Mapping community media impact: iterative cycles

Communication Research and Practice

ISSN: 2204-1451 (Print) 2206-3374 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rcrp20

Mapping community media impact: iterative cycles, continuous review Jocelyn Williams To cite this article: Jocelyn Williams (2016): Mapping community media impact: iterative cycles, continuous review, Communication Research and Practice, DOI: 10.1080/22041451.2016.1266582 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/22041451.2016.1266582

Published online: 27 Dec 2016.

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Date: 15 January 2017, At: 19:05

COMMUNICATION RESEARCH AND PRACTICE, 2016 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/22041451.2016.1266582

Mapping community media impact: iterative cycles, continuous review Jocelyn Williams Department of Communication Studies, Unitec Institute of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand ABSTRACT

ARTICLE HISTORY

Framing community media evaluation that can trace social impact relevant to organisational objectives requires extensive planning that could be facilitated by impact mapping. This article examines ways to understand social impact from a practice-based perspective informed by a 2014 media production project. Based on the assumption that a broad frame of reference is required to position community media outcomes within a range of evidence unique to each context, an evaluation mapping schema is proposed that draws on existing frameworks such as a Social Impact Creation Cycle, Social Return on Investment, and Communication for Social Change, approaches that have continuous review in common. The case for a ‘meta’ approach arises from pragmatic realities manifested as a variety of issues known to occur in community media practice. Resourcing arrangements can shape the relative importance attached to measurement, according to different stakeholder objectives. Capturing the outcomes of community media, created from the shared efforts of diverse teams of stakeholders with multiple objectives, can’t be a one size fits all. Research of short-term media effects may be one component of longer-term effectiveness. The distinction in terminology here signals a need to loop short- and long-term outcomes together in a cyclical process.

Received 30 August 2016 Accepted 25 November 2016 KEYWORDS

Community media; measurement; stakeholder collaboration; social impact mapping; iterative evaluation

Introduction This article proposes that community media social impact is complex, contextual, and contingent especially on stakeholder motivations and resourcing arrangements. These attributes imply evaluation needs to take a broad organisational overview of a range of factors from the number and nature of stakeholders and their interests, to the organisation’s purpose, identity and story, and how its activities are supported whether through volunteering, funding, or other arrangements. Such scope suggests evaluations need a flexible design that considers what each organisation seeks to achieve by using media tools, what importance they attach to measuring outcomes, and what methods are suitable to these ends. From this perspective, methods used such as close collaboration with or participation by community members, are one consideration within often complex social change contexts that need to be viewed holistically. CONTACT Jocelyn Williams

[email protected]

© 2016 Australian and New Zealand Communication Association

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The case presented here for meta-level research collating a variety of evidence, including but not limited to evidence of media impact, is informed by the conduct and outcomes of a 2014–2015 project to create a broadcast TV series, The Living Community. This practicebased perspective provides a reference point for understanding community media evaluation issues, and a basis for proposing a qualitative social impact mapping tool that embeds measurement in a comprehensive context for use as both a lens for planning in practice, and a framework for designing evaluations with a long-term view. The proposed mapping model includes three porous layers of context (a community or participant perspective, a media perspective, and a broad social cohesion perspective) across several planning stages. Inspired by existing frameworks from related fields, the mapping approach begins with a situation analysis, followed by phases of developing objectives, strategies and tactics, measurement, and reflection on outcomes in light of the objectives. Typical community media issues relevant to measurement are now reviewed, followed by an overview of practice examples as a foundation for the mapping tool developed fully in the remainder of the paper.

Funding, ownership, and measurement Understanding the contribution of community media to society by operationalising social impact is a challenge that can be approached in different ways. A business-like view is that social impacts are ‘the societal and environmental changes created by activities and investments’ (Epstein & Yuthas, 2014, p. 15). Here, a systems model of inputs (‘investments’), throughputs (‘activities’), and outputs (‘changes’) suggests a quantifiable process of cause and effect. Indeed the funding environment for ‘social economy organisations’ (Barraket & Yousefpour, 2013, p. 447) increasingly emphasises performance and accountability, given contested entitlements, and straitened budgets. Where a community project is answerable to external funders, a requirement to audit outcomes to satisfy the terms of engagement is likely. On the other hand, if minimal funding is available and non-monetary inputs (such as volunteered time) provide the bulk of the resources required to complete it, measurement of impact in a formal sense may be less of an imperative. While it’s understood that private and public sector budget holders take an interest in accounting for the results of investment, how much importance do community groups attach to this? Perspective is material to this question: whether ownership of the process is top-down, bottom-up, or negotiated; who has invested in it; and thus which actors have power in the endeavour. Control may be exerted from within the group, by a partnership, or from the outside (Gaved & Anderson, 2006, p. 6). Top-down agendas in a ‘vertical’ model (Parks, Gray-Felder, Hunt, & Byrne, 2005) associated with external funding arrangements will almost certainly be accompanied by a planning and accountability logic, requiring evaluation to inform future funding decisions and justify expenditure. This logic might take the form of government funding to a community training programme being evaluated with reference to employment data or participants registering for further training. Yet predetermined evaluation criteria need to be treated with care, because they may alter or constrain the ways in which a community group responds to an opportunity. For example, ‘people might change their focus to managing the measures rather than managing the activities’ (Epstein & Yuthas, 2014, p. 119), and ‘things that can be bought and sold take on a greater significance and many important things get left out’ (Nicholls, Lawlor, Neitzert, &

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Goodspeed, 2012). In particular, attention may focus on aspects that might be thought to attract further investment, so that ‘metrics used for doling out sanctions and rewards are . . . managed and even manipulated’ (Epstein & Yuthas, 2014, p. 119). Alternatively a bottom-up process places ‘ownership, access and control of communication directly in the hands of affected communities’ (Parks et al., 2005, p. 4) which alters not only the processes used to achieve change but also the outcomes: This shifts control of media, messages, tools and content of communication from the powerful to the traditionally powerless. Ultimately, using such skills, previously powerless communities can become ‘self-renewing’ – able to manage their own communication processes for their own good (Parks et al., 2005).

