By Danny Wicentowski, ICB Reporter 
On college campuses, information is power. In an environment with yearly population turnover, Israel advocates need well-honed media outreach skills. Glossy pamphlets, postcards and fact sheets, distributed in seemingly inexhaustible supply, have traditionally been popular with students.
But social media has changed the playing field.
Posters, op-eds, tabling -- these were some of the hallmarks of Israel advocacy in the not-too-distant past. Nowadays, it's not uncommon to see groups create social media campaigns that also incorporate traditional methods of advocacy. The same students producing viral videos are also hitting the quad to pass out pamphlets and free food.
Student groups and national organizations have been using social media for years, and the use of these platforms has exposed a range of outcomes and uses.
Hasbara Fellowships took the plunge into new media early and didn't slow down. The "
Friend Request Pending" campaign released in September, as part of the Real Partners. Real Peace. initiative, features a viral video with nearly 75,000 views on YouTube, mobilization guides, posters and cards.
"Nowadays it’s very important to think of creative ways to spread the same message through a variety of mediums," said Natalie Menaged, director of education at Hasbara Fellowships, in an email interview. "In this manner, you can really maximize your impact."
Coordinating between old and new media requires balance and a delicate touch and while Hasbara has a handful of multi-media campaigns under its belt, Menaged pointed out that the message should always take precedence.
"Depending on the medium, the length and depth of the content, the extent to which you use visuals or humor, the tone – all of these components have to be adjusted appropriately," Menaged said.
"If you can find the right way to frame these messages for your audience, you can be successful in communicating the point you want to get across."
Organizations have approached the question of "framing" in different ways. The Hasbara "Friend Request Pending" campaign, for example, used a Facebook motif to accentuate the ways Israel had reached out in "friendship" to other countries, and to make the case against the unilateral Palestinian push for statehood.
Along with the video, Hasbara sent out a series of postcards and posters using the same Facebook aesthetic. Menaged said postcards remain particularity effective, as they require very little effort and time to read.
All pro-Israel groups contacted for this story stressed that "old media" still holds a prominent place in the advocacy toolbox. But with the release of the "
Captain Israel" comic book, pro-Israel organization StandWithUs went beyond the normative definition of print media.
Two issues of the comic book, which features an eponymous hero of the same cut as Captain America, have been released and a third is expected to appear soon. Roz Rothstein, CEO and founder of StandWithUs, said that the use of cartoons for messaging is part of the "multitude of ways" StandWithUs gets information to the public.
"Captain Israel is just another way to try to reach people and tell Israel's story," Rothstein said, pointing out that Pocket Facts - small booklets with distilled information on a variety of Israel issues - remain popular among students.
Rothstein said the short, easy-to-read pamphlets with appealing visuals stand in contrast to text-heavy offerings of the past.
"We take good research, and we couple it with good marketing and good images and you have a booklet that will be popular," Rothstein said, adding, "We have given out millions."
But Rothstein is also proud of the organization's social media success. When pro-Palestinian students at UC Irvine disrupted a speech by Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren in 2010, StandWithUs released a video recording of the fracas.
The video now has 750,000 views on YouTube, and Rothstein credits its exposure in pressuring the administration at UC Irvine to act.
New approaches to spreading information play an important role, Rothstein said, but they must be combined with older, proven methods.
"You have to really avail yourself of all possible learning mechanisms, because students are ... not necessarily going to be sitting in front of a computer," Rothstein said, but stressed that social media must be an equal and complementary tactic.
The packaging of information into enjoyable, understandable tidbits like Captain Israel or Pocket Facts has brought criticism. During an Al-Jazeera segment examining the Captain Israel comic book, Mark LeVine, a professor of Middle Eastern history at the UC Irvine, said the comic book contains factual errors. LeVine also said that the issues under discussion are being simplified and stereotyped by being presented in such a medium.
Rothstein insists that all facts are researched and backed up, and that the pamphlets are not intended to represent a full education on the Israeli-Arab conflict.
"Take a look at this, read it, but don't rely on it," Rothstein said. "Go ahead and do your own research."
The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) campus program is in the midst of redesigning its entire social media platform, said ZOA Northeast campus coordinator Jason Holzman. The ZOA's current Palestinian incitement campaign features both old and new media: A YouTube video -- with over 1,000 views -- about Palestinian incitement shares the spotlight with informational pamphlets.
"We're really trying to do more videos," said Holzman, who hopes that an eventual video series will go viral.
However, Holzman stressed that the ZOA campus program is "a little bit different." As a national organization, the ZOA hasn't put much priority on developing its social media presence. The campus department, which is spearheading the social media redesign, is run by recent college graduates spread out across the country
Holzman is confident, though, that the campus program can advance.
"I can guarantee you by this time next year the ZOA social media will be far more developed than it is right now," he said.
However, there are outside forces that can limit the use of social media. Aaron Leven, outreach chair for Emory Students for Israel (ESI) at Emory University, said that past experience has driven the group to pursue more word of mouth, tabling and traditional media.
"We're trying to build a positive ethos for Israel," Leven said
The campus is so densely packed with anti-Israel groups, he said, that a social media or viral campaign that becomes too effective could attract the wrong kind of attention.
"We try to do our best, to avoid conflict," Leven said, describing what he sees as a practical need to control the spread of some information. He's even hesitant about publishing op-eds; the comments section seems to attract anti-Semitism.
For Hasbara, however, the surface has barely been scratched. A new social media initiative called Israel and.Me is planned to "allow any pro-Israel student to become an effective Israel advocate from the comfort of their own computer," said Menaged.
Each advocate will have a customized URL where they can post Hasbara viral videos and articles, as well as other content. Users will compete on a leader-board for the greatest number of views and likes.
"We think this is a unique campaign because any student who wants can participate," Menaged said. "Together, we hope to create a huge and effective viral student network."
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