Today you have been handed a ballot. And you get to vote for something which, according to Thomas Jefferson, is even more important than your government.
Your news.
Please view the full project on FOLD:
How you can influence the media – and 10 reasons why you should
By Jorge Caraballo, Monica Guzman, Carolyn Libby, Brittany Parker, and Wendi Thomas
Our team applied debunking and persuasion strategies to the debate over whether Donald Trump should be president of the United States.
We were inspired by this L.A. Times editorial against Trump, which dismissed Trump supporters in the first three sentences. We thought it’d be interesting to make the case against Trump in a way that would make Trump supporters feel heard, and make the case for Trump in a way even Trump detractors could pause to consider.
So this is what we created:
First up, the slideshow (click on the pic to open it, and read the whole thing before you move on!)…
And here are a few graphics to strengthen the point…
And finally, our pro-Trump comment:
This election goes far beyond Donald Trump.
Over the past century, the office of the presidency has slowly usurped power from the legislative and judicial branches of government, distorting the system of checks and balances enshrined in our Constitution.
We, as a nation, must DEMAND a return to congressional primacy over the republic as our founders intended. From Ronald Reagan, who abused his authority to provide executive legalization to tens of thousands of illegal immigrants, to Barack Obama, who used federal funds that weren’t appropriated by Congress to fund Obamacare, neither Republicans nor Democrats are immune from the seduction of power. Hillary Clinton, the embodiment of a professional politician who prizes shamelessness and ambition over virtue, would only further poison the well.
For the first time in many, many moons, power truly lies at the ballot box. In order to combat executive overreach and its gross consolidation of power, we must force Congress to act. And to force Congress to act, we must vote for Donald Trump.
Donald Trump is a line in the sand. If our elected officials truly believe that a Trump presidency would be a disaster for this great nation, then they will fight to re-calibrate the balance of power to ensure that the Congress regains its role as the prime legislative authority in the United States.
Our founders understood the danger of tyranny. Executive overreach, growing more rampant with each passing administration, is a threat to our civil liberties and to the rule of law. Our democracy will be best served by voting in a candidate who can break the wheel that rotates Democrats and Republicans out of office, and finally inspire strong bipartisan action in government.
Vote for Trump: let’s make America great again.
Note: To get a better understanding of what drives Trump supporters, we studied their statements in these and other articles:
Team Cindy and Naomi:
On fold: Argument in favor of limiting the vote to the educated
Creating the Game
Christina Houle and I decided to team up for this assignment. We tossed around a few ideas for creating something interactive, and she mentioned that she’d previously used Muzzy Lane to create an online interactive game (Muzzy Lane builds software that in turn allows teachers and educators to create games for learning). Christina and I wanted to capture the ways that discussions unfold in real time, while at the same time offering people feedback on argumentation strategies. We thought it would be interesting to allow people to role play a difficult conversation online. By offering players multiple response options (as well as feedback on those responses), we thought the exercise could become more interesting and demonstrate practically how to lead arguments with values.
We decided that our role play scenario was going to be Thanksgiving dinner with a friend’s family. Why Thanksgiving dinner? When we started talking about our own experiences with controversial conversations, we found that these tough conversations often happened with family members. What makes disagreements in this context so difficult is that we care about the people involved, and can’t just walk away even when disagreements can be profound.
The topic we wanted to explore: paid family leave. This is exactly the kind of subject on which members of a family might have very different views. We wanted to bring out the family dynamic, as well as allow different family members to share their experiences.
Our scenario:
“You’re visiting your friend Rita’s family for Thanksgiving Dinner. You’ve never met any other member of the family, and don’t know what people’s political beliefs are. After a warm welcome, you all sit down to dinner. The topic turns to paid family leave – a discussion that has been much in the news. As you navigate the conversation, your goal is to learn what other people’s values are, and use what you’ve learned to guide your responses to what other people say. Hopefully, you’ll learn something new while still advocating for your own position – which is that paid family leave in the United States should be expanded.”
Scoring
Rather than grading responses as right or wrong, we allowed players to earn points for “judgment” or “values.” When players choose to lead with values – which means understanding another character’s point of view – they get a point for values. If, however, they opt to go straight for fact-based confrontation, they earn a point for judgment. At the end of the game, they get a total score and some general feedback on strategy.
Link to the beta version of our game:
https://insights.muzzylane.com/sample/web/bd2ce8b0-3230-432c-a214-d93377c61c50
Our process:
Muzzy Lane’s interface is fantastic! Here’s how we created our exercise, followed by a few screenshots from the actual gameplay.
