Disinformation and hate speech is thriving online, leading to confusion, division, and in some instances contributing to violent extremism. The University of Rhode Island wants to battle back. They received a $700,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to create Courageous RI, a three-part, two-year initiative dedicated to fighting disinformation and violent extremism with media literacy. Morning host Luis Hernandez spoke about the program with Communications Professor Renee Hobbs, from the Harrington School of Communication and Media at the University of Rhode Island.
A disclosure: Courageous RI is an underwriter of The Public’s Radio.
TRANSCRIPT:
Luis Hernandez: Let’s jump in. And I want to, I’m going to start with this question. I wanted to know, tell us about this new initiative. Where, where did the idea for Courageous RI begin? And what is it doing? What is it you want to do with this?
Renee Hobbs: I read an amazing book by Amanda Ripley. … The book was called “High Conflict.” … And she identified the way that media and journalism and social media can intensify and transform productive, healthy conflict into what she called high conflict. That idea seemed to resonate with me as a way to understand how media intersects with our relationships and our everyday life, to create the kind of polarization that we’re seeing in our society today. … Phase one, called Courageous Conversations, brings people together for online facilitated small group discussions, where we counter disinformation, we try to think about our own civic responsibilities as media consumers, but as media creators, too, and we try to activate our critical thinking about media, through practicing active listening. We’ve had three sessions so far, and it’s been surprising how much fun they are.
Hernandez: I find it interesting, you said it’s been fun. And you think about the kinds of things that you’re talking about, it might not have been the first word that would come to mind. But you know, I haven’t seen one yet. Tell me a little bit about how, you know, these conversations operate. What happens during the conversations?
Hobbs: The courageous conversations are part informational and part conversational. We introduce a topic like, for example, preventing violent extremism. That was the topic we did a couple of weeks ago. We learn a little bit about what is extremism, right? We understand what happens, the us-versus-them mentality that creates stereotypes that then lead to distortions in people’s thinking. Then we model how to ask critical questions of a very simple media artifact. The one we used, Luis, was an Instagram post, it was a cocktail napkin. And on the cocktail napkin, it said “mass shootings.” And then it said “media extravaganza,” “thoughts and prayers.” So “gun control discussion,” “nothing really happens.” And then the line drawing back to “mass shootings.” And the cocktail napkin, it would be something that you might have just looked at and scrolled away, just looked at for a second or two or three. But in having a discussion about it, we discovered how much that cocktail napkin speaks to our feelings of helplessness and hopelessness, about this phenomenon of mass shootings and extremist violence, and how this person who posted it might have been trying to break that pattern of feeling helpless and hopeless. Or maybe she was just reinforcing it. So it turned out that, even though we all saw the same social media post, we made different interpretations of it. And then we broke into small groups of six or eight people. And we watched a three minute clip from the Today Show about the racially motivated murders in Buffalo. You remember those? That happened just 10 months ago, but it feels like an eternity in relation to all the mass shootings that we’ve had. We critically analyze that three-minute clip, and we look for questions like, what techniques are they using to attract and hold your attention? What values are presented in this message? How am I, different people interpret this message differently? And the most important question, what is omitted? Because as a media professional yourself, you know all media messages are selective and incomplete. And we recognize the choices that are being made in any form of media, as authors make those decisions.
Hernandez: Is part of this conversation to teach people how to understand the way the media, the news media works, and how it’s covering all these topics? Or maybe you’re just, you’re having these conversations, and you’re learning something about how people view the media, the news media, and maybe there’s something we should learn?
Hobbs: I’m really glad you asked this question, because there’s been a paradigm floating around that I want people to understand, this is not that. So we’ve seen programs that try to tell you what is disinformation, what is propaganda, what you should trust, you should read this, you shouldn’t read this. This is good media, this is bad media. We don’t do any of that. Right? What we do is try to help people understand. For example, we have a session coming up on May 16 about influencers, where we’re going to understand social media influencers, and how people trust charismatic, relatable personalities, more than they trust people with expertise. And why is it that charismatic, relatable personalities somehow seem more trustworthy than people who have, like, credentials and degrees and expertise? So understanding that is a way to understand the changing media environment. We have a session coming up on content moderation and censorship. Try to understand, what are the scope and limits of the First Amendment, and when it comes to the relationship between government media and technology platforms? What is content moderation, and why is it a part of the rights and responsibilities of media platforms? So and even in understanding propaganda, propaganda is in the eye of the beholder. So we’re not going to tell you what is propaganda. We’re going to invite you to interrogate that. But we are going to help you recognize that propaganda activates strong emotions, it oversimplifies information it appeals to your deepest values and it attacks opponents.
Hernandez: Let me end with this. I get the sense that, you know, again, you want people to just learn to listen, you know, to engage in their listening and set aside maybe any doubts or frustration or anger they may have, and just learn to listen. And you don’t have to agree with anybody, as you said, but you’re not trying to change anybody. I wonder, is that the final step? It’s just doing that? Or is there something beyond that?
Hobbs: Well, in the end, what we’re trying to do is improve the quality of democratic self-governance. That’s what we’re really aiming for. And our program, Courageous Conversations, is just the beginning. That’s the public adult focus program. Coming in the fall is Courageous Questions, which is a program for high school and college students and their teachers. And then coming after that, Courageous Creativity is a Statewide Youth Media Festival, where students create media to represent their desire for a world that’s less polarized. That’s where people listen and respect each other and where we imagine democracy the way it’s supposed to be done, through healthy conflict, right – conflicts that result in learning. So the ultimate goal of Courageous RI is to reduce the threat of violence by promoting democratic self-governance and lifelong learning.
