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TECH ADVOCACYUsing Online Tools to Track and Influence Your Representatives

Hope Foster-Reyes Director of Communications Tech., Indivisible ChicagoIndivisible IL-5, Indivisible Lincoln Square

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MY UTOPIAN VISION OF THE FUTURE

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Modern News Media have made it almost too easy for us.

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INDIVISIBLEFormer congressional staffers reveal best practices for making Congress listen.

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THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE!

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TECHNOLOGY IS WHAT IT’S USED FOR...

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AGENDA

1. Good Sources for Effective Action2. Tracking Your MoC’s 3. Media bias, Fact-Checking and Priorities 4. Advocacy Outside Your Representative

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GOOD SOURCES FOR EFFECTIVE ACTION

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Source: Survey of the Congressional Management Foundation, Bloomberg.com

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4 TACTICS THAT WORK

1. Town Halls/Listening Sessions2. Local Public Events3. District Office Visits4. Coordinated Calls

Source: “4 Tactics That Actually Work”, IndivisibleGuide.com

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FROM THE EXPERTS...

IndivisibleGuide.com

Emily Ellsworth, District Staffer

● Viral Tweetstream● Summary of her book, Call the Halls

Survey of the Congressional Management Foundation

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TACTIC 4: COORDINATED CALLS

https://www.indivisiblechicago.com/take-action/

https://5calls.org/

https://dailyaction.org/ or text DAILY to 228466

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TRACKING YOUR MOC’S

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GOALS OF TRACKING MOC’S

1. Know what your representative is saying.2. Know what your representative is doing.3. Share this information with your local Indivisible

group to maximize the impact of Indivisible Guide“4 Tactics That Actually Work”:

○ Town Halls/Listening Sessions○ Local Public Events○ District Office Visits○ Coordinated Calls

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FIVE WAYS TO TRACK

1. Twitter Lists - Tweets by your Member of Congress2. Twitter Search - Tweets about your MoC3. Facebook News Feed Settings4. Website/YouTube - Content released by your MoC5. Google Alerts - News about your MoC

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TWITTER LISTS● Capture all tweets by your

Members of Congress● Anyone can follow your list on

Twitter● Twitter guide:

Using Twitter Lists

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CREATE AND SHARE TWITTER LISTS

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TWITTER SEARCH● Capture all tweets by or about

your Member of Congress● Example:

(("mike" OR "congressman" OR "rep") AND "quigley") OR repmikequigley

● Twitter guide: Using Advanced Search

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SAVING YOUR TWITTER SEARCH

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FACEBOOK NEWS FEED1. Find your reresentatives - search for “Town Hall”.

(facebook.com/townhall)2. Follow them.3. Go to their page and set your follow settings to:

○ “See First”○ Notifications “On”

4. Note: You don’t have to Like a page to Follow it.

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WEBSITE & YOUTUBE

● Don’t forget to bookmark and visit your Members of Congress’s web properties.

● These will be a far more “controlled” version of their presence and will feature public statements.

● YouTube can be a good source of the types of public events your MoC likes to attend or interviews they tend to give.

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GOOGLE ALERTS● Capture news and blog

posts about your MoC● Delivered to your email

or RSS Reader● Set to show all sources or

limited sources● Use same operators as

Google Search Engine: Advanced Search

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PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

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MEDIA BIAS & VERIFICATION

@indivisibleil5 Source: AllPublicationsAreFalse.com

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● How to make sure you are getting good information from the media that you watch and read.

● How to make sure the information you share on social media is accurate.

● Sandra Avillar & Jessica Droeger

https://www.facebook.com/AccuracyandAccountability/

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BIAS VS. FALSEHOOD

Factual Reporting

● Well Sourced● Verification and

Fact-Checking

Biased Reporting

● Interpretation & Presentation Based on Opinions

Even highly biased news reports and stories can be factual and well-sourced.

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SOURCES FOR BIAS & FACT-CHECKING

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/

http://www.politifact.com/

http://www.snopes.com/

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SETTING PRIORITIES

● Remember that lots of bills are proposed and very few actually get passed and signed into law.

● govtrack.us Tracks all bills proposed in both houses of Congress. Once the text of a bill is available, the site provides an estimate of how likely a bill is to become law.

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CONNECTING WITH OTHER DISTRICTS

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HELP YOUR FRIENDS HELP THEMSELVES

YOU

YOUR FRIEND

THEIR MoC

YOUR FRIEND

THEIR MoC

YOUR FRIEND

THEIR MoC

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MAKE FRIEND LISTS1.

2.

4. Enter and Save:

3.

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POST TO YOUR FRIENDS1.

2.

3.

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FUTURE PRESENTATIONS

1. Issue Tracking2. Legislation Tracking3. Creating Your One-Page Dashboard

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THANK YOU!Hope Foster-Reyes Director of Communications Tech., Indivisible ChicagoIndivisible IL-5, Indivisible Lincoln Square

To request a copy of this presentation:

Like facebook.com/indivisible.chicago.il5/ and send a comment!

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ISSUE TRACKING

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LEGISLATION TRACKING