Building Bridges in a Time of Media Polarization

FMC Fast Chat takes you inside the news so you can be in the know in 30 minutes. Hosted by Fair Media Council CEO and Executive Director Jaci Clement, Fast Chat features notables in news, media, and business.

I'm so thrilled to have with us today Belina Diabreu. She is a global media literacy educator, and we're going to talk to her about actually what that means. But most importantly, we're going to talk about building bridges in a time of polarization, because I'm sure you know we've been living in very polarizing times these, I'm gonna say, last 5 years or so, to the point now where it's almost become normalized that we're living like this. And it's hard to find words to properly communicate what you wanna communicate without causing some sort of division somewhere along the line. And when it comes to leadership, which is what these programs are designed for, to help leaders, become better communicators. It's really important to be at the top of your game and understand the issues as well as the perceptions surrounding the issues. And that's why we're so thrilled to have Belina join us today. So Belina, welcome.

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

So we're thrilled that you can take the time to be with us today. So I guess the way to kick off, first of all, is I always get a lot of questions regarding what does media literacy actually mean? So what is your definition of it?

I would— so I have a personal definition for it, and then there's the one that is the one that is floated around most. So I would say that for me, it's really the ability to think more deeply about the issues that we are seeing in the media and to understand its role, whether it's positive or negative in our lives. The more academic version is it's the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and produce media, which is true. But I think for the average person, we're looking at what's out there, what is our ability to comprehend it, comprehend the information and then interpret it in a way that makes sense in our lives. And with so much of the information coming to us from different places, certainly social media being at the top of that, there is a problem with the way in which we engage with information today. And that's why media literacy has become really one of those important building blocks to our society right now.

Yeah, because we are living in a very media-driven society. You can't get away from it. I realize people, people kind of take it for granted, but we're really encased by it no matter what we do, no matter where we go. Because even if we're not online, we're surrounded by people who are carrying on conversations that began online.

Yes, absolutely. And I think that's part of the issue because those conversations sometimes are based on opinion and not fact. And so the issue that comes with that is that we all have very strong opinions about different things based on who we are as people, what our backgrounds are, whether it's religious, economic, you name it, there are pieces of all of that that come into our belief system, how we have biases about information. And unfortunately for most people, because of the way in which information is streamed to us through the algorithm, we don't realize that we're being reinforced with the same ideas and not actually given the possibility to think about ideas outside of that stream. And that's really where the value is in terms of understanding how media infiltrates our lives and actually popularizes ideas, sometimes in the extreme, but also just even the common ideas because of what they're looking at in terms of how we use the media.

Okay. All right. Um, can you talk a little bit about the algorithms? Because it's mentioned a lot, but I don't see places where it's really explained to people. So for instance, if I go on to Google, And I search for something, say, conspiracy theories about media educators, not that I think there are any conspiracies about media educators, what is my search going to return to me?

So I think it— so this is the interesting thing. So when you sign into Google, you accept terms and agreements that they have preset. None of us read those because they're thousands of pages. They're legal terms that have been designed, but we all click and say, yes, we accept. That's true not just to Google, but of every application that we have. And there's good reason for it because here in the U.S., we have certain laws that are different from laws around the world. With that, though, it means that we've allowed them to follow our search patterns, the way in which we look for information. So let's say you are predisposed to looking at more information that's in the conspiracy theme realm, right? Or you're someone who is into a specific way of looking at politics. Or, you know, health issues, whatever it may be, you're looking at it from a certain vantage point, then the algorithm starts to follow your pattern. And then in turn, it starts to filter information to you in a specific way just based on your search. And the best way of actually being able to see this is if you were to sit by somebody else who is also on Google searching for the same thing and seeing what populates on their screen versus your screen. Now, especially— and I'm going to say this because we all tend to live in filter bubbles. And bubbles— excuse me, bubbles, not filter bubbles— bubbles that are very much connected to who we are in our community. So we need to actually find other people who actually think differently from us to see how different the algorithm is as it's being filtered to them.

Okay, but that seems to go against the grain of popular opinion right now. Isn't it more that we're living in a time where we want to be surrounded by people who are in the same bubble as us. We, we all want to think the same and feel comfortable, like we're sharing the same experience.

