, I recognized the opportunity in front of me. Multiple students and community members had asked me who "Ploopy" was, while I knew the inherent novelty of the story would engage readers. To capitalize on both, I wrote a first-person satire regarding my experience with Josh, incorporating his real story into my humorous take. I paired this with a social media post, written in the same tone, meant to attract and engage readers.
The project was a huge success. I was actually somewhat jaded -- no one outside of my family had ever seriously engaged with any of my work before (even on more important topics), but within two days, four separate people told me how much they enjoyed the Ploopy story, including two adults I'd never previously interacted with. The drama teacher told me she had been 'about to pee her pants' when she read it.
Meanwhile, the social media post engaged audience members curious about Ploopy's identity, while simultaneously bringing Josh's community in Bethel, Connecticut, to an Athens, Georgia, student publication.
Though certainly in a humorous context, the impact "Chasing Ploopy" had on our school community opened my eyes to the importance of keeping my finger on the pulse of our audience. I could've chosen to let Ploopy be Ploopy, but by being curious about an audience member -- and listening to the interests of our school community -- I was able to tell an interesting, funny story that people wanted to hear. Often, in the news media, audience engagement is synonymous for 'click-bait', but "Chasing Ploopy" showed the importance of audience engagement for light-hearted, engaging content.
Academic Research
During my senior year of high school, I participated in an academic internship alongside University of Georgia professor Dr. David Welch Suggs. Though my work with Dr. Suggs focused more on the pedagogical side of journalism instruction, I also underwent personal research regarding the intersection of ethics and audience engagement journalism. For this research, I read 12 scholarly articles published by media professors from around the globe. Then, for each article, I summarized my takeaways into a rhetorical precis, a one-page analytical synthesis of the work. At the end of the course, I combined these precis into a seven-page research paper discussing the broader implications of audience engagement on journalism ethics. Read about some of my research below.
Reading Journalism: Establishing Normative Dimensions for Twenty-First Century News Media
This was my favorite article I read throughout the course of my research. It dealt with journalistic codes of ethics, but approached them from a wildly different perspective: through the eyes of platforms rather than individual journalists. At present, the Society of Professional Journalists' Code of Ethics -- the most commonly used ethical document for journalism -- is entirely geared toward journalists themselves. Michael Karlsson et al., professors in the Department of Geography, Media and Communication at Sweden’s Karlstad University, argue that journalistic ethical codes need to formalize implicit standards of platforms and news agencies. Practically, this would mean reshaping how the media perceives its own work and force media companies to accept greater responsibility for ethical work. In the age of audience engagement, this would mean forcing companies and platforms to encourage engagement without damaging the integrity of a story or fostering hate speech, both of which are pressing issues today.
From Abstract News Users to Living Citizens: Assessing Audience Engagement Through a Professional Lens
This article established a much more direct connection between audience engagement and civics, pointing to the benefits that having a connection to the audience can have. The authors, professors of communication and information science at the European universities Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, University of Bergen, and Université Libre de Bruxelle, used Chilean media outlet BioBio Chile as a case study for audience engagement journalism as whole, and their findings contradicted the assumption that consideration of the audience's interests, desires, and dislikes harmed the democratic function of journalism. Instead, they found that understanding what audience members cared about allowed the outlet to tailor not only the content of their coverage, but also its delivery, helping the journalists understand how they could most effectively communicate their message.