Summary Francesca Tripodi Presents The Propagandists' Playbook with a Q&A featuring Victor Ray (Youtube) www.youtube.com
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n/a Hi, everyone. Alright. Just for you. Thank you all for coming to this event today. Doctor Francesca Tripodi is a sociologist and media scholar whose research examines the relationship between social media, colloquial partnership and democratic manipulation.
n/a Rhealing up Google and Wikipedia are manipulated. She is an assistant professor at the UNC School of Information and Library Science, senior faculty researcher with the Center For Information Technology and Public Life at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an affiliate at the Data and Society Research. She holds a PhD and MA in sociology University of Virginia as well as an MA in communication, culture, and technology from Georgetown. Before coming to Carolina, she was an assistant professor of sociology at James Madison. In 2019, doctor Testimony and the senate judiciary committee on a research explaining how certain processes are engaged to maximize exposure and drive ideological experience.
n/a To return the basis of her book, The other which is did you hear you loud? She also studied patterns of gender inequality on Wikipedia, shedding light on terminology. Work has been covered by a number of national and international outlets, including the Washington Post, The New York Times, Columbia Journal, or 2 of you, Wired. So when, I was invited to help us various things. The biggest book is game changing, look at the right years of mentioned in the past of the clinical report.
n/a I think the book reframed probably based on innovation, showing it as a tool that can bind people together through the shared set of calls. And I think, doctor Chipotle showed the synergistic relationship between right wing media and online conspiracy towards. Unfortunately, this book came out at precisely the right time. This disinformation might undermine trust and spoke racism and threatens our
n/a I have a pretty a formalized talk, but I'm also open to any questions as I'm talking. And then, obviously, I'll save a lot of time for Renee as well. But thank you, Ruben, for being here. It's really nerve wracking, actually, to get a talk in front of people, you know. It's been more fun to talk to some people that have no idea what you do.
n/a So thank you for making the time today. On January 6th, you bore witness to what happens When political leaders are done denying free and fair effective, what we saw was supporters doing their own research on what they believed to be A stolen election. And in my book, I take care to explain how the acts of violence we witnessed that day are not isolated Presents of disinformation, but actually build and are are inextricably tied to whiteness in the United States. And today, what I wanna do is work my way back. I'm gonna start with the end and then finish out where I began To demonstrate how keywords and main ideas that were used to galvanize supporters on January 6th were also an integral part of the white supremacist rally that took place on August 12th in Charlottesville, Virginia.
n/a But before I get into my my findings, I'll give you a brief Overview of what I did and how I got there. I effectively combined ethnographic interviews with content analysis and media immersion. So for ethnography, I embedded myself in, like, 2 republicans groups, a women's group, and a college group. And I went to, Essentially, every event they had. So this included weekly meetings, biweekly meetings, backyard barbecues, fundraising event, church groups, and I spent a lot of time doing firsthand observations with them as well as firsthand observations The 3 white Presents rallied that were not associated with these events.
n/a So this was firsthand observations of what happened on August 12th as well as 2 prior events. I combine this with interviews, with 30 individuals, 14 men, 16 women. And after my respondents identified what kinds of news and information they relied on to make their decision, I engaged in this process of media immersion. So as part of the informed consent process, I followed people on Facebook, and then I tracked what kind of news and information they shared over the next Here. And then for, roughly 4 and a half months, I got all of my news and information from their New sources.
n/a So I became immersed in their podcast, news broadcast, written written news. And I purposely avoided watching any news or information that might counter the liquid behavior in their content. And finally, I did a a more thematic content analysis of this information that I was that I was looking at. So I Did a content analysis of the of the manipulation, and then I also worked with a data scientist who scraped, who scraped hundreds of thousands of keywords on YouTube channels. So through data triangulation, I peel back the layers of creative media manipulation machine to reveal why and how conservative elites are so effective at exploiting their constituents' self views.
n/a And the 7 tactics that I describe in my book, Start with 1 of knowing your audience. So those who produce media understand what are the key things that galvanate their voters, And they filter the news around them. Step 2, they bridge together a very intricate media system that combines online information with legacy news. 3, they realize that groups interact and engage with information in different ways. They understand how information flows, and they strategically signal content around
n/a this information to
n/a their voters. Then they partner to their voters. Then they partnered with rising influencers on various Apps. So at the time, this was looking at YouTube, but we see this happening right now with TikTok. And they make decades old disinformation seem fresh and new and exciting.
n/a And finally, they encourage their audiences to distrust the messenger and engage in what I refer to as the IKEA effects of misinformation. No worries. I'm gonna get through all of
n/a them. I
n/a think this is live. I'll get There it is. So in step oh, there it is. So step 1, I talk about what it means to be pervasive. And knowing your audience is extremely important when it comes to spreading Propagandists’.
n/a Because the goal of propaganda is to unite creation, brand, and identity into a common conversation, The goal of of instigating, action, in this case, voting. So what I found is that what it meant to be conservative centers around a core set of values. I think this quote from 1 of my respondents really sums it up nicely, Yeah. But being conservative really goes back down. Orals.
n/a It's about faith, family, the constitution, and and national security. So I did a thematic analysis of my interviews, and I identified what I refer to in my book as the 5 f's of conservatism. Faith means work for religious liberty and for laws that protect Christian places of worship and ideas. We can get more into that with, but Christian? Family, a devotion to maintaining heterosexual marriage, traditional gender roles and identification mechanisms, criminalizing abortion.
n/a Firearms talked about the protection and celebration of the right to bear arms. The armed forces is a Presents support of both the military and the police force. And a free market is a dedication to limited government Oversight to economy and corporations, the belief that consumers should regulate the market. Because politicians are acutely aware of these And they become an integral part of their election platforms. Hundreds and media influencers lure in audiences It's like filtering news and information through the 5 apps.
n/a And, effectively, what they're doing is what strategist David Lane referred to as increasing the political strength of the Christian right. His word, political success, addition and multiplication, Not about division of production. And they also rely on a really robust network, and a lot of really great research has already Out on this, sellers at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society effective mapped, this ecosystem back in 20 16 by looking at discourse of nearly 4,000,000 messages throughout the PDF. But what I do in my book is explain how this network Infrastructure is more than just online manipulation. It is actually heavily tied to news and information that happens on the ground and deeply effective to the demise of local journalism.
n/a So as local journalism faded, radio broadcast filled that vacuum, And then through regulatory mechanism, effectively Christian broadcast programming became equivalent to Yeah. To the informative newscast. And so you see this rise in this very deep infrastructure that dates back 100 of decades. Now through media immersion and content analysis of key players inside this network, I identified 2 central themes That I wanna chime in today. The first is that the left is dangerous, and the second that media is biased.
n/a Now the idea of media bias is, I'm sure, not very new for anybody in the room. It's a ground cornerstone of, conservative propaganda dating Yeah. Yeah. Decades decades. But this idea of the left or the dangerous left is an important part of this campaign, and I'll explain how that all gets through together.
