Podcasts about social media prism how

On this Memorial Day, we are proud to introduce the newest limited series from the Institute for Religion, Media, and Civic Engagement and Axis Mundi Media. Miss Information is a podcast about how conspiracies and misinformation infiltrate wellness communities and religious spaces. Subscribe here: https://redcircle.com/shows/21b4b512-ceef-4289-b9fc-76f302f5bd22/episodes/3532f1b2-5f15-4302-82f6-8a281d676871 Misinformation is big news, but what does it mean and why does it matter? If misinformation is simply incorrect information, can it be solved simply by telling people the right answer?  In this episode, we learn how misinformation can prevent people from voting if they think they aren't eligible or can't vote by mail; how misinformation can convince people to take certain drugs to cure a disease even if it's not proven to be safe; and the ways misinformation can draw people into conspiracies like QAnon. But it's not as simple as dispelling all misinformation from our midst. That seems impossible. Rather, in dialogue with Dr. David Robertson from the Open University, what we will discover points to a different question: Why do people believe misinformation at all and what does it do for them? In other words, instead of focusing on what people believe, perhaps the phenomenon of misinformation directs us to ask what beliefs do - who they favor, who they put in power, who they marginalize, and who they leave vulnerable. And by understanding the mechanics, maybe we can mitigate the damage misinformation does to our public square. For more information about research-based media by Axis Mundi Media visit: www.axismundi.us For more information about public scholarship by the Institute for Religion, Media, and Civic Engagement follow us @irmceorg or go to www.irmce.org Funding for this series has been generously provided by the Henry Luce Foundation.  Creator: Dr. Susannah Crockford Executive Producer: Dr. Bradley Onishi (@bradleyonishi)  Audio Engineer: Scott Okamoto (@rsokamoto) Production Assistance: Kari Onishi  Dr. Susannah Crockford (@suscrockford): Ripples of the Universe: Spirituality in Sedona, Arizona Further Reading Robertson, David G. UFOs, Conspiracy Theories and the New Age: Millennial Conspiracism. London: Bloomsbury, 2016. Robertson, David G., and Amarnath Amarasingam. “How Conspiracy Theorists Argue: Epistemic Capital in the Qanon Social Media Sphere.” Popular Communication 20 (2022): 193-207. https://doi.org/10.1080/15405702.2022.2050238. Howard, Philip N. Lie Machines: How to Save Democracy from Troll Armies, Deceitful Robots, Junk News Operations, and Political Operatives. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2020. Bail, Chris. Breaking the Social Media Prism: How to Make Our Platforms Less Polarizing. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2021.  Uscinski, Joseph E., and Joseph M. Parent. American Conspiracy Theories. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.  Byford, Jovan. Conspiracy Theories: A Critical Introduction. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. Argentino, Marc-Andre. “The Church of QAnon: Will Conspiracy Theories Form the Basis of a New Religious Movement?” The Conversation, May 18, 2020, https://theconversation.com/the-church-of-qanon-will-conspiracy-theories-form-the-basis-of-a-new-religious-movement-137859  Hao, Karen. “How Facebook got addicted to spreading misinformation,” MIT Technology Review, March 11, 2021, https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/03/11/1020600/facebook-responsible-ai-misinformation/  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How much blame should we put on social media for polarizing our society? Perhaps not as much as we tend to do. Joshua A Tucker joins Vasant Dhar in episode 82 of Brave New World to discuss his studies on the effects of social media -- and the algorithms that run them.    Useful resources: 1. Joshua Tucker at NYU, Twitter and Google Scholar. 2. Online searches to evaluate misinformation can increase its perceived veracity -- Kevin Aslett, Zeve Sanderson, William Godel, Nathaniel Persily, Jonathan Nagler & Joshua A Tucker. 3. Less than you think: Prevalence and predictors of fake news dissemination on Facebook -- Andrew Guess, Jonathan Nagler and Joshua A Tucker. 4. Breaking the Social Media Prism: How to Make Our Platforms Less Polarizing -- Chris Bail. 5. Chris Bail on How to Fight Polarization -- Episode 34 of Brave New World. 6. The Social Media Industrial Complex -- Episode 3 of Brave New World (w Sinan Aral). 7. How Social Media Threatens Society -- Episode 8 of Brave New World (w Jonathan Haidt). 8. Quantifying the Impact of Misinformation and Vaccine-Skeptical Content on Facebook -- Jennifer Nancy Lee Allen, Duncan J Watts, and David Rand. Check out Vasant Dhar's newsletter on Substack. Subscription is free!

