A Voice at the Table

Information Access & Sharing
INNER-COMMUNITY COMMUNICATIONS
Accessibility of information was identified as a top
challenge for people in the community attending spaces,
programming, or participating in community organizing.
Feedback from interviews and survey participants
highlighted that community information is highly
decentralized and pocketed across social networks.
Social media and personal references were identified as
core avenues for communications. These conditions pose
a particular challenge for information sharing between
generations. Social media was a preferred avenue of
communication amongst younger residents while email
and local newspapers remained popular amongst older
generations.
Individual and micro businesses and platforms are
challenged with the capacity to uphold a marketing
presence across the breadth of communication channels.
Strategies to overcome these challenges may include
collaborative channels for marketing and branding to
collectively elevate multiple businesses and platforms.
EXTERNAL INFORMATION ACCESS
Beyond inner-community communications, access to
resources and information with the city or other private
organizations remains a further challenge. Social media
platforms from outer-community organizations are
challenged to reach the audiences they claim to support.
Furthermore, marketing approaches limited to social
media are challenged to achieve true trust amongst
community members. Within Roxbury, word-of-mouth and
personal reference remain strong sources of connection to
opportunities and resources.
Given the breadth of resources available at a city-wide
scale, external organizations should center efforts on
building a better understanding of existing social networks
to create improved support systems for Black and brown
people to navigate bureaucratic barriers. Successful
approaches must foster engagement through both
physical and digital spaces.
The city has a lot of resources
but does a poor job of
connecting resources to people
who need them the most. You
have to be connected via word
of mouth to find out about
many opportunities.
— Jessicah Pierre
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