n/a So to support these arguments, conservative elites engage with their voters by understanding how They interact media literacy. And I refer to this process as scriptural inference. So this is the compare and contrast method. I'm focusing on the word of documents and prioritizing this direct analysis of primary sources Over, oral interpretations of. And there's been a lot of great work that looks at the difference between how those on the right and the left Yeah.
n/a Conceptualize the bible, and I'd love to talk about that for a q and a as well. So what I described in my study It's how this this plays out. And I think my favorite form of this is doing ethnographic observations side of a bible study. And I was sitting in this bible study, and we were talking about effective 3 lines of biblical text. And we were really digging in and identifying how these lines of biblical related to our home.
n/a And then the person who was leading this this bible study Took out a copy of the new tax reform bill, and he was like, now listen. I want you all To go home tonight and read a copy of this bill, I want you to apply the same close reading that we just did with the bible to better understand how these tax changes are going to influence our community. And he said that we have to do this for 2 reasons. 1, we really can't trust the way the news is going to fix the tax change. And these tax changes are gonna have extremely different effects for the local farmer and it might for the local business.
n/a So he was evoking this idea of a free market and just telling us that we had to transfer this Very close biblical reading to fairly high level legal. So as my study reveals, this process of scriptural inference It's not sound to scripture or really a belief in God at all. It is finding match other sociological accounts of conservative groups who found that members did not necessarily attend church gatherings, but they were happy to practice in pervasive Christian beliefs. So this included in addition to saying the pledge of allegiance, a prayer is always at the start of every meeting that I attended. And they also describe this practice whereby conservatives engage in documents that they deem secret.
n/a This includes, like, the constitution Or the federalist papers or the redacted memo that Trump released when he was undergoing his first impeachment. How does this actually play out in real life though? I think it's important. So I think the most Incredible example that I saw is this idea of the wall of separation. Now many of us have this idea of wall of separation from, How we learned in school, which is effectively there's this wall of separation that should separate church from the government.
n/a But using scriptural inference and drawing on the Jefferson letter that he wrote to the member the fanbury daptist. Yeah. Sam Murray Baptist. They show yeah. That was a lot.
n/a But they show That, by looking very closely at this original letter, that what Jefferson and the founding fathers meant But that the government should be highly influenced by a Christian belief of God, and that this protection of church and state was about protecting church from the government, and not the other way around. So they draw on these media literacy practices in order to score their argument. And as my study reveals, this is then a problem with the way people for information online. So I talk about this a lot in my book, and I'm gonna give a a very apolitical example because I think it's more fun to mix up a little bit. But what I don't think many of us understand is that the way we see the world and the way we believe things heavily influence our starting point or what we refer to manipulation science as our keywords, which map on these concepts of relevance.
n/a And what I like to start with is what I call the power of input. So a lot of us think of this notion of the sky is blue. We can all think about it as Carolina blue. That's more here. When we think of this idea of the blue sky And what scholars have shown through, analysis of texts like Homer's Iliad and Odyssey We were looking at Hebrew translations of the bible.
n/a This idea of a blue sky is actually a social Construction. So it means it's heavily dependent on the way others within your community view and agree upon color. And it's tied to this notion that if blue in, in nature is actually very rare. Blue as a color is a product of synthetic production, and it traces that in Roman times to A very stone that people were able to grind down and then make blue paint. And it's why the Virgin Mary is often painted as blue because it signifies wealth, security.
n/a And so this idea of a blue anything Became the fact that we tied to these, like, products of of, of, right, of manufacturing. Now what's interesting, though, is that I like to show with Google, you can very quickly confirm this idea. Like, why is the sky blue? Right? So you say, why is the sky blue?
n/a You get this great information from NASA that talks about the scattered directions of the sky. You get beautiful color return images. You get some rain. But if you Google something like, why is the sky not blue, which is really just 1 simple shift to the task, You gave explanations that the sky is effectively a combination of the molecules in the sky, so pollution level and how the sun filters through those levels. And that's what influences what we perceive to be the color of the it also helps you by saying people also ask, why Sky not actually blue.
n/a But what is the real color of the sky? So by effectively understanding what these inputs are And helping us find like minded queries, Google can help shape that reality. And this is true if you googled any color of the sky. Right? You could Google the sky is green or the sky is red or the sky is gray.
n/a And Google, because it's programmed in what's referred to as relevant, is going to try to best match those keywords as much as possible. Now when it comes for things like the color of the sky, that's not really a threat to democracy. So we're not super worried about that. But why my research explains the thing is that even though everyday people might not necessarily understand the mechanics of search, My research demonstrates that conspiracy theorists and propagandists have a very, very clear understanding of how information is connected to profuse. And they exploit these search these loopholes in search to spread disinformation.
n/a And I believe that this is perhaps 1 of the most dangerous parts of my book and what I talk about in Playbook. Because conservative pundits Suggest audiences distrust elites in favor of this individual expectation, but they also routinely and effectively curate content, optimize that content, and monetize unique grade in order to amplify and organize social movements that impact political Outcomes. And this work my research on this work has been reported on in the Washington Post, And as well as a conversation I an op ed I wrote in Wired. And I talked about how representative Devin Devin Nunez Effective use the strategy of keyword curation and strategic signaling during Trump's first impeachment hearing. This actually took place much Longer after my research was over, and I was driving, you know, driving to work.
n/a I was listening to the impeachment featuring on the radio, And I've heard Deb and Nunez's opening remarks. He's like, we should not be talking about this today. What we need to be talking about is Neli Orr. Now can I quickly ask who in this room might know who Nelly Orr is? Is anyone?
n/a I read the book.
n/a Yeah. Oh, yeah. Before reading the book. Thank you. Yeah.
n/a Now you all hope. So I know how everyone voted based on this very quick text. Nellie Orr, is effective someone who used to work for Fusion GPS. And Fusion GPS It's the same company that hired Steele, who manufactured the now disgraced cielgaffeine, which some of our other researchers look at. And so because Nellie Orr was married to Bruce Orr, who was a part of Department of Justice, Because that will demonstrate that the impeachment was part of A well planned coup inside the left who was trying to take down.
n/a And I first heard about Nellie Orr when I was doing my media immersion, and I had not heard her name That's stopping that process. So I actually thought maybe I had had a small stroke while I was driving. I was I was like, did I just say Nelly or? I Am I listening to NPR? What just happened?
n/a Right-wing know I effectively went home and then listened to his full full transcript, And sure enough, he was talking exclusively about Nellie Ohr and and Puget GPS. And so by effectively Processing that key term, if you looked at YouTube or Google throughout the entire impeachment and you searched for Nellie Moore, All you got was conservative information. It was a complete silo of conservatism. So How is this all effective? And why this is a threat to democracy in our country?
n/a K. Let's start again with our core belief. The left is dangerous. And because the left is dangerous, it poses this threat to the 5 x. And because it's so dangerous, it offers this really beautiful scapegoat when things go.
n/a And And this was a central idea that was pushed by Jason Kessler in the lead up to the Unite the Right rally. So despite using these platforms, and I was inside these Facebook Groups where they were actively promoting this as a white supremacist rally and promoting an all star lineup of white Presents. They were also using this tool to claim that antifa, which is a loose organization of anarchists, would pose a threat to the rally. Because they would pose this threat to the rally, they were encouraged to come armed. They were encouraged to stand their ground.
