>> Carla Hayden:
Welcome, I'm Carla Hayden,
the 14th Librarian of Congress.
Last year, I announced the
selection of Danielle Allen
as the winner of
the Kluge Prize,
the most prestigious honor
given in the humanities.
Dr. Allen's home is as the
director of the Safra Center
for Ethics and Professor
of government
at Harvard University.
She is internationally known as
a leading scholar on the origins
of democracy, and
is active in efforts
to support civics education,
and democratic practice.
Last year, she brought together
a multidisciplinary group
of academic and public leaders
that developed the
highly influential roadmap
to pandemic resilience.
This year, as the
Kluge Prize Laureate,
Dr. Allen is leading a
series of public events,
as well as workshops for K
through 12 educators here
at the Library of Congress.
This series is titled
Our Common Purpose.
Today, we are holding the first
of these events, a discussion
on the role of information
in civil society,
addressing challenges
citizens have in making sense
of the deluge of sources
in the digital age.
Thank you for tuning in to the
first of these important events.
Now, I'd like to
turn to John Haskell,
Director of the Kluge
Center at the library
to introduce the panelists.
John.
>> John Haskell: Thank you, Dr.
Hayden, and thank all of you
for joining us for the kickoff
event in Our Common Purpose,
a campaign for civic strength
at the Library of Congress.
Here we are in the third
decade of the 21st century.
And there may be no more
critical issue facing us
as individuals and as a
society than how to cope
with the information and
disinformation that comes
into our homes through
the internet.
Kluge Prize winner Danielle
Allen worked with us
at the library to
put together a panel
that that would address
this challenge
from a diverse range
of perspectives.
Joining us today are Talia
Stroud from the University
of Texas at Austin,
where she is the Director
of the Center for
Media Engagement.
Talia is a nationally
renowned expert
on examining commercially viable
and democratically beneficial
ways of improving media.
Brendesha Tynes comes to
us from the University
of Southern California
where she is a professor
of education and psychology.
Brendesha is a leader
in the study
of how youth experience
digital media,
and how these early
experiences are associated
with their academic and
emotional development.
She also looks at equity issues
as they relate to
digital literacy.
She is the principal
investigator
on several projects
including the teen life online
and in schools project,
a National Institutes
of Health funded longitudinal
study of online racial
and racial discrimination.
Finally, Richard Young who
is the founder of CivicLex,
a pioneering nonprofit that
is using technology, media,
and social practice to build a
more civically engaged public
in Lexington, Kentucky.
CivicLex aims to build stronger
relationships between citizens
and those who serve them.
Before I turn the program
over to Danielle Allen,
I want to recognize the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences
which has supported this
effort every step of the way.
I hope you enjoy this
short introductory video.
[ Music ]
>> The American Academy of Arts
and Sciences launched a project
to examine and then address
what people feel and experience
in America's ongoing
experiment in self-governance.
What's working?
What isn't?
What can be done?
The project's final report
is Our Common Purpose,
reinventing American
democracy for the 21st century.
Gluge Prize winner
Danielle Allen develop the
recommendations with co-chairs
Eric Lew and Steven Heinz
and 30 other commission members.
They consulted experts
across the political spectrum
and talked to Americans
from every walk of life.
>> Danielle Allen:
What we're trying
to do is inspire commitment
to American democracy
and to one another.
>> Jonathan Gelbart: We are
at a stage in our history
where people feel
like democracy is
in an extremely fragile state.
They're they feel
like partisanship is
at extremely destructive levels.
We're not listening
to each other.
Things aren't getting done
at the national level.
All we see is people
yelling at each other on TV.
>> Danah Boyd: It's a
question of what happened
to local journalism,
what the costs are.
The costs are if you don't
know a journalist, well,
you don't know someone
who knows a journalist,
the whole institution is flawed.
And if you think the whole
institution is flawed,
you don't trust any of the
information coming from it.
>> Amy Wisehart: There's a
lot of divisiveness in our,
in our society because of that.
>> Kim Covington: Whether
it's through in the news media
or social media,
they're more informed.
But because they're
more informed,
they can see the damage,
and they can see what's
being taken from them.
And so some people feel
like it's hopeless.
>> Luis Farias: I think
that social media gives you
that unique platform to not be
afraid, to say what you want,
and to share your
opinion freely.
>> Amy Wisehart: But sometimes
that creates divisions
that become very divisive
in our, in our society.
So we form these echo
chambers, where we find people
who agree with us online.
And we, we kind of reinforce our
own value systems and beliefs.
And we, we kind of negate
the values of other people
who might disagree with us.
>> Danah Boyd: And I
like to remind everybody
that the internet mirrors
and magnifies the
good, bad and ugly.
And so it's very easy
for us to look and be
like this is awesome,
this is horrible.
And it all is simultaneously
true.
And so then we have to
think then about how we get
to that mutually co-constructed
environment of what's going on.
>> Chatham Kitz: If we
don't defuse this situation
on a national level,
it can be ugly.
>> Jonathan Gelbart: And there's
a hunger for civil discourse
for problem solving for
finding solutions rather
than just scoring
political points.
>> Amanda Barker: I think a good
place to start is kind of a call
for civility or civil discourse.
>> Chatham Kitz: But if we
have an intellectually honest
discussion of facts and
methodologies and ways
to solve our problems, that's
far better than just screaming
at each other, you know.
>> Ethan Zuckerman:
We've inherited a moment
where our news organizations
are underfunded,
and weak and shrinking.
Where the social
media organizations
that we once hoped really
were going to hold us
and nurture us are now in
many cases pulling us apart.
>> Amy Wisehart: Again, it comes
back to listening to each other,
engaging in dialogue, being
open to different perspectives,
and not, not necessarily
demonizing the other person
or the group that thinks
differently than you do.
