To whom it may concern:

Last Friday I stood in a mass of one hundred sweaty people at Moore Square in Raleigh. The air was thick with humidity and thunder rumbled. At the front of the crowd, speaker after speaker addressed the killings of Philando Castile, Alton Sterling, and the five Dallas policemen.

Some spoke powerfully to our emotions, acknowledging feelings of fear, sadness, or anger.  Others used powerful data: documenting every death by police this year, emphasizing “these are the facts” when reeling off statistics, and clearly outlining the policies contributing to the current climate. In galvanizing a community to make change, both tactics – emotional connection and sharing data – are critical.

Gathering people in physical space to share information is powerful. But when that physical connection is not possible, meaningful communication can happen through digital technology and social media. Much of my academic research has focused on this phenomenon, specifically youth activism, and I have spent much of my career as a social justice educator and a digital maker. In both fields, clear communication of information is paramount; regardless of whether it is an emotional narrative shared in person, or data shared digitally.

Outside of the classroom, my digital making has taken three basic forms: graphic and web design, video editing, and info-graphics. My path began with the latter. For over two years, I lead a team of students at the University of Iowa to create daily graphics for print, web, and television, and then went to New York to create info-graphics as an intern at Bloomberg News. This experience was the jumping-off point into a decade of multimedia design, ranging from editing video for various  government institutions to blogging and creating websites for educational non-profits.

I love this vocation. In our increasingly quick-moving visual society, modes of communication are constantly changing; it’s an exhilarating challenge to keep up. I deeply appreciate the work done by the North Carolina Justice Center and by NC Policy Watch. Not only the work of constantly monitoring and sharing information – but the work of constantly innovating how that information is shared, in order to support an informed, activist local community.

I would truly value an opportunity to speak further about my experience and to learn more about NC Policy Watch.
Sincerely, Nelle Owens Dunlap