Digital AdvocacyWebinar Series

A Connected Center:Bringing Communities Online

Our panelists: Matthew Fluharty, Executive DirectorThe Art of the Rural

Rita O’Connell, Taos Health SystemsJoyce Hospodar, University of Arizona Center for Rural Health

Southwest Rural Policy Network

Our moderator: Marty Newell, Center for Rural Strategies

Funding from

July 31, 2013 2:00pm ET

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The Rural Arts and Culture MapMatthew Fluharty: Executive Director, Art of the Rural

Rachel Beth Rudi and Savannah Barrett, Project Contributors

The Rural Arts and Culture Map: Collaborators

Mission: to create a map that becomes a manifestation of direct, local experience; a digital tool that transcends itself; a meeting point for conversation and shared ground; and a foundation through which to unite and motivate rural citizens across the country.

Place-Based Digital StorytellingAcross Disciplines, Sectors, and Regions

Our Collaborators:Artists, Citizens, & PolicymakersLocal CommunitiesRegional OrganizationsUniversity Departments and ProgramsState and National Entities

We believe digital media can collapse the geographical distance that has long separated rural people from themselves and their urban partners…

…but that such technology must work to bridge human relationships through events, programs, publications, and the creation of collaborative communities.

What’s Next?

• Further collaboration and engagement online and on the ground

• Expand the network across rural and urban lines

• Launch new site for the project and Art of the Rural in August of 2013

• Develop a toolkit for community engagement

• Partner with state and national entities to enhance rural networks and expand the potential for storytelling and collaboration

• Continue discussion and inquiry into the evolving nature of the project

• Are we building a narrative atlas? Has this project become The Atlas of Rural Arts and Culture? Will that idea better serve rural people, rural arts, and rural policy?

Imagine an atlas with a structure ordered to tell a story greater than those told by each individual map, an atlas with something more clearly on its mind than keeping the maps off the floor. There are terrific examples of narrative atlases, self-consciously narrative...This effectively and immediately removes the maps from the class of reference works and encourages reading the maps as links in a chain of argument…It soon becomes apparent that the plates build on each other, that the divisions of the atlas have a rhetorical—not arbitrary–basis, that the notes are vital to any deep understanding of the maps.

- Denis Wood, Everything Sings: Maps for a Narrative Atlas

Joyce Hospodar University of Arizona Center for Rural Health (Phoenix, AZ)

Rita O’ConnellTaos Health Systems (Taos, NM)

Project Goals: Southwest Rural Digital Community Center

• To inform, educate, connect, and support organizations, advocates, and people in our communities.

• Primary Site Features:• Community Forum• Story Center• News Feed/Action Alerts• Resource Directory/Information Portal• Policy Area “Homes” • Calendar

Current Problems/Concerns

• Too many existing platforms of this type; people don’t have time to visit another one

• How to be non-redundant – a vital resource?

• How to self-populate content?

• Changes in Network resulted in stalling out of advocacy/content work. Currently re-strategizing.

For more information

The Rural Arts and Culture Map: http://placestories.com/community/RuralArtsAndCulture

The Art of the Rural: http://theruralsite.blogspot.com

Southwest Rural Policy Network: http://southwestruralpolicynetwork.org/

Digital AdvocacyWebinar Series

A Connected Center:Bringing Communities Online

Continue the conversation at:

www.ruralxchange.net/digital

Funding from