>> Kim Covington: If
we just watch the news,
and we watch the impeachment,
and we hear about kids
being locked in cages,
then we will lock ourselves
out and stop participating.
But then you hear about
all the amazing work
from community organizers, from
those working in philanthropy,
from all walks of life,
people who are still actively
participating in trying
to find solutions to
bridge those gaps.
That inspires me.
>> Danielle Allen:
Welcome, thank you so much
for joining us today to talk
about Our Common Purpose,
Civic Media to Build
a Better Society.
This flows out of work
done by a commission
on reinventing constitutional
democracy,
American democracy
for the 21st century.
One of the core ideas
of the work is
that any healthy constitutional
democracy needs political
institutions that empower
people and are responsive,
civil society that helps
people bridge differences
and also provides a healthy
information ecosystem,
and a civic culture
that nourishes a spirit
of mutual commitment of
all of us to one another,
and to our constitutional
democracy.
We need a virtuous circle
linking healthy institutions,
a healthy civil society,
and a healthy civic culture.
But today, we're just going
to think about one aspect
of that virtuous circle,
our civic media environment,
information ecosystem we
live in, and the kinds
of social relationships that
emerge for us in digital spaces.
We've been through a lot
of bad and hard stuff
over the last year, and
a part of that has been
about disinformation
and misinformation
circulating in the media.
Some of that has been
about abusive behavior
that takes place online.
We can all see the way in which
our information ecosystems,
our media spaces are undermining
healthy democratic life.
So today, I'm thrilled to be
able to talk with three experts
and innovators, about
the problems they see
and the solutions they're
bringing help us all build
and use civic media for a
healthier, stronger society.
So I'm going to start by
turning to our guests,
our conversationalists today,
and asking them to share
with us something about the
problems they've each seen
that have led them to get
involved in the work of figuring
out how to design healthy civic
media that supports democracy
and ask them to tell a
story about how they came
to be engaged in this work.
So Brendesha, can
I start with you?
>> Brendesha Tynes: Absolutely.
Thank you so much for
inviting me to participate.
I'm so looking forward
to our conversation.
I actually got involved in this
research as a graduate student.
And I was working in
Patricia Greenfield,
who's a developmental
psychologist, her lab,
and she had gotten an NSF grant
to study sexual identity online.
And one week, we were all
sitting around the table,
and we were looking at a an
excite, I believe, transcript.
And we're supposed
to pick out examples
of how the participants
were expressing their
sexual identity.
And every other line
was a racial epithet,
or someone calling a
Black person, a monkey.
And I thought, this is
what I'm going to study.
And so this is 2001.
And since then, I've tried to
understand the racial landscape
that adolescents
navigate online.
And then also, sort of under,
I've tried to understand
the impact
that experiencing negative race
related messages online might
have on people's mental health,
on their academic
performance or motivation.
And also, that led me to think
about the critical
digital literacy skills
that people would need to be
able to counter those messages.
>> Danielle Allen: And I'm
curious Brendesha, if you could,
could share when you
made this discovery
of just how much
negative stuff there was,
how many racial epithets
and things like that,
did that changed your
own habits of operating
in the digital media sphere,
or your own ways
of engaging online?
>> Brendesha Tynes:
It didn't actually.
I, at the time, I wasn't
that engaged with, with,
with media and technology.
I've become more so
because, I've done it more
so because I study
it, and so I should be
on social media, right?
But at the time, it didn't
change anything at all.
>> Danielle Allen: Okay,
so you were really pulled
into the question of this
as a problem for others,
and how you as a researcher
and expert can help us all get
to a healthier place
for our interactions.
>> Brendesha Tynes: Exactly.
>> Danielle Allen: Richard,
can you share your story
of how you came to focus on
questions of civic media,
and how you can help us all do
better in our digital lives?
>> Richard Young:
Sure, absolutely.
And also want to just thank
you all so much for having me
as part of this conversation.
It's a real honor.
So, I came to this
conversation through,
I do very place-based
work and I came to it
through a very place-based lens.
I was sitting, I remember the
exact moment, I was sitting
in our city council chambers
in 2015, here in Lexington,
Kentucky, and there was a really
significant item going before
City Council, and it would make,
it would have a pretty
significant impact
on neighborhoods all
across Lexington.
And there were two people
there to speak about it.
And they were both lawyers.
And so as I was sitting
there, my work at the time was
in community development.
And I was really concerned
with the just general lack
of engagement in our,
in our core civic
processes here in Lexington.
And so over the next few
years and from since then,
I've been working with a number
of folks across Lexington
to build sort of a new piece
of civic infrastructure
in our city.
And that's a civic
education organization
that is really trying to help
people understand the core
issues that are impacting
our city,
and how to get directly involved
in those issues in a way
that is generative,
and ultimately can lead
to some really positive
change in our community.
>> Danielle Allen: And
so you had a desire
to see people connect and to see
people motivated to participate.
So you are watching a kind of
sort of desert of engagement,
desert of information.
When we think about
our national landscape,
we're all really
attuned to the problems
of misinformation
and disinformation.
Were those issues that were also
affecting that local experience?
>> Richard Young:
Absolutely, you know,
I think that when
you're looking at things
at a really local level,
misinformation travels
so quickly, because, you
know, people exist entirely
in this sort of social
relationship with each other.
Right? And so because, you
know, rumors spread quickly
in a small place is a,
there's no better way to say it
than that, misinformation
about that, that specific piece
of legislation and then
about really any of this sort
of matters coming before civic
bodies can spread really,
really fast.
And so, you know, that
is one of the big things
that we're focusing on
is trying to make sure
that when people are having
conversations about the future
of our community, they're
speaking from a place of,
of truth, right, and knowing
the significant issues
and how they're going
to impact communities.
>> Danielle Allen: Thank you.
