Written by: Joey Lin
Eight out of 30. 50 out of 60. 88 out of 100. These are the results of some quick surveys conducted in THIMUN Singapore XV committees about whether they have read MUNITY East this year, whether they prefer the admin meme account to the publication, and whether they prefer to read MUNITY East on the website or in print.
Specifically, out of 30 delegates in the Security Council, 13 have seen at least one MUNITY issue, and 16 planned on reading it eventually; 22 delegates preferred the Admin staff’s THIMUN meme account to MUNITY East. Out of 30 delegates randomly selected from the General Assembly Second Committee, the responses were even more bleak. Only eight of them have already read MUNITY East this year, and 11 promised to read it in the future. An overwhelming majority of 25 delegates out of 30 would rather view the meme account than read the articles.
The International Criminal Court, a more selective committee, produced slightly better results for the press team: six out of nine participants have read MUNITY East this year, eight of them were planning on reading it, but seven also preferred the meme account.
Furthermore, 24 out of 25 surveyed delegates of the Economic and Social Council preferred a print version of MUNITY East, instead of the digital version that the press team decided to transform to.
The hope of MUNITY East seemingly lay only on the directors. Out of 17 directors, 14 preferred the digital version to the print version, citing “good for the environment” and “easy to share with parents” as the primary reasons. Mr. Buscher, the MUNITY East Coordinator, opting for the digital version, poignantly recalled that “copies [of the magazine] were laying around the campus [last year].”
On that note, the 3 directors who preferred print wished to see more alternatives, like social media, which they would prefer over website and print. Mr. Newman, the coordinator of MUNITY the Hague, chose the digital version over the print version due to environmental concerns and the ability to make modifications after the deadline.
To change the fact that more than half of the delegates do not want to read MUNITY East, Mr. Buscher expressed that the meme account taking away the attention to MUNITY East should be called to account for its name “thimunadmeme.xv,” since THIMUN Singapore did not authorize it. He also attributed a part of the low publicity to the press team for the lack of promotion. In the future, MUNITY East will need to consider how to grab readers’ attention, in order to gain more traction.