And Now For The Good News by Ruby Wax

When I carried out my questionnaire and asked people for examples of where they find positive news, one person wrote that they were currently reading And Now For The Good News by Ruby Wax. For my research, I ordered a copy and I've been reading it alongside making work. My initial intention was that it would give me some content for whatever I made, however, it's not really written in an appropriate way for that purpose. It's more of a written insight into Ruby's travels around in search for some positivity and touches on society and mental health quite a lot. Despite, it's still been really useful in prompting me to think about some particular things: 

Within the business section of the book, Ruby discusses 'conscious consumerism': a new type of business model and way of thinking that new companies are taking on. It involves the three elements of conscious consumerism: purpose, mission, and vision. Even though Glad Print isn't a company or a business, it got me thinking about my own responses to this 'hierarchy of principles'. Obviously, if Glad Print were to grow and hypothetically become a proper bi-monthly edition sort of thing, it would follow conscious consumerism, as this aligns with the intentions of the brand. 

Purpose, refereeing to the difference you want to make in the world. The purpose of Glad Print is to randomly distribute positive information, surprising people with optimistic news stories to brighten their day. A further purpose is to interrupt the way that we currently interact with the current news media outlets. How can we approach the distribution of information differently and in a more considered way? One that looks out for us instead of trying to scare us? 

Mission, the way in which you will achieve your purpose. The way in which I'm aiming to achieve my purpose is to actually physically produce a decent amount of 'zine packs' myself and distribute them accordingly. I want to put them in places where people will find them and them pass them on. I'm a little bit worried about putting them on trains/ buses because I think with the current pandemic they would simply get thrown away. Maybe I could order some of those little single wipes and stick them to the outside packaging? I'm not really sure. 

Vision, how you see the world once your purpose has been achieved. I think that my vision is a far-fetched one, as pessimistically I can't see the way in which we consume news as a society changing radically anytime soon. But ideally, I would love for news to be distributed to us a little bit kinder. With the rise of smartphones, graphic imagery is shared on the six o clock news that people watch as a family, a long with some pretty horrific language/ stories. I understand that it's so important that this information be shared, but I think that we've gotten into a monotonous routine where we only share the negative without a second thought. 

(For example, when I was in high school I was forced to listen to a phone recording of a victim of 9/11. At the time, it was completely unrelated to whatever we were studying in English Lit, but my teacher felt it appropriate to traumatise a group of 12 year olds by making them listen to the recording. I feel like the premise is similar, there are ways to inform and educate that are more appropriate than fear-mongering and scaring.) 

We're constantly being exposed to negativity everyday on the news. I wish that the same amount of effort was put into uplifting people, encouraging them, and reminding them of what's good in the world. 

Above: some good examples of positive change that I could try and find articles on to use as content.