And that’s what you missed from CITAP!
Podcasts, publications, and media appearances: here's a Round Up of the last two weeks.
CITAP goes to ICA
A group of CITAPers, from principal investigators to grad students and affiliate researchers, jetted off to Australia two weeks ago for #ICA24. Look out for next week's newsletter for exciting photos and reflections from the conference!
Alice Marwick Tackles Child Online Safety on TechDirt Podcast
Alice Marwick appeared on the TechDirt Podcast to discuss Child Online Safety Legislation (COSL). This came soon after BITAP published a (Marwick co-authored) primer on COSL.
Talking about the modern panic over social media, Marwick noted, “I think it's a little bit similar to in the 1980s, when there was this big panic around like heavy metal music and dungeons and dragons... Luckily, this time, we don't have anyone saying that it's satanic... No one is saying that there shouldn't be better tools out there for parents to be able to change what their kids are saying online.”
Marwick discusses how a few problems with COSL are that 1) they assert that government should be responsible for determining what is harmful to kids and 2) the regulation from the bills are likely going to have implications for adults, not just kids.
While (many) people aren’t explicitly calling social media satanic, the negative effects are often over-emphasized over the community building, activism, and opportunity for connection. As Alice pointed out:
“Some of the biggest structural changes in terms of social attitudes we've seen around body positivity are coming from young people and activists who are mostly using social platforms like Instagram to spread the idea of body diversity... And we can directly tie that to young people—mostly young women—doing activist work on social media to make that possible. My fear is that a lot of that type of youth-centered activist work is going to be shut down because of a lot of these child safety bills, which seemed to completely disregard that social media might have any positive consequences, and that young people might use it in any productive or empowering way whatsoever, which I think is just completely untrue.”
The primer introduces seven recommendations, including centering young people, rebuilding the social fabric, and limiting the scope of acceptable advertising, but Marwick argues that the most important aspect is increased access to mental health care:
“[There is] so much evidence that most young people don't have any [access to mental health care]—even a school counselor—let alone a psychologist, a social worker. those people are just not in these kids' lives... There needs to be massive increased access for mental health, for adults as well. Because—let's not forget—a lot of these kids are in families where they might have somebody else a loved one struggling with mental health. If their parents, aunties, uncles, big brothers, big sisters don't have access to mental health either, these things become generational. Everyone needs increased access to mental health care.”
Tressie McMillan Cottom's Insights on “Lovett or Leave It”
Tressie McMillan Cottom appeared on “Lovett or Leave It”, live from Charlotte. She discussed topics from young people and politics, to AI, to political identity and polarization. Discussing AI, McMillan Cottom said:
“The biggest problems facing us as a society are not issues of productivity, which AI is great at increasing. American workers are actually very productive, believe it or not. Our problems are around things related to care and care work—raising children, taking care of the elderly, housing for the unhoused, health care—and AI is not useful in any of those arenas. So when people get really excited about his transformative potential, I go ‘Transforming how much of our life that actually matters?’ And that's actually very little.”
Election Insights: Heesoo Jang and Shannon McGregor in PolComm's Spring 2024 Issue
In PolComm’s Spring 2024 issue, “Emerging Challenges and New Approaches in the Study of Elections and Campaigns,” Heesoo Jang and Shannon McGregor wrote essay “Normative Needs in the Study of Elections and Campaigns”:
“It is evident that without a clear normative framework that centers democratic principles, the press, campaign communication, and technology can inadvertently or deliberately influence electoral outcomes and public perceptions in ways that may not align with the ideals of a fair and transparent democratic process. A continuous and rigorous assessment of how journalism, campaigns, and technology serve or hinder democratic health is crucial.”
Deen Freelon on Disinformation in Black Communities
A report, published by Onyx Impact, “a nonprofit organization working to combat disinformation within the Black community, identified half a dozen core online networks “reaching or targeting” Black Americans online with false and misleading narratives.” NBC News discussed this report, and spoke with Deen Freelon about disinformation in the Black community.
Onyx Impact has identified six sources with a collective potential reach of nearly 41 million Americans, which is roughly equivalent to the Black population in the U.S., based on recent census data. These sources are characterized by widespread skepticism, anti-Black rhetoric, and the spread of deceptive information. Over a four-month period, Onyx Impact's research team identified 2,500 online accounts that were creating, sharing, or amplifying disinformation targeting Black communities. Additionally, they conducted seven national focus groups with Black audiences to investigate how these disinformation narratives were appearing in offline spaces. The purpose of this research, according to Esosa Osa, the founder of Onyx Impact and an alumnus of the voting rights group Fair Fight, was to assess the impact of such information.
Onyx Impact provided strategic guidance in their report for combating disinformation, advising engagement with the identified platforms by using trusted messengers and discrediting bad actors. Although there is no evidence that African Americans are more susceptible to disinformation than other ethnic groups, Esosa Osa, founder of Onyx Impact, emphasized that persistent targeting can eventually have an impact. She noted that Black voters might be less susceptible to many disinformation narratives due to their warranted higher levels of skepticism towards institutions and the government. However, Osa cautioned that, like other communities, disinformation can be highly effective and dangerous when it is specifically targeted and delivered by credible messengers.
Deen Freelon “remains hesitant about overstating how deep misinformation runs within the Black community,” noting:
“It is incredibly difficult to draw a straight line between any kind of communication … and the kinds of attitudinal and behavioral changes that people would like communication to have. It’s just very hard to change people’s minds and their behavior in substantial ways from what they’re already doing... The vast majority of people who consume [disinformation] is a small group of people, but in a close election, a small group of people can be sufficient to, at least potentially, sway the election one way or the other.”
New Trad Wife Pipeline Just Dropped
The pipeline of psychological resignation to trad wife has grown in the wake of the 2022 Dobbs decision. As discussed by Morgan Jerkins for Mother Jones, “In the past several years, we’ve experienced a pandemic, the fall of Roe v. Wade, and the end of the Girlboss Era... Maya Kosoff, a content strategist and writer who admits to me that she has become obsessed with trad wives herself, says their popularity is “a reaction to perceived systemic failures” that seem like they “can be easily solved by turning to the simpler life of homesteading.”
Tressie McMillan Cottom also adds a thought about the increase in trad wives post-Dobbs, noting: “Women only get to be full citizens if they have control over when and how they have babies. When that changes, your citizenship becomes vulnerable, so you attach yourself to a citizen: men. I think this reclaiming of being the traditional wife is here so long as there’s a threat.”
In an attention-economy, where we place our attention is how we spend time, money, and energy. Jerkins notes, “You can never “simply enjoy things” when you log in to a social media platform. Every interest or disgust you have toward a topic is up for extraction.”
To learn more about trad wife pipelines, check out Tressie’s “Bama Rush to Trad Wife Pipeline” The Waves episode from 2023.