There's a lot of talk right now about how stupid it is to have JWs hand out leaflets with URLs on them. "Why go to someone's door to tell them they can visit a web site that lets them ask for someone to come to their door?" Well, I'm sorry, but I have to weigh in with a contrary opinion here on how clever the Society is. I was typing this as a reply in an existing thread but decided to make a new topic since the post got a bit long. Okay, so:
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Although I don't want it to be a good idea, I honestly think that this campaign actually is a good idea. Think about what goes through the mind of the average householder when someone offers them literature. "Gee, this is a whole magazine I have to read now. Should I take it just to be polite? What are all these articles about? What does it cost? What if they keep coming back because I took something? I've heard they do that." That's assuming they even let the Witness get to the literature offer. Sometimes the Witness starts off asking too many questions and the householder just isn't willing to discuss the meaning of life at 10:00a.m. on a Saturday.
Instead, during this campaign, the presentation is a simple, polite hit-and-run: "Here's a leaflet, no pressure, check it out when you have the time, bye!"
With the leaflet floating around their home, many will eventually check out the web site on their own. Now, keep in mind, the purpose of the web site is not to press a button that sends someone to ring your doorbell. That's just one thing you can do. The site is packed with content. So likely if they have any interest at all, what they are going to is look over what's on the site, and slowly warm up to the teachings (well, the very basic stuff that's uncontroversial), before they consider asking for a visit from a JW.
Now, you might point out that it's an important ingredient in indoctrination to have the face-to-face contact, but I think this is actually a pretty good way to introduce members of the public to the beliefs without the variable of whether a given JW clicks well with the householder and how persuasive they are. Instead the content speaks for itself. Look around the site: there's attractive content here, if you can stifle the reaction you feel to seeing the teachings of the religion. The videos are very polished and will impress the unskeptical. For instance, the "Why Study The Bible?" video effectively tugs at the emotions with its music and imagery.
I think what you guys are overlooking -- and this is a MAJOR factor -- is the power of the visual medium. You guys have seen how popular YouTube is, right? Of course you have. People would rather watch a video that takes 7 minutes to explain how to install Adobe Photoshop than just read a single page of instructions in one minute. Why is YouTube so popular? Because you can be an illiterate idiot and still get around the site okay. Just click on thumbnails, you don't even need to read what the video is about. The comments on videos demonstrate just how low the mental bar is for someone to use the site.
I know this post sounds elitist, but I'm just saying out loud what we already know: the ones most likely to convert to the religion are uneducated and are not comfortable studying books. Many Bible studies have serious "learning disabilities" (that's the PC term for it) and need to have everything repeated to them from the paragraph out loud, three times, before they get it. That's because their oral comprehension is much better than their written comprehension. The jw.org web site takes away the demand of literary comprehension and replaces it with, "Listen to the nice man talk over the pretty pictures." (Of course there are articles too, for those who want them.)
So I actually think the Society knows exactly what they're doing. They know their target audience. It's not "the worldly wise". It's the "humble, child-like ones". They could hardly have made a better move than this to attract potential converts, especially outside of the more well-educated areas of the world that most of us live in. Okay, that's my take on it. Feel free to jump all over me now.