Thank you so much, Talia.
Let me bring you in now and
you touch on, your work touches
on a lot of these issues.
You're interested
in the negative
and abusive behavior online as
well as issues of misinformation
and disinformation and
productive civic engagement.
But what actually got you
interested in this work
and connected to this space?
>> Talia Stroud: Well, let
me start by adding my voice
to the group to say thank you
so much for this opportunity
to have this conversation.
I think it's incredibly
important.
Congratulations on
the Kluge Prize,
and thanks to the
Library of Congress.
So many stories have really
inspired my involvement
in this space.
And there's one that I reflect
upon relatively frequently.
At the Center for
Media Engagement,
we're often conducting research
in partnership with newsrooms,
and there was an occasion
on in which I was chatting
with a newsroom executive, and
we were discussing comments
that appeared in that
newsrooms, digital spaces.
And this executive told me
that the newsroom had
made a decision not
to moderate that space.
They believed that that space
was the purview of audiences,
and that this should be
essentially a zone for them
to have whatever conversation
might have occurred to them.
At the same time, this
executive was really concerned
with that decision, because the
organization had published a
number of really important
pieces of journalism,
about immigration, and the
comments that had resulted
from that journalism
were filled with racism
and really undesirable content.
And this executive was actually
saying to me, I'm very concerned
that we have, in fact,
normalized this sort
of speech outside of these
comment sections outside
of our social spaces, because
we've let it sit there alongside
the journalism.
And this, to me, is just
one of these stories
that I frequently think
about because I think
it raises questions
about what should you do
about speech that's offensive,
or objectionable or
information that's false?
Can a marketplace of ideas
counteract that in some way?
Who should decide what
content is problematic?
And I think that these are just
fundamental questions for us
to wrestle with as we as we
encounter these, these new forms
of speech in digital spaces.
>> Danielle Allen: Let's take
a deeper dive into that, Talia.
Thank you so much.
It's a great example,
the editor, newspaper
or publishing executive who is
worried about the comment space
and the worries,
there are three fold.
It was offensive, it was false.
Yeah. And it was also material
that's otherwise objectionable.
Sort of three categories
of problem.
You've been working in this
space now for quite some time.
So what guidance would you give
to that newspaper executive?
Are there things that they
could do with that comments page
that would give us
all a different way
of consuming media, different
quality of information?
>> Talia Stroud: Yeah, I mean,
I think that there are a lot
of things that any
organization whether it's a news
organization, or a social media
platform, can and should do
as they think about the spaces
that they create online.
And the first is to
actually be thoughtful.
What sort of space do
you want to create?
How do you want people to
come together in these spaces?
And then what should
you do to create
that sort of an environment?
So for example, if you
want an environment
that doesn't have some of these
comments, that are offensive,
that are racist, that are
objectionable in other ways,
what sort of moderation
scheme might you put in place
to remove them if they're there?
And how effective is
that moderation scheme?
Are there ways to create
architecture and discourse
in an environment
where people feel
like they can ask
honest questions
and where they can engage
in productive dialogue.
And maybe that's having
a journalist involved
in the comment section.
For example, we've done
some research showing
that that can actually improve
the civility of a conversation,
that it can encourage people
to ask genuine questions.
And so I think thinking about
the world you want to create,
and then what is
the architecture
and what are the systems in
place that you would have
to have to create that is
the base level of starting
to address these issues.
>> Danielle Allen: What about
the person who says, well,
the world we want
to create is a world
where the First Amendment
reigns supreme,
and actually anything goes
at all because we just,
that freedom is so fundamental.
How do you respond to
that line of argument?
>> Talia Stroud:
It's a good question
and something to wrestle with.
And the truth of
the matter, though,
is the First Amendment does
not govern what is allowed
on a news organization's
comment section, for example,
or what's included on Facebook
or any other social
media organization.
Those organizations actually
have the First Amendment right
themselves to determine
what kind
of space they want to create.
So I think keeping in mind
where the First Amendment begins
and ends is actually a
really important component
of this conversation.
>> Danielle Allen: Thank you.
Thanks a lot.
Brendesha, I'm curious how
what your take is on this issue
of the sources of offensive
comments in digital space
and what to do about them.
So when you were
doing this research
and discovered just how
frequently people were using
epithets and slurs, and so
forth, was the reaction that,
oh, gosh, these opinions
and perspectives have
always been there,
and we just haven't seen them?
Or was the take the idea
that somehow the new digital
environment was actually
eliciting and cultivating
bad behavior?
>> Brendesha Tynes: So I think
it's a bit of both right.
And the recent events we've
witnessed, including the,
you know, election of an
openly racist president, right,
who incites a violent
riot at our Capitol,
these things have been practiced
online, and perfected, right,
in online spaces
for as early as 2001
when I started doing this
research, and I'm sure before,
and so, um, and can I
just say really quickly,
that what I've seen over the
years, students have reported
that they have witnessed people
actually calling for genocide
of Black people, inciting
violence against immigrants
and Latinx people showing,
posting images of
mock lynchings.
Right? Also, saying that Black
and Brown people shouldn't
be allowed to vote.
Right. And so these are things
that, you know, you heard,
quite often, you know, in face
to face spaces, but online,
it's sort of the mass
reach of the content.
And the fact that people
are, people who are
like minded can find
each other and sort
of express their racist views
and model for other people,
just to sort of how to do race
in both online and
offline spaces.
>> Danielle Allen: So you
would agree with the idea
that there's a kind
of modeling component
that has exacerbated
the problem?
>> Brendesha Tynes: Absolutely.
>> Danielle Allen: Yeah.
I mean, I, myself
have received plenty
of those kinds of
hateful messages.
And so I think the data is that
there is sort of disparities
that women and people of
color are subject to more
of this kinds of abuse.