A self-managing process of this kind may not hold formal evaluation to be a priority, because if people are working to create change with very limited resources, ‘you think that you don’t really need evidence because you know you’re creating value’ (Epstein & Yuthas, 2014, p. 117). It’s also argued that Anecdotally there would appear to be less reflective practice on the part of grassroots initiatives [as] . . . impact is judged by the activists in the community often on qualitative feedback gathered informally (Gaved & Anderson, 2006, p. 8).

Bottom-up ownership has real implications for how a community’s story is told, with a priority placed on participation in the process by members. Moreover, ‘if you are working for social change, you likely believe in your heart that you’re creating positive impacts’ (Epstein & Yuthas, 2014, p. 117), an observation highlighting the risk of subjectivity in gathering and interpreting evidence. Nevertheless, a community focused on creating change wants to have autonomy to determine and rework priorities, to be responsive to its own networks and information, and to follow its own leads in an intuitive way – to have ownership (Figueroa, Kincaid, Rani, & Lewis, 2002, p. 32) rooted in collective self-efficacy (Figueroa, Kincaid, Rani, & Lewis, 2002, p. 30). Finally, standard measurement frameworks may overlook localised complexity or developments that arise in the course of a project, and potentially not be supported where participants have not had a hand in determining them.

Community media motivations Grass roots community media emerge from and draw on local issues, relationships, social capital, commitment to social change, and a desire for self-determination, all of which have a history. Therefore organisation members have a personal commitment to their endeavours especially, as is likely, where the group’s activities depend on networks of goodwill, unpaid time and limited, sporadic budgets comprised of hard-won grants or just-in-time donations. These inputs can blur the perceived need to deliberate on, or give priority to, the detail of tactics used to achieve outcomes, such as a practical or participatory approach within an action research framework (O’Leary, 2014, ch. 9). Communities often just get on with things, grappling with the short term, yet it’s important that organisational members find ways to agree on a shared purpose, and resolution about which problem they are addressing in order to plan strategies such as collaboration that will help them address it, as well as the place of evaluation in their thinking.

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The time frame of an organisation’s strategic planning is as important for evaluation as the scope and detail of the immediately foreseeable period of time in which initiatives are being managed. Importantly, short- to medium-term versus long-term fields of focus require subtly different thinking. Barraket and Yousefpour (2013) note that in the social enterprise context ‘“evaluation” is typically associated with the process and medium term effects of particular organisational interventions, while “impact measurement” is attributed to understanding the longer-term and broader effectiveness of organisational or policy action’ (p. 448). Thus an evaluative mode can be understood as addressing shorter-term effects of specific initiatives, whereas impact measurement considers effectiveness over a longer term, according to specific criteria relating to strategy. This is a helpful distinction, not because one or the other needs to be selected but that sometimes different kinds of research are relevant. Effects in the relatively short term, with a focus on content, may be evaluated using social media data on content views, people reach and engagement, segmentation of various kinds, virality, and more; or reference to broadcast audience data. Longer-term effectiveness needs to be evaluated with a broadly qualitative approach with a mix of methods and a customised design. Community organisations tend to rely on their own resources and therefore are accountable to their own aims and goals, and to those of key stakeholders like trusts, donors, and community partners. Limited resources constrain evaluation activity: ‘one of the things that holds back understanding of these projects as well as the field as a whole, is the lack of resources and time given for proper evaluation’ (Ryan, 2015, p. 28). This is not to say that evaluation isn’t seen to be important but it may not be a high priority. Additionally, across a spectrum of community media motivations and kinds of investment, there will be more or less willingness to put resources into it, and different views about how important it is (Nicholls et al., 2012). For all these reasons, community organisations may lack a big picture strategy or, if there is one, it may be a work in progress. Yet while they may be consumed with simply staying viable from 1 year to the next, engaging in initiatives that promote their story can play an important role in mobilising a group because it initiates dialogue about issues which helps it move towards achieving shared objectives (Figueroa et al., 2002). In this way community media can be a trigger, or catalyst, that mobilises collective action (Figueroa et al., 2002, p. 7). This may be the most powerful dynamic arising from community media activities, both aiding evaluation and comprising it, because it sustains and drives further planning rather than having a linear, or terminal, cause and effect logic. This benefit is discussed in more detail later in the paper.

The Living Community project Funding, ownership, process, and motivations all had a bearing on the outcomes of The Living Community, a media production project that recorded community stories in Auckland over several months in 2014–2015. Idea and opportunity came together to bring a short series of community stories to the TV screen. Face TV, a community media channel, was keen to broadcast student programming; Unitec has a strategic focus on ‘serving the needs of the community’ and granted funding, sufficient to produce a series for Face TV, to a media production project with a theme of community building in locations where Unitec had existing research relationships.


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Locations The project took us to a number of nearby suburban community groups including Avondale Community Action (ACA), a place-building arts collective aimed at building community inclusion, and The Rosebank Art Walk, a collaboration between a community of artists and local industry, also in Avondale. Three groups in Henderson were Violence Free Waitakere (VFW), a trust exploring a ‘whole of community’ approach to bullying (Violence Free Waitakere, 2015), Studio MPHS (McLaren Park Henderson South), a digital media learning centre for youth, and The Pacifica Mamas, a collective of Pacific women aged 60–80 whose wide variety of creative work aims to assure a future for cultural knowledge. Two more groups were CUE Haven, a reforestation project further afield in the Kaipara region, and More than a War, an oral history project that brought together World War 1 narratives aiming to generate inter-generational community through its methodology and the curation of an exhibition.

