Social Media and Digital Storytelling for Social Good

Abstract

This case study examines the Blue Roots Project, a graduate studies collaboration between Michigan-based, online water journalism organization Circle of Blue and the Center for Emerging Media Design and Development at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. The Blue Roots Project is a community arts and digital storytelling project that uses social media channels to elicit user-generated content focused on the effects of the world’s fresh water crisis. The project uses social media as a tool for the following goals: accessing and connecting with already established communities, meeting the audience where they already gather, creating a dialogue about issues, eliciting user-generated content, creating access points for the project, and creating a relationship with the audience.