Sure, absolutely. But that's part of the problem, right, is that if we're having that shared experience, then we don't always think about what the other person in the room who isn't having that shared experience is dealing with or, or living with or perceiving about the world. I think that's one of the problems that we're seeing across the Not just the country, but around the world, is the reason why we are polarized is literally because we are willing to stay in those bubbles just because of what you said. They are comfortable. But that doesn't mean that it gives us a wider lens to the world. It also doesn't mean that we're getting the best and most accurate information because people who are experiencing something different from us aren't living in our footsteps, aren't living in our lives. And it doesn't even matter even if I were to take 2 states like Connecticut and New York or, you know, North Carolina and and California. Just the fact that you live in those states means that you're having different experiences in and of itself because of politics, because of the community you live in, because of what's happening around you. And I think that actually is part of why the issues with the media have kind of increased. We tend to see media that's driven by a more popular theme of the day, whatever it happens to be. And so then that complicates the issues because it's not relative to the people who are in these communities.

Okay. All right. If I'm hearing you correctly, and please correct me if I am in any way wrong or off track here, it sounds like this problem began with the whole idea of the search engine optimization and keywords and media outlets really trying to hone in on that feature of the internet to drive more clicks. So is that where polarization actually began, or am I wrong?

I don't think that's a bad way to think of how it started. I think there's a lot more— it's more complicated than that. I think that that's— it's an easier way of looking at it just from the world that we see right now, especially if you're someone who just tunes in, goes onto the internet, and looks for information. But there's already been other things in play for quite a long time. There's a lot of historical pieces to the puzzle, and there's a lot about voices that are not heard in the media. And that has been probably the most frequent issue so that when all of a sudden a big problem starts to arise, whatever it may be, voices that have been minimized are all of a sudden taking center stage, and the media is trying to catch up to what that happens to be. And so, in part, yes, that's true. I think that's probably an oversimplification because of all the other issues that have come up because of what's happening around the world. We're missing a historical lens to problems. We really are. And I don't, you know, I talk to different people who will say, well, that's been going on for 50 years. Some people will say it's been going on since the '90s. I think there's been a trajectory of events that have led us to some of the places that we're at, but technology has made it speed up. It now is in your space 24/7, and we aren't able to walk away from it in the same way. Nor do we want to.

Okay, well, what's interesting though is when this started way back when, when the internet was kicking off, it was really touted to be the great leveler so that everyone can have a voice, you know. And if you felt disenfranchised from news media, especially mainstream news media, this would be the place where you could go to share your opinion and be heard. So what happened?

I think money. I would say I think it was monetized in a way that makes, you know, certain, you know, streams go up higher and other things go lower. Um, and certainly I also feel that in some ways, because the overabundance of information is there, we've lost the simplest pieces of information. So for example, you and I were probably raised with 3 channels in our home. Where we had in the center of our home our television with these 3 anchors who we gave a lot of credibility to. They were the voices of reason. They reported to us. They gave us the historical lens. They gave us the news. They gave us facts. Now there's so much information that the distrust starts to become, who is the one that you value? What is the source that you value most? And depending on how you're getting in the information, you value it sometimes because a parent shares it with you. You value it because a friend shares it with you, but that doesn't necessarily make it accurate. You know, we watch our 24-hour news cycle now that has become very much about opinion makers. That has sort of taken away from that importance of why that factual piece of information is so necessary to the, the way in which we conceive the world. The other problem is, is that social media has provided another source of information, another source for gathering information and providing it to people very readily without a lot of questioning going on. Uh, my college students will say that they get most of their information now from TikTok and Instagram and sometimes Snapchat, and that's it. They don't have a common anchor or a common person. In fact, most of them have no idea who the 3 anchors are on ABC, CBS, or NBC.

Yeah, yeah. I, I speak to college students a lot. They don't know what the Big 3 is, or even that there are networks and how those are different. Yeah, right. And And they also don't know what local news is.

Correct.

So to find news about a community is completely up in the air for them. But now that we kind of have an idea of the issue, you know, and its origins, how do we break through this?