Process The high-level project goal was co-creation of filmed community stories in a form that would raise awareness of their aspirations and activities, through collaboration between community members, students, and Unitec research and teaching staff. Objectives included interdisciplinary teamwork in the project’s planning and conduct, involving students for real world experience, and giving the community groups a practicable level of autonomy to tell their stories. Key stakeholders were therefore community members and their wider constituencies, supervised students who got involved in story research, location shoots, presenting to camera, editing and design, academics who had working relationships with these communities, and screen production colleagues. Unitec’s Research Ethics Committee granted approval for mixed methods research prioritising semi-structured interviews with 10–12 key community leaders from the groups we were to work with. In early 2014 through existing contacts with a number of communities we readily found seven groups keen to collaborate. As project lead I worked with a team including a producer (a documentary specialist) and production manager to plan the logistics, form and process of shaping stories with stakeholders, including students where practicable, to negotiate with Face TV on scheduling, use of their facilities and other practical matters, and to consult with each community about how they would like to use this opportunity. Filming by small student crews guided by a production manager began on location in April 2014. Postponements, logistical issues, the large numbers of people involved, and seven stories (effectively, multiple work streams) to complete, meant delays causing postproduction work to extend throughout the year. The resulting series was broadcast on Sky TV in May 2015. Using approved informed consent procedures, suitable meeting times for community stakeholder interviews lasting 60–90 min were arranged during the filming/cocreation process. Questions aimed to uncover organisational mission, aspirations around communicating this, their existing media use, and the outcomes they sought from the media collaboration, conducted as a semi-structured discussion.

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Outcomes Formally collected interview data and informal feedback during and after the series production were considered in aggregating an overview of the seven groups’ aims and aspirations, their existing communication management approach, and what they hoped to get out of the digital storytelling opportunity. Review of these data showed in most cases a broad social change agenda with, at the time of the project, a focus on the film project that would highlight their achievements to date as a means of leveraging further support. In part this focus on the product may be explained by the opportunity presented to them to collaborate with us on filming a story: the artefact became a focus of attention. Nevertheless the ideas they had for how the resulting piece might be used were many and varied. Individual community organisations’ motivations for engaging with the broadcast series opportunity and outcomes in each case are now summarised as a basis for discussion of ways to evaluate impact. In the Banishing Bullying Together initiative, leading figures were passionate about achieving community outcomes from a range of their projects within VFW (now called Violence Free Communities). Elaine Dyer, at that time Chief Executive, stated ‘our aim is social change’ (personal communication, 12 August 2014) and described the group as ‘coordinators of collaboration’ (personal communication, 12 August 2014) aiming to bring a range of social support services to their community, because ‘[for] a lot of people . . . violence grows when people are isolated and don’t know how to get help’ (personal communication, 12 August 2014). VFW sees its purpose as facilitating initiatives that will build community resilience and, ideally, mitigate negative social statistics over time. VFW prioritises communicating with their community, through events, leaflets, posters, displays, and online because ‘there is that mutual need from the community to find out that the help is there and for the service providers to promote themselves to the community’ (personal communication, 12 August 2014). Dyer was very keen on making a film. The resulting film offers insights into the thinking around and progress made on the bullying project, but tells a story with wider scope. They foresaw ‘different audiences’ for it, said VFW Board Chair, Geoff Bridgman: ‘one audience would be clearly the community that the programme is about, feeding it back to them’ (G. Bridgman, personal communication, 12 August 2014). He expressed a desire that The documentary [creates] a sense of identity for this community . . . encouraging them perhaps to do more self-sustaining stuff. So, since our goal is totally to create projects that have range, then it would be nice for other people to see that material . . . about how the project was conceived and developed and what the outcomes were. Then . . . there are the funders, to be able to show them (G. Bridgman, personal communication, 12 August 2014).

VFW motivations therefore included creating a story about progress to date in overcoming bullying, encouraging more grass roots initiatives, and demonstrating legitimacy and accountability to funders. As to measuring impact, they continue to gather and carefully evaluate evidence of VFW’s wider work in their own right, although they recognise ‘it’s not correlations’: We went hunting for figures to find out if we had made any difference . . . And we found, and this is not just our work, this is the collaboration that happens in Waitakere . . . that the national figures around reported cases of child abuse were high and continuing to grow across the country, whereas Waitakere was one of the very few that actually took a dip.


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And then while it continued to grow for a little bit, it was significantly lower than where the rest of the country was heading (E. Dyer, personal communication, 12 August 2014).

Bridgman, in his role as a community development researcher, also manages a series of evidence-based evaluations drawn from interviews, focus groups, and surveys (Bridgman, 2014) that inform VFW planning. The Rosebank Art Walk, a short life arts event, was intended to bring the local community together in a way that would have ongoing resonance. The film for The Living Community reinforces these key messages through interviews with event stakeholders talking about its impact, particularly event curator Marcus Williams, who described the goals of the project as ‘[to] rebuild community’ because ‘people have become disenfranchised from each other’ (M. Williams, personal communication, 9 September, 2014). The event comprised art works and activities installed throughout the Rosebank Peninsula light industrial area for the public to walk around and view, with a focus of activity at the school, because ‘if you want to engage a community you engage the school’. Williams concluded ‘we made a difference but we can’t measure it and we can’t prove it’ (M. Williams, personal communication, 9 September, 2014). Yet he felt ‘some of the things that are continuing to happen are really exciting . . .’, such as a flourishing community garden established as a key element of the Rosebank Art Walk event. He commented People from the businesses were just intrigued and . . . had to come and have a look to see what was going on . . . [Later, while filming for the TV show] the kids were saying things like, ‘mum gets all her vegetables from here now.’ Or another kid would say, ‘I talked to my parents about having healthy food and these are the sorts of food we should be eating.’ And another kid said, ‘I have helped my uncle build a garden . . . and we’re growing our own food now.’ These sorts of things . . . are very tangible outcomes of the project (M. Williams, personal communication, 9 September, 2014).