n/a Now as the rally was unfolding, back message boards on 4chan and 8chan demonstrate how they were already trying to deflect the blame and the violence that took place on August 12th with anti theft. We might not be able to see this, From from far away or online, obviously not. But what you see in here is why would it left this credit drive their car to anti fall rally, and And we were referring to it as anti fraud rally, and this very viral piece of disinformation was effectively saying the person who had run his car into protesters, Killing Heather Heyer was a defector of the left who had blown or proven here from Ohio to make Trump And so as was unfolding in chat rooms, you see this idea of a fancy box. Then Infowars picks this up. Right?
n/a So they talk about this, and they start saying there's this bombshell connection between Charlottesville, Soros. That's a whole another separate talk. What did we get into, and we are welcome to a q and a, are trying to claim that Soros had paid Antifa protesters to attend the Charlottesville rally to try to make Trump look bad. And in the weeks months that followed, numerous other articles followed suit that served to equate Black Lives Matter with antifa and frame them as the villain in white supremacist strategies, Demonstrating a concept that actually Alice Marwick is here and alongside Becca Lewis, plus the top affiliate, referred to as this trading up A chain. Right?
n/a So they use this horrible info in these fast spaces. It gets picked up by an incendiary figure like Alex Jones, and then it just kind of Multiply and and becomes even more widespread. However, the same keyword Rose again to deflect blame when Trump supporters stormed our nation capital. So what I would like to show you here just kind of a small snippet of members of conservative elite who effectively tried to say that it was anti fob that formed the capital, not Trump's orders. Candace Owens tweeted that it left the dead.
n/a Lauren Ingram Laura Ingram Repeated the same allegations, saying that there were reports that antifa was sprinkled through the air. Speaking on Blue Docs, Fox Business Show Presents Mo Brooks Yeah. Said that there were 2 parts to the event, equating it to fascist element anti thought Presents. And Todd Herman, when he began his So the Rush Limbaugh's podcast claims that given monitoring antifa back channels and had firsthand evidence That anti ba had embedded themselves into the protesters and that they were the ones who were causing violence. The Washington Times actually published an article titled face recognition identifies extremist, forming the capital.
n/a And in the body of the article, that those extremists were anti pop. And Mac gave used this article on the house floor That day, as evidence to claim that people who've reached that capital were from Antifa, representative Paul Gosar Share the news story on Twitter. This tweet is still fucked, if you want to take a look. Claiming that the Hallmarks Yeah. Of a debt.
n/a What happened on January 6th were the hallmarks of an anti mob provocation. Now even though the Washington Times actually issued a small Correction. So if you go to this article, you'll see a correction. Misinformation still widely accessible with a simple Google search. So if you looked at Washington Times' Antibot Evidence, you can pretty quickly walk away with a misunderstanding of that article.
n/a So you can see because of the way, they highlight their theory within the recap, It says so this article is still the number 1 result. Right? Saying Trump supporters say that Nancy Pelosi was the size of 1 of them, had killed 4 of traded the protesters. That being said, I wanna be clear that blaming Antifa And the reason behind why they were there is not the 1 off example. And so thinking about this idea of a stolen election is extremely important.
n/a Because as my book claims, people were querying this idea of a stolen effective so frequently that Google was actually auto completing with steel, and the date went up to January 6th, And directing searchers to the nearest rally at their location. So what I wanna demonstrate and what I demonstrate in my book is that disinformation It flows along this well worn path, but it's pretty predictable. And that is that it's inextricably tied to a history of white supremacy in the United So this central lie. Right? This stop this deal.
n/a This is what Trump used to gain the Yeah. The trusted his supporters and get thousands of people to come to the capital. Among the many lies that were told on the stage that day, And this is from his transcript. Trump told his attendees that dead people had voted, Non citizens, felons, and people who had moved had voted. Tens of thousands of votes had been switched from Trump, Biden.
n/a That Dominion Voting Machine had a 93.67% error rate. Very specific. That is the secret operative. Right? We're stuffing thousands of unsecured ballots into double bags that were left on park benches, that jail and ballots had been vacated so that they could stay up accounts.
n/a And at 1 point during his Trump asserted that the presidential election of 2020 was the most corrupt election History, maybe. Globing into these lies was this idea, though, that its supporters have strategies stop This deal. Now some might think, well, that's kind of pretty low on the bar of why the people, But I but understanding that this is actually a manufactured disinformation campaign is so important. So Google Trends tells us a really beautiful, far different story. For those of you who are unfamiliar, Google Trends is an unbiased sample of millions of queries that happen Each day, the results can be reviewed by anyone at any time at trends.google.com.
n/a Effectively, they normalize data to make comparisons here. So how do you create a chart in, scale of 0 to 100? Something that's trending at 0 means that very few, if anyone, is searching it on any point. A 100 means, like, maximum interest. Like, oh my gosh.
n/a So many people are moving at the same time. And as you can see from this chart, South Brazil originated back in 2016, when Trump thought he was gonna lose to Hillary Clinton, and this lie actually was Very much circulated by political strategies, Robert Stone. You see it peed again in October of 2018, very coincidentally around The election of 2018. And then you see a key event in the month the end of the election, and then this is right before January 6th. So as you can see from these chart spikes, that known search interest was really building, for years.
n/a You can actually go back at at old Twitter data. This is from 2016, these posts that were that are still there from the stop and still at tag. See that these strung together lies are actually deeply embedded part of the disinformation ecosystem that many of us have studied. So some centered around antisemitism. Again, you see the surface behind George Soros, the Jewish billionaire and humanitarian that is linked, to a lot of these paid protesters, which we could also talk about in q and a.
n/a It's actually, the way that they discredited protesters from the 19 fifties. Others relied on, like, other racial strokes, like legal aliens are correcting democracy. Some foreshadowed the obsession with With Dominion. Right? There was this idea that voting machines are unreliable.
n/a And once we even included an advertisement for a company called from Vowel Security email address. And I sent them an email, but I never heard back. So I don't know. If someone if anyone can get some email back, So over 4 years, office seal gained momentum, and Trump used that kid's advantage, Encouraging people to walk down on January 6th to the capital. But fears around a stolen election take that That case.
n/a And this is actually part of the Propagandists’ Playbook. Right? Make these old ideas seem like they're somehow people. So W. E.
n/a B Du Bois refers explicitly to this phenomenon and misinformation in his 1935 book, Black Reconstruction in America. And as we note, as black Americans were finally granted the right to vote following the passage of the Reconstruction Act, You shortly thereafter see these live stars with our people, all the way back to the 1800, that African Americans had used their voting privilege, That they had a need for action or that they stood generally unfit for democracy. The language that Trump used stopped stopped the deal in referring to Effective observers reuse effort featuring back to the 19 eighties. So the Republican National Committee created in the 1981, The National Ballot Security Task Force. This was a group of armed community police officers that have been hired to patrol, historically black and Yeah.