Read the full transcript here. How does psychological time differ from clock time? How does a person's perception of time relate to their personal identity? How does a person's view of their past shape how they view their future? To what extent do people differ in the degree to which they feel like a single, continuous person across time? What effects does a person's perception of time have on their assessment of injustices? Why aren't there more adversarial collaborations in academia? Is academia generally politically left-leaning? How does lack of political diversity in academia compare to (e.g.) lack of gender or economic diversity? Are liberal or progressive academics openly willing to discriminate against conservative academics when, for example, the latter have opportunities for career advancement? Is anyone in the US actually calling for legal changes around free speech laws, or are they only discussing how people ought to be socially ostracized or punished for expressing certain viewpoints? And is there a meaningful difference between legal and social punishments for those who make illegal or taboo statements? Are we in the midst of an ideological war right now? And if so, ought we to quash in-group criticism to avoid giving ammunition to our ideological enemies? Academia seems to have hemorrhaged public trust over the last few decades; so what can be done to begin restoring that trust?Anne Wilson is a professor of social psychology at Wilfrid Laurier University. Much of her research focuses on self and identity over time both for individual self and collective identities like nation, race, and gender. Her work illuminates the often-motivated malleability of our reconstructions of the past, forecasts of the future, and subjective perceptions of time itself. Her broad focus on motivated reasoning and cognitive bias has also led to more recent research on intergroup misperception, political polarization, and how speech suppression and censorship can inhibit collective bias correction. Follow her on Twitter / X at @awilson_WLU, email her at awilson@wlu.ca, or learn more about her work at her labe website: annewilsonpsychlab.com.Further reading:"Prosocial motives underlie scientific censorship by scientists: A perspective and research agenda", by Cory J. Clark, Lee Jussim, Komi Frey, Sean T. Stevens, Musa al-Gharbi, Karl Aquino, J. Michael Bailey, Nicole Barbaro, Roy F. Baumeister, April Bleske-Rechek, David Buss, Stephen Ceci, Marco Del Giudice, Peter H. Ditto, Joseph P. Forgas, David C. Geary, Glenn Geher, Sarah Haider, Nathan Honeycutt, Hrishikesh Joshi, Anna I. Krylov, Elizabeth Loftus, Glenn Loury, Louise Lu, Michael Macy, Chris C. Martin, John McWhorter, Geoffrey Miller, Pamela Paresky, Steven Pinker, Wilfred Reilly, Catherine Salmon, Steve Stewart-Williams, Philip E. Tetlock, Wendy M. Williams, Anne E. Wilson, Bo M. Winegard, George Yancey, and William von Hippel"The Future of Memory: Remembering, Imagining, and the Brain", by Daniel L. Schacter, Donna Rose Addis, Demis Hassabis, Victoria C. Martin, R. Nathan Spreng, and Karl K. Szpunar"Autobiographical Memory and Conceptions of Self: Getting Better All the Time", by Michael Ross and Anne E. Wilson"When Slights Beget Slights: Attachment Anxiety, Subjective Time, and Intrusion of the Relational Past in the Present", by Kassandra Cortes and Anne E. Wilson"Crimes of the Past: Defensive Temporal Distancing in the Face of Past In-Group Wrongdoing", by Johanna Peetz, Gregory R. Gunn, and Anne E. Wilson"Exploring Gender Bias in Six Key Domains of Academic Science: An Adversarial Collaboration", by Stephen J. Ceci1, Shulamit Kahn, and Wendy M. Williams"Political Diversity in Social and Personality Psychology", by Yoel Inbar and Joris LammersKindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought, by Jonathan RauchBreaking the Social Media Prism: How to Make Our Platforms Less Polarizing, by Chris Bail Staff Spencer Greenberg — Host / Director Josh Castle — Producer Ryan Kessler — Audio Engineer Uri Bram — Factotum WeAmplify — Transcriptionists Miles Kestran — Marketing Music Lee Rosevere Josh Woodward Broke for Free zapsplat.com wowamusic Quiet Music for Tiny Robots Affiliates Clearer Thinking GuidedTrack Mind Ease Positly UpLift [Read more]