The gardens are flourishing still; the event and the film (used by the school) highlighting its achievements have longer-term resonance in the lives of families as educational outcomes and changed practices. How do we anticipate, plan for, and measure this? What do we call it? Studio MPHS, a purpose built digital facility, is located at McLaren Park Henderson South (MPHS) and managed by Jonathan Hickman, Youth Community Projects Lead for the MPHS Trust which jointly runs community centre ‘Hubwest’ with Auckland Council. Hubwest, built in 2012 in ‘the most deprived community in West Auckland’ (J. Hickman, personal communication, 22 August 2014), is home to several community initiatives such as playgroups, performing arts groups, and Studio MPHS. This digital drop-in centre was originally part of the global Computer Clubhouse (CC) network (Intel Computer Clubhouse Network, 2012) which Provides a creative and safe out-of-school learning environment where young people from underserved communities work with adult mentors to explore their own ideas, develop new skills, and build confidence in themselves through the use of technology (Intel Computer Clubhouse Network, 2012).

Local youth aged 10–18 drop in after school to work on digital projects, learning new skills guided by volunteer supervisors. In NZ and the Pacific, CC is now a separate organisation called High Tech Youth Network,

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. . . more focused on a Pacific way of being. The CC can be quite prescriptive in how many computers you have, you must have a music studio [whereas] HTYN is finding, particularly in the Islands, people wanted to get involved but they didn’t have that sort of centre. I mean, why couldn’t they have six or seven laptops outside? . . . because the weather is good enough! So it was those sorts of conversations that brought the HTYN to come about (J. Hickman, personal communication, 22 August 2014).

Cultural inclusivity is reflected every day: We really, really try to promote that [Pacific cultures] . . . with how we treat each other, we always share food together . . . If people aren’t hungry they still come and participate around the table . . . And every day we say, ‘Come on, I know you’re not hungry but . . .’ (J. Hickman, personal communication, 22 August 2014).

Studio MPHS is thus a place where local kids can ‘explore creativity and feel safe doing that . . . really learn and engage in positive relationships in a supportive community . . . through the technology that they have access to’ (J. Hickman, personal communication, 22 August 2014). Telling this story of the commitment required to make Studio MPHS work was important to Hickman. The short filmed piece for The Living Community is one part of the Studio’s broader digital literacy mission for youth who lack access to the technologies at home. Media products, learning, and social support all happen as one thing: ‘when we’re doing cooking we’ll film it, put photography around it. So we will always try and incorporate [a] digital and creative aspect to what we do’ (J. Hickman, personal communication, 22 August 2014). The kids create and upload videos, animations, cooking shows, and other creative pieces to a YouTube channel where The Living Community piece is also available. Hickman also wanted ‘exposure, having something that we can show parents, teachers and principals in the schools. Also other community organisations . . . what we do here’, and at the same time to have the kids part of a video production project, expanding their ideas about study or careers beyond high school – ‘when school ends, what next?’ (J. Hickman, personal communication, 22 August 2014). CUE Haven is an ecological restoration project in the Kaipara area to Auckland’s north, where environmental damage caused by dairy farming is cause for mounting concern. CUE Haven, a former dairy farm, was once intended by owners Thomas and Mahrukh Stazyk ‘to be a retreat, but then it became a park and it’s evolving to be a learning space’ (M. Stazyk, personal communication, 27 August 2014) for environmental education. At the time we were on site for The Living Community, the couple and their armies of volunteers had almost completed replanting former pastures with native trees. Known among the school networks, CUE Haven is a centre for children to learn about subjects like recycling, water quality, and waste minimisation; and ‘[Auckland] Council and the Department of Conservation (DOC) really . . . have been really very good in terms of promoting and publicising our project’ (T. Stazyk, personal communication, 27 August 2014). To this extent they had established visibility. A pool of over 2000 volunteers from trusts, spiritual groups, the philanthropic community, DOC, many schools and universities, businesses, and other organisations contribute time to planting, as well as helping with woodwork, signposting, seating, games, communication planning (CUE Haven, 2015b), and landscape designs.


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One outcome of extensive volunteering is word of mouth, a powerful tool of advocacy for this community. Altruistic collaboration is a feature that could be described as an outcome of its work: I want the [film] to actually show how people can come together and work to create something . . . This is really what’s happened . . . people who have never planted trees before have now come on out, and done something. We’ve planted over a hundred and twenty six thousand trees. It’s just unbelievable . . . but it’s not us, we have over 2000 volunteers . . . And that to me is the story, to say that people can come together and work . . . the taxpayers too, it’s the government – we’ve got funding from DOC and we’ve had funding from Auckland Council. Corporates are now giving their staff a day off, sending staff out. So this is to me, the message is that people can achieve something . . . if you all put aside your ego or whatever it is for a day, and your daily concerns (T. Stazyk, personal communication, 27 August 2014).

The tree planting is analogous in Stazyk’s mind with community building, a key message implicit in both their activities and communications. The Stazyks maintain a continuously updated website featuring links to TV stories and interviews, The Living Community story, a blog about it (CUE Haven, 2015a), another blog about subsequent work we completed there (CUE Haven, 2015b) and a variety of other content. Their Facebook page links to the website. This is all highly purposeful: We wanted to establish credibility, certainly for fundraising purposes . . . it’s also a way to celebrate achievements, and document the project’s history because with the council, they always tell us to take photographs of this and you have got to send it out. So this way we can just say, ‘look you have given us funding to plant trees, instead of sending you just six photographs you can see sixty photographs, just go check out the website’ (T. Stazyk, personal communication, 27 August 2014).

