Just like any other aspect of an organizational strategy, a media strategy needs to be rooted in a framework. Our media strategies have been developed with the support of a group called We Interrupt this Message, a national intermediary that trains youth and community groups in strategic media. We Interrupt helps youth groups study the media and analyze bias as a way of directly challenging anti-youth bias. But more importantly, We Interrupt helps groups understand media bias so they can develop a winning message that challenges stereotypes around youth, race and poverty. A strong communications strategy and message depend on a clear organizing goal.
Many groups try to work with the media only to discover that their campaign goals are unclear.
Developing a clear organizing strategy is essential to the creation of a successful media campaign. A good message puts all those things together into a sound bite or press release. Stories of the PAY report cards in the local newspaper led to politicians and parks administrators acting to address the problems and prompted local residents to take act on behalf of their beleaguered local parks. Y-MAC initially thought that using this strategy would spark rapid change and force youth centers to be held accountable. Y-MAC changed its media strategy and decided to publish results, but withhold the names of the youth centers evaluated because it realized that the real target was not the individual agencies, but the city for not making sure youth were participating and involved in the evaluation.