With Chris Bail, Founding Director of the Polarization Lab. The fact that social media platforms draw out and reward anti-social, polarizing behaviour goes hand-in-hand with the gendered hate and abuse so common to digital interactions. We can't fix one without fixing the other.    Nor can we ignore what social media does for us psychologically and socially. We use these platforms to build our personal identities. We use them to find community and a sense of belonging. This doesn't have to be a bad thing. It's often a good thing. But it gets dangerous when platforms reward attacking and hurtful behaviour, when they encourage the targeting of vulnerable people, and when they make it easy to exert power over those with less power.  In that sense, it's easy to see why women, girls, and gender-diverse people, especially those who face multiple barriers, are so unsafe in digital spaces. Digital spaces reinforce and amplify the unbalanced power and abuse we know too well in our day-to-day lives.   There's a glimmer of hope: digital spaces are ultimately human built. The fact that they're like this is not inevitable and it's not unchangeable. Over coming months, we're delving into this with leading experts and content creators, releasing in-depth episodes every single week. We talk about the problem and what we can do to change it. We offer practical tips to help you in your digital life, and we talk about what it means to “take back the tech” for all of us.  We're joined by Chris Bail, Professor of Sociology and Public Policy at Duke University, where he directs the Polarization Lab. He studies political tribalism, extremism, and social psychology using data from social media and tools from the emerging field of computational social science. He is the author of Breaking the Social Media Prism: How to Make our Platforms Less Polarizing. A Guggenheim Fellow and Carnegie Fellow, Chris's research appears in leading publications such as Science, the American Journal of Public Health, and New York Times. He appeared on NBC Nightly News, CBS News, BBC, and CNN. His research has been covered by Wired, The Atlantic, Scientific American, and more. He regularly lectures to government, business, and the non-profit sector and consults with social media platforms struggling to combat polarization. He serves on the Advisory Committee to the National Science Foundation's Social Behavioral and Economic Sciences Directorate and helped create Duke's Interdisciplinary Data Science Program. Chris received his PhD from Harvard University in 2011.  Relevant Links: Polarization Lab, The Facts about Gendered Digital Hate, Harassment, and Violence  Brief Listener Survey: did this episode help you? Fill out and be entered to win a great prize pack!  Episode ⁠Transcripts⁠  Please listen, subscribe, rate, and review this podcast and share it with others. If you appreciate this content, if you want to get in on the efforts to build a gender equal Canada, please donate at ⁠canadianwomen.org⁠ and consider becoming a monthly donor.  Facebook: Canadian Women's Foundation  Twitter: @cdnwomenfdn  LinkedIn: The Canadian Women's Foundation  Instagram: @canadianwomensfoundation  This series of podcast episodes has been made possible in part by the Government of Canada.

Social media is tearing us apart by feeding into our need for status. Can we mitigate its effects? Chris Bail joins Vasant Dhar in episode 34 of Brave New World to share his research on how social media affects us -- and how we can fight back. Useful resources 1. Chris Bail at Duke, Sanford School of Public Policy, Google Scholar, Amazon, Twitter and his own website. 2. Breaking the Social Media Prism: How to Make Our Platforms Less Polarizing -- Chris Bail. 3. The Social Media Industrial Complex -- Episode 3 of Brave New World (with Sinan Aral). 4. How Social Media Threatens Society -- Episode 8 of Brave New World (with Jonathan Haidt). 5. Helena Rosenblatt on Liberalism's Long Journey -- Episode 32 of Brave New World. 6. We Have Never Been Here Before -- Thomas L Friedman. 7. Adam Alter on Beating Our Addictions -- Episode 28 of Brave New World. 8. The Hype Machine -- Sinan Aral.