Their film is one element in a curated set of media artefacts to be leveraged, as evidence, and for legitimation. Social outcomes or impact can’t be attributed to any single thing: they are present across a widely dispersed network through word of mouth and media communication. They can be understood or evaluated however through the relational aspect of communities in action – communicating, in dialogue, telling stories, reviewing progress, inspiring one another – using the lens of social cohesion which is . . . defined either through individual level behaviours and attitudes such as volunteerism and participation, or through group level ‘conditions’ and outcomes such as evidence of supportive networks and social solidarity (Friedkin, 2004, p. 410).

Because it is thought cohesion is seen when ‘group-level conditions are producing positive membership attitudes and behaviours, and interpersonal interactions are operating to maintain these group-level conditions’ (Friedkin, 2004, p. 410), it may be inferred that differences of these kinds play a role in varied community media outcomes. Although CUE Haven is a broadly dispersed network, it’s arguably a highly cohesive entity. Media use is one tool driving this. ACA, a community arts collective, advocates for Avondale interests now that there is an Auckland ‘Supercity’ Council and the suburb has felt passed by in favour of others in the West where investment in transport infrastructure and urban renewal is highly visible. ACA represents strong local opinion that ‘things are degrading here in terms of services and community facilities’ (M. Ardern, personal communication, 15 September 2014). Prior to The Living Community, ACA had collaborated with Unitec researchers

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to conduct and analyse over 350 interviews with residents to find out what locals want in their community, shaping development priorities from the ground up. Results presented to the local board in a substantial report summarising community voice led to council funding for ACA arts events, and a creative arts hub in the main shopping street for people to exhibit and sell creative work (Dennett, 2013). These initiatives were felt by ACA to be a way to ‘make visible change’ (P.Woodruffe, personal communication, 15 September 2014) that would demonstrate real action to the locals. Elements of this story were brought together for The Living Community as a snapshot of ACA progress in 2014. More recently the group has progressed to urban planning (Corlett, 2016) in order ‘to equip residents with more language and ideas . . . so they can contribute to ongoing discussions around intensification and development in the area’ (Corlett, 2016). Like other groups, ACA used the film making opportunity to explain progress towards their aspirations, and it’s one piece of a much larger story, most of which they are writing themselves. Our work with The Pacifica Mamas (‘The Mamas’) took a different course. The Mamas are a collective of older Pacifica women, and their husbands, who share and promote the value of their island arts cultures. The film was more explicitly their creation than others in the series, appropriate for women trained in participatory video (Saifoloi, Papoutsaki, Harris, Williams, & Naqvi, 2016) and who found it difficult to bend to the ideas and practices of student film crews. Feedback part way through the process indicated a customised approach was required to achieve a meaningful outcome (Williams, 2016, pp. 58–59) and so students were not involved. The Mamas were highly motivated to complete this piece, their own creation, as part of their self-determined plan of work to raise awareness about their activities and their commitment to passing on knowledge and skills to the younger generation so cultures are preserved. Mary Ama, matriarch and founder of the group, often talks of ‘digital transmission’ (M. Ama, personal communication, 12 November 2015), a phrase she uses to describe a vision of using digital technologies to communicate their aspirations and legacy. Their film was made for screening at an October 2015 Creative NZ Heritage Arts Fono (symposium) at the Auckland Museum, where the audience included potential funders among other stakeholders and influencers. As with previous stories, the film is a snapshot of the group’s achievements and story to date – their impact – with the potential to attract support and resources. Subsequently the story, shared on The Coconet TV (Clarke, 2015), is a planned part of that conception – portraying identity, hinting at their vast cultural knowledge, and describing their work in the community – for use in engaging wider audiences. More than a War tells of a transmedia storytelling project involving a community of interest rather than a community of place. Historical significance inherent in the centenary year of the start of World War 1 was leveraged to bring the older generation and young people (students) together through storytelling. Students created story worlds and fictional accounts as well as interviewing grandparents and others in order to create an interactive public exhibition, video interviews, a project website, and much more. With multiple engaging artefacts on display at a well-attended exhibition, a wide audience was reached and will continue to be as a permanent part of Auckland Libraries’ accessible archive commemorating the centenary of the start of World War 1.


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Discussion Community media initiatives express social solidarity in search of a voice, inspired by a vision for collective action. They take place amid local issues, are negotiated among relationships, diverse motivations, and varied expressions of commitment and cohesion, may change shape as they go along, or have constrained resources. These factors must be taken into account, because broadly evaluative community research ‘tend[s] to be conducted within messy and chaotic real-world settings’ (O’Leary, 2014, p. 163). In practice, in 2014, we worked in seven complex contexts. Each group’s agenda was discussed at stakeholder meetings including community leaders, a production manager, and several researchers who had existing relationships with the communities. Their motivations can generally be summarised as being to raise awareness of organisational activities through creating a digital story as a means of communicating via broadcast, and as shareable website and social media content. As the stories took shape it became apparent that they wanted to capture a story about the impact they had already had in driving change, to place it on record, to demonstrate the value of their ongoing work, and convince others to support it. In a sense they sought proof of legitimacy to stakeholders and wider audiences that their activities have value. One key feature was that the communities did not prioritise evaluation of social impact of their media product, and nor did the funding institution. Other project motivations beyond those of the communities were for the project to involve community members as participants in the creative process, and to enable students to learn ‘on the job’. Indeed the number of objectives in such a project requires an ability to think from multiple perspectives. How can social impact research encompass the outcomes of all of this? Some straightforward methods are available if we take a business-like approach: project goals are measurable within the logic of a funding organisation’s ‘accountability demands’ (Epstein & Yuthas, p 20) or KPIs. These can be readily satisfied with information such as the final project budget, student course completions, research reports, articles. Then, as discussed earlier in the paper in relation to the time frame for measuring outcomes, a distinction can be drawn between short-term effects and longer-term effectiveness. Communities’ shorter-term awareness raising goals can be assessed using post-event audience research for each setting including but not limited to broadcast viewer numbers, social media analytics, and qualitative methods, depending on target audiences. The more diffuse intentions or aspirations of community media are challenging to measure. Social impact, described as ‘the new bottom line for the social sector’ (Epstein & Yuthas, 2014, p. 22), arises from and must be understood within unique social contexts where a variety of objectives, motivations, issues, and accountabilities exist, and in which customised evaluation protocols may therefore become inevitable. Diversity of motivations that makes evaluation complex is one thing; diversity inherent in the process is another. Media production collaborators with a range of objectives engage in a process through which participants ‘actively construct and reconstruct knowledge out of their experiences in the world’ (Kafai & Resnick, 1996, p. 2). As a research orientation, the assumption that reality is created by people’s beliefs and interactions (Neuman, 2003, ch. 3) is highlighted here. In the 2014 co-creative process for The Living Community, ideas and content were constructed around two kinds of artefact, the media constructions that were in turn about other artefacts (such as a creative arts hub, an arts installation, a digital studio, a native forest reserve, and others). This criss-crossing and layering of media construction