I decided to do this week’s assignment using a photo essay publisher called Exposure. Here’s the link: https://ags.exposure.co/let-climate-change
The Boston Globe published a recent opinion piece against the legalization of marijuana written by Charlie Baker, Maura Healey, and Martin J. Walsh. This piece (though in the opinion section) implied that the group of three had had extensive research done on the legalization of marijuana, but rarely cited any sources in its assertions.
For my fact-checking assignment, I decided to use Fold to fact-check the assertions made in this article. Check it out here.
On March 1, this forum will host a conversation with Adrienne Debigare on online community engagement. Adrienne used to run the comments section of boston.com, part of the Boston Globe. She is now with Harvard Business School running several platforms including the Open Knowledge project.
Dreaded Blogger 10 hours ago
Hi. I’ve built up a meaningful following to my blog on political commentary. It had recently attracted these two trolls that was shutting everybody up with their nasty posts. How can I get rid of them?
Adrienne 10 hours ago
There is not a good way to deal with a troll. In any case, don’t try IP ban. It’s not an effective way to moderate your space. When I was managing the comments section of boston.com, we had this persistent existence of a troll that just lived on the forum. We tried banning his IP, but he would create 20 screen names a day and kept coming back. Besides, if he is using the connection from a library or a public space. You are not just banning him, but 100 people on that line.
DTrollpfromboston 5 hours ago
It was you that tried to blacklist me on boston.com? I cared about the forum way more than you did!
Bridge Builder 10 hours ago
Hi. Me and my partner are planning to build an chatroom about hiking. We are debating whether we want to install some pre-moderating mechanism. I am concerned pre-screening would drive users away. My buddy thought it would attract more people if they feel protected. How can I convince him?
Adrienne 10 hours ago
The one am building in house is a public blogging network called Open Knowledge, but the posters are students. It is meant for in classroom work. We have lots of safe space built in to try to make sure that we can filter out stuff. The way it works is that anyone can comment on a submission, but to comment,, you have to go through an email verification sign up, which we didn’t have at the Globe. There your comments get moderated before they appear. It makes more sense because a lot of the faculty were concerned about the problem of trolling. So this way, we built some quick moderation tool that allows faculty member log into the backend, they can get in a feed of pending comments and approve or deny. We also build a second permission level slightly above public commentators called verified commentators. It’s a manually curated thing, that I have to in and verify somebody. once you you become a verified commentator, you don’t have to get permission to comment.
Bridge Builder 10 hours ago
So you’re screening contents?
Adrienne 10 hours ago
It is controversial. Some people didn’t agree with moderating newcomers. I can see why. For public forum, if you make it too difficult at the beginning, they just won’t engage. I think it’s really a contextual thing. is the community you are trying to build is one that motivated enough to take extra steps to participate, or is it more important to protect the community members already there. In case the academic institution-supported system that’s public, it seems more important to protect the students, whereas at the Globe, to have a system moderating newcomers is probably an overkill
Buddy of Bridge Builder 10 hours ago
What’s the reason of having or not having a moderator?
Adrienne 10 hours ago
Moderators are essential. If you can pay your moderators that’s even better. You’re not gonna have a diversified perspective if you don’t have a moderated conversation, the same way you’ll have a paneled speakers with no moderators. Especially when something gets large or more diversified, it becomes to necessary to have someone there, just so like impartial third party in a way. You want somebody doesn’t care about the subject at all, because they can be impartial. People who are probably do the best jobs are those who really enjoy human interaction, but don’t necessarily care about the top being discussed. If i really like the Redsox and create a forum on reddit, i’ll be really an opinionated moderator. It’s like inviting people into my house. That kind of moderation is very different.
DTrollpfromboston 1 hour ago
I don’t think you have the right to censor me. Internet should be free. It’s public space. MAKE THE WEB FREE AGAIN.
DTrollpfromboston 1 hour ago
you talk about engaging the community, but you are ignoring me!!!
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“Really just any other beverage than beer.“
Sravanti Tekumalla explained to me that it’s not that everyone would drink tea (or coffee for that matter), or that only tea would be available; she would not be that dogmatic. But, her point is that if she had her own start up and if she hired her friends and they hired their friends, well, the work culture would be different from what she experiences now at her internships. There would be a culture of drinking tea, time to build relationships and opportunities to listen to everyone involved in a decision making process.
“They have a culture of drinking beer and playing ping-pong. They love science fiction.”