n/a Neighborhoods. Moreover, the falsehood that others are stealing the election is then subsequently used to justify, what is referred to as election integrity, redistricting, Making it more challenging to get to the polls. So when challenges to effective integrity lead to violence, Pervasive elites rely on disinformation, encouraging your supporters to see both sides of domestic terrorism. This is a strategy that has been used for decades, equating, for example, civil rights protesters with Martin Luther King, Communism and portraying insurrectionists or Confederates as patriots. The problem is It's sticky.
n/a It's believable. These lies are not going away. Right? These are kind of recent polls that that people still think Antifa is the reason behind the violence, and it happened on January 6th. A lot of people do not think that truck loss, And this proliferates online.
n/a And so these next 2 examples are just from very recent things. So first, I'm gonna show you a new story, And I'm gonna show you how search engines make it really easy to connect with these social movements that are trying to Yeah. Friends democracy. So both the Associated Press and The New York Times just in the last week or 2 weeks have talked about the way Effective designers are using Playbook to create rallies. So I read this article.
n/a And in this article, they were talking about election integrity forums. I was like, oh, well, surely Google's, like, reading the associate press. And if I search Montana election reform. Montana election for integrity forum. I'll apply.
n/a But, actually, I found their weapon. And I found a network that helped connect them. So then I thought, Let me just go back through all 50 states. And I basically did this with all 50 states to show how using these Keywords that are in an associated press article warning us that these forums have a danger to democracy are really easy to find if you don't believe in this election. I did the same thing with the New York Times article that came out The last day.
n/a In this in this search, I used effectively the exact same keywords. Right? This is called voter integrity group, And the top return, I went through all the states that have returned to their Facebook. You can connect to other like minded Facebookers in your area. These are also run by candidates on the ballot.
n/a And these are effectively Propagating the idea that the 2020 election was a stolen election. I did voter integrity groups near me Just to figure out what's going on. How much do they like that? That was going on in North Carolina. There are 2 pretty pretty incredible things actually happening In North Carolina.
n/a The Voter Integrity Project, which says that they're about protecting the civil rights crisis of our I'm but this is actually, talking more and more about election denial. So, how do conspiracy theorists effectively close this Group. And encourage their audiences to just distrust at least in favor of their own interpretation of events. I refer to this in my book as the IKEA effective misinformation. So business scholars have found that when people are encouraged to put together, their own products, They value these low quality products more than if somebody else put them together for them.
n/a And conspiracy theorists and propaganda, all on the same strategy, providing a tangible do it yourself quality to the disinformation process. Independently conducting a search on any given topic makes audiences feel like they're engaging in these self acts of discovery When they're actually participating in a scavenger hunt of why. And Marjorie Taylor Greene actually described this process firsthand when she testified to the court record As, the house debated whether or not to remove her from 2 committees. She explained that she was really disrupting a mainstream media, and so she turned to Google, And in her quest for truth ended up on Q and A. Now a lot of people ask me, how do I fix this?
n/a Like, yesterday, I would fix this problem. I actually think focusing on fixes is the wrong, focus. Right? Focusing on fixes Make us think about it. It's like some sort of bug in the code.
n/a It is not, actually. I think remaining obsessed with the fix misses the roots of the dynamic at Playbook voters and residents, we have to continue to push back on these disinformation efforts and these efforts to just mainstream extremism. We have to start by analyzing events like January 6th as part of a larger contextual pattern. And by offering more nuance on the keywords and processes that they rely on to amplify, validate, and normalize white Yeah. Supremacy.
n/a We can work together to break the disinformation. Because as I argue in my book, disinformation is not a bug in a code. It's a feature that's gate wielded for political gain, and this is great for us to our democracy. Thank you for your time.
n/a Thank you. And I okay. I'm gonna open with a couple of questions and then. Sort of epigraphic encounter of, like, running and hiding during the night. Oh, sorry.
n/a In the book, it opens with an ethnographic encounter of, United Right-wing Lab. And it made me think from sort of a research perspective. You know? How do you, as a search or engage with people, who use who might find areas, who are doing things. I mean, you know, Heather Heyer was murdered, and represent them in interviews or you're doing a bible study with folks that you might really disagree with.
n/a You respect them as, you know, humans, but they they're doing things in a. So I wondered about that. So The other thing that I wonder is I don't know if this is my bias, but this seems like maybe asymmetrical. And is it just my bias, or, like, is the left, like, not doing this or not doing this effectively? And, like, is there something about the technology itself that lenses to this political project that is, like, the left is not good at engaging with.
n/a So up in this. Chuck, do you have No. That's I can't those are any questions. No. That's I can't Those are the questions that I'm asking.
n/a So the ethnography was was, challenged for those Presents, for sure. So I would say the anode the ethnography was 2 parts. The ethnography of, Being embedded inside conservative groups, I don't think was particularly challenging for me. I am a white straight woman. I was raised in a Christian setting.
n/a I just didn't talk much. I referenced my my my husband's military background. I, was thankfully, part of a larger research team at Data and Society, where I could have discussions about, like, I think I'm seeing something different. And I'm like, you know, so that I think that was not that normative issue. As a white, like, cisgender woman was pretty easy for me because I could tap very easily, and I never felt threatened.
n/a Obviously, the ethnographic that I work work that I did is that Charlottesville was really, really personal because I was sitting there At the time. And I walked to Israel, and, like, my baby weren't home. So And I didn't write that section until the end because, like, I couldn't actually write that section. I couldn't So that was, like, very challenging, and I almost didn't even put it in because I was like, I can't I don't know if I can do it together. Those I don't know if I can look.
n/a That was John. Thank you.
n/a Well, for you. At least it all worked out. No. I'm okay. So that was very first in the inner neighborhood.
n/a And on the day of United the Right-wing mean, white supremacists were parking in our like, walking to this route with flags and signs, and it was, Like, very overwhelmed. That was that question. Oh, and then also the media version, I would say, was completely buffered and, like, definitely was really, really Challenging for me to only get my news and information from, an ecosystem that is talking about something completely different. And I had, like, multiple conversations with my spouse. I don't know what I don't know what like, I don't I can't I don't know what to say.
n/a With regards to the left, because I'm that kind of person. So, it's not in the class. Like, do this. And so I I gave a couple of tips on my book. So, like yeah.
n/a They kinda can't does anyone know who this is? This is Dan Savage. He's a very prominent LGBTQ radio announcer. And He, I think, has 1 of the most effective examples of this, which is the Santorum issue with Tarleton. Gillespie actually wrote about this Research and effective, Rick Santorum was running with with the senator, and he had a very
Speaker 3 Class.
n/a Class, thank you. I'm saying about about equating effective, a person with pedophilia, And Dan Savage was like, we're gonna rename, Amphora. Let's rename. What does Amphora mean? And so he, like, activated his community of very robust radio and podcast listeners.
n/a I mean, he did the exact same thing. Right? And he was like, Yeah. Well, now yeah. I mean, if you want to, you're welcome.