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process and product is resistant to measurement in a formal sense. It needs to take account of ‘multiple representations of knowledge’ (Kafai & Resnick, 1996, p. 3) situated in contexts involving shared constructions (Shaw, 1996) of the products and outcomes of the community’s purpose. The impact of complex community media ‘social relations and social activities that become shared outcomes and artefacts’ (Shaw, 1996, p. 177) involving varied motivations, processes, and stakeholder groups, altogether comprise a broad scope for measurement. The complex can be made simple if we focus on the requirements of funding bodies, which may determine certain kinds of evidence are sought. However prescriptive efforts to measure these may be at odds with the more subtle changes a community is content to pursue. Such a risk may be mitigated if due care is taken to develop a fully shared agenda among collaborators, bearing in mind that ‘what is of value will be very different for different people in different situations and cultures’ (Nicholls et al., 2012, p. 7). Community groups may have longer-term goals, generally somewhat up for negotiation (such as shaping the identity and narrative about their organisation) that are not in the measurement frame for the funder. Something more than audience research is required, and a frame of reference that goes beyond the short term. Taking the long view has a range of benefits, a key one being that media content expressing organisational identity can act as a catalyst, boosting existing achievements, and ongoing impetus through generating dialogue and creating visibility. This concept of catalysing both suggests and aligns with a cyclical, longitudinal, iterative understanding of community media impact, similar to that in social change literature: The model describes a dynamic, iterative process that starts with a ‘catalyst/stimulus’ that can be external or internal to the community. This catalyst leads to dialogue within the community that when effective, leads to collective action and the resolution of a common problem (Figueroa et al., 2002, p. 6).

In communication for social change (CFSC), ‘the process of CFSC is a “product” in and of itself’ (Parks et al., 2005, p. 4), implying measurement is not necessarily of as much interest as being involved in a shared initiative. Importantly, the dialogic process is beneficial because people ‘have already effected positive outcomes . . . how to think critically at a group level, [working] together to identify problems and to come up with solutions’ (Figueroa et al., 2002, p. i). The urge to tell the story of impact they’ve already created characterises community organisations as being in a stage of collective action that they are trying to leverage for social change (Figueroa et al., 2002, p. 7). The process of media cocreation, rather than being an end in itself, is a moment in the group’s narrative that can catalyse the ongoing process of mobilisation. The catalyst model of community change (Figueroa et al., 2002) founded on a long-term relational and cyclical understanding of impact helps inform the challenges highlighted in this paper. In practice, outputs of the 2014 project were intended by the groups as records of achievements to date, yet they also played a role as catalysts. In the 18 months since The Living Community was broadcast, in most cases the community groups have an evolved sense of purpose (CUE Haven, 2015b), a more determined mobilisation towards specific goals (Corlett, 2016), or made progress towards a planned-for objective (Violence Free Communities, 2016). The catalyst model, being longitudinal, also allows for unforeseen impact, such as new developments arising from the successes of the original work (CUE Haven, 2015b). Each group would consider, not so much from ‘impact measurement’


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relating to a digital artefact but from the stimulus it provided for continued dialogue and planning, that they have achieved against their social change agendas. A ‘social impact creation cycle’ (Epstein & Yuthas, 2014) or a community media activity ‘map’ (Sobers, 2010) also hold useful insights as they provide a way forward for communities, researchers, and those in policy and funding domains to track investment outcomes. A long view of impact requires an iterative evaluation process which is selfrenewing. In the field of CFSC it is said that there cannot be ‘a one-time activity . . . characterized merely by a series of inputs; it is a continuous process’ (Figueroa et al., 2002, p. i). A cyclical methodology is essential. Mapping community media outcomes If initiating change is a priority for community organisations, it’s imperative to ‘define what success means to you, and figure out how you’ll know when you’ve achieved it’ (Epstein & Yuthas, 2014, p. 3). Communication researchers increasingly embrace different ways of doing this, some intuitive and others scientific: in fact ‘there are many ways to use both logic and other forms of intelligence and evidence to evaluate and prove the impacts you are making’ (Epstein & Yuthas, 2014, p. 5). Classic problem solving models recognise that problems can’t be solved in a linear way, need to be managed over time and require continuous review. John Dewey’s early twentieth century six-step technique is an example (Barkley, Cross, & Major, 2005) that became highly influential from the late 1980’s in business models such as Total Quality Management. Continuous review is also inherent in a Social Impact Creation Cycle (Epstein & Yuthas, p. 6) which recommends a five-step iterative cycle of essential questions about social impact. What will you invest? What problem will you address? What steps will you take? How will you measure success? How can you increase impact? Yet because it begins pragmatically with available resources (‘what will you invest?’), the orientation of this model around budgetary accountabilities may be unappealing, challenging, or limiting for some organisations. However it can facilitate the opportunity for community members to own, or be influential in, evaluation. Effective community media research makes the community a partner, facilitating its ownership of issues, objectives, and self-determination. A cyclical approach in which a community makes use of findings for the future in ways that make sense for its members (Parks et al., 2005) so that their ‘capacity for collective action’ (Figueroa et al., 2002, p. 30) is strengthened, is ideal. The community group then owns decisions on whether evaluation should continue (Parks et al., 2005, p. 20) and in what form. Table 1 below, proposing a resolution of these challenges, draws on principles of bottom-up ownership and cyclical evidence based planning, including that of Public Relations (PR) (Gregory, 2010). It implies the question ‘who uses the model for evaluation and for what purposes?’ (Figueroa et al., 2002, p. iv) is considered carefully and answered at the inception of a community media initiative. Used in this way, it would generate the dialogue required (Figueroa et al., 2002, p. 6) for shared community media objectives that intersect with broader community building objectives, and for a range of data to be systematically gathered and shared among stakeholders to inform future plans.