Can you say a little bit
more about them from a kind
of psychologists
perspective, what that means
in other parts of
people's lives?
So how do young people process
these exposures when they occur?
>> Brendesha Tynes: So what
we've found is because a lot
of times, they're
carrying their, you know,
discriminatory experiences
around in their pockets.
When we ask them about, you
know, to give us an example,
they could readily, you
know, you know, like,
pull up a racist image, right.
And so we're just beginning
to understand the
implications of that, right.
What does it mean that
you can carry, you know,
around these heinous
messages, right?
We're finding that
they're associated
with increased anxiety,
increase depressive symptoms,
what we call traumatic
events online.
So witnessing a person being
killed online, in a viral video,
we find that that's
associated with PTSD symptoms.
And so, you know,
the what's happening
to people online has
serious consequences
for their mental health offline.
>> Danielle Allen: So we have
a big problem, in other words,
is what I'm hearing from you.
We have a big problem.
Richard, let me pull
you in here and ask you
to also take a deeper dive
on the problem as you see it.
I mean, again, we
know the problems
of mental health implications
of abusive behavior,
or the fact that rumors travel
easily in a small place,
as you said, which means
people don't have good,
solid information
for decision making.
What else have you
seen about the problems
with our media environment with
digital tools as you've tried
to do your work in Lexington?
>> Richard Young: Yeah.
So you know, I think
that this issue
of hate speech really
makes its way
into civic life in so many ways.
And, you know, in
Lexington in particular,
we had an incident back in June,
where a number of a number of,
you know, out and out
White supremacists called
into our council meeting and
started doxing council members,
and particularly, council
members of color and women,
you know, female
council members,
and it caused the entire sort
of public engagement apparatus
of council to shut down for
about six months, right?
So there were no
more public comments.
There was no way
for people to aside
from emailing council
members to advocate for,
for for issues, right.
This is in the summer of
2020, where there's so much,
so much pent up frustration
with how our systems are,
are addressing systemic racism,
and especially with policing,
and, you know, so there's all
of this, you know, thinking back
to the summer, when, when
there was no public comment.
There was so much
misinformation around, you know,
this sort of collective
bargaining agreement
that our city was going through
with the police department,
and all of these different
issues, and there was no way
for people to actually weigh in
on that in the public sphere.
And so, you know, I think we
have to figure out ways to,
to navigate, you know, navigate
these really complex issues,
especially at the
municipal level, right?
A couple, you know, there are
four or five people calling in,
and, you know, verbally
assaulting council members is
truly terrible.
And then it's sort of how
do you actually move forward
and create systems
that people can engage
with what's happening civically,
without opening up spaces
for triggering traumas.
And that is a it is
a really hard thing
to do, especially digitally.
And, you know, I think we're
still struggling with how to,
how to implement
that, as we, you know,
still have social
distancing requirements
in place here in Lexington.
>> Danielle Allen: Mm hmm.
So I want to really
dig in on this.
I mean, you're all
expressing the need for us
to do a better job of
building protections
into our digital environments,
protections of human beings,
sort of relational care,
and protections of quality
of information and
evidence and argument.
But, I want to go deep on that.
But before I do actually want to
come back to Brendesha and talk
about human psychology
again, because we'll think
through this question of how
can we design our digital tools,
so they can work better for us.
But I'm going to start
from a kind of, you know,
point of some pessimism.
We're not going to be
able to perfect them,
and I think there will
always be some bad behavior.
So can we say a little bit,
Brendesha, about what kinds
of coping mechanisms do we also
need to think about cultivating
for ourselves as we interact
in this public sphere
with more exposure to strangers
than we might have had
prior to its existence?
>> Brendesha Tynes: So what,
so one of the coping skills
that people need is being able
to sort of counter the messages
that the race related messages,
particularly racist messages
that they get online, and so
on, what I'm arguing for is the,
for the development of
what I call critical race,
digital literacy.
And that it's essentially,
there's a long definition coming
out in an article in the
International Journal
of Multicultural Education, but
I'll shorten it for the talk.
And it's essentially
the knowledge,
skill and awareness required
to access, organize, integrate,
evaluate, critique, and
counter race related media
and technologies.
And that includes being able
to place a race related message
in historical context.
And so if you see a Black person
being represented as an animal,
you know, oh, you know,
this has happened for,
you know, centuries, right?
These racist, this racist
imagery has been used
to justify slavery, right?
It's been used to justify a
range of oppressive practices,
right, against Black people
and other people of color.
And so I think having
people place the messages
in historical context
will help them
to better situate the message.
And, and in some ways,
it almost takes the sting
out of the message, right,
because you know, that this,
this was this is a historical
practice that's just being,
you know, extended into today,
in a modern day sort of,
you know, version, right.
I'm also, we are hoping to get
people to develop the skill
of critical and lateral
reading, right, I think a lot
of media literacy scholars right
now are suggesting that we need
to teach people to
laterally read the sites
that they are exposed to and so
using multiple sites to be able
to evaluate information that
they've been exposed to.
And what we found is
really lateral reading in
and of itself isn't that useful.
Right? You also have to have
these critical race digital
literacy skills, because
you could go to other sites
and not be, not understand
race, and still come away,
possibly misinformed, right,
about, about an issue.
>> Danielle Allen:
Incredibly complicated.
I mean all kinds of bodies
of knowledge and skills
that we need to figure out how
to cultivate for young people,
but also for all of us.
>> Brendesha Tynes: Absolutely.
Absolutely.
>> Danielle Allen: So, Richard,
coming back to the experience
you all had last summer.
So you've been working your
way through to solutions,
probably I'm thinking
and so what kinds of,
what have you discovered?
What what can be done to protect
people from that kind of abuse
or to help people deal
with it when it happens
and protect the space for
positive, productive engagement?