n/a And then and then he and then he created a website in forum.com, and he Use his community to rename it, and then it was the top it was the top return while he was running for reelection. So, like, it's possible. Of course, the left can do What I say is not why I don't think it's equal or why you still think there is asymmetry. Is big 1. They're not particularly good at it.
n/a And so in, I did a metadata analysis of YouTube keywords. So this Really fantastic data scientist at the markup. Leon Yin, he wrote this amazing script that can see how the producers had their own content. So I was able to get, like, a firsthand look. It's like, how do producers conceptualize your content?
n/a How do they so the people will engage in it? And it was like, the producers on the left just like, I have no idea how tags work. And their content was tag very literally. So it'd be like, oh, this is a podcast about, Google. So I'm gonna tag it with Google.
n/a But the we've heard this the but what media producers on the right-wing like, you know, we don't like this concept of critical race theory. Let's tag all of our videos with critical race theory. And even if this video doesn't have anything to do with critical race theory For feminism, we can still be at the top of YouTube's results when people are searching for concepts on the turn. And this is why routinely when Keywords are much more associated with progressive concepts, like social justice, like critical race theory, like gen like transgender right-wing returns on YouTube are often pervasive content creator. So, you know, I think it's very important for us to recognize that, sure, they could Actually, that's it.
n/a Don't like to do it that long. And then the other thing I talk about is power. Right? So, actually, Jen Shree has this really great Oh, the revolution that wasn't, where she looks systemically at the Nasdaq, excuse me, at a group on the left and the right, these grassroots groups? And you talked about, well, in order to do these things, you need money.
n/a You need time. You need the understanding of how information flows, And these aren't evenly distributed amongst these groups of activists. And so, effectively, Groups on the right are just much better resource, so their messaging is better. Those are great questions. Hi.
n/a Thanks, Daniel. Yeah.
n/a The question is I should talk about a definition of symmetry. Is this the who are the activating of this situation? So in the military Military press releases, there's 2 audiences. Your internal audience, the soldiers themselves, they're already strategies system. But, you know, to build a live around and also external 1, I guess my question is, are these different disinformation systems Changing the conversation, you know, naturally, or are you just, you know, activating the same people who probably were already kinda like, you're dealing with yourself that were already could be racist, and now It's just confirming.
n/a Because and then that ties in, like, to my next question when you talk about information asymmetry, but the republicans keep on losing the popular vote. And it's like, if they're all if they're so powerful, if if this disinformation, even in Ukraine and Russia's invasion, Would it convince people, like, outside of the in group that these ideas are true instead of just reinforcing itself?
n/a Sure. Those are good questions. So I would say, to make sure I'm answering. So in terms of matching your audience or trying to Get access to their audience. Feel like with, and this actually isn't my research.
n/a This is also really great research happening The markup. But they showed that when it comes to advertising and tagging, content creators on the Right-wing expanding their scope of who might be interested. So they aren't just targeting people for their listeners. They're like, who might be our listeners? And then I did a research report with Define American, where we looked at the anti immigration sentiment on YouTube, We use a a software called Tubular, which maps who else watches this content, and it shows you demographically, like, who is this appealing to.
n/a And there are what what it looks like, at least through the software system, is that they understand, like, the intersection of interest, And so they market to people who may not be interested in this very specific thing, but who could be interested in other things. I would say, also, I think they engage in this element of, like, strategic hashtag warfare, kind of what I was talking about with Victor in the sense that, like, With PragerU, which is a very prominent, conservative content creator, they have more of their videos are tagged with feminism Then our tag was pervasive. So that I mean, and I would say, I don't think their target audience are feminist, But I think their target audiences are persons who are like, what is this concept? And then with regards to the second question, which I would say, like, who is their audience or is it working? I mean, I think, like, The moral panic around critical race theory, which is what Victor is gonna talk about tomorrow, is a manufactured Concerned by political activists on the right-wing have, like, very And loudly, they're like, this was our strategy to make you think that this is something that it's not.
n/a And so I would say their ability to, shape the conversation in ways that is affecting Yeah. School boards and effective, governors' races and affecting a lot of, like, conversations happening on the ground demonstrates I have not read your book just first, but I it's on my
n/a it's definitely on my list.
n/a Anyway, I Really love this concept, and as funny as pretty much politics. Really agree with you. We are very bad at this, and we are very literal. And I don't think, like, that's entirely due to I think there's a lot of reasons for that, which I'm
n/a sure you think don't wanna do. But I
n/a guess what I'm really curious about It's the kind of pipeline of these concepts to, like, mainstream political rhetoric. So, like, what you were kind of saying with, like, you know, hearing it from, like, Newnan and Suddenly, hearing these, like, concepts echoed or we're, like, trying to see this moment of where, like, campaign rhetoric on the right. Like, Trump, obviously, has recently, like, really moved in and Like, q and on just curious to be very easy. So I'm like, we're seeing, you know, like I think it was, like, 19 statewide candidates on the right side, Not including the 1 running in the state for senate, like, refused to accept, like, election results. So I guess from your kind of research Or what you kind of discovered with the strategies this book.
n/a Do you think it's kinda just like a natural kind of evolution, or is it more of, like, a strategic partnership that's kind of emerging? On the left? On the right. Sorry. It's right.
n/a On the right. I was oh, okay. Oh, yeah. Like, on the right, we're seeing, like, you know, in politicians starting to embrace A lot of these territorial. Oh, I thought it was true.
n/a Okay. Sure. So I would say I think and, actually, we talked about this a little bit yesterday. I think it was actually Daniel's question Presents the mainstreaming of this lie, I think, is almost a return To that's just information from, like, the 1800. Right?
n/a Because when you saw what a reconstruction, then you saw, you know, That's, burnings of, like, prominent black neighborhoods. I mean, I think you can see, like, as strong as power starts to lose its stronghold, it You draw on extremist rhetoric because you don't wanna lose that powerful stronghold. So I I don't think that this is necessarily, You know, new in that sense. I do think, and I also think that there's been a very strategies partnership between that is media strategist, Political strategies and politicians, and they work as this, like, effective bridge between 1 another. You know, vice president Pence had a radio show for many years.
n/a He was called Limbaugh on safe path, I think. It's like, because he was, like, the less angry version. But he so I think, like, understanding this is this and, and there are, like, institutes that that Oh, and also Frank Lentz. Right? So we I talked about this in my book.
n/a The communist political strategist from 19 nineties, like, effectively I have a book called Words That Work, where he says that you don't like what's happening, change the conversation. And he did. And, like, climate change was a creation by Frank Lunt to make all the warming seem less scary And that the science was still out, and they fed politicians running for office to take back the house, and then they had to Use this language. I don't think it's did that answer your question? I think some of the elements of, like, strong conspiracy, but I think it's actually much, much older.
n/a Gotcha. Okay. So I was just, like, reviving on the same wavelength. I was just about to, bring up the climate change example, because I wanna ask a question about, the sociology of journalism and, journalism media. So How come is it that we often see these birds on the right, which are reshaping things?