I am joined in this episode by Professor Vasant Dhar where we talk about why social media platforms should be regulated and how we would go about doing so. Vasant argues that we have failed to install any rules of the game when it comes to holding platforms responsible for their demonstratable contribution to social ills. This, according to Vasant, leads to some truly egregious gaps in our ability to avoid negative outcomes and hold those responsible liable for their actions. For example, in our current settings, a social platform could be shown to be responsible for tens of thousands cases of depression, leading to hundreds of suicides but still to have not violated any rule or law and be completely free of liability. Vasant brings more than 30 years of study and research in this area to the table.Vasant is a professor at NYU's Stern School of Business and the Center for Data Science. He is the former Editor-in-Chief of the journal Big Data and the founder of SCT Capital, one of the first machine-learning-based hedge funds in New York City in the 90s. His research focuses on building scalable decision making systems from large sources of data using techniques and principles from the disciplines of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.CitationsBail, Chris (2021) Breaking the Social Media Prism: How to Make Our Platforms Less Polarizing. Princeton University Press.Dhar, Vasant – Brave New World Podcast. See bravenewpodcast.com.Haidt, Jonathan (2021) ‘The dangerous experiment on teen girls,' The Atlantic, November 21.Kramer, D., Guillory, J.E., and Hancock, J.T. (2014) ‘Emotional contagion through social networks,' Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: 111(24), pp. 8788-8790. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Folge 13: Angriff auf die Ukraine, Tötungsdelikte in den USA, Buchverbot an US-Schulen und Gewerkschaften im Aufschwung (aufgenommen am 24. Februar 2022) Housekeeping Fake it til you make it? Der Fall Elizabeth HolmesOnline Talk: Breaking the Social Media Prism: How to Make Our Platforms Less Polarizing Der Krieg in der Ukraine Politik-Experte Sirakov: „Putin hat nicht recht“ (Rheinpfalz) (Paywall)Krieg in Ukraine: Wie der aktuelle Stand ist (ZDF)Live News Updates (New York Times)„Angriff im Baltikum wäre ein Weltkrieg“: Der Außenpolitikexperte David Sirakov erklärt, was Putin antreibt (Rhein-Zeitung) (Paywall) Tötungsdelikte in den USA Biden turns his focus to gun violence as Democrats try to shed 'defund the police' label (CNN)‘We Have Not Defunded Anything': Big Cities Boost Police Budgets (Bloomberg)Even as Crime Declines, Gun Violence Is Rising (The Nation)Examining the Spike in Murders (The New York Times)Anzahl der Morde in den USA dramatisch gestiegen (FAZ)Chicago's most violent neighborhoods were more dangerous than ever in 2021 (Chicago Sun Times)Transcript: Rogé Karma Interviews Patrick Sharkey for ‘The Ezra Klein Show' (The New York Times)Why rising crime isn't breaking through as a national issue (CNN) Buchverbot an US-Schulen A Tennessee school board removed the graphic novel 'Maus,' about the Holocaust, from curriculum due to language and nudity concerns (CNN)What's Behind The Flap About ‘Maus' (Forbes)Critical Race Theory: An Introduction (NYU Press)Wie eine Rassismustheorie die Amerikaner polarisiert (Neue Zürcher Zeitung)New critical race theory laws have teachers scared, confused and self-censoring (The Washington Post)From slavery to socialism, new legislation restricts what teachers can discuss (NPR)New rules are limiting how teachers can teach Black History Month (Axios)The critics were right: "Critical race theory" panic is just a cover for silencing educators (Salon)Disputing Racism's Reach, Republicans Rattle American Schools (The New York Times) Gewerkschaften und Streik US-Arbeitskampf: Gewerkschaftsbeitritt bei Starbucks, Massenkündigungen bei Kellogg‘s (Frankfurter Rundschau)Kellogg strike will end after workers agree to new contract (CNN)Mitarbeiter in US-Apple-Stores wollen Gewerkschaft gründen (Apple)Approval of Labor Unions at Highest Point Since 1965Taking On Starbucks, Inspired by Bernie Sanders (The New York Times)Some U.S. Apple Store employees are working to unionize, part of a growing worker backlash (Washington Post)White House task force report on worker organizing and empowerment (The White House) Transatlantic Treat Super Bowl Commercials The best (and worst) Super Bowl commercials: Lizzo, cranky Zeus and more (NPR) (Bildnachweis: Super Bowl LVI, Los Angeles, California Pre-Game Warm Ups, Redspork02, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:LASBLVI2022.jpg)

Professor Chris Bail, Professor of Sociology and Public Policy at Duke University, discusses his latest book Breaking the Social Media Prism: How to Make Our Platforms Less Polarizing. Professor Bail shares findings from three studies on political polarization covering field-experiments, qualitative interviews, and lab experiments. We discuss how social media contributes to a distorted reality in how extremists and moderates discuss politics online, and how this prism fosters a sense false polarization. We also chat about measures that individuals and social media platforms could take to reduce online political polarization. Here are supplementary links to two studies discussed in the episode: Exposure to Opposing Views on Social Media can Increase Political Polarization (2019)Political Sectarianism in America (2020)

Have you ever wondered why Twitter is so toxic? Chris Bail, author of Breaking the Social Media Prism explains why is Twitter so sensitive. I've recently struggled with the question: why is social media toxic? So I called Chris Bail seeking answers. I found this conversation both sad and hopeful at the same time. I hope you take something away from it. Chris Bail is the author of Breaking the Social Media Prism: How to Make Our Platforms Less Polarizing. You can find his work here: https://www.chrisbail.net/n Subscribe to The Welcome Home Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClI47mgefRuLsOElux1HXjA?sub_confirmation=1 Connect with Takis: https://www.instagram.com/petertakis/ https://www.instagram.com/welcomehome.podcast/ https://twitter.com/petertakis https://www.takismusic.com/ Contact Takis: welcomehometakis@gmail.com Takis (real name Peter Takis) is a DJ/ producer from Winnipeg, Canada.