>> Richard Young: Sure, yeah.
So the, you know, I feel
like when we're talking
about solutions to this
issue, we I sort of have
to rewind a little
bit to before,
before we are operating
purely digitally.
And, you know, part
of the work that we do
at CivicLex is really focused on
relational development, right,
and, and making sure
that people can have sort
of meaningful connections,
like personal connections
to their elected
officials, right?
And what, you know, the, for
us, the real importance of that,
right, is helping
people see that, right,
their elected officials are
not just sort of figureheads
that get elected, they're humans
that live near them that go
to the same grocery
stores as them.
And you allowing this
sort of this sort
of in person connection with
each other, unable to see people
in a more complex lens than
then then they would normally.
And so as we're sort of going
through this time, after this,
this event over the summer,
you know, when we've been sort
of talking with council members,
one of the, one of the things
that they're experiencing a
lot of frustration around is
that they feel like they can't
connect with constituents,
right, and in any sort of
way, even with public comment,
which is now somewhat
reinstated.
And so we've been holding
some really fantastic online
workshops, right where
council members or people
with in positions of political
power inside the staff of our
of our city can actually connect
digitally, like personally
over the internet and talk to
each other about the things
that are really meaningful
to their lives right now.
You know, one of the things
that's bringing everyone
together is the difficulty that
folks are having with with MTI
and education right now,
with schools closed.
And so, you know, there's
something really special
in the ability for a council
member and a single mother
to bond over the fact that both
of them are having troubles
with education, right,
for their kids right now.
And so I think, you
know, when we're talking
about these sort of, these
sort of online spaces
for civic discourse, I
think we're so often focused
on the sort of comment section,
right, or on social media,
thread, comments,
that sort of thing.
We're not talking enough
I feel like about spaces
for face-to-face contact where
we can actually see each other.
Online comment sections
are so dehumanizing.
And when we can actually
look into each other's eyes
and see each other and get
to know each other's
personal lives outside
of whatever the particular issue
of the day is, it's
more important.
The trouble with that is
how do you scale that up?
Right? Like, how do you
actually get that to
where it can actually go
outside of a local community
or any one specific issue?
And that's, that's a real
difficulty and something
that we're trying to, we're
trying to figure out, as,
you know, we talk with
other communities about how
to implement the
models we're working on.
>> Danielle Allen: So this is
a fascinating conversation,
I'm really struck by the
richness of the thinking
that you are all doing
around the relational aspects
of our engagements
digitally and online.
That's slightly surprising,
because collectively,
we think about our issues with
our information ecosystem.
In media, we do tend to worry
about the validity of facts
and evidence and
falsehoods and so forth
that are circulating first.
I think that's where our
public conversation is.
And we start there before
we get to the issues
of relationality, typically.
Your work has taken you deep
into relational questions.
Talia, I'm wondering if
you could help us think
about how the informational
pieces
and relational pieces
fit together?
Where, how do you put those
pieces together in your work?
>> Talia Stroud: It's
definitely the case.
But the way in which we
talk about digital spaces,
it's filled with all of
these metaphors about facts,
information transmission,
and how the information
superhighway.
And so I think that we as a
culture have decided that data
and information is the way
in which we should
think about this fear.
But so many of the problems
that we're seeing right now
really have this relational
component, as everyone
has mentioned.
So if we think about the issue
of misinformation, for example,
what is one of the factors
that really plays a role
in the circulation
of misinformation?
It's people's partisanship,
or their political
or personal identities,
and that influences them
to share something
or believe something
that might not be true.
And so at the, at
the very base of all
of this is something
fundamental relational,
and whether it's getting
to your council member,
or meeting a journalist or
meeting that other person
who is just a name on
a social media channel.
There's, these are deeply
relational potential solutions
for addressing this issue.
And so I think the more that
we can shift to seeing this
as a really relational
space rather
than information driven space,
the better off we'll be.
We've actually been talking
about a concept called
connective democracy,
which I think relates
so beautifully
to our conversation today
and the idea of civic media,
that really the thing that is
so important is these linkages
between institutions
and between people.
>> Danielle Allen: So can you
say more, Talia, I know in some
of your work, you use the
metaphor of urban design
to help us all think about the
way we can bring intentionality
to creating healthier
civic media environments.
And as I understand it, the
thought is, we design cities
in order to support
better human experiences
to support human well-being and
in the same way that we bring
that intentionality to cities,
we ought to be able to bring
that intentionality
to platforms.
Can you spell out
what that idea is?
And then what it might
mean in some concrete ways,
when you think about
Facebook or Twitter,
how would they look different
if we were bringing that kind
of intentionality to bear?
>> Talia Stroud: Absolutely.
So this is an analogy that I've
really enjoyed playing with,
with my co-collaborator --
excuse me, it was
my co-collaborator,
Eli Pareser [assumed spelling].
And what essentially
the observation is,
is that we have a robust
literature and we thought a lot
about how to design for urban
spaces or offline spaces.
How do you bring
people together?
How do you create
multifunctional spaces
where people can do lots
of different things?
And we haven't really thought so
much about that in online space,
because we've been
more concerned
about this informational
metaphor.
But if we think about
relationships between people,
and how that's been
cultivated, and offline space,
then it actually provides
some interesting insights
for digital spaces.
And there are all
sorts of playful ways
that you can think about this.
So you can think about, okay,
what is a digital space?
And what would be its
offline equivalent?
So if you think about
the comment section
that I mentioned earlier,
an offline equivalent,
maybe you think of
something like a parking lot,
that's that doesn't even
have any lines anywhere
where everyone's trying to park
and there's no one
coordinating anything.
And then you can think, okay,
well, what have we learned
about designing parking lots
so that they actually
function well,
and people can park their car
and go about their business.
And then can you
take that and use
that to inform what
we're thinking
about in digital spaces.
