Paige, Mikael, Alexandra, Chandler

ENC 3331

Dr. Rios

Civic Engagement Proposal

Introduction

Change doesn't happen unless people first become aware of an issue. Now more than

ever, it is easier to disseminate information across distances with the power of technology and

the Internet. Recent social movements, from Kony 2012, to transgender rights, to farm labor

awareness, have gained momentum through the communicative affordability of online digital

spaces. This is one such movement.

"Save our Glades" is a civic engagement proposal whose focus is the current state of the

Florida Everglades. SOG seeks to only to raise awareness of the environmental damage, habitat

destruction, and wildlife endangerment visited upon the Everglades by human activity. Our

ultimate end goal is to reach out to Florida citizens, as well as anyone who's willing to listen, via

the power of social media.

Models of Civic Engagement: Education

This proposal will attempt to educate

readers on three main issues that are harming

the everglades: first being water pollution

and fracking, conservation of wild animals,

and overdevelopment. Fracking is a process

of extreme drilling by oil and gas companies

Photo by Ant Fire

in hopes to reach a discovery of new oil or natural gas. This process is very destructive to the

waters as it creates a toxic mass of water, sand, and chemicals (Kaucheck). This not only is

harmful to the wildlife living in and around the water of the Everglades, but it is also polluting

the water that we drink.

Another major concern with the Everglades is the conservation of the native animals. The

Florida panther population continues to drop as they lose more and more of their natural habitat

in the Everglades. There are now less than one hundred of this species in the wild. Manatees are

also harmed by the water pollution, trash, and propellers in the waterways from boaters and

visitors.

Development has also become a major issue in the everglades. Because of the new

housing developments, invasive species are now in peoples back yards that once used to inhabit

the wild. Last year, one neighborhood

complained to the wildlife association that

iguanas were invading peoples houses and

even in their pools (Evergladescisma.org).

Native alligators have also become an

invasive animal due to development on the

canals. They wander into backyards when

they come out of the water of what used to

be their banks, and are being killed or

relocated by authorities. In order to raise awareness of these issues, we seek to inform specific

sets of people.

Barbara P. Fernandez for the New York Times

Our primary audience would be Florida residents who may not be aware of the pollution

and mistreatment of the Everglades. This proposal would work to educate them and provide a

background that would urge everyone to make serious conservation efforts for the betterment of

this endangered land. For a secondary audience, this proposal will connect to conservation

activists to garner their support of our social media campaign. This project will use an Instagram

campaign to spread awareness of the harmful effects of development and the destruction of this

specific environment. The Instagram campaign will utilize visual rhetoric to show how the

Everglades have been affected by urbanization that's hurting the water and wildlife. Luckily,

there is still time to reverse this destruction. This proposal sets to put it in motion.

Scopes and Limitations

As we said before, our SOG Instagram campaign will use pictures to grab peoples

attention and educate them of the dangers the Everglades are facing. Because we live in a

technology-based age, it will not be difficult to get the word out. An example of an online

campaign similar to this is the website, Humans of New York. One story in particular is that of

Vidal Chastanet, a middle school student in Brooklyn. The story he told photographer Brandon

Stanton about his principal went viral and ended up earning his school $1 million. It even took

him to the White House to meet the president (Grinberg). As potentially successful as this

campaign might seem, it is not the first time people have tried to raise awareness about similar

issues. Even UCF has done its part in raising awareness of pollution in our water systems. Earlier

this month, volunteers filled the UCF Reflection Pond with 250,000 plastic water bottles

(Busdeker) to visually and dramatically demonstrate the sheer physical mass of our waste.

This campaign will be limited to Instagram, and while this may limit the number of

people we are able to reach (non-Instagram users), we intend to influence as many as we

possibly can. It is hard to give an exact number, but as of 2014, there are 300 million active users

on Instagram (Systrom). Our hope is to reach as many of Florida Instagram users as we can. In

fact, another one of our goals is to promote ecotourism, the idea being that if the Everglades

become a popular tourist destination, then it is more likely that the government will take action

against its destruction and fight to preserve it for as long as naturally possible.

For now, our only goal is to raise awareness of the situation and encourage people to

speak out about it. We are not trying to introduce new legislation, or affect existing ones, we

simply want to combat ignorance, which is why this project is focused on the idea that if more

people really appreciated the natural environments and wildlife Florida has to offer, they would

be more inclined to protect it. How they choose to approach that is entirely up to them, although

an example would be recycling waste products.

Thanks to our online platform approach, we dont require a budget. It doesnt cost

anything to either take our own pictures and upload them to the website or to find existing ones

that help promote our cause, hence we have very minimal budget concerns.

