2013
American Corners’ YouTube Channel Reaching Out to Bring In An emerging technology plan to introduce a YouTube Channel to the U.S. State Department’s American Corner system in Indonesia
LIS 287 Hyperlinked Libraries
Emerging Technology Plan
Susan Kelly
Emerging Technology Plan
Susan Kelly
YouTube Channel for the American Corners in Indonesia Reaching Out to Bring In
Introduction The U.S. State Department’s Information Resource Center manages American Corners located in universities throughout the world. As a part of our public diplomacy strategy, the government has 11 such centers in Indonesia. These special collections: provide access to current, accurate and reliable information about the political, economic, cultural, educational and social life in the United States via a collection of books, magazines and journals, CDROMs, DVDs and access to internet and online databases, and through local programming to the general public. (Embassy of the United States, Jakarta, Indonesia, n.d.) Most centers are open workdays from approximately 8 am to 2:301 pm. Since Indonesia is the fourth most populous nation, and the largest Muslim democracy, (C.I.A., July, 2013) the U.S. government would like to build stronger ties with its people. By offering information, cultural events, media and technology, American Corners spread goodwill and increase understanding. Yet due to their location, within one university in a city, and their limited hours, the American Corners don’t serve as many people as possible. Changing our hours and location is not feasible, but if we offer quality social media outreach we can alleviate this problem. Moreover, similar to the Anythink model, we’d like these libraries to become gateways of connection, culture and information welcoming people to America’s ideas and creativity (Smith, 2011). One Solution We can creatively address the problems of the American Corners’ limitations with multiple solutions, and one of the most effective solutions is to develop an effective YouTube channel with well produced content. YouTube videos can be produced inexpensively and they can educate, entertain and engage Indonesians. By creating engaging videos we can promote our resources and programs to people who haven’t visited an American Corner or might not know there is one in their town, we can overcome a major obstacle. Students and professors at other universities do have computers in their libraries and offices which can be used for our videos. Often these students can’t come to the American Corner because they have classes and meetings during the hours of operation. Moreover, they may not feel they belong at a different campus and thus won’t visit the American Corner. Business people, scientists and doctors work when the center is open. These professionals have access to computers at work if not at home. YouTube is a good way to reach these influential Indonesians.
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Although the information posted on websites and library entrances state longer hours, in Indonesia the libraries will open late and close early.
Emerging Technology Plan
Susan Kelly
Social Media in Indonesia While a small proportion of Indonesians use cell phones to connect to the internet (Pew, 2012), most offices and universities do have internet. Starbucks and restaurants offer wifi and have computers with internet access. Most high schools lack electricity and computers, but university libraries and technology departments do provide computer use. Our mission is to reach out to leaders, business people and tertiary students to enhance their understanding of the U.S. The embassy in Jakarta does maintain a Facebook page with over 593,000 likes and frequent posts in Bahasa Indonesia. However Facebook can’t provide long or detailed messages. By offering more information visually, we can tell our story better. Why YouTube Makes Sense YouTube is a fitting medium for this outreach. The books in our American Corner don’t circulate so their impact is limited to patrons near campus. Often viewing a video on a phone or computer can be a social activity here while reading isn’t. Furthermore, YouTube videos can be created simply. As Paula Webb points out YouTube provides an opportunity to connect with distance learners and communicated to a mass audience with minimal effort (2011). Video Content To start we should concentrate on a manageable range of topics. I envision three types of videos in the beginning: 1. Interviews with Indonesians who have returned from American Exchange programs or with Americans living in Indonesia. 2. American Corner programming (e.g. a presentation on how to apply to the Fulbright program, how our elections work, what it’s like to attend college in the U.S., how different holidays are celebrated) with a short introduction. 3. Educational videos that teach information/social media literacy, English language or American culture. Ideas include: lessons on using credible sources, academic honesty, poetry readings, tips for better computer skills, cooking, and cultural exchange. For videos on using databases, we should be able to ask for permission to add subtitles to the vendors’ existing tutorial videos and then place them within our channel. For inclusion on our channel, videos should: 1. Have subtitles. Whether the speaking is in English or Bahasa, the video should speak to both speakers of Bahasa or English. We want to promote understanding and goodwill to Indonesians who may not have advanced English skills. (Also, by featuring Bahasa in much of our content we will serve Malay speakers as the languages are so similar.) 2. Feature an engaging MC when appropriate. Though John and Hank Green and Emily Grasslie speak a mile a minute, which we don’t want, but we do want viewers to identify with people--fun, smart, friendly people. We think that will be a good way for viewers to return and our audience to grow. People connect
Emerging Technology Plan
Susan Kelly