When Sravanti goes to work she is often the only woman in the room and though she does not always love the work culture of the tech start up world she has learned to work within it. In describing her dream start up with friends and friends of friends that exists in opposition to the culture of beer and ping-pong that she currently inhabits, she continues to say that there is nothing necessarily wrong with sci-fi and beer, it is just that she would want a broader variety of opinions and perspectives in her office.
2. Tweet from Sravanti: applying her coding skills towards play and aesthetic exploration
From the tone in her voice I can imagine that the lone ping-pong player might even be able to thrive at her imaginary start up (though he may not have anyone to play ping-pong with). She would want a work environment with a wider range of voices, interests and experiences. “People would do more artsy things and have outings to get to know one another. It wouldn’t be more artsy because of the girls it would just reflect the diversity of our interests.”
You might attribute Sravanti’s views on who should be coding and what coding would look like to her training and experiences. As a young woman with an interest in math and science (both of Sravanti’s parents studied science) Sravanti saw how much the perception of who belongs and who does not belong can impact a person’s career choice, academic pursuits and life path.
She recalled a time in school when after receiving an A- in her Chemistry class she asked her teacher if she could make a career out of her interest in Chemistry. “Probably not” she said. But then later when one of her male peers in the class who had only received a B+ for his work asked the same question he received enthusiastic encouragement and was told “likely so.”
3. Sravanti teaching code to her peers at a computer station in the student community space for Hour of Code in 2103.
This one conversation that her former instructor likely could not recall today, really shook Sravanti. She stopped taking Chemistry, believing based on the opinion of her teacher that she did not have what it took to make it in the field. But later she attended an all girls engineering camp and realized that she was not alone, that there were other girls who knew how to do what interested her and they were doing it well. In this environment Sravanti was not the outlier but the norm.
Now as a senior in Computer science at Wellesley College and an active member of the Wellesley Computer Science Club Sravanti is part of a community that works to make coding accessible and inclusive. During Wellesley CS Club Hackathons, Meet and Greets or Hour of Code events it is not uncommon for professors to walk around wearing doctor Seuss hats, for the club to set up coding stations in the student hall or for members to make publicity fliers that promise life-size cookies as light refreshments.
4. Publicity image for Wellesley Computer Science Club Event
In fact reading Sravanti’s tweets about coding words like “cool”, “prettyyy” “unleashed” “lovely” “creative” “wonderful” “blast” and “joy” come up. She seems fully indoctrinated in a culture that is welcoming newcomers and front-loading communication on the payback of coding. To a certain demographic her social media serves as an invitation to code. In Facebook photos of Sravanti tagged at the Wellesley CS Club she looks like she is having fun and building meaningful relationships.
Her imaginary start up would be mostly women. Not because of explicitly exclusionary practices but just because when you trained with women, worked with women and get to know women you are more likely to hire the people you know, already like, and know to be badass, and in this case they may, just happen to be women.
She says of her current work environment in off campus internships: “There’s not much blatant sexism, its more subtle like ‘Oh you’re a girl you should design our ap and make it pretty. They don’t believe I can do the other stuff.” But even when her co-works are not limiting their expectations of her based on their understandings and projections of gender norms the work environment is still not ideal.
5. Tweet that Sravanti was tagged in by a fellow coder at Wellesley.
“Its hard to establish a rapport when (we) have different sets of interests.” Sravanti’s co-workers often have a shared culture that doesn’t overlap with hers. And when you are the only member of a minority in the room sometimes your presence is just flatly ignored. Sravanti notes that her male co-workers often engage in conversations in front of her that she knows they would avoid or word differently if the gender split in their group were more balanced. In describing this difference she says that “the conversations are not the same ones they would have in a co-ed environment” almost forgetting that her very presence in these offices makes them co-ed. The strength of their will to ignore her presence in the room has real impact.
To close our conversation I ask Sravanti if segregational gender spaces are necessary to counteract the forces of historical and learned sexism. I ask if, were she to have children some day, if she would send her girls to all girls schools. “It would be up to them.” she says. “All women’s schools are not for everyone. You have to have a strong sense of conviction, of female empowerment, to be exposed to the idea.” Even with her own daughters Sravanti would not want to dictate what she thinks is best. She would put tea on the table but if her children are the beer and ping-pong type, then well, so be it.
American clarinetist, Benny Goodman, performs in Red Square, Moscow, 1962.
(Image courtesy of the Irving S. Gilmore Music Library, Benny Goodman Papers, Yale University)
For many decades now countries like the United States, France and the United Kingdom have used public diplomacy to spread their soft power.
One of the elements of public diplomacy is known as cultural diplomacy and includes exchange programs, musical tours and international photographic exhibitions.