Plan of Action

It is our philosophy that civic action starts with awareness. Instagram profiles on different

aspects of the Everglades' ecology can guide our SOG to means of action, whether through

political action, non-profit support, or behavior change. The multimodal nature of Instagram

allows for the utilization of both visual and textual rhetoricsa combination that lends itself well

to constructing narratives that entices an audience.

The beauty of the Save Our Glades

initiative is that it operates on a social media

platform that requires no monetary investment

or organizational infrastructure to be successful.

Given the limited material resources and time

constraints of this project, it is the most realistic

approach to attracting a wide audience. There is

no cost required for individual citizens to

participate in the SOG initiative. Sixty-four

percent of Americans have smart phones (Pew

Internet Research), and with millions of users on the Instagram app, social media serves as a

valuable tool for raising awareness. The multimodal nature of Instagram allows for the

construction of compelling visual narratives.

As college students living in Central Florida, this platform requires a feasible amount of

dedication on our parts. Audience members can enter their own voices into the conversation by

uploading and tagging their own submissions with the hashtag #saveourglades. Regular updates

of the SOG Instagram page will require a time investment on behalf of administrators. A daily

update is a reasonable expectation, at least in the projects early stages. Each new update will

post a photo pertinent to Everglades ecology (with credits given to photographers) and a short,

relevant anecdote. This task, coupled with exploring other users posts tagged with

#saveourglades, can be expected to require a daily time commitment of 60 to 90 minutes from an

administrator. Different responsibilities of page maintenance could be delegated among group

members as an alternative approach, which would call for a daily commitment on behalf of all

Larger picture on page 7

members rather than a rotating schedule. With this strategy each member could be expected to

spend 15 to 22.5 minutes, either by doing research, exploring tagged posts, posting updates,

editing photos, or handling correspondences.

After all is said and done, the goal of SOG is to foster connectedness between Floridians

and the Everglades. This is an organic process, which cannot be forced. Instead, a strategic

approach to social media improves its odds of success. Part of this involves utilizing relevant

hashtags so that Instagram users will be directed to our page from a variety of sources. Social

networking is crucial to outreach if SOG hopes to gain an online presence. The majority of social

media users prefer Instagram to Facebook, engaging with posts on the app at a rate 18 times that

of interactions on Facebook. In this way, it serves as the appropriate platform for reaching broad

demographics (Goel, "It's Official: Instagram is Bigger than Twitter"). Reposting Instagram

content to a similarly named Tumblr account, like the Humans of New York website does on its

Tumblr account, serves to reach an even broader audience by allowing users to repost and share

multimodal texts across different online spaces. As the project progresses, our Tumblr blog can

become a website domain that streamlines the mission, content, and resources presented on the

SOG instagram account. By casting a large net, it helps the chances of reaching our target

audience of civically engaged Floridians. Ultimately, these efforts would help to strengthen ties

between citizens and the environment. The multimodal narrative of SOG cultivates a connection

to nature through social media that may be the first news some people get of the state of the

Everglades. Floridians who interact with the Everglades, even virtually, are more likely to

appreciate the importance of supporting conservation efforts.

Concluding remarks

Civic engagement is the big picture here. We want to inform people first as we guide them to

ways of acting on their own or joining pre-established efforts. There's a lot to be done about the

Everglades. We believe that just because most of us may not live near these natural habitats,

doesn't mean we should be ignorant of them. We owe our responsibility to the soil, waters, and

animals of Florida. It's time our fellow Floridians get with the program.

Works Cited

Ant, Fire. Fracking the Everglades. Broward Palm Beach. Broward Palm Beach Times. 9 July

2014. Web. 23 April 2015.

Busdeker, Jon. "More than 200K Plastic Bottles Dumped in UCF Reflecting Pond."

OrlandoSentinel.com. Orlando Sentinel, 8 Apr. 2015. Web. 23 Apr. 2015.

Everglades Invasive Reptiles. Evergladescisma.org. (n.d.) April 26, 2015.

Goel, Vindu. It's Official: Instagram Is Bigger Than Twitter. Bits.Blogs. New York Times. 10

Dec, 2014. Web. 23 April 2015.

Goodnough, Abby. Effort to Save Everglades Falters as Funds Drop. NYTimes.com. New York

Times. 2 Nov, 2007. Web. 23 April 2015.

Grinberg, Emanuella. "Boy Featured in 'Humans of New York' Meets Obama - CNN.com."

CNN. Cable News Network, 6 Feb. 2015. Web. 23 Apr. 2015.

Kaucheck, L. "Fracking around the Everglades." PSR.org. Physicians for Social Responsibility,

5 Aug. 2013. Web. 26 April 2015.

Smith, Aaron. U.S. Smartphone Use in 2015. Pew Research Center. 1 April 2015. Web. 23

April 2015.

Systrom, Kevin. "300 Million: Sharing Real Moments." Blog.Instagram. Instagram, inc., n.d.

Web. 23 April 2015.