And so I think that switching
our metaphors from the idea
of information transfer to
space, to how people relate
to one another in spaces, to how
norms are established in spaces,
opens up a whole
new way of thinking
about what the experience
could be like online.
>> Danielle Allen: I will say
that your metaphor has been
extremely helpful to me
in a very concrete circumstance,
which is that my daughter had
the terrible experience this
fall of being sucked
into Tick Tock universe,
my 10 year old daughter is
too young, for Tick tock,
and really, lots of
bad stuff happening.
And I realized, you know, in the
physical world, she's permitted
to ride her bike independently.
And that's easy to
do, because it's easy
to tell her here
are the boundaries
and their street
markings and so forth.
And like, this is
your territory,
and you can see the
rules of the road
because they're visible for you.
There is none of
that visibility,
online in digital spaces.
And so how do we get to a
place where we can, in fact,
make things visible for
young people in particular,
in the same way that we do
in our in our city escape?
I now understand the need
for it, I think thanks
to your metaphor and analogy,
but but how do we
actually get there?
>> Yeah, I mean, I think
a lot of experimentation,
and I think that
there are some outlets
that are already trying
to push this forward.
So if you think about
YouTube kids, for instance,
there are many things
to critique about that.
I have a four year old,
who is watches more
of that than I would like.
And but at least it's a separate
section that's been spelled
out to be four kids,
and they're trying
to create something there that's
that has those boundaries
around it.
And so I think we can take some
inspiration from the efforts
that are starting so far, for
how you create a space for kids
versus a space for
everyone else.
And I think thinking
about audiences
as being quite distinct based
on their demographic attributes,
like being a child versus
being an adult is an important,
important thing to consider.
>> Danielle Allen:
That's super helpful.
Brendesha, I know you also have
been engaged in building things
to try to address the
problems that you found.
Can you share with
us some examples
of what you've been building
to try to help us all here?
>> Brendesha Tynes: Yes,
so right now, we're working
on a platform called Crypnotic.
And it's designed to develop
critical digital literacy
skills, critical race, digital
literacy skills, and the main,
it's basically eight modules.
And we have a toolkit as sort
of the main learning, you know,
experience for, for students,
and they take what they learned
in the toolkit and use it in the
other modules, and hopefully,
could guide some of their,
you know, experiences online.
And so what we're trying to
do is the historical lens
that I mentioned that
people need to be able
to navigate race related
material, we're trying
to develop that historical ends,
along with the critical lens
that people need to consume
any sort of material online,
but particularly material
that is race related.
And so what we're doing is I
recently conducted the National
Survey of Critical
Digital Literacy.
And we're using results
from that survey
to inform the next
iteration of metallic.
And hopefully, we'll be
able to soft launch in,
in the fall with a group of
teachers and a group of eighth
through 10th grade teachers.
>> Danielle Allen: Fantastic.
You'll have to share
more for folks
so they can know
how to get involved.
Can you share some of the
most surprising results
that came out of that survey?
>> Brendesha Tynes: So we,
right now we just have,
we've just analyzed
the pilot data.
And so we actually the
past couple of weeks,
we just got the results
from the actual survey
that we did in the fall.
But looking at some of the
pilot data, we noticed that --
so the we had 11 to
19 year old Black
and Latinx participants
in in the pilot.
And we found that many
of them actually had the,
had a sort of sophistication
around race related issues
where they could point out
when something was racist.
There was also an issue where
people couldn't match the,
the race related,
you know, the skills,
the racial literacy skills
that they had with kind
of their digital
literacy skills.
And so we found that many
of our students lacked what
we would call a mastery level
ability to reason about
race related information.
So we had one to 8% of
the sample reached mastery
in their reasoning
about the material
that we, that we gave them.
>> Danielle Allen: Okay,
no, thank you so much.
And so I think you have a, you
have a pilot for educators.
So the materials are
probably not broadly open yet,
but they may be as you work and
redesign and develop over time,
is that, am I understanding
correctly?
>> Brendesha Tynes: So we'll
have the, so the, we'll have a,
the for Crypnotic, we'll have
sort of the initial version
of the teachers manual.
And then we'll have
the actual, like,
I guess it'll be
the third iteration
of the crypnotic platform.
So there'll be two parts of it.
Right, the teachers
manual that helps them
to basically use
crypnotic in the classroom,
and then the actual,
the actual platform.
>> Danielle Allen: Wow.
Okay. Thank you.
That's, that's very exciting.
Look forward to seeing that.
Richard. So you've built
this thing CivicLex.
You know, I'm so excited
about what you've built.
It's a combination
of news organization
and public engagement,
initiative, and endeavor.
And, you know, you
yourself made --
raised a question about how
challenging it is to scale.
Let's I want to talk
about the scale question.
But before we do, we dig in a
little bit more on the news side
of your work, or the
journalism side of the work?
So you've shared about
the relational piece,
but tell us what the
informational piece and then
of course, you know,
how they intersect?
>> Richard Young:
Absolutely, yeah.
You know, so much of this,
this conversation is,
I feel like helping me see
our work in a little bit
of a different light, and that
which is always really,
really exciting.
So, you know, we kind of
have, so we're talking about,
we spoke focus specifically
on local issues, right,
and our focus entirely on just
the county that we live in,
and Kentucky that our
organization is based in.
And when we think about
so much about how the sort
of traditional journalism
approach looks at events sort
of happening in a city,
specifically legislative events,
and anything that's sort
of going through the sort
of meat grinder of
City Hall, you know,
so much of how the sort of
the architecture of that kind
of journalism is built to be
very disempowering, right?
So much so it, so
much of it is focused
on what has just
happened, right,
like this meeting just
happened in City Hall.
And so much of it is focused
on, on telling the story,
as opposed to showing people
how to get involved, right?
