Digital Storytelling and The Price of Perception

 By: Blake Sampson 
Content Development FTA, 
Fall 2025 Multimedia Capstone

    

    In todays media influenced world, digital storytelling has become one of the most powerful tools for shaping how we see homelessness and poverty. Online media platforms like Youtube, Instagram, Tiktok, X (formerly Twitter) have created an entire economy around empathy or outrage just for your attention and clicks. While some creators use their platforms to raise awareness and have things to inform you how you can get involved or donate for these causes with things like planned events to raise money or direct links that you can use to donate your money others however, chase clicks by filming addition, mental illness, and suffering. Turning human pain into marketable and monetizable content. The more shocking the footage, the higher the engagement means the higher the profit.

    In the book Howard Garners Changing Minds, He tells us that real change rarely happens through facts alone. Your brain shifts when messages, videos, or photos connect with you emotionally. Especially if these come from credible sources and impact your own personal values. Many Viral Creators master irresponsible techniques like creating problematic thumbnails in order for you to click on these videos gaining millions of views, so if you haven't even watched the videos you may scroll by and just assume that these are true based on the attention it receives. Not only do these reinforce harmful stereotypes but online creators use their own platform at times to redirect things like anger, frustration, and hate towards things like city leaders for example. Blaming failed systems without offering solutions or context. Garner would refer to this as reinforcing an existing mental model rather than transforming it.

    I do want to emphasize there are online platforms and creators who do implement ethical storytelling. Those who recognize empathy and credibility to use their platform not for their own view/biases but use it to allow those to tell their stories who have always remained voiceless. When influencers or creators frame stories with honesty, empathy, and compassion, they do in fact encourage viewers to see the complexity of homelessness rather than just what they see online or on the local news. Titles we have seen from the media and even the president of the united states say things like "War on Homelessness" which is a term used to describe policies that focus on measures against homelessness rather than addressing the root cause adds to these narratives. The language creates the idea that this  un-housed population of the city is the problem and needs to be eliminated rather than helping assistance or finding a common solution. Gardner's has created principles and shown through his book "Changing Minds" that persuasion is an art form, requiring both emotional intelligence and responsibility. As viewers we must use our own critical thinking to decide which stories deserve our attention. Every click can either exploit or amplify these voices in our community and shape our personal narrative without the audience ever realizing it.

    So the questions is, 

  Does this new form of digital storytelling helping someone be heard? Or is helping someone get paid?

Empowering the Rising Bottom

 

Home, Money, Skills, Work. What do all of these topics have in common among everyone?

The common people often lack one of these points. Having a home, the money, and the skills to prove it, but no work to show, or they have all the skills, and money to show, but no place to relax, or call home. Just to name a few examples. The same principle applies to those in the homeless population. Many who face homelessness, aren’t always there by choice, either from financial struggles, issues in life, or other circumstances. Many had skill, training, or former work that allowed them to have a life of different situations. 

Often times, those in these situations, have tried different venues for restarting their lives, Entrepreneurship is an innate nature in humans. Always striving to make something for themselves, by themselves, belonging solely to themselves. This is just human nature, the unhoused have a known prejudice against them, but movements that aim to help and build up these communities, through the work of these in need, and willing to get help, this prejudice can be rewritten with time. 

Not only does, providing mentorship to the houseless community, offer a way for those in said communities to begin learning/relearning these skill necessary for beginning a sustainable business, allowing for more people learn from them, it can also return into the economy, and continue this beneficial cycle. 

To learn more about one such movement aiming to mentor those who wish to begin anew, Click here to learn about Nano Lending: https://www.nanolending.org/

From Surviving to Thriving: 

A Smarter Way to Fight Housing Instability

What if solving homelessness wasn’t just about shelter, but about ownership, opportunity, and dignity?

That’s exactly what happens when we combine Skill‑Swap & Micro‑Enterprise Incubators with Community Land Trusts (CLTs) to create bridge‑housing solutions.

This isn’t theory. It’s a proven shift from short‑term aid to long‑term empowerment.

Here’s how it works:

• Community Land Trusts (CLTs) secure land in trust for the public good, keeping it permanently affordable. No more market speculation. No more displacement. cltweb.org+2Kansas City Community Land Trust+2

• Bridge Housing built on CLT land offers transitional, stable shelter with a pathway to permanent housing.

• Skill‑Swap Networks let residents exchange what they can do for what they need, no cash required.

• Micro‑Enterprise Incubators inside these communities give people tools, mentorship, and space to launch their own small businesses, from catering to crafts to coding.

Instead of warehousing people, we’re investing in them.

This model rebuilds not just housing, but community. It fosters local economies, deepens social ties, and gives people the chance to create, contribute, and eventually own their futures.

Why should you care?
Because the current approach to homelessness is broken, temporary fixes, endless cycles, zero dignity.
But this model? It works. It’s scalable. And it turns passive recipients into active participants.

If you believe in a future where everyone has a stake, not just a space, in their community, this matters.

Click here to learn how you can help make this vision a reality:
Click here for more information

Shared Spark: Building Community Through Skill Swap and Micro Enterprise

 

 Shared Spark: Building Community Through Skill Swap and Micro Enterprise

 

Everyone has something to offer. Sometimes it’s a skill we take for granted, like cooking, sewing, fixing things, or organizing. The idea behind Skill Swap and Micro Enterprise Incubators is to help people recognize the value in what they already know and use it to support themselves and others. It’s about creating spaces where learning and teaching go both ways, where everyone has something to give and something to gain.

What I love about this project is how people centered it is. It doesn’t rely on big budgets or fancy systems, it relies on community. It gives people a chance to feel seen and capable. When someone shares their skill and sees others benefit from it, confidence grows, and that spark can turn into a small business, a new job, or simply a stronger sense of purpose.

From a marketing point of view, this kind of initiative has real emotional pull. It’s authentic. It inspires people because it shows hope and possibility in everyday life. Marketing shouldn’t just sell ideas, it should make people feel something. A project like this gives us a story worth sharing: real people building real connections that last.

This isn’t just about exchanging skills, it’s about empowering each other to create opportunities. The more we share what we know, the stronger our communities become.

 

Click here to learn more about Portland Skill Share: https://www.meetup.com/portland-skill-share/