As November approaches, midterm election season is in full swing, and so is the fight for voters’ rights.

Eleven state legislatures are considering bills that would restrict voter access, while lawmakers in 39 states have considered some form of restrictive legislation for the 2022 legislative session.

Election restrictions range from shorter deadlines, restrictive hours, and decreases in the number of accepted ballots, all of which often disproportionately impact voters of color and people with disabilities.

In response, a group of graduate journalism students from across the Northeast teamed up with The Emancipator, the Boston Globe’s partnership with Ibrahim X. Kendi’s Center for Antiracism Research, to create an innovative human rights project. vote.

Aiming to engage non-voters or new voters, especially young people, the project uses a suite of digital storytelling methods – from TikTok videos to a chatbot built from the ground up – to provide an accessible educational tool.

“That’s really what it’s all about, educating the community and being a tool and a resource,” said Amber Payne, who is co-editor of The Emancipator with Deborah Douglas. “I feel like we accomplished that with this project.”

The project, which launched this week, began as part of a media innovation studio course, which asked students to tackle a newsworthy story using new digital storytelling tools and by engaging a real audience.

The team from Northeastern and The Emancipator landed on three concepts as part of the project: a series of written profiles of voter rights activists, TikTok videos, and a virtual chatbot that teaches voters about any restrictive legislation in their state. Students were divided into groups that worked on one of three concepts, using lessons learned in class to apply them directly to their work.

The 20 or so graduating students in the class all came with different levels of suffrage awareness and different skills. But in every part of the project, the students aimed to reflect the perspectives of those who are often not engaged in voter rallying cries or broader canvassing efforts.

The 15 profiles shine a light on changemakers across the country working at national and local levels, many of them in communities that have been ignored or outright suppressed and disenfranchised.

“I think it was important to show that this is a local effort, this is a statewide effort, and that there are people who are working despite the fact that the party that claims to protect our right to vote isn’t really doing anything about it on a larger scale,” Gabriel Cohen, a media advocacy student, said of the profiles.

Students scoured local newspapers to find the next generation of activists and organizers, like Reema Ahad, director of the Muslim Voter Fund for the Movement Voter Project. The resulting profiles are “a snapshot of America,” Douglas said, helping people realize that despite the many attacks on voters’ rights, there are people who are fighting back.

“Sometimes through all the virtual ways we see news and information today, you may still feel a heightened sense of disconnect and sometimes you might think, ‘Is there anyone out there? ‘” Douglas said. “These profiles show there’s someone out there.”

The students on the TikTok team had a different set of goals and challenges. They needed to strike the right tone for a set of videos that will serve as the foundation for The Emancipator’s presence on the social media platform. They opted for a fun yet informative tone that would entertain and educate the audience The Emancipator hopes to engage.

“Specifically, with The Emancipator, they wanted to reach people of almost all ages, and TikTok is one of the perfect platforms for that because you can create content for both older audiences and younger audiences that will end up on someone’s ‘For you'”. ‘. Cheryl Daniel, a media advocacy student on the project, said.

“We try to be aware of that audience that other platforms might not be able to reach,” added Dakotah Kennedy, a media advocacy student on the team.

The TikTok team ended up creating over 30 videos and even asked TikTok influencer Andre White to create a video for The Emancipator.

Vote Chat, the chatbot that two teams of students created from scratch, was one of the most involved parts of the project. Using Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and SMS, users can get basic voter information via Vote Chat, state by state. But they can also use it to keep up to date with any recent legislation that has restricted or expanded voter rights in their state.

“Talking about laws can be super boring – and it was at one point – so it’s important to be able to communicate all of this information to a group of people that has been overlooked,” said Danica Jefferies, a media innovation student.

Outside of data collection and coding, creating Vote Chat required refining the voice of the chatbot, which ended up having more attitude than the team originally intended.

“You can see in our project that we’re really focusing on the younger end of the spectrum because we made it really sassy, ​​really catchy and added a bit of modern jargon, a bit of slang,” Yuuki Nishida said. , a graduate student in media advocacy. program, says.

With the project launching this week, Douglas hopes the approachable and approachable tone of the project will resonate with people who are increasingly frustrated or overwhelmed with the current state of voter rights.

“The system is not scary,” Douglas said. “We can understand that, and for every step we can take, every right we can activate, there’s a way to do it.”

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