(00:00-8:36): How can we develop spiritual practices? Brian and Aubrey discussed this and shared some of their spiritual practices.  (8:36-28:25): Dr. Chris Bail, Professor of Sociology & Public Policy at Duke University and Director of the Polarization Lab, joined Brian and Aubrey to chat about his book, “Breaking the Social Media Prism: How to Make Our Platforms Less Polarizing.” Learn more about Chris and his book at chrisbail.net and connect with him on Twitter at @chris_bail *This interview originally aired on 5/24/21* (28:25-38:50): Brian and Aubrey chatted about their TOP FIVE Musicals. Aubrey's #2 pick was Wicked and Brian's #2 pick was Les Misérables. For the #1 spot, they both chose Hamilton! (38:50-46:22): Brian and Aubrey discussed Milton Quintanilla's Christian Headlines article, “Just 16 Percent of Millennials Classify as Born-Again Christians, Study Shows.”  (46:22-1:07:01): David French, Senior Editor at The Dispatch, Columnist for Time Magazine, and Author of, “Divided We Fall,” joined Brian and Aubrey to chat about a New York Times opinion piece he co-wrote, “We Disagree on a Lot of Things. Except the Danger of Anti-Critical Race Theory Laws, and some of his recent blog posts at The French Press, How Do Christian Patriots Love Their Country Well? and When the Aliens Come, Will Their Arrival Destroy Our Faith? Learn more about David at thedispatch.com and at his blog, The French Press.  *This interview originally aired on 7/7/21* (1:07:01-1:15:36): Brian and Aubrey shared their thoughts on Shane Pruitt's tweet, “if you're needing a word from God, go to the Word of God.”  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

"Social media is not fundamentally a source of information or a competition of ideas, but a competition of identities."  With that and other provocative findings, Dr. Chris Bail, Director of the Duke University Polarization Lab and author of Breaking the Social Media Prism (Princeton U. Press) challenges what we know about social media – its uses and abuses. Dr. Bail and his colleagues delineate the strong incentives to create online alter-egos, especially more extreme ones, that command so much more attention.    Social and political identity is dangerously challenging to shift. And Dr. Bail's experiments underscore this point. His team exposed hundreds of Democrats and Republicans to media feeds from the other point of view – but with completely unexpected results. Virtually no one became more moderate from this exposure and many participants, especially Republicans, doubled down on their identity.  Bail's broader point is how social media amplifies extremism and mutes moderation. His team has built tools to help users understand trolling, gauge online identity, and create more civil discourse through anonymity, guided discussion, and other techniques to reverse that trend.   To learn more about Polarization Lab tools, experiments, and why you really spend all those hours on social media, tune into “Nicest Troll in Town: On and Offline identity, Extremism, and Polarization,” with Dr. Chris Bail, Director of the Duke University Polarization Lab and author of the challenging new book, Breaking the Social Media Prism: How to Make Our Platforms Less Polarizing (Princeton University Press, 2021). Original Music by Ryan Adair Rooney Our Guest Chris Bail The Polarization Lab  Chris Bail. Breaking the Social Media Prism: How to Make Our Platforms Less Polarizing. Princeton University Press, 2021. Additional Resources Adam Hughes (10/23/19). “A small group of prolific users account for a majority of political tweets sent by U.S. adults.” Pew Research Foundation.  Emma Francois (2/9/21). “Always swipe left on a moderate.” Amanda Ripley.  Alex Horton (4/11/18). “Channeling ‘The Social Network,' lawmaker grills Zuckerberg on his notorious beginnings.” The Washington Post. Find us online! Twitter: @purpleprincipl Facebook: @thepurpleprinciplepodcast Instagram: @thepurpleprinciplepodcast Sign up for our newsletter! https://bit.ly/2UfFSja  Our website: https://fluentknowledge.com/shows/the-purple-principle/nicest-troll-in-town 