What role has been played by community media in the broader social context, and how can this be enhanced? What contribution has been made to social cohesion through e.g. events, participation, mobilisation, volunteering, mutual support, engagement between organisations and people… In the wider context, stakeholders collaborate so that • Evaluation is planned to address related initiatives • Evidence is treated as part of an iterative process as in the action research cycle • The planning and evaluation process is monitored and modified for future iterations (Nicholls et al., 2012, p. 9) • Reporting is shared… A range of options include • Initiatives implemented in conjunction with Trusts or other agencies that have a broad community remit • Planned evaluation as a collaborative venture across stakeholders.

Seek: • An integrated view across relevant groups, agencies and objectives • Collaboration • Key stakeholders engaged in assessing outcomes and reviewing forward plans in partnership.

In what ways can inter-group/ agency collaboration be harnessed so that • Community media reflects and contributes to wider community priorities • Agreed social outcomes / value in conjunction with key stakeholders are established through forecasting and planning.

What characterises the broader social setting? In what way does the organisation fit, contribute, collaborate? Consider issues, inter-related interests: education, business, social agencies, local bodies, city council, NFP associations and initiatives, communication ecosystem.

Specific questions and the scope of considerations shown above are suggestions, not an exhaustive checklist, and need to be adapted case by case. The three horizontal layers can be thought of as porous, in a flexible framework that prompts reflection on a relevant scope of planning and measurement for each unique setting.

How do the outcomes compare with objectives? • Project owner/s, community group members meet for selfevaluation • Workshop or focus group • Report on outcomes for group to own and carry forward • Review plans… Who will monitor and gather information, by what methods? • Consider project ownership • Expertise, training • Ethical communication and research practice • Consider ways for different perspectives to inform evaluation…

How can the community act to meet objectives? Resources? • Community is key to planning and production • Community participants are directly involved • Planned responsibilities • Seek expertise through collaborators…

How are agreed media objectives best approached? • Community owns the process using consensus • Collaborate, co-create • Partner with like-minded agencies • Act in a collective way • Align community media to group’s vision and purpose…

What more can be achieved? • Authentic representation • Self-managed communication • Wider awareness • Word of mouth, expanded networks • Increased online engagement…

How is the group represented currently? • Research the group’s existing media presence, content, practices • Identify relevant communities of interest (audiences) • Assess gaps • Assess audience preferences and behaviours…

STEP 6 Outcomes → #1 What are our actual results? Who was involved? Who did we reach? What now? What didn’t work? What was missing? • Stakeholder review of progress in relation to objectives • Forward planning: what needs to be reviewed? What have we learned?

How will we track / monitor planned activities? • Social media insights • Can we do it ourselves? • Participant / audience surveys • Focus groups • Feedback from relevant stakeholders…

STEP 5 Measurement

How can we put these strategies into action? • Draw up a written plan linking objectives with specific tools • Consult widely • Agree on what success will look like Link media activity to operational plans • Audience/s? - broadcast, social sharing, curation…

STEP 4 Tactical planning

How will our agreed communication priorities be approached? • Sponsorship or funding options • Advocacy • Collaboration • Partnership for co-creation • Leveraging internal resources and networks e.g. people, skills…

What is our shared vision, how does it relate to our situation, and what is needed to communicate it? Do we prioritise… • Awareness/visibility • Member participation in media content production • Partnering with other community activity • Widening our reach…

Who are we as a ‘group’ – how do we define ourselves? Do we have issues we want to address, problems to solve? Consider people, purpose, aspirations, visibility, identity, stakeholders most affected & their needs and interests, strategic priorities, existing communication practices, products, a SWOT analysis…

STEP 3 Strategies

STEP 2 Objectives

STEP 1 Situation analysis

Table 1. Mapping community media social impact.