And so what, what we do, even
when you look at like this sort
of architecture of a piece
of journalism itself, right,
it's this long narrative,
this long narrative that has
so many different threads going
in and out of it, that you have
to sort of be a civic expert to
understand each of those threads
as they weave in
and out of a story.
And so what we try and do is
take things that and break them
down into their most
based elements,
and make it really clear,
we have a very targeted
reading level
that we write everything for,
everything's very bullet
pointed, very, very,
very simply articulated.
But then what instead
of covering things
that have happened in
City Hall, we cover things
that are going to happen, right.
So each week we put
out, we put out a piece
about something that's
happening later that week
in a committee of
the city council.
Right? And it'll be, you
know, this particular issue.
So for, for this week,
we're talking about some
of the city's rental
assistance programs.
And, and with that, right, we
provide all of the information,
we provide a little
bit of context
so that people can understand
what's happening in the sort
of broader housing
landscape in Lexington
with that particular issue.
But then at the very end of
it, we talk about like six
or seven very concrete steps
that you can take to get,
to get involved in that issue.
Right? So you can email a
council member, you can sign
up for public comment
those things, right?
Which are, you know, very,
are the sort of first steps
but then like, how
can you actually get
on a board and commission?
Right, how can you start to
become part of the elements
and the sort of resident-led
decision making processes
that are part of
the city, right,
how can you write an
op-ed to be placed
in our local sort
of daily newspaper?
So for us, it's really
about trying
to take what I think has been
for a lot of people, you know,
stories about what's happening
in City Hall, always feels
like things that are
happening to them.
And instead trying to
sort of make a little bit
of an adjustment to provide
clear, actionable information
for how people can get involved
in shaping the place
that they live.
>> Danielle Allen: That's
really, that's really wonderful.
And I can see that that's
a very empowering approach
to journalism.
You're right, it's a
real change of the model.
But let's come back
again, to this issue
of trusted information
and validated information.
I mean, I'm sure you're bringing
kind of journalistic protocols
about fact checking, and
things like that to your work.
But, does your community care?
Does it make any difference
that you're working hard to,
to meet that standard of
journalistic professionalism?
How can they even tell that
that's what you're doing?
>> Richard Young: Yeah, that's
a, that's a really great --
that's a really great question.
I think that so many
people, I hear from people
in my own family, right, like
our local newspaper's fake news,
right, I hear that from people
that I love very deeply.
And I think that, I think that,
so much of it is just a lack
of understanding of the actual
process of how information
for pieces of journalism
gets sort of correlated
and aggregated and
turned into a story.
And so for us, what we do
is, we relate everything back
to the original city
documents, right?
We are always trying to pull in
these original city documents
where it's really clear
and easy to see, like,
this is an official thing that
is coming out of the city.
Now, you know, of course, people
can take dispute with sometimes
with what's coming
out of the city.
But, you know, I think that
showing people that process,
like showing people where all
of this information comes from,
and how that process
sort of plays itself
out is really, really important.
We also regularly sort of
host these open conversations
where anyone can come
and meet with us,
or any elected officials
or folks in positions
of political power, and actually
interrogate them, right?
Obviously, we have like
facilitation rules that keep it
from getting a little
bit out of hand.
But for us, it is really that
that common, like the solution
to this, this sort of
information problem,
and building trust
that information is really
based in relationality.
Right. And so I think that I
was really, really the sort
of interconnectedness
of those two issues
that Talia was talking about,
really, really appeals to me,
and really is a frame of
reference for our work
that I don't think I've
thought about explicitly.
But is that a really,
really helpful part
of this conversation?
>> Danielle Allen: Oh, good.
I'm glad to hear.
Yes, I'm learning lots as well.
I do have to ask you all about
the elephant in the room,
though, which is the
question of regulation
and our big corporate
social media platform.
So our conversation has been
very oriented toward grassroots
solutions and the things that
in our communities we can bring
to bear on this, but what
about the impact and power
of those titans of social media?
Brendesha, is that an
issue that you wade
into at all in your work?
>> Brendesha Tynes: I haven't.
But I have been very
critical of some of the tools
that have been put in place
on some social media platforms
for sort of detecting racist
speech and misinformation.
I mean, with racist speech,
the algorithm and, you know,
some of the moderators, right,
um, they often aren't able
to pick out when
something is racist, right.
And so they end up, you know,
people who might be, you know,
fighting for social
justice online, right,
they may post something
that, you know,
they deem the moderators
deem as racist
or the tool the algorithm picks
up as a racist, right, and so,
you know, that material
gets reported.
And so really, the tools are
only as useful and effective
as the people who
are designing them.
And oftentimes, we
don't have, you know,
Black and Brown people
sitting at the table,
creating these tools and so
on, until we can get to a place
where we're more inclusive in
our design of solutions and,
and, and regulating
online content, we,
we the best strategy
should be to arm, you know,
participants media users
with the knowledge and skill
to be able to critique
the messages
and to evaluate the
messages that they get.
>> Danielle Allen: That's such
a powerful idea that at the end
of the day, we have
to equip ourselves,
because the tools are still such
a long distance from being fit
for purpose, so to speak.
So that's a real call to action
for self-education
and self-preparation.
Talia what do you take?
What's your take on the
question of regulation
and our big corporate
media platforms?
>> Talia Stroud: Yeah,
I agree in so many ways,
register with what
you've shared.
It's it's a challenge, right?
If you think of the most
extreme regulatory response,
so let's say that you regulate
no misinformation can happen
on these platforms.
These platforms cannot do that.
It's an it's not technically
possible to go through all
of the many pieces
of content and figure
out what's misinformation
and what isn't
at the scale at which
they exist.
It may be possible
in smaller forums,
like if you have a newsroom,
and it's one comment section,
and you're really dedicating
yourself to that pursuit.