n/a Pro life is another example of this. Right-wing all of these words sort of entering into the mainstream, you know, news coverage. I don't I at least can't think of any, like, samples that move it the other way. My a priori, is that, like, most journalists do tend to be more liberal, And, it's like a little bit of, like, an overcorrection. You know what I mean?
n/a They're, like, very sensitive to these charges of conservative bias, but I would be really curious to hear, Like, what you think about, like, why is that why is it so successful, you know, with getting these, you know, the the words that matter into the news. I mean, obviously, like you said, like, in the 1 example, right, like, politicians are saying a lot, and, like, you know, journalists are gonna explain it. I think we have moments where we see that's not quite true, right, where journalists will challenge things. So, anyway, I would just be curious to hear what you can do with that. Question.
n/a I have another question. Feel free to go. I would say, well, with regards to just, like, words and power, I mean, I talked about this a little bit with, like, Foucault. The Foucault concept is, like, words aren't just Work. They are tied to systems of power and the way that we, identify hierarchical systems of power.
n/a And so, The reason I would say words work for people who are actually funded to manufacture and curate words is tied to this power dynamic. With regards to, like, infiltration of journalism and this desire of journalists to see objective, There's a great book called messengers of the right that taught that I that I quote in my book, and I talk about that. But, pervasive news creators in the 19 twenties actually reinvented this Concept is objective. So objective doesn't mean balance. Effective means, without By it, but they reframe the conversation to mean effective.
n/a So, actually, like, how do the words work. Right? And they reframe this notion of objective To me, balance coverage. And then when there wasn't balance, they use that as an example of why The mainstream media is an extension of the left, and it's biased and it's trustworthy. So I think in some response, yes.
n/a Journalists there's this What she was saying in her book, in some regards, journalists were very worried about that being a problem. So they are constantly, like, giving voice to both sides to the scene how balanced, but that's not what objective journalism Means and that was actually a disinformation campaign, right-wing into, legitimized, right wing media in the the did I answer your question? Okay. Feel like I don't feel like I get excited, and then I go offline. Yeah.
n/a Oh, well, I'll go. Does that mean that? So yeah. Fair. So, I have a lot
n/a of, like, less suspects who like to argue with conservatives, like, on the Internet or they'll talk to you as a good feature. And a lot of them say things like, you know, if it's not really safe then, they'll And, you know, this makes sense because they don't care what you're saying. They care about what, like, the original words say. They care about what they do. But And to me, I always think, okay.
n/a So just on top of that. But, you know, as a professional, as a person, I feel like some of the things might come up. Like, what if I see a family member trying to So these talking points, or what if I have a kid coming to my library and start telling me about, you know, February 3 or whatever. That is an effective way to, like, reach those people and and kinda, like, show them that they're part of this ecosystem That is harming the thought.
n/a Yeah. So, I mean, I don't think anyone likes this idea of feeling Exploited? I mean, I think I hopefully, what I'm hoping to try to do with this book is to say, These are very explicit tactics that are drawing on values you care about to spread lies That aren't even necessarily in your interest. Right? So we see, actually, you know, this exploitation of, like, the working class, Yeah.
n/a By politicians that then don't create laws or policies that help working class. They actually hurt a working class person. So I think, I mean, I I don't think actually, we're seeing this right. I'm actually seeing this right now. Playbook, Stacy Abrams talking about how, ultrasound the the sound on sounds are like a manufactured sound.
n/a And now they have this, the right wing information ecosystem is jumping on this q and a, be like, how dare you say that my heartbeat that I heard when I was pregnant wasn't real. And people are responding with it being like, but that's just true. That's the fact. Right? But, I would say, Yes.
n/a Completely kind of missing the point because family, you know, which is 1 of the 5 f's, this notion of life and and and evil life, it's a major value for different groups. So being like, well, actually, those are the facts. Like, let me send you the facts. So this don't that's not a Strategies these elements are really good at those same with problems and not break it at this time.
n/a Sorry. I don't know. I'm good.
n/a Oh, see a lead in. You're puzzled over This information says he said it as if that is a problem. And, you know, work in libraries, archives, things that are all about making sure that things persist so that in the future Yeah. Actually learn more of the states that make arguments, fostering a word on that. So I'm trying to write the style.
n/a The You don't want it to pervasive, but, yeah, there's a whole structure in the world to make sure that And and this notion of do we then try to interrupt those? They start to become Too accurate. I mean, because I I I take your point that don't wanna solve the problem.
n/a I'll have to deal with it.
n/a And and so if we're going to do whether it's regulation or ignore Ignorance, ignoring things so that, you know, we don't get effective by,
n/a So I would say that no. That's a great question. Mean, I don't know if we let
n/a me just it may
n/a be like this information database or something. But, like, I would say the Disrupting flow is actually a tactic that journalists are do use and can use. Right? So flooding Yeah. Search engines with good information is a way to disrupt these data voids.
n/a The researchers at Microsoft team of comes into the data void, which is when little to nothing exists online, it becomes easily exploitable by conspiracy theorists trying to spread propaganda. So you can effectively flood with with with good information in an effort to drown out The bad information. Of course, that's contingent. Money and time and all these other things. But that's 1 strategy that can, like, disrupt the flow.
n/a I would say the other thing is I know search engines are trying to combat this problem. So, like, I don't think that that tech is the only solution, but I think tech has to be part of the solution. So, like, for example, since a lot of my work come out, Google shifted. They have, like, a 3 dots on their Return. So you can get more information about, like, who is the source and why Am I getting this return?
n/a They are now, like, highlighting data void. The DM voice not only is it when little to nothing exists online, but also this is particularly important during these events. So when, like, a live event is happening, they're really right-wing, like, this info. And so, like, how do you think it's unfolding now when you search for Presents about the event, Google actually has, like, a small thing that says, this is the current event Unfolding. I forget the exact language, but this is an event that's unfolding.
n/a Check back again. These results might not be the best. Check back again. However okay. Alice and I were writing this paper forever, but, like, there's this they're actually using this now to drive people to alternative search engine.
n/a Right-wing, that that go. So Google is trying to help solve the problem, and now they're like, oh, well, Let's just change to a different search engine. So I I think, what true search yeah.
n/a Yeah. I mean,
n/a yeah, true social is an interesting 1 too. You know? I don't think it's gonna be ever a good quarter. I think it'll probably, like obviously. Although it's being a it's in it's certainly better than, you know, the platform we worked in that sense.
n/a But I think search engines are harder than social media Playbook. Because, like, obviously, a brand new website, a brand new social media app can't, like, transfer a whole But I think search engine people are more likely to change out their search engine, I would say. Or at least we're seeing it. I mean, people are using depth.go, but also people are using TikTok. Like, a majority of young Persons now don't even go to Google.
n/a They need TikTok for information, and they find it more relevant, and they like or And in those places, you can go, oh, we're done. I'm sorry. The. Yeah. Go ahead, Steve.