The fundamental idea is simple; through cultural exchange, nations can achieve a level of understanding between their peoples that politics cannot.
Ashley Doliber, a Masters Degree candidate at Tuft University’s Fletcher School is keenly interested in an idea that pivots off this notion of cultural diplomacy; How can images be used effectively as tools for international diplomacy? Can we foster better understanding between nations and a more peaceful co-existence by leveraging the power of visual communication?
Doliber thinks there are many merits to this notion. She asserts, “We know that even one picture can change the course of someone’s thinking about a topic. Just taking a recent example that’s been talked about a lot; the image of the Syrian toddler who died and washed ashore in Turkey; certainly people were talking about the [refugee] crisis before and after that, but you saw that one image spread like wildfire on social platforms and it really galvanized a lot of people who maybe saw their own kid, or their niece or their sister in that one image, and it sparked a political debate, it sparked empathy…”
I asked her a few questions about this idea and its possible implementation;
How did the idea of merging photography and international relations come about?
I did both of those areas of study in my undergraduate degree as two separate degrees. I did one in International Affairs and one in photography, a Bachelor of Fine Arts. I think at the time it started as two things that I was really passionate about but over time it’s really become clear to me that those two things inform one another pretty dramatically sometimes.
I think as you’ve seen working in the media space, an image, a video or even an info-graphic translates immediately; it goes across borders, across languages, across depth of understanding, those types of media have an extra-ordinary amount of power and I think especially in a global context it’s important to have something that brings someone into the story, that gives them an immediate spark of understanding about what’s going on in the world…”
“Images can be used more effectively as tools for international diplomacy,” Ashley Doliber
Does that exist as an actual area of study?
I don’t think there are too many people studying exactly that, buy I do think that there are quite a number that are working with those ideas. Certainly photojournalists are doing that all the time, and people that are working in strategic communication or working in the media industry more generally are thinking about how to use whatever visual content they have.
Organizations are one thing. How do we take this concept and apply it to nations and international diplomacy?
Before I came to school I was with an organization in DC called Meridian International Center. They do a lot of public diplomacy work, supporting some US Government Projects and some of their own. We had a department that focused on cultural diplomacy.
Some of the coolest projects they did were these photo exhibits that traveled either throughout the US and/or around the world.
They had one during the Cold War that was very successful where the US government brought together a lot really famous Jazz musicians to travel mostly in Soviet areas to share American jazz music and interact with the community and find those common areas of interest. The idea was, “Sure we don’t agree on politics, but we all love good music and we share the same emotions and we share the same values in some areas.” So there were these great images of these guys going out and playing the saxophone in the middle of a crowd of children in a square in Moscow or driving into a soccer pitch to play. Those images were curated and sent around the US and to a tonne of countries around the world.
They did another project a coupe of years ago where they had images from different sources cataloging the history of US-Afghan relations before everything that’s going on now. It was kind of a lost part of history that a lot people don’t now much about and hearkens back to times when there was a little bit more hope, a little bit more understanding. That toured across Afghanistan, and in particular they brought in a lot of students to see it.
If we can take this notion to a far extreme and say at the UN General Assembly. Everybody is quiet and all we are doing is showing images. Would that be how to do it or do you see it happening in another way?
I would love to just see that happening, to see what would take place. Of course, you still need people to talk to one another. Generally speaking, an image isn’t going to be the end all be all of a transformative thought… however I do think it would be kind of an interesting experiment to see if delegates to these types of discussions could bring one or two images that exemplified how they were reflecting on a given issue.
Should poorer countries even consider spending money on this when they are grappling with issues like food security, health and education?
I would certainly never tell somebody that they should prioritize getting a picture out there over someone’s life or death. At the same time, I think a little bit of time and effort, maybe from an NGO partner or Civil Society, leveraging something to help tell your story better and help people understand you could help solve some of the more critical, pressing problems, because sometimes, unfortunately, it’s all about how you sell your needs. Engaging in some of these discussions; visual or verbal, I think could only help.”
(BOSTON // March 1, 2016) Back in 2011 – thanks in large part to extensive reports from the American Journalism Review – many media commentators lamented the end of foreign reporting as we knew it. The number of international correspondents employed by U.S. newspapers had dropped 25% in less than 10 years, and many papers were shuttering their overseas bureaus altogether. Some like The New York Times, NPR, and AP were expanding their coverage, but they were largely the exception to the rule.
Of course, this was not new information to the careful observer – some had been warning against this trend for years, and were already commenting on alternatives to the legacy outlets’ most unsustainable models. Would it be citizen journalists coming to the fore, or perhaps media partnerships with on-the-ground NGOs?