COMMUNITY CONTEXT Participant perspective

MEDIA CONTEXT Audience perspective

SOCIAL CONTEXT Social good / cohesion perspective

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The project ‘owner’, organisation, evaluator, or a partnership would begin with a situation analysis (step 1) using one or all three levels. Subsequent steps two to six develop a planning logic, so that measurement relates coherently to agreed objectives, and the six steps function as a continuous loop, generating an ongoing narrative that can guide more robustly informed progress on aspirations. This was seen in practice in The Living Community: ACA, which with collaboration and guidance from Unitec researchers over recent years has been conducting its own research. The concept of social return on investment (SROI) (Nicholls et al., 2012) could be more overtly integrated if required. Whoever is considered to be ‘owner’ of a community media initiative could use this more specific accounting for impact, going beyond Table 1 with detailed steps such as assigning a dollar value for ‘non-monetized inputs’ (Nicholls et al., 2012, p. 31) like volunteer time, goods, and services. However a significant challenge in using this auditing approach is that to maintain a long-term focus and coherence, either the same person or people would need to have a clear oversight and commitment to a shared understanding of strategy so that goals and objectives are not lost. Alternatively careful reporting would be needed, to leave a trail for others to ‘own’ the investment story over time. Yet as Nicholls and colleagues (2012) point out, none of this is going to be useful if ‘stakeholders are not interested in the results’ (p. 11). Detailed planning frameworks can’t be imposed; a community needs to be ready to take on the challenge of measurement because ‘resourcing evaluation and impact measurement can be a significant burden . . . effectively undermining the utility of undertaking this work’ (Barraket & Yousefpour, 2013, p. 456). On top of that, ‘all research is political, but none more so than evaluative research . . . vested interests are everywhere and the pressure for researchers to find “success” can be high’ (O’Leary, 2014, p. 161). Again, a tool similar to Table 1 would offer the opportunity for broad dialogue and buy-in that would mitigate this risk. The broad mapping approach proposed here suggests there are layers of planning and analysis informed by different perspectives. Concerns, interests, and perspectives of community groups themselves, those of audiences with which the groups want more engagement, and those whose interests relate broadly to social good or social cohesion, are considered together. Given media ubiquity, evaluation of any layer is arguably contingent on the others. O’Leary (2014) also identifies three perspectives in her overview of evaluation as a methodology where change-oriented community objectives prevail (chapter 9). She suggests a framework incorporating the provider perspective, the recipient perspective, and the ‘wider’ perspective (p. 159) from which the evaluator will need to make decisions about whether some or all need to be taken into account. Similarly Figueroa et al. (2002, p. iv) take the view that evaluation can be undertaken by one of three groups – the community wanting to know ‘how well their effort has achieved the objectives they set for themselves’ (Figueroa et al., 2002), external agents reporting community performance to funders, or social scientists conducting research ‘to share with practitioners as well as other scholars’ (Figueroa et al., 2002). These groups will have different goals, preferences for what is collected, and how evaluation is reported. Key messages from these models are that owners of an initiative must decide whose perspective/s are to be explored, by what methods and over what contextual scope. The map of questions, indicators, and methods in Table 1 is likewise intended to be customised and negotiated according to context. Should such a comprehensive

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mapping be undertaken, ‘you need to determine which outcome objectives are to be explored and whose perspectives you seek. Your methods will then vary accordingly’ (O’Leary, 2014, p. 159).

Conclusions While this Special Issue’s broad definition of social impact is direct social outcomes for particular groups, it’s helpful to think of impact as the ‘longer-term and broader effectiveness of organisational or policy action’ (Barraket & Yousefpour, 2013, p. 448), while ‘evaluation is typically associated with the process and medium-term effects of particular organisational interventions’ (Barraket & Yousefpour, 2013). Thus, depending on the preferred focus, short to medium or long term, and whether we are interested in effects or effectiveness (or both), different approaches to measurement can be taken. Arguably, effects are more specific and measurable; effectiveness is relative, and understood over time. These kinds of distinctions need to be explored, leading to questions such as: are we evaluating this specific event or campaign, now, or reviewing our progress towards strategic goals on an annual basis, with room for rethinking? Do we intend to do both? If community media impact occurs over a longer time period in a broad context, then a variety of organisational outputs (Epstein & Yuthas, 2014) including media content, events, artefacts, relationships, and interactions can be considered relevant to assessment of that impact. Such evaluation should take a reflective stance – how successful was the process in meeting organisational objectives, and how might it be improved? What further information might be required? Table 1 implicitly asks for an iterative process of planning and review of impact over time using different perspectives. For the purposes of encompassing complex community media collaboration, research that ‘attempts to determine the value of . . . an initiative’s consequences as well as opportunities for modification and improvement’ (O’Leary, 2014, p. 158) is recommended. Objectives are agreed and embedded early, because ‘rather than be defined by any particular methods, an evaluative study is distinguished by its evaluative goals’ (O’Leary, 2014) that then determine the overall approach. Options include outcome evaluation, which aims to ‘provide data related to the effectiveness of the change strategy in question (that goals, aims, and objectives have been met) and its efficiency (that the effects justify the costs)’ (O’Leary, 2014), or process evaluation. The latter is more concerned with ‘aid[ing] further development of a particular change initiative’ (O’Leary, 2014, p. 160). Above all, meta-level research that customises collection, collation, and analysis of evidence relevant to a community organisation’s objectives is likely to more effectively account for not only process and medium-term effects – or ‘consequences’ (O’Leary, 2014, p. 158) – but also impact over time through the layers of context. It accommodates multiple varied stakeholder objectives: one or more of them may have priority, or not. In the 2014 project, the process of creating media content played a part in boosting the sense of confident identity of the groups. Parks and colleagues (2005) argue the importance of this process in CFSC as ‘help[ing] individuals and communities build a stronger capacity to communicate in person, through the arts or using media’ (p. 4). Participation in shaping content, resolving issues, and being in dialogue has benefit


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for group cohesion. Using a map to guide evaluation of social impact elevates grass roots participants’ voices, however time consuming this may be. This is important because Learning to change involves learning from change. Participatory monitoring and evaluation literature advocates that learning from change involves changing who learns . . . [therefore we should] think more carefully about who should measure change (Parks et al., 2005, p. 20).

When community media are utilised as part of broad social change agendas, sustainable progress towards their achievement is enhanced by processes enabling ‘self-renewal’ (Epstein & Yuthas, 2014, p. 119) that may manifest itself in a wide variety of ways when grass roots organisations are ‘able to manage their own communication processes for their own good’ (Epstein & Yuthas, 2014) and members are closely engaged in evaluation.

Disclosure statement No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Funding This work was supported by a Unitec Faculty of Creative Industries and Business Research and Supervision Committee grant under 2014: [Grant Number RI14030] and 2015: [Grant Number RI15014].

Notes on contributor Jocelyn Williams is an associate professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Unitec Institute of Technology where she teaches, supervises interns, and leads stakeholder engagement and communication planning projects that straddle research and practice.

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