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Building Urgency and Inspiring Change Through Strategic Media Partnerships
As we move from learning to action, distributing information to the people who can advocate for and make systems change is key. Media is vital for creating policy and institutional change, helping to build urgency around issues critical to improving postsecondary education and workforce training outcomes. High-quality storytelling and reporting can help build urgency around the most pressing problems and make clear the stakes for addressing them. And when media highlights problems alongside evidence-based solutions, successful practices have the potential to scale up.
In short, effective media can help create the conditions for large-scale change.
This is why we have continued investing in media partnerships, ending 2023 with 15 partners across our focus areas. These partnerships include support for nonprofit news, podcasts, documentaries, and newsletters.
Our media grants highlight strategies that work and inspire others to take notice and action. By partnering with media organizations, we can support and disseminate innovative solutions, all while amplifying the voices of the learners our grantmaking aims to serve.
The three goals of our media partnerships show our commitment to turning information into action.
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Supporting Narrative Change: We aim to support media storytelling that connects people on many levels, including emotionally. When media elevates low-income learners’ voices, they can speak directly to the reader to help make real what could otherwise feel abstract or insurmountable.
Supporting narrative change also means connecting personal stories to larger conversations and, ideally, increasing public engagement with underrepresented issues. Open Campus is one example of this approach. Their in-depth reporting explores voices and issues shaping postsecondary education and workforce training. Through our partnership, they are increasing their coverage of rural communities and prisons.
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Informing the Public Agenda: Narrative change can create the conditions for systems change when stories reach organizations, networks, and members of the public who can advocate for and scale solutions. Media with that kind of reach can communicate the stakes of particular issues and shape the social context in which policymakers and the public evaluate which issues to act on.
For instance, Three Frame Media is producing a short film to change the social mobility narrative for student parents and adult learners. Their film intends to celebrate and elevate their belonging in postsecondary education, changing the public’s perception of these learners while highlighting programs, policies, and ideas supporting their success.
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Creating Policy and Institutional Change: For public backing to become policy and institutional change, momentum is critical. Media amplification can encourage policymakers, communities, and government agencies to push the needle to solve complex, persistent problems.
The Hechinger Report and The Chronicle of Higher Education are two partners leveraging media amplification to make a national impact. Both publications provide information by elevating reforms, relevant research, and best practices so that key stakeholders can change systems to better serve learners.
Our media partnerships aim to support media organizations and networks’ long-term capacity to produce high-quality content that shares information and inspires action.
ASCENDIUM’S MEDIA PARTNERSHIPS
Visit our Media Partnerships homepage to learn more about how media can help good ideas become systems change for learners from low-income backgrounds.
VIEW ALL OUR PARTNERSHIPSWhen media highlights problems alongside evidence-based solutions, successful practices have the potential to scale up.