The conversation continued in subsequent years, now welcoming to the fold of foreign reporting (or at least acknowledging the growing presence of) the digital natives like Buzzfeed and Vice. A recent study even highlighted the role of Kickstarter campaigns in overcoming the often significant financial barriers to global journalism in its traditional forms. (For the record, 658 journalism projects were crowdfunded on the site between 2009 and 2015, 36% of which proposed work across one or more of some 60 countries.)
The discussion will go on – a constant evolution in the face of rapidly changing technology, fluctuating cost structures, and ever-shortening media cycles. Yet this dialogue could easily overlook perhaps the simplest solution to maintaining a deep bench in overseas coverage: local hires. This week, I spoke with one such journalist, Wenxin Fan, about reporting from his native China for U.S.-based and international publications.
Wenxin has seen shifts in the overseas newsroom firsthand, though he is not sure whether the downsizing trend is long-term. In fact, the changes in his world have not all been negative – many of the publications he has worked with, including the Times and also Bloomberg, have been on the upswing in terms of international coverage. The latter, in fact, has doubled its presence in China since he joined in 2010. With the growth of China’s economy, Wenxin has also seen international interest in China-based stories expand from predominantly political themes to include more financial and human-interest pieces.
The depth of coverage, he says, is also improving. A number of long-form stories are now published that might not have been produced even 10 or 20 years ago. As the country opens up, foreign reporters have increased ability to reach remote areas off the beaten path. Wenxin fondly recalled one recent article that profiled a team in Western China playing American-style football. This was one example, for Wenxin, of the foreign press tapping into the minds of young Chinese.
As a local, however, Wenxin cites two things that it is difficult for his expat peers to garner: access and nuance. “When we look at a story we think about the same things,” Wenxin reflects on the mechanics of reporting, “the only difference I can think of is nuance.” For him, nuance is more than just detail – it means that by virtue of being a local and understanding the context, he approaches news with “an extra layer of skepticism.”
For instance, when Quartz reported that China was planning to ban the foreign press, Wenxin instinctively questioned the story. As it turned out, the interpretation of the law’s language and the historical context it operated within were critical to understanding the purported ban. Of course, being a local is no guarantee (the Quartz reporter was apparently from Hong Kong), but Wenxin has found that he, at least, is more likely to dig deeper for the truth. “The issues,” he says, “are complicated, and that complexity sometimes gets lost.”
Nuance is where the changes are happening, from Wenxin’s view – but not always where the main story is. The few social media platforms that still flourish in China are “where the news happens,” and allow Wenxin and his colleagues to get a quick sense of what is going on in the community. Although the expat reporters follow this content also, they all have the challenge of getting a pitch through their U.S. editors. Wenxin, at least, can typically identify more quickly a story than someone not intimately familiar with the language and culture.
That familiarity also earns the local reporter credibility and the celebrated access every journalist wants. Having “a Chinese face,” as Wenxin puts it – regardless of where you are actually from – can make a huge difference in earning the trust of a potential source, or simply getting in the door. It also helps him reach more local voices, including experts, to quote in his work. Officials, Wenxin finds, are also more likely to treat Chinese journalists as a known quantity. In the end, the local might get a different answer than the expat, even if it is at least partially because the official feels (rightly or wrongly) that they have more control over the Chinese reporter’s output.
Certainly, the local reporter has his/her own set of challenges. In China, particularly, Chinese journalists are banned from reporting for foreign publications. They are typically researchers or news assistants instead, and must take some care in what they choose to cover. For this reason, as well as the value of an outsider perspective, some have championed the necessity of the expat reporter.
Wenxin himself notes, “I don’t really know my readers very well.” He must rely on his editors to decide what will have traction back in the States. The sparse feedback – often through the inconsistent lens of comment boards – can easily have the adverse affect of making Wenxin “feel more foreign” to his readers. Though he welcomes the challenge, Wenxin affirms that it is a constant struggle to think globally in his reporting. At the end of the day, he feels better when a story is translated into Chinese and he can readily see his local community’s response. “That’s when I feel I have a readership,” he says.
Like any solution to the shifting tides of foreign reporting, local journalists cannot save the system in a vacuum. Yet Wenxin and his colleagues could play an important role. He was careful, however, to bring our conversation back to the money at the center of the equation. “The need for foreign reporting will always be there,” he suggests. “This issue really isn’t do we hire a local guy, or do we hire, you know, an American reporter to cover – a lot of papers hire local guys – the thing is do you have a bureau? Do you have a budget to spend on those stories?”
We will have to wait a little longer for the answer.