So I think one of the things that we need to do is to really look at ourselves first. Who are we in our own media stream? So one of the things that I often have my students do is look at themselves within their own media spaces, like, where are you? What are you spending your time on? How much of the time is that you're scrolling through, you know, the memes and the, the things that are unimportant, and then all of a sudden something important comes on and you choose to hit the share button or the like button? It's looking at where this information is coming from and then seeing it from various lenses. The problem is most people, as we already said, is that they're looking at it just from that one particular space. I know that over time we have lost certain pieces, like the newspaper, which used to be a part, a foundational part of our communities, has dwindled quite a bit. And even though we do have newspapers online, they're struggling and the paywall is there. So even if you're interested in something, sometimes you're only reading the headline because you don't— you're not paying to get the article. So that adds another problem because sometimes the headlines are misinforming us as well. Because they're there to get your attention and attract you, but not necessarily inform you about all the pieces to the story. I, I, as a person, we all individually need to work harder to find that better piece of information, or at least to verify. We don't do that enough. We tend to automatically hit the share button without thinking about the consequences of that, or whether or not that information is valid, and it's too late. You don't get to take it back. Recently, we started to have the edit feature on the iPhone, so So at least we can maybe correct some things. But how many people are really going to take the time to do that? That's the other part. Or notice that they've done it, because it becomes a lack of consciousness when we are doing some of these things through our telephones, uh, through our, you know, technology tools. And that's another layer to this, is actually bringing our conscious level into the information sphere.

Okay. All right. But taking responsibility for actions. That's not a really cool thing in society today either, is it?

No, I guess, you know, I don't know. I would say maybe. Okay. I think it all depends. And I, I do think that I'm seeing more people who are thinking about that part, the responsibility issue. Certainly with my college students right now, when we have discussions about that, there is this, for the first time maybe, this sort of conscious acknowledgment that there's too much. There's too much media now. And that understanding who's right and wrong, or knowing which one is the best one, is this missing gap. And so, there's a little bit more of a need from them where they ask a lot of questions. They ask really good questions, I think, now that I didn't always get before. And part of it is because we kind of came into the internet, we sort of were thrown into this. Yes, the internet came in and when it first originally started, it was very, you, you know, you type something in, it gets you a response. It wasn't very good. It didn't look very pretty. And then it got better and better and better. And then the social media piece came in. That's when the interactive piece of this that I think became more troubling because we don't always think about who's on the other side of these search engines or who's on the other side of the information portal. So that's part of the issue. They are growing up now at a time where they've been digitized and been in the, in the digital world since the day they were born. So they're very aware of the fact that they've already been put out there even without their permission because their parents have put them out there. So there's a little bit more of that, I want to be a little bit more private. I want some of those things to be mine and not somebody else's. I want my parents to take down some of the things they posted about me when I was a little kid. That's not okay anymore, you know?

Yeah.

There's a lot more of that that I see, which I didn't see probably 5 years ago. That's a shift for me. I also think that because of the wars that are happening in the world, because of the tragedies that we're seeing, this has also enhanced a little bit more of their pause before going forward. Not everyone, and not at every moment, because there's a lot of reactionary things that are happening as well. But by the same token, there's a lot of unreactionary parts because they're worried about who they are as future, you know, media people themselves or future people who are going to be in the world. And what will that look like if they posted something that someone finds offensive or troubling or, you know, whatever it may be?

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Which brings us to the concepts of cancel culture and even weaponized words.

Right, right. I always say, you know, words matter and context matters, and both are intertwined together. It's interesting to note that the BBC put out that their word of the year is authentic. I believe it was authenticity.

Yes.

Excuse me, authenticity. And I think that speaks volumes to what we're talking about because of the fact that we tend to have lost a little bit of that. We have this influencer movement. We have a lot of people who claim to a lot online. And there's some parts of that I think are excellent and some parts that are okay. And then there's some parts that are not okay at all. And I think we need to recognize that piece. I think that part is starting to sort of— I get getting sifted through where, you know, people are starting to recognize the differences. But the issue really is, is, you know, if we're canceling and we're censoring, which I personally believe is, is a coin flip, it's one side of the same issue. or 2 sides of the same issue, however we look at it, because one does exactly what the other does, just in a different way.

Mm-hmm.

But that creates a problem where we have a society doesn't want to ask questions. The issue that I see more now than anything else is this fear of, if I ask a question that somebody finds offensive, then they're gonna cancel me right away without, you know, without any understanding that it's a question 'cause I don't have the knowledge base. Uh, and this is something that I— this is definitely a core an issue that has come up with my university students quite a bit. They are often afraid to raise their hand to say, I have a question. I get a lot of what they'll say to me is, I have an adulting question, and I think they preface that in some ways so that it kind of gives this, this sort of layer like, I really don't know, I'm just getting into adulthood and I'm making mistakes, so I need an answer to a question that I've always wanted to know. But I don't have a good answer for. And I respect that a lot because that shows that they've— they're growing along with understanding their position and understanding that they are in a time when there's so much that's being tossed at them and that they don't always have the best answers because they don't know yet.

