VOTE2023 by students, for students

Through interviewing commentators and candidates, a team of Politics students are providing insightful, relevant, and accessible information on the issues that count for students.

VOTE2023 is a video series made by students, for students in the run up to the election. Sophie Woodham and Liam Connolly are producing this series, leading a team of 15 to 20 tauira who have volunteered for the project.

They have mustered an impressive line-up of candidates and commentators for interviews, including Minister of Finance Grant Robertson, New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters, Member for Taieri Labour Party Ingrid Leary, and more are being invited.

The VOTE2023 project continues an Otago tradition of Politics students interviewing candidates.

Producer Liam says this series comes at a pivotal time for New Zealand’s political future: “I think it’s really important that people are engaged, and that we are asking questions that are relevant to students, and their futures.

“Having student voices asking those questions means that politicians can’t ignore them they have to front up to the questions we are asking.

“I hope it provides a different angle on things than mainstream media.”

The interviews are filmed and produced in the University’s media production suite, and then shared across multiple platforms.

Producer Sophie says accessibility has been an important part of the project because youth voter turnout isn’t very high and a lot of the ways in which people traditionally learn about politics are inaccessible to students.

“People aren’t sitting down and watching the television news or listening to the radio; that’s historically where people have found out about the elections.

It’s for this reason, Sophie says, that VOTE2323 has lots of social media outlets like TikTok and Instagram which students are actually using.

“We are thinking about where students do get their news from.”

It’s important to the team to be non-partisan and seek a full range of representatives on the political spectrum to interview.

They are also aware of not giving anyone an easy ride in the interview, and balancing asking the tricky questions with respecting the answers provided.

A team of researchers work to pull together background information on the interview subjects, as well as the topics students are particularly concerned about or affected by.

During the filming, these researchers are on live chat with the interviewers providing supplementary information and prompts – it’s a lot to juggle in the studio.

For both producers, one of the biggest learnings has been working in the studio:

“There’s so much that goes on behind the scenes. I had thought about it before but until you’re in there and the lights and cameras are all set up and you’re trying to direct an interview quite specifically targeted to where you want it to go, it’s big, it’s stressful but it is so much fun at the end of the day,” says Sophie.

Liam agrees, saying “you can think about all of the moving parts in isolation, but then it all has to happen simultaneously and in a really timed way.”

The students have had the support of the crew at the Media Production Studio, including Team Leader, Lloyd Walker.

“Lloyd has been great, he’s a superstar. He is so in control of studio and gave us so much of our own direction of where we want it to go,” says Sophie.

They are also supported by staff members in the Politics programme, particularly Dr Peter Grace, Dr David Jenkins, and master’s student Neki Haig.

“We all look up to Peter Grace, he’s very onto it in his quiet way,” says Liam.

Peter has a background in journalism, and he arranged for journalist and presenter Jack Tame to give the students some interview tips.

Sophie and Liam are proof of the saying: “If you want something done, ask a busy person.”

Sophie is majoring in Politics and Communications, with a minor in Science Communications. Liam is studying Law and a BA with Politics, minoring in Economics.

The two are flatmates as well as co-producers, so have been really immersed in this successful series.

See the series via these social media platforms: https://linktr.ee/vote2023otago