Speaker 3 Yeah. It's really great. I can't wait to dig in to the book. My question is about. These, right wing individuals are of the disproportionate power that they have to be able to influence what comes up when somebody runs a search through Google or do or social Google.
n/a Because it strikes me as somewhat ironic
Speaker 3 But when you take, you look at the way that they land mass big tech. Right?
n/a Once I go big tech So terrible, and yet this
Speaker 3 is what's really enabling a lot of their success. And so, obviously, there's,
n/a you know, 1 question must've
Speaker 3 been biting the hand that feeds, but also just what extent are they aware of, you know, how much Big Tech is helping them, you know, at the same time that they are sort of Attacking them as being biased against conservatives, which just seems I don't know. The the rhetoric just seems fundamentally mismatched, the reality we talked about.
n/a I mean,
n/a this is what I testified about in 2019. So this I mean, senator Cruz had a whole hearing for the judiciary committee call I mean, calling out Google censorship. And I was like and then they had, trigger Dennis Frager, who was 1 of those witnesses, who said And I was saying, well, contrary to these anecdotes, Research demonstrates that that is actually not true, right, in many so I'm not really quite sure what the Cool is, except to say, to increase this notion of, the media being biased, and then not having an agenda against Yeah. That conservatism, which helps, like, reinforce this idea. I think it also reinforces this idea that if you search for something and a conservative Content creator is not 1 of the return.
n/a It can very easily make you think that this is all biased and not that, oh, it, wasn't a quality context or and in terms of how easy it was I mean, when I was doing my, media immersion and content analysis. I was really struck by the way in which many of these websites would just simply copy and paste Content from 1 to the next, and then hyperlink them to 1 another. And so that's just Yeah. These are signaling that that they recognize, like so I don't know for sure if they know how these strategies work. But I do know that how the Internet works.
n/a And I do know that the strategies that they're using are highly conducive Alright. Just not even wanna make We have some I'll call it misinformation. Oh, that's fine. It's not on purpose. It's not on purpose.
n/a Okay. Do we have anything from the live chat? Don't wanna
n/a okay. Yeah.
n/a I'm sorry. Are you
n/a talking about pro life? Oh, sure. Sure. After the ruling, after decades of, like, trying to change conversations, I mean, from your effective, how is I also feel like you had Kansas, you had New York 19, you have such a strong reaction to, taking away reproductive right-wing. But the right has spent, like, years trying to build up the sequence itself to drive the conversation.
n/a But in this case, it's just it's just smelling so bad that we can throw, Like, campaign sites, so I can't decision about this, I would say, compared to this.
n/a Yeah. I think that's inter I mean, I would say with regards to the abortion, did they I mean, regardless of just just Or how does we still don't really know. Right? The 20 the 2022 effective coming up. But when we have these examples of campus that say, Yeah.
n/a These were detrimental, but I think when it comes to actually electing officials, I we still don't know. I don't how it's gonna play out. And I think it definitely has motivated a strong block block of very reliable voters to To show up. And I think, with regards to, like this is not even in my book, but I With with the way in which, social media and search engines are part of this, I think, is interesting. So I'm actually doing a research project Right now with my RA, and we were looking at, when people search abortion near me, but it's returned.
n/a And up until basically 3 weeks ago, does Google change it, which is great. I mean, good that Google's making information more accurate. But up until a few Weeks ago, the top returns were not abortion providers. They were primary care providers that are Very conservative organizations that advocate not for. So, and in Advertising, those are still the top so when you're in your top returns, when you search abortion near me, they have now changed their map To have a toggle where you can write offers abortion, not offers abortion, and they Yeah.
n/a We have their content to say offers abortion, not offers abortion, but the advertising is still the top return for clinics That do not offer abortion. The crisis. The crisis pregnancy center. Yeah. Yeah.
n/a Yeah. I'm sorry. I said PCC. PCC. That's a crisis pregnancy center.
n/a Yeah. So those are your top returns. So I would say I think it's still pretty Yeah. That's that's understanding how search engines well, we don't know what's gonna happen in this election.
n/a So
n/a I'm just thinking now that Republicans are literally deleting our website. So then the guy in New York he got ballots and he was moderate, but people are so alert. So democrats got outspent, but people are so alert me to, like, anti and proportion message. I think it's They said they refused, and I guess, talking about information symmetry. What about the cases where this fails or, like, backfires?
n/a Yeah. So I I don't know how
n/a much this needs to convince them. Yeah. Oftentimes, this need, like, a strong 100 of folks willing to, like, invest themselves and create something to go hey. Right? Like, if you think about January 6th, like, They took over congress of, like, not that many folks.
n/a Right? Right-wing so, like, what I think about I don't I mean, it it you're not in the flat. I don't always think about this in terms of, like, a mass I think about it in terms of, like, oh, god. Right-wing, like, the amount of, like, sort of carnage and chaos that some You need to go with folks who you know, the pizza gigs.
n/a Like, I I have a line in
n/a my book about pizza cake. Right? We had Folks, like, with their AK 40 Presents walking up in the case parties because of misinformation. Right? And so I think on the 1 hand, yeah, we can think about in terms of passing into contact.
n/a Also, I'm wondering, share a lot of fun.
n/a And I would say for every state where you see it backfiring, there are states outlined. And so
n/a I
n/a actually have a question from doctor. She's a great email for me once. Yeah. She's had great talk, by the way, with smiley face. So, but she, she wanted me to ask if you could talk more about your method, specifically, Yeah.
n/a It's really, like, the challenges, how you manage, like, the sheer scope and size of your data collection, in particular, because she's interested in multi method approaches and the challenges that come with them. She wants to know, is this unique in terms of studying this information or within your field? And, specifically, she's asking She would like to kind of learn about this to apply with the legal, media, a law, and society approaches. Yeah. So I would say, I don't think I mean, I definitely Doing ethnography is not unique, and combining ethnography with, quantitative datasets, I don't think is Particularly unique.
n/a It's kind of my layer, I guess. I like to combine qualitative data with quantitative data, that I don't know how to scrape myself, so I have to regularly partner with people who are probably talking that. I would say the Challenges of qualitative data collection or ethnography are time and finances. I was extremely fortunate to be a postdoc at Data and Society for this research project. This research project would not have been without that institutional support that provided, the The time and money to conduct what I thought to be very rich qualitative 1.
n/a And I think any qualitative study has, like, the pitfalls of what do you do with all this data afterwards. It's exhausting. I mean, you have, like, All these field notes, all these interviews, you're tired. You've been, like, talking to all these people. So I think that's just kind of those with the those with it.
n/a I use I rely on grounded theory, because I find it to be a very Yeah. That that works very well for me, where I go through my data. I do what's called in vivo coding because we have, like, very specific It goes within the data themselves. I create sets of what are called analytical categories or analytical memos. We saw my conceptual category.
n/a And then and then I connect the dots to that process, and that's what works for me. Quantitatively, I think that's something I'm actually I have this, like, mini conference with digital sociologist last week. We were talking about the challenges of big datasets. So you think I think me as a qualitative data person, I was like, oh, if I could, like, scrape the data, it'll be, like, so easy, because I don't just have all these We're finding. And they'll just, like, shoot out at me, like, all these answers that I'll that I would never see through Volley.