Okay. So are there any tips or actually a process for walking through You know, whether or not you're running an organization and it's an internal issue, or maybe you're a community organization and you have to talk about something that's unpopular and you know immediately people are going to divide over it, how do we approach that?

I think the first thing is to listen to people, and I mean that by listening in, you know, how people gather together, the comments that people are saying, and listen deeply. I find often that we have a very peripheral way of listening now, and I wonder if it's just because of the fast pace of our world and everything's just happening so quickly.

Yeah.

But, you know, today, like, for example, I happened to be, um, you know, as I was walking into my building, I could hear a couple people talking about politics, and it was very interesting to me. It was not a conversation I would have expected to hear, uh, not from the people that were actually having the conversation, but it was a really interesting moment for me to know that that dialogue was actually happening. Because oftentimes I think we're missing what is really of interest to people, what matters deeply to people. I also think that don't let the media be the ones that tell you what's important to you as well, and what's important to the people around you. The media has become the popular culture of our time in some ways. They pick the issue of the time, and that's the one they run with. But there's much more happening at a— A deeper level for people. Having the ability to ask good questions, but having especially the ability to hear those answers are the things that will help people move forward. We're missing— there's like this gap going on right now. There's a lot of people shouting on both sides, and there's a lot of people who are sitting in the middle who just are observing what's happening and have a lot of questions and concerns and aren't vocalizing them because, once again, they don't know what's going to happen if they do vocalize them. But they are speaking still. And even in that silence, I think it's a spoken word of, you know, there is a concern here.

Yeah. Yeah. One of the tips we often give out for people to navigate the news is to prioritize news first and then turn to sources of opinion, you know, because it's so easy for those opinionated voices for you to listen to and say, oh yeah, I believe that too. But it's easy for me to believe it because I don't know any conflicting information. And I'm not thinking for myself.

You know, I'll just add to that, Jaci, that one of the things that I actually tell people to sort of hone in on this listening piece is to listen to the news. Don't watch it. Because watching it— not that there's nothing wrong with watching it, but watching it does take away some of your ability to hear what people are saying, the nuances of the words. Especially at a time when there's so much happening in the world, it is often better to hear it on the radio, to listen to the story because it resonates differently with people, and you take it in differently. I've become very much someone who I listen to all the news because it's part of my job, and I listen to it from, you know, NPR to overseas to Canada Talks to BBC America to CNN to Fox, you name it, all across. And when you listen to it in that way, you actually are able to pick up what's the actual meat of the story and then all the issues surrounded by it based on who's telling the story.

Yeah, yeah. And that's another great tip too, which is don't rely on just one or two news outlets, right? Right. Because you really, you really want that diversity.

And just step outside of the U.S. Because one of the things that I find most troubling is that we don't understand how we're being represented outside of the U.S. and which stories are being picked up about us that tell the world who they perceive us to be, which is also not based on reality. I do a lot of work with, you know, governments overseas and other places, and often I'm amazed at the perception of what an American is versus the reality. And same, I guess, could be said about me going into other countries, but I actually expect it. Whereas on the other side, I don't think we always expect that people have a perception of us.

One of the interesting things about US media today is the fact that, and this is a quote that I saw on Medium, so I'd love to take credit for it, but I can't, is that the truth lies behind firewalls, but the lies can roam the internet for free.

I love that. Who said this? Medium? I have to find that.

It was on Medium and I saw it and it has stuck in my mind because of the consequences of the firewall and the idea that by having to pay for news, you create a have and have-not situation.

100%. 100%. And this is part of the issue is that we always paid for it in some way, but we were not paying for it the way we're paying for it now. You used to pay 50 cents to get a newspaper, a dollar, maybe $1.25. But now to get through the paywall, it's a yearly subscription no matter what. And it is what it is. But it's interesting that you're saying that because there's a lot of discussions going on about streaming services. We are paying an astronomical amount for streaming services where we used to all have cable, and we all got out of cable because streaming was supposed to be better. But now we're doing the same thing, is that we're actually limiting our viewership because we're picking and choosing. And so we don't actually have this expansive view of the world again. You know, it's— I wish I had a better, you know, trajectory of where we were going with this. What I will say is that, you know, we are in this AI piece. Right? Regenerative AI is coming out, and that's a concern for me. And we need to have conversations about ethics and how that's going to permeate the way we see our infosphere. And we don't have— we haven't had those. We've had a few things. We've had some hearings. We have a lot of hearings, but not a lot necessarily gets done after those hearings that really impact what we're thinking about or what people are worried about. Today, for example, there was an article about you know, college students getting into— college students using AI to produce their college essay and that that's creating problems now for people who are trying to get into college because, you know, they're able to detect what's an AI and what's not. But the fact that people are going in that route also says something. Why are we going in that route? What is it about that that is actually pushing people to go in there? What's the leveling that we're looking at in terms of our society? I also think that, you know, we're heading into an election year. This is concerning, and we haven't addressed these issues, and more and more information is going to be coming out. More and more is going to be happening. So I want people to really think about what it is that they want AI to have in terms of their life. Like, what is the role that it should have so that they understand that this isn't something that's going to stop, but we need to consider what that impact is going to be. not just now, but forevermore.

