During the last months, the IDA WhatsApp group has been full of lively discussions. Topics have varied from supportive messages to technical problems and everything in between. Our common feeling is that we are quite proud of what we succeeded in doing together: an active blog that started from scratch.
IDA
The name IDA is an acronym f
or Inside Digital Activism, and it describes well what we were looking for. We wanted a modern and good-looking platform with content that dives deep into different aspects of digital activism. The banner picture refers to all that digital activism is: something you can see, say, or hear, and again sometimes it´s not accessible to all to comment, watch, or listen to.
The blog visuals were made by Ana. She says that she has always enjoyed image creation and this case was no exception.
“I had a lot of fun putting together images that would represent our thoughts and would give a cohesive aesthetic to our blog.”
The whole process was conducted remotely and digitally. The blog brought us together from different locations in Europe to work on a platform centered on the theme of Digital Protest.
Initially, we conducted a video meeting to establish the blog’s objectives and outline each person’s roles and responsibilities. Throughout the process, we adhered to our agreed-upon structure and maintained ongoing updates via our WhatsApp group chat.
“Deadlines were met with minimal stress, and the workflow was remarkably smooth. Overall, it was surprisingly efficient!” as Limin said.
What we learned?
It was very refreshing to have a completely new type of assignment, and it was interesting to think about what to write about.
“I loved that each of us could focus on a topic that resonated with us the most. The freedom we had with topics, themes, and styles really gave us the chance to make the blog our own”, Doris explains. She was also responsible for the team’s social media involvement and advertising.
“I was honestly surprised by how time-consuming it can be—especially when you are also responsible for the teammate’s post and want to make them look good for them.”
During the process, we also talked about the role that AI plays nowadays in the content creation. Many of us use proofreading programs that use AI. Ana reflects nicely on how personal writing has a uniqueness that AI can´t yet have.
“Writing the posts was a super entertaining activity that made me reflect a lot about my own interests and how communication and self-expression are enabled due to digital channels. Specifically on the creation of the posts, I found super interesting the role that AI plays today and will play in the coming years. There is something almost melancholic about taking the time to write a paragraph that you know could be easily created by AI, probably with way more data and information but that absolutely misses that unique character of personal writing.”
WordPress blog as a platform
Our group didn´t have much experience in using WordPress before. Tábata was the one to oversee the technical aspects of the blog.
“In a more technical role, I learned practical tasks and that was very entertaining and useful. It was a very enjoyable experience; I got to learn and present research and insights in a completely different way.”
Limin was skeptical about using WordPress. “However, this assignment left me no choice but to engage with the platform. Through this experience, I’ve realised that the user experience is not ideal, and much time was spent on configuration rather than content creation. In the future, I would select from a few other well-known blogging platforms with more intuitive setups that simplify the process and considerably reduce the learning curve.”
We managed to overcome all the techical issues. As Doris said: “But in the end, thanks to an amazing team, it turned into a valuable experience!”
Teamwork made it work
Noora´s role was to manage the process, see that all things got done in the planned schedule and so on. It was an easy task because our team worked efficiently and well throughout the process.
“Remote studying can be lonely sometimes; it was so nice to have an active WhatsApp group and peer support during the blogging. I learned a lot from my group mates and really enjoyed reading their posts.”
Group support and co-learning are great takeaways for us in this project. Doris also highlighted that:
“This kind of challenging assignment was a great way to learn about blogging in a supportive environment. It feels especially relevant since I can see myself working in communication or public engagement in the future. To sum it up, for me, the exercise was challenging and somewhat stressful, but also a great opportunity for learning!”
Ana mentioned that the blog project brought her the joy of writing.
“For some moments, I started to think that blog writing or even books, would be totally replaced by AI as it is such a “time” saving tool. But very quickly I realized that even though the tool exists, the satisfaction of self-creation and its uniqueness is totally lost when you become the spectator of your own thoughts when they are narrated by artificial intelligence. So, I regained interest in writing and also in reading the thoughts of others around me, starting with my own groupmates, who created beautiful and impactful pieces of work. I felt happy to have the chance and almost the excuse to sit and write. “
This is the last post in IDA. Thank you all for reading!
