“Coming Together” around Two Towns of Jasper

Partially funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting

Understanding Outreach

• Do outreach events have an impact the communities that public television serves?

• Do these efforts have an effect on attitudes and actions beyond viewing public television programming?

Coming Together

• WPT and NCO sponsored a major outreach effort around Two Towns of Jasper

• WPT Hosted “Coming Together,” a special preview screening of the P.O.V. documentary

Coming Together

• Followed by a facilitated discussion about race and diversity issues in the community

• Over 300 participants (over-representation of members of minority groups)

Event Participants• Invitations

– 3100 mailed

• Advertisements– Both dailies and alternative weeklies

• Recruited through Partners– Coordinator visits, listserv e-mails,

event posters

Local Partnerships• Core of diversity and justice organizations

• Asian Freedom Project• Boys & Girls Club of Dane County• Centro Hispano• Equal Opportunities Commission• NAACP of Madison• First Unitarian Society Social Justice

Council• University of Wisconsin-Extension • YWCA-Racial Justice Initiative

Tracing Effects of Outreach

• Isolating effects of outreach is difficult

• Conduct a quasi-experimental study

Problem Response

Tracing Effects of Outreach

• Those who self-select involvement are different from those who do not

• Take similar subsets of people and invite different types of involvement

Problem Response

Tracing Effects of Outreach

• Observed differences may be due to pre-existing differences, not outreach

• Statistically control for remaining differences to isolate outreach effects

Problem Response

A Model for Evaluation

• Conducted a survey of randomly selected WPT members

– with a giving pattern of less than $500

• Mailed survey to all selected WPT members as well as participants from local partner organizations

A Model for Evaluation

• Event Participants (Saw program followed by discussion)

• Home Viewers (Saw program at home, possibly other content)

• Outreach Users (Online or Allied content, but not the program)

• Unexposed to Two Towns (No exposure to any content)

Survey Respondents

• Nearly 30% of the sample completed the survey, resulting in 925 responses

– Over-representation of minorities compared to population of 5% inMadison area

Survey Respondents

• Allows us to profile event participants, home viewers, content consumers, and the unexposed to gauge group differences– Does outreach reach the

underserved?

Profile of Event Participants(Saw program followed by discussion)

Profile of Racial Insensitivity

Unexposed to Two Towns….. 9.4%

Outreach Media Users…………. 3.1%

Home Viewers………………………. 10.5%

Event Participation………………. 30.4%

Profile of Past Discussion

Unexposed to Two Towns….. -4.3%

Outreach Media Users…………. 3.0%

Home Viewers………………………. 3.4%

Event Participation………………. 8.3%

Profile of Past Community Participation

Unexposed to Two Towns….. -6.8%

Outreach Media Users…………. 2.8%

Home Viewers………………………. -1.8%

Event Participation………………. 32.8%

Profile of Past WPT Involvement

Unexposed to Two Towns….. -5.7%

Outreach Media Users…………. 1.5%

Home Viewers………………………. -5.0%

Event Participation………………. 35.3%

Participant Profile

• Event participants differed from home viewers, outreach consumers, and the unexposed

– More likely to be women, younger, less affluent, nonwhite, and nonmembers than others surveyed

– Significantly more liberal, racially sensitive, talkative about politics, and active in community

Participant Profile

• Outreach appears to serve the underserved

• May further activate the previously engaged

Untangling Effects

• As expected, recruitment strategies and self-selection produced substantial differences

• Differences observed between conditions have to account for self-selection into that experience– Statistical analysis controls for pre-existing

traits when examining differences between conditions

Media Reflection

Community Racism Evaluation

Self-Efficacy

Estimating Change• Must control for past behaviors to

estimate whether outreach efforts produce effects on community and public television engagement

– When parallel past behaviors are controlled, observed differences likely due to the intervention

• Produce an estimate of behavioral change

– Much more conservative test of effects

Future Discussion

Future Community Participation

Future WPT Involvement

Community Engagement

• Event participation has powerful effects on issue discussion, community participation, and station involvement– Well above the sample mean for issue

discussion (25% above), civic action (48% above), and station involvement (81% above)

– Controls for past behavior and other factors

Community Engagement

• Outreach events make member stations

the community convener; spark political talk, civic action, and further station involvement

Process of Outreach Effects

Program and Allied

Content

Outreach Event

CommunityPerceptions

News Judgments

EfficacyCommunityEngagement

Effects of Outreach

• Results suggest multiple effects

– Foster Civic Attitudes: Personal Efficacy

– Shape Social Perceptions - News Content, Community Racism

– Encourage Community Engagement - Discussion and Action

Effects of Outreach

• Effects on community perceptions and civic engagement are the most compelling– Outreach puts a local perspective on larger

problems and provides opportunities to get involved in community life, either through the station or independently.