This episode is lifted from The Booking Club's first live-streamed conversation. It features The Booking Club's host and producer Jack Aldane talking to Professor Chris Bail about Chris's new book: 'Breaking the Social Media Prism: How to Make Our Platforms Less Polarizing'.In an era of increasing social isolation, platforms like Facebook and Twitter are among the most important tools we have to understand each other. We use social media as a mirror to decipher our place in society but, as Chris Bail explains, it functions more like a prism that distorts our identities, empowers status-seeking extremists, and renders moderates all but invisible. Breaking the Social Media Prism challenges common myths about echo chambers, foreign misinformation campaigns, and radicalizing algorithms, revealing that the solution to political tribalism lies deep inside ourselves. - Princeton University Press Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Chris Bail is a computational social scientist. He wrangles the data that our social interactions leave behind to better understand how ideas spread. He is Professor of Sociology and Public Policy at Duke University, where he directs the Polarization Lab. A Guggenheim and Carnegie Fellow, he studies political extremism on social media using tools from the emerging field of computational social science. He is the author of Breaking the Social Media Prism: How to Make our Platforms Less Polarizing. Things we mention in this episode:Internet bots for good and evil@simscreens: A Twitter bot tweeting out frames from The SimpsonsUsing Twitter bots to understand polarization (Bail et al., 2018)Many people just don't care about politics (check out my interview with Nathan Kalmoe)Dr. Bail's earlier work on how anti-Muslim sentiment spreads (Bail, 2016)Tools developed by the Polarization Lab to fight back against polarization---------------Check out my new audio course on Knowable: "The Science of Persuasion."For a transcript of this episode, visit: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/social-media-polarization-with-chris-bail/Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

(00:00-7:48): Brian and Aubrey chatted about pursuing goals and dreams as we grow older. They discussed “Phil Mickelson's PGA win as the oldest major champ,” and Bob Dylan's 80th birthday. (7:48-17:13): Brian and Aubrey shared their thoughts on David French's blog post at The French Press, “Don't Let Fear of ‘Wokeness' Close Hearts and Minds.” (17:13-27:07): Brian and Aubrey chatted with listeners about the spiritual habits and other activities that have brought them joy over the past year.    (27:07-36:12): Why are so many people willing to wait in a long line at the drive-thru? Brian shared a story about an extremely long line at a Starbucks drive-thru and chatted with Aubrey about how the pandemic has caused us to avoid human interactions.   (36:12-46:44): Brian and Aubrey chatted about the season finales of Saturday Night Live and American Idol.   (46:44-1:06:42): Chris Bail, Professor of Sociology & Public Policy at Duke University and Director of the Polarization Lab, joined Brian and Aubrey to chat about his book, “Breaking the Social Media Prism: How to Make Our Platforms Less Polarizing.” Learn more about Chris and his book at chrisbail.net and connect with him on Twitter at @chris_bail (1:06:42-1:13:05): Brian and Aubrey discussed Stephanie Vozza's Fast Company article, “3 pandemic habits you should keep in your post-COVID life.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Greetings cool cats & kittens,Today I’m releasing my fascinating conversation with Chris Bail, who runs The Polarization Lab at Duke University. Chris has a new book out: Breaking the Social Media Prism: How to Make Our Platforms Less Polarizing which presents analysis from a major study he and his colleagues in the lab conducted on polarization and social media. The study attempts to answer some of the most important questions we have about the role of social media as one of many mechanisms contributing to our polarization and hyperpartisanship. Using what we political scientists call a “mixed methods” approach, the study utilizes data and in-depth interviews to uncover a surprising finding- one that you might find counterintuitive. What is it? If I tell you here, you’ll miss out on our amazing conversation! Rachel Love this pod cast? Tell your family, friends, neighbors, your favorite Starbucks barista! Get full access to The Cycle- On Substack at thecycle.substack.com/subscribe

Duke University Polarization Lab director Chris Bail discusses his new book "Breaking the Social Media Prism: How to Make our Platforms Less Polarizing." 

In an era of increasing social isolation, platforms like Facebook and Twitter are among the most important tools we have to understand each other. We use social media as a mirror to decipher our place in society but, as Christopher A. Bail explains, it functions more like a prism that distorts our identities, empowers status-seeking extremists, and renders moderates all but invisible. Breaking the Social Media Prism: How to Make Our Platforms Less Polarizing (Princeton University Press, 2021) challenges common myths about echo chambers, foreign misinformation campaigns, and radicalizing algorithms, revealing that the solution to political tribalism lies deep inside ourselves. Drawing on innovative online experiments and in-depth interviews with social media users from across the political spectrum, this book explains why stepping outside of our echo chambers can make us more polarized, not less. Bail takes you inside the minds of online extremists through vivid narratives that trace their lives on the platforms and off—detailing how they dominate public discourse at the expense of the moderate majority. Wherever you stand on the spectrum of user behavior and political opinion, he offers fresh solutions to counter political tribalism from the bottom up and the top down. He introduces new apps and bots to help readers avoid misperceptions and engage in better conversations with the other side. Finally, he explores what the virtual public square might look like if we could hit “reset” and redesign social media from scratch through a first-of-its-kind experiment on a new social media platform built for scientific research. Providing data-driven recommendations for strengthening our social media connections, Breaking the Social Media Prism shows how to combat online polarization without deleting our accounts. Marshall Poe is the founder and editor of the New Books Network. He can be reached at marshallpoe@newbooksnetwork.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

