On ‘New Engagement’

At a presentation yesterday part of Texas State’s Mass Communication Week, Trei Brundrett (@clockwerks) of Vox Media spoke to students on a wide variety of topics related to journalism.

Although his content touched-on material as diverse as platform development, the creative process, and even ethics in journalism- a clear thread unified his material: a priority and emphasis on community engagement.

“Understand that journalism is about starting conversations,” Brundrett said, underscoring the deliberate relationship between journalists and their audiences. He returned to this point several times throughout the lecture, encouraging students to remember that ‘online community’ means more than a simple comment field on a website.

When asked by a student how his company manages to engage online audiences, Brundrett said, “it’s about taking community development seriously and empowering voices.” He then went on to describe a system in which users develop and promote original content, rate work, and self-moderate potentially harmful material.

Brundrett also invited students to think strategically about the greater journalistic process. In discussing his experiences with Vox Media, he relayed how content is occasionally published at calculated times to fulfill specific search needs. Brundett’s lecture at TEDxGeorgetown also spoke to the effect of “feeding the beast,” and how his company is working to meet the high frequency demands of online media.

Turning to the production process, Brundrett talked about how Vox Media considers the delivery of their material on the larger distribution network of the web. By intentionally crafting content to display across a wide variety of [third party] platforms, they hope to maintain a high quality of work both on the site itself, and whenever the material is shared.

At a time when data on the web is ubiquitous, Brundrett has made clear the journalist’s mantra: let’s keep the users in-mind.