This week we learned about what it means to be an advocate, as well as the different types of advocacy, and how to advocate in a sociologically mindful way.
For this discussion, you are going to create an advocacy message related to the social justice issue of your choice to share with me and your peers. An advocacy message is a core statement that you would use to define your advocacy mission to the public. This is critical to ensuring that people understand what you are about and what you want to accomplish. The message created here is different from creating an entire advocacy campaign – that would entail building a team, having a timeline, developing activities, budgeting, etc. all along with the message. For this discussion, you are just laying the groundwork as though you were considering creating a campaign.
Steps to creating an advocacy message:
1) Open with a statement that engages your readers. You want something attention grabbing. Using a dramatic fact is a good way to lead-in! This should only be one or two sentences.
2) Present the problem. Describe the issue and who it impacts.
3) Provide facts and data. Consider your audience. In this case – college students. Look for facts that are relevant to your audience in some way.
4) Share a story or provide an example of the problem. This makes your message more compelling. Putting a human face on the issue is an easy way to get people to care.
5) Connect the issue to your audience. Why should they care about this social issue – how is it relevant to them?
6) Make your request – state what the audience can do to help. This could be as simple as sharing a hashtag, or something more serious like donating money (not in real life – no money will be exchanged here!).
Write this discussion as though it is a document you are going to share to gain interest in your social issue. In other words, do not begin with “Hello, peers!” Act as though this document is the beginning of an advocacy campaign.
Looking for an example? You may be familiar with the infamous Carole Baskin with Big Cat Rescue (shown on the Netflix documentary Tiger King). Check out this page (Links to an external site.) from her website and notice where she hits the key points as mentioned above in the ‘steps to creating an advocacy message.’ Your discussion assignment does not need to be nearly this thorough, but this is a great example. There is also a section starting on the bottom of page 198 at this link (Links to an external site.) that discusses how to create an advocacy message.
Please see attached book reading