Yeah. And one of the growing issues that I've seen is it's kind of old school now to talk about fake news. You know, when we see AI coming at us so, so fast down the pike now. But it used to be maybe you read an article that was or wasn't fake news, but everyone started to call it fake news just because they didn't believe in it. With AI now, now we can actually experience things that never happened.

Yes. Right. We can. Exactly. I think the VR piece of that is really interesting. But I still think that it also begs the question is, you know, where's the humanity piece? Who are we as humans in that role? And are we saying that, you know, is the AI, you know, surpassing humanity? That, you know, the need for that interpersonal relationship, for the bonding, for those things to happen. And that's where I think some of it is worrisome. The New York Times had done this piece early last year when, you know, OpenAI came out and they were doing— they were questioning the chat about, you know, what its role was, and they gave it free rein. And by the end of the article, the AI was basically telling the journalist that it was in love with him and not his wife. And, you know, it took on a role that was unexpected. And unexpected to the journalists, unexpected to the people who produced it. So are we thinking of consequences? That's really the, you know, one of those questions that we need to address. If it produces this amazing aspect to our world, what are we losing along with it? Because every step in technology has, has done that. The iPad, great tool, has some— has definitely given us quite a bit. But it's a touchscreen. So the manipulatives of our hands are not used in the same way. What are we not using as much? The pencil. Is our writing better or worse? Probably worse for most people. Like, so when you start to put in so much more, what are we taking away?

Yeah. And I think what I'm hearing you say, if I listen to this entire conversation, is, you know, for so long, especially for those of us that were among the first to use the digital world, Mm-hmm. As a world.

Right.

That we're move— we're moving away from it being a place for either fake influence or just a place where I can be someone else online. Because a lot of us in the early beginning, you know, everyone needed to be somebody different online for whatever reason. Maybe you were trying to get more likes or more friends or whatever. I think what you're saying to me now is we're actually becoming more human online. And that the online culture is much more aligned with in-person culture. So there's no difference. So by taking responsibility for who we are, right, it's— we no longer have the excuse that it's happening online.

I think that's interesting. I'm not sure. Yeah, I'm not sure 100% that we're quite online aligned. I think that it's given us possibilities and potential is what I would say. I just wonder if we've given so much to this online experience, what do we have that's personally ours anymore that doesn't exist on that space? And for a lot of us, you know, it's our relationships, it's the, you know, the interpersonal things that we do day to day. But so much of that is blended with this online avenue, with this online space. And so I think it's important for us to define it, to find balance for ourselves, and to figure out what it is that we actually want, not just for who we are as individuals, not just as individuals in workspaces or individuals in communities, but individuals as a future society and a community. What does that lead?

Yeah, but I, I like the idea of a more humanized I do too. Coming back to and, and understanding consequences and just being better humans, whether you're online or off.

Yeah, I mean, that, that would be, I think, the ideal world for us. I also hope, you know, we don't have any laws in place really in the United States for many of the things that are happening online, very different from the EU, which very much has some pretty stringent laws and key moving forward with that in a way that I think we really need to consider in terms of what's happening here and what we see happening in the US. There's been little pockets of things. I know that, you know, we certainly have seen some congressional hearings about it. It hasn't defined anything. You know, when Frances Haugen had done her congressional hearing a couple years ago and talking about the consequences of the images in Instagram, I really expected at that point, because of how much effect it had on youth, that we would've seen some magnifying changes, and we didn't. So I know things are slow and everything takes time, and every time we're in a political cycle, that also adds another spin to this. But I do hope that we are actually stepping into a point where we're recognizing, especially with generative AI, that we need to be in a space where we understand the consequences and actions of what that will be now and in the future.

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