In an era of increasing social isolation, platforms like Facebook and Twitter are among the most important tools we have to understand each other. We use social media as a mirror to decipher our place in society but, as Christopher A. Bail explains, it functions more like a prism that distorts our identities, empowers status-seeking extremists, and renders moderates all but invisible. Breaking the Social Media Prism: How to Make Our Platforms Less Polarizing (Princeton University Press, 2021) challenges common myths about echo chambers, foreign misinformation campaigns, and radicalizing algorithms, revealing that the solution to political tribalism lies deep inside ourselves. Drawing on innovative online experiments and in-depth interviews with social media users from across the political spectrum, this book explains why stepping outside of our echo chambers can make us more polarized, not less. Bail takes you inside the minds of online extremists through vivid narratives that trace their lives on the platforms and off—detailing how they dominate public discourse at the expense of the moderate majority. Wherever you stand on the spectrum of user behavior and political opinion, he offers fresh solutions to counter political tribalism from the bottom up and the top down. He introduces new apps and bots to help readers avoid misperceptions and engage in better conversations with the other side. Finally, he explores what the virtual public square might look like if we could hit “reset” and redesign social media from scratch through a first-of-its-kind experiment on a new social media platform built for scientific research. Providing data-driven recommendations for strengthening our social media connections, Breaking the Social Media Prism shows how to combat online polarization without deleting our accounts. Marshall Poe is the founder and editor of the New Books Network. He can be reached at marshallpoe@newbooksnetwork.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/technology

In an era of increasing social isolation, platforms like Facebook and Twitter are among the most important tools we have to understand each other. We use social media as a mirror to decipher our place in society but, as Christopher A. Bail explains, it functions more like a prism that distorts our identities, empowers status-seeking extremists, and renders moderates all but invisible. Breaking the Social Media Prism: How to Make Our Platforms Less Polarizing (Princeton University Press, 2021) challenges common myths about echo chambers, foreign misinformation campaigns, and radicalizing algorithms, revealing that the solution to political tribalism lies deep inside ourselves. Drawing on innovative online experiments and in-depth interviews with social media users from across the political spectrum, this book explains why stepping outside of our echo chambers can make us more polarized, not less. Bail takes you inside the minds of online extremists through vivid narratives that trace their lives on the platforms and off—detailing how they dominate public discourse at the expense of the moderate majority. Wherever you stand on the spectrum of user behavior and political opinion, he offers fresh solutions to counter political tribalism from the bottom up and the top down. He introduces new apps and bots to help readers avoid misperceptions and engage in better conversations with the other side. Finally, he explores what the virtual public square might look like if we could hit “reset” and redesign social media from scratch through a first-of-its-kind experiment on a new social media platform built for scientific research. Providing data-driven recommendations for strengthening our social media connections, Breaking the Social Media Prism shows how to combat online polarization without deleting our accounts. Marshall Poe is the founder and editor of the New Books Network. He can be reached at marshallpoe@newbooksnetwork.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science-technology-and-society

In an era of increasing social isolation, platforms like Facebook and Twitter are among the most important tools we have to understand each other. We use social media as a mirror to decipher our place in society but, as Christopher A. Bail explains, it functions more like a prism that distorts our identities, empowers status-seeking extremists, and renders moderates all but invisible. Breaking the Social Media Prism: How to Make Our Platforms Less Polarizing (Princeton University Press, 2021) challenges common myths about echo chambers, foreign misinformation campaigns, and radicalizing algorithms, revealing that the solution to political tribalism lies deep inside ourselves. Drawing on innovative online experiments and in-depth interviews with social media users from across the political spectrum, this book explains why stepping outside of our echo chambers can make us more polarized, not less. Bail takes you inside the minds of online extremists through vivid narratives that trace their lives on the platforms and off—detailing how they dominate public discourse at the expense of the moderate majority. Wherever you stand on the spectrum of user behavior and political opinion, he offers fresh solutions to counter political tribalism from the bottom up and the top down. He introduces new apps and bots to help readers avoid misperceptions and engage in better conversations with the other side. Finally, he explores what the virtual public square might look like if we could hit “reset” and redesign social media from scratch through a first-of-its-kind experiment on a new social media platform built for scientific research. Providing data-driven recommendations for strengthening our social media connections, Breaking the Social Media Prism shows how to combat online polarization without deleting our accounts. Marshall Poe is the founder and editor of the New Books Network. He can be reached at marshallpoe@newbooksnetwork.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