with people more so than with ideas or tips. Whenever a spokesperson must leave, we will phase the new person in, while phasing the old person out. 3. Include good titles, tagging and descriptions so that our videos are easy to find. 4. Include the phone number, address, and URL link to the American Corner where the program took place in the description area. Staffing and Training Since the American Corners are run by qualified, Indonesians our producer could be Indonesian or American. We need to hire: 1. A YouTube producer who can produce quality videos inexpensively. This person must be bilingual so that they can translate as necessary. We hire a person who’s studied media production, has some prior work history, communicates well, and can create videos, analyze and report findings. The producer will need to communicate with the Information Resource Center Director regularly to establish a slate of videos and schedule for posting new ones and deleting ones that may look dated. The producer should work with a representative in Public Diplomacy to solicit suggestions coordinate our messages. 2. One or two freelance hosts. We can get American volunteers from the Fulbright Scholars and English Teaching Assistants or English Language Fellows (a pool of 60) . Ideally, we could alternate between paid Indonesians and volunteer Americans. As salaries tend to be low in Indonesia, $30-50 for a day’s work would make a big difference to a local host. The Americans we bring to Indonesia are already making well beyond the local incomes and we should have no problem recruiting eager volunteers. By hiring a person with a degree in media production, we won’t need to train extensively. Therefore training via Lynda.com™ and relevant YouTube videos will suffice. Lynda.com offers a wide array of courses on making videos, how to look good on video, analytics and more. It’s a low cost option for our training needs. Resources We will operate frugally, aware of our limited budget, yet we need our producer and hosts to have a travel budget to get to the American Corners on the various islands in the archipelago. We need an equipment budget so that we can buy a suitable camera so we’re not replacing our equipment because it’s limited as some libraries have had to (Jatkevicius, 2011). Appendix 2 offers a quick and dirty budget. If we move ahead, our next step is to pull together a more detailed budget following procurement protocol. Promotion Educated, affluent Indonesians like to text each other and are active on Facebook. American Corner, Fulbright and English Language Fellows should solicit emails for our office to contact when new videos appear. Moreover
Emerging Technology Plan
Susan Kelly
we should have a Facebook page and improved websites for our corners. Our videos can be embedded on the American Corner and embassy and consulate websites. We should develop a list of: Indonesian college professors and university librarians Members of the American Chamber of Commerce American Expats Teaching staff at American schools Leaders working for American corporations NGO leaders We should email or text these people with links to our YouTube videos to promote them. Gideon Shalwick suggests running contests to boost viewership citing a magic channel with 327,000+ subscribers as an example (2010). We can randomly choose 5 people who comment on our videos and give them tote bags, mugs, T-shirts or books. Evaluation The YouTube producer should keep track of the number of views, likes and dislikes, subscribers and contest entrants. Every month the producer should report these metrics with a brief analysis to the Information Resource Center’s Director. Additionally, Fulbright Office, American Corners, and other public diplomacy programs should include questions on surveys to determine whether an increase in applications or attendance is due to our YouTube videos. Generally, American Corner videos have received 150 – 400 views. Currently what’s online does not offer content that teaches or entertains. I think with more engaging content, we can surpass these numbers. Occasionally add a link to an online survey to our YouTube video descriptions. Down the Road If this outreach proves successful, we should expand to other countries. Some of our videos, e.g. tutorials on technology or applying for a Fulbright scholarship can be uploaded to other channels once subtitles are added. To do so we must study social media usage in different countries as well as how Web 2.0 is an inherently democratic media. One of our objectives is to promote democracy and offering two way communication and citizen journalism is an excellent way to demonstrate freedom of speech to Indonesians. References Bridges, L. (2012). Librarian as Professor of Social Media Literacy. Journal of Library Innovation, 3(1), 48-65. Central Intelligence Agency . The World Factbook. (2013, July). Retrieved October 15, 2013 from: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2119rank.html/ Colburn, S., & Haines, L. (2012). Measuring Libraries’ Use of YouTube as a Promotional Tool: An Exploratory Study and Proposed Best Practices. Journal of Web Librarianship, 6(1), 5-31.
Emerging Technology Plan
Susan Kelly
Dankowski, T. (2013). How Libraries Are Using Social Media. American Libraries, 44(5), 38-41. Eat, Pray, Tweet: Social Media in Indonesia. (2010, January 6). The Economist. Retrieved from http://www.economist.com/node/17853348 Embassy of the United States of America, Jakarta, Indonesia. (n.d.) American Corners. Retrieved from http://jakarta.usembassy.gov/american-corner.html Hรฅklev, S. (2010). Community Libraries in Indonesia: A Survey of Government-Supported and Independent Reading Gardens. Library Philosophy & Practice, 1-16. Jatkevicius, J. (2011). Launching the Boise Public Library YouTube Channel. Idaho Librarian, 61(2), 8. Pew Research. (2012, February 29). Global digital communication: Texting, social networking popular worldwide (Report). Retrieved from http://www.pewglobal.org/2011/12/20/global-digital-communication-texting-social-networkingpopular-worldwide/ Shalwick, G. (2010). What Camera to Use for Online Videos . . . and Other Bits of Essential Equipment [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IE8N0ADSQew&list =TLouBsj1jCnnolWsl8fIi5mOg-cMTwv9JD Smith, P. (2011). Managing Innovation: Creating Anythink. Journal of Library Innovation, 2(1), 5-7. Webb, P. L. (2007). YouTube and libraries: It could be a beautiful relationship. College & Research Libraries News, 68(6), 354-355. APPENDIX 1 Examples of public diplomacy on YouTube: Alliance Franรงaise, Los Angeles: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwioasdCck4 British Council, Vietnam: http://www.youtube.com/user/britishcouncilvn Goethe Institut, Tokyo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaKHbJJpzWs Instituto de Cervantes, New York http://www.youtube.com/user/InstitutoCervantesNY?feature=watch
Emerging Technology Plan
Susan Kelly
APPENDIX 2
Producer
Equipment, Camera, Batteries, Tripod, Travel Guest Host Training Editing Software
USD Indonesian Rupee Notes $875/month 10,000,000* plus healthcare, pension. Based on similar positions advertised in The $1,000 $5,000 $50/day $38/month varies
5 to 10 guest hosts Lynda.com Start with free