Massey University journalism students, inspired by an online youth engagement voting tool, have produced videos that will screen before election day on Re: TVNZ’s online social media-driven news channel.
The online tool, On the Fence, an initiative of Massey’s Design + Democracy Unit, matches people’s values with the political party they are most likely to vote for. The students, Meriana Johnson, Callum Roberts and Jack McKee Cagney have made three videos based on some of the questions the web tool asks.
The three videos featured address issues concerning rental warrant of fitness, young Måori voting and whether the voting age should be lowered. Content is played straight to social media feeds, including Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat.
Tasha Impey from TVNZ, who describes herself as captain of the Re project says the wide variety of platforms now available to screen digital content presented a tremendous opportunity for students.
“We really wanted to give journalists and video content creators a platform and have been happy to work with Massey students to offer that.”
Programme leader of journalism at the School of Communication, Journalism and Marketing, James Hollings, says the project met the goal of giving the students “meaningful learning opportunities” to experience different forms of media.
He was hopeful the programme could repeat the exercise in future years and says “we welcome the collaboration with TVNZ.”
Since its launch in July Re has already clocked up more than four million video streams with Ms Impey noting “it was edgy, it’s experimental and it’s taking off.”.
To view the videos that will be posted throughout the week leading up to election day go to https://www.tvnz.co.nz/shows/re