So the regulatory
part is tricky.
When the scale is so massive,
what regulation can you put
in place that can
actually be carried out,
given the algorithms
and opportunities
that exist right now?
So I think that the
real the real trick
and the thing I keep thinking
about with regulation is
like what, what is actually
technically feasible
for corporations
to put into place?
And I think the call
for self-education is
a really important one.
Because no matter what
regulation is there,
no matter what social media
do, there's always going
to be things that slip through,
which is a point
you made earlier.
>> Danielle Allen: Right?
Okay. I was hoping
you were going
to tell me there was
some magic bullet,
but I should have known better
that there are some
regulation we can do.
We can certainly bring
intentionality to the design
of platforms so that as with
our cities, we can you know,
the difference between
forms of urban design
that support positive human
relationships and forms
of urban design that reduce
connection among people,
block people from having
access to natural environments
and other things
they need for health.
So we can bring that
same intentionality
to platform design.
But but fair enough,
no magic bullet,
we have to also ourselves
do work on self-education.
But, nonetheless, having
said that, I'm now going
to last question, offer
each of you a magic wand.
And if you could wave a magic
wand and make one thing happen,
whether that's a thing that
individuals do or a thing
that policymakers do or a
thing that corporations do,
what would be the next thing
that you would hope could happen
in our world to help us get
to that healthy civic
media ecosystem we're all
yearning for?
Talia, I'll give
you the wand first.
>> Talia Stroud: So if it's
truly a magic wand, I would,
I would use it to have
all of us humanize others,
to think about others
as, as people as others
that have similar human
responses to things.
And if we all recognize that
even that just base level
of humanization of others,
I think the world would
be a much better place
and our digital spaces would
be a far better place to be.
>> Danielle Allen: Brendesha,
magic wand all yours.
>> Brendesha Tynes: Wow.
I would actually; I'd want us to
completely overhaul our history
and civic civics
education courses.
And in the overhaul, I
would like for us to think
about the fact that Black
people's sub-humanity is written
into the Constitution.
And that means, you
know, that's meant
that we have experienced kind
of a unique form of, you know,
systemic racism throughout,
you know,
the centuries living
in this country.
And so, I would hope that,
you know, in our overhaul,
we would have a more
comprehensive understanding
of our history.
And we would tell ourselves
more, tell ourselves more
of the truth about, you
know, America's history,
the racial tear, right,
as opposed to like,
consistently giving
these messages
of White superiority, right.
That would be my hope.
That would that would be, that
would be a dream, actually.
Yeah. So [inaudible].
>> Danielle Allen: I'm going to
come back to you on that one.
No, no, thank you
for sharing that.
I'm going to, I'm going to
wrap up on that point, I think
but Richard, let me
give you the magic wand.
>> Richard Young: Sure.
So I think the first thing
I would do is, you know,
implement both of Brendesha
and Talia's suggestions.
You know, as long as there's
a magic wand, I think both
of those are really
wonderful and so, so needed.
You know, the thing that I'm
thinking a lot about is the sort
of lack of infrastructure
for civic health
at the local level, right?
Like the, we are so
socially isolated.
I mean, that's been especially
true over the last year.
But even, you know, when we
actually can see each other, we,
you know, people from, you
know, different backgrounds,
different, you know, classes
and races, and all of the sort
of different ways that we are
divided amongst our communities,
go to different places, have
different sets of friends,
have different sets
of experiences,
and obviously have different,
very different histories
with sort of how our
society treats them.
And so I think, you know, we
really need to have a sort
of robust civic infrastructure
that allows us to connect
in the physical space.
You know, we spend so much
time looking at screens
and so much time, looking
at comments sections,
on social media, and
seeing, you know terrible,
hateful things all the time.
And, to me, the sort of antidote
to so much of that is connecting
in physical space, face-to-face,
and building truly
social relationships
where we can depend on each
other and see that, you know,
my success, and my vitality
is tied up in, in Brendesha's
and Talia's and yours, Danielle,
you know, we're all tied
up together, and especially
at the local level,
and in our communities.
And, you know, I think
that having some sort
of support system, to
allow us a truly sort
of healthy civic fabric
to develop in communities
across the country, would
would go a decent way to sort
of addressing some of the ills
that we have in our communities.
>> Danielle Allen:
Thank you so much.
I'm astonished actually,
about the ways
in which your magic wands are
waving in a shared direction.
I mean, you're telling
us a story about our need
to humanize one another, to
reconnect with each other,
to be honest about our
history and to take honesty
in our history as a
basis for that sharing
and that building of
connections again.
You have, in a certain sense,
actually teed up beautifully,
a subsequent conversation
in this series
for the Library of Congress.
We will take up those
issues of history and memory
and what it means to weave
together our plural stories
with facing hard histories,
reckoning with truth,
being appreciative of the
positive we have done together,
being able to put the negative
and the positive together
in a single story.
That is the third
conversation in this series.
I'm also though, very pleased
to tell you, Brendesha,
that your magic wand has
worked, because on March 2nd,
huge group of more than
300 educators and academics
and practitioners and experts
shared a roadmap to excellence
in history and civic
education for all learners,
K through 12 in the country.
And it is the beginning of
a very significant effort
to rebuild history and civic
learning, and to incorporate
that capacity for truth
telling, and engagement
with our hard histories,
alongside bringing people
capacity to understand the value
in constitutional democracy and
in our political institutions,
so that we can re-empower
and reconnect one another
in projects of common purpose.
So your magic wands have power.
And thank you.
Your ideas and wise
words do as well.
We are so grateful to
you for spending time
with us today in
this conversation.
Thank you so much.
>> Brendesha Tynes: Thank you.
>> Richard Young: Thank you.
>> Talia Stroud: Thank you.