n/a And then I I mean, it's the section of, like, massive CSV file, like, which is this is Excel spreadsheet that you have to clean up and then, like, interpret and make sense of it. It took a lot I'm too. So there's no easy way. I don't know if that's the the question. I just to follow-up on that, like, I'd just be curious to hear about, like, the media immersion side of things as well.
n/a You know, over in, like, funky part of comp, we would just have all those things. You know what I mean? Like, no. No. Yeah.
n/a We have to have media, and we would like I'm trying to get out. Going on there. So, like, I guess, I wanna hear about the immersion part of it. Sure. So the immersion part of it, I I I would say I'm a media sociologist, And there's a lot of sociology on ethnography, and I don't think very much ethnography of media.
n/a Mhmm. And so I actually I've invented this concept of media immersion as a great as the graphic process.
n/a Oh, no.
n/a It's a it's a Chipotle original. So, like, there was, like, a lot of cinematography. Right? And I'm like, what what are they what are they doing? Like, after I leave them, What are they watching and listening to?
n/a Like, how does that matter and shape their beliefs of something that I can't glean I'm talking to them. And so if I able 1, I don't have a normal Facebook account, so it enabled me to have a research Facebook account. And I think the way that's Not possible if you're trying to protect the confidentiality of people. Like, it could be a separate Facebook challenge just for that. And following and, like, Seeing the story they were featuring, and I was like, oh, what is this story?
n/a And I was like, okay. This is not enough. I need to just kind of go all in. So I deleted all my apps. I downloaded all these different podcasts.
n/a I was up every morning watching Fox and Friends. I that's how I started my day. Right? Like, I had my coffee, and I had a young baby, so I was up early. I was like, Let's turn on box and browse and see what's going on for today.
n/a And then I have a set of notes where I was analyzing, like, what are the who is this person that's, like, writing this up? And then I got to get, like, a bunch of what was also fascinating is I could see through Facebook. They will send me a bunch of ads and suggested content based on this person. So I also got to see, like, what do they sell to conservatives, Then how does this align, with political advertising, right, in your, stuff as well? So the media immersion was, like, I mean, I went very deep in that process, and, like, I was listening to these podcasts on my way to and from work.
n/a And the story I talked about in my book at the beginning, but I was, like, during the, I'm forgetting it. The major the mural. The it's not mural. The Mueller investigation. And then I remember they, like, had these bread crumbs or, like, what happened to be indicted?
n/a But they weren't telling us who it was, and I was, like, be indicted. And I got out of the shower and I'm fine. My husband was like, oh, yeah. You think you're That is so I was like, but what if she, You know? Like, all those emails.
n/a And, like, she's maybe she I mean, I voted for her. What if she ends up being indicted? And he's like, I this is 1 of the annotations. You know? Yes.
n/a I can't really respond to this. I don't know. I love you today. Like, Yeah. He was like, yeah.
n/a He was like, oh, yeah. I don't have that.
n/a That's great saturation. Great saturation.
n/a Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We bring that right. Yeah.
n/a And then when it was when it was Manafort, I was like, Oh my gosh. So that was that point where I was like, wow. I have I have lost touch with a reality that I have known my whole body. And so yeah. Then we.
n/a Yeah. So As you know, I love this project. I've been lucky enough to see it through its various I think that society was Spanish. Back in the day. And What you just said, I feel like I love the anecdote about you being in the shower.
n/a Like, oh, it's Clinton that's gonna be in bed. Tetra pie. And I wonder you you're scared for her? I was, like, very scared that it was legitimately her. I was like, oh my gosh.
n/a What is gonna happen when it's her? That's Yeah. Yeah.
n/a So I
n/a was thinking when you were you were, you were speaking, I was thinking about, like, the It's your work hypothesis. Right? The idea that, like, either world through that the concepts by which we view the world were taken by the length. And And I was thinking also about the relationship between the quality of media. And I was wondering, like, having had this experience not just being Scholar of media, but also having someone who's basically,
n/a who's a
n/a small, but ended up getting altered by the media that you have human. Like, what if I don't know. What insights do you have, I guess, about that larger point based on this experience? Well, I would say 1, because I was so embedded in that environment is how I understood how search engines were being gaped. Yeah.
n/a Yeah. So I would say up and until if I hadn't changed my epistemological framework, I never would have Googled NFL ratings or not now. Right? Because it was during this project that Trump was saying NFL ratings are way down. And when you searched NFL ratings were down, you got nothing but information about his claims that NFL ratings were down because of Colin Kaepernick's Presents would block lives matter.
n/a And then I was like, okay. Maybe they're not. You know? Like, let me just make like, what's happening? And then I send that, and then it was, like, an entirely different set of search returns.
n/a Some of it works illustrated on both sets of returns, Confirming this completely alternative reality to the 1 that I had been embedded in. So I would say it was because of that Like, I don't think I would have been able to know that Nellie Orr was a data boy If I had not been so heavily seized in that system. So, yeah, I mean, I think that's really what helped me, like, drive this whole The this whole concept of the way that the way we see the world drives these keywords from the offset, and they can Effectively creates a parallel Internet in which you're currently living. So I think a lot of the algorithmic polarization that we're dealing with right now has left to do with the filter bubble being manufactured by some, you know, tool. Yeah.
n/a I think it's part of it. I mean, we do know that they wanna on this platform because they're fun as possible. But I think also people are much more inclined to, like, search for information from the beginning that reconfirms their system I feel like you should wrap it up. That was a good question. Oh, actually, I know.
n/a There are 1 last 1. 0, good. Where did my research go from here? That's a Horrible question. I'm just kidding.
n/a That's a great question. I, I am right now doing research on this very Concept. So how do people's biases shape their keyword? And I ask persons inside of libraries, if we wanted to look at public library. Oftentimes, we'll say, like, well, it's just because it's heavily personalized.
n/a That's why they're getting those returns as they are. But Google says that they aren't, and so I'm trying to test this concept. And so we go inside public libraries, and we ask People very, very polarizing question about a set of prompts to do with, like, things like abortion and gun control and, manipulation. And then we ask for people to search for more information on the topic. And then I'm capturing this through A recorded device.
n/a So I have their I have a laptop that's on loan. They're doing these queries to this laptop. And then out of that, Featuring, yes, by these very much cheap returns. So, with, like, the abortion 1, people are searching for, like, Abortion near me or, like, where do I terminate this pregnancy? Is there pro abortion or supreme abortion?
n/a If they are, not for abortion, they search for things like what's an alternative to abortion or, like, adoption services in the area. But I'm also finding that, people do most of their searching online excuse me, remotely, but through mobile. That the concept of, like, laptop search environment is actually very antiquated. People are using the Microphone, the top pair of queries. And, so so I'm trying to get a grant that's been provided with Yeah.
n/a Thought we're to look actually more on mobile search on the wall. Sure. I think Thank you, Don't forget tomorrow. Oh, yeah. Don't forget tomorrow.
n/a Victor Ray is speaking at 11 AM. If you start us again on live stage, thank you for that IRL. Yeah. I'm in.