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Im exploring how emerging social techniques and technologies within journalism canbetter describe the world in a way that helps people to participate in political life.

The idea is to give every element of a story a social experience - so all research,recordings and reports are conducted openly and collaboratively through online

networks.This transparency keeps me honest and accurate whilst building my profile as arepository of interesting information - this in turn provides the identity thats needed tobuild the emotional bonds that lead to sustainable engagement.

Those commonly noted difficulties we are battling with

O n the news side

- P eople only want theinformation relevant to them

O n the politics side

- O rthodox political discourse (i.e. the Westminster Village) is divorced from the real world

My influence comes from

The personified documentary styles of Nick Broomfield and reporters for UnreportedWorld.The pro-active, well-contacted and heres where I am coming from approach of politicalbloggers Alistair Campbell, Mark P ack and Iain Dale.The music artists whove had the nouse, creativity and innovation to use the internet tobreak-through and set their agenda - Arctic Monkeys, Lilly Allen, The XX.

O ther practices from which Ive drawn ideas from are Factcheck with Cathy Newman,BBCs HARDtalk and Big Brother ( people learn a lot through observing others).

S tories Im looking to cover

Relevant and interesting issues that people will have curiosity, intrigue and some kind of previous experience with and/or opinion on.

GM Food, online (digital) rights, drug legalization (obvious I know but look at what isgoing on in California), fox hunting, global poverty and aid distribution, the asylumseeker process, prison reform.

*I also want to intersperse these features with ad-hoc pieces on other (independent)interesting personalities - so anyone from Amnesty to Moazzam Begg to Mary AnneHobbs (what can journalists learn from diy music producers?) and The Campaign for Burma UK group.

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what am I actually going to do... ... and how i will do it

Research

- engage with people as early as possibleand introduce what, how and why Im doingthis.

- pro-actively court collaboration at all levels

- organise posts for optimum reception

- only publish interesting and relevantinformation - stuff that people will beproud to like or retweet.

- post on walls of related facebookgroups, forums and contribute to #s ontwitter.

- identify influential online figures,groups - engage and encourage themto pass me/ information on to their followers.

- post early morning or late at night -

when most people are browsing theinternet.

- make sure my work is bloody good!

--> all the information and insight gathered through this process can then form the basisof my approach in the interview.

Recordings

- interview interesting people.

- provide a case-study that binds allelements of the exploration and gives theinterviewees something to reply to.

- only use technology that is readilyavailable to most journalists.

- 20 minutes with key/authoritative/relevant

figures.

- go up the social hierarchy - from the bottom-level personal experience (problem) to the toppoliticians (solution?)

- record everything through a Smartphone,edit video on Youtube, audio on audioBoo aWordpress blog to home all ingredients andFacebook and Twitter for all in-between.

--> As I keeping footage as raw and unedited as possible, I must compliment this withattention to aesthetics and a strong narrative voice (text) that guide the audiencethrough the content.

Reports

- be genuine, open and - break down into a series of 230 clips, add links

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irresistibly interesting withmaterial.

- in text, guide the audiencethrough the information collected

- conclude/check what has beenlearnt/said.

that relate to statistics or summaries of referencesmade.

- introduce why that question was asked and boildown the answer into 2/3 key points.

- link back to research, compare and contrast thepolitician to the case study - what does it(dis)prove?

so the key idea is to;1. go to where people are (Facebook), engage as early as possible and get key onlineinfluencers participating.2. interview genuinely interesting people.3. deliver all content as natural as possible whilst providing a textual guide that picksout key information.

W hy I blog?

I am a member of young adult demographic so I will use them as the case study.

For every 1 of us that joins a political party, 10 will join a single campaign organisation.

- We are more likely to be involved in informal activities - in particular on social networkswhere we spend 2 hours a day.- We get much of our news via online social references.- We are far more willing to go directly to party materials.

None of this is traditional engagement, but it is clearly getting young people to think of a new type of political literacy. Really? Yes, in Mays general election, turnout for theyouth was up 7%.

I don't believe my ideas here are the magical answer for the media, but I do feel thispassionate, personal and professional approach can genuinely help (and has from themessages I've been sent) people to understand the world a little better.