In an era of increasing social isolation, platforms like Facebook and Twitter are among the most important tools we have to understand each other. We use social media as a mirror to decipher our place in society but, as Christopher A. Bail explains, it functions more like a prism that distorts our identities, empowers status-seeking extremists, and renders moderates all but invisible. Breaking the Social Media Prism: How to Make Our Platforms Less Polarizing (Princeton University Press, 2021) challenges common myths about echo chambers, foreign misinformation campaigns, and radicalizing algorithms, revealing that the solution to political tribalism lies deep inside ourselves. Drawing on innovative online experiments and in-depth interviews with social media users from across the political spectrum, this book explains why stepping outside of our echo chambers can make us more polarized, not less. Bail takes you inside the minds of online extremists through vivid narratives that trace their lives on the platforms and off—detailing how they dominate public discourse at the expense of the moderate majority. Wherever you stand on the spectrum of user behavior and political opinion, he offers fresh solutions to counter political tribalism from the bottom up and the top down. He introduces new apps and bots to help readers avoid misperceptions and engage in better conversations with the other side. Finally, he explores what the virtual public square might look like if we could hit “reset” and redesign social media from scratch through a first-of-its-kind experiment on a new social media platform built for scientific research. Providing data-driven recommendations for strengthening our social media connections, Breaking the Social Media Prism shows how to combat online polarization without deleting our accounts. Marshall Poe is the founder and editor of the New Books Network. He can be reached at marshallpoe@newbooksnetwork.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/communications

In an era of increasing social isolation, platforms like Facebook and Twitter are among the most important tools we have to understand each other. We use social media as a mirror to decipher our place in society but, as Christopher A. Bail explains, it functions more like a prism that distorts our identities, empowers status-seeking extremists, and renders moderates all but invisible. Breaking the Social Media Prism: How to Make Our Platforms Less Polarizing (Princeton University Press, 2021) challenges common myths about echo chambers, foreign misinformation campaigns, and radicalizing algorithms, revealing that the solution to political tribalism lies deep inside ourselves. Drawing on innovative online experiments and in-depth interviews with social media users from across the political spectrum, this book explains why stepping outside of our echo chambers can make us more polarized, not less. Bail takes you inside the minds of online extremists through vivid narratives that trace their lives on the platforms and off—detailing how they dominate public discourse at the expense of the moderate majority. Wherever you stand on the spectrum of user behavior and political opinion, he offers fresh solutions to counter political tribalism from the bottom up and the top down. He introduces new apps and bots to help readers avoid misperceptions and engage in better conversations with the other side. Finally, he explores what the virtual public square might look like if we could hit “reset” and redesign social media from scratch through a first-of-its-kind experiment on a new social media platform built for scientific research. Providing data-driven recommendations for strengthening our social media connections, Breaking the Social Media Prism shows how to combat online polarization without deleting our accounts. Marshall Poe is the founder and editor of the New Books Network. He can be reached at marshallpoe@newbooksnetwork.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/anthropology

In an era of increasing social isolation, platforms like Facebook and Twitter are among the most important tools we have to understand each other. We use social media as a mirror to decipher our place in society but, as Christopher A. Bail explains, it functions more like a prism that distorts our identities, empowers status-seeking extremists, and renders moderates all but invisible. Breaking the Social Media Prism: How to Make Our Platforms Less Polarizing (Princeton University Press, 2021) challenges common myths about echo chambers, foreign misinformation campaigns, and radicalizing algorithms, revealing that the solution to political tribalism lies deep inside ourselves. Drawing on innovative online experiments and in-depth interviews with social media users from across the political spectrum, this book explains why stepping outside of our echo chambers can make us more polarized, not less. Bail takes you inside the minds of online extremists through vivid narratives that trace their lives on the platforms and off—detailing how they dominate public discourse at the expense of the moderate majority. Wherever you stand on the spectrum of user behavior and political opinion, he offers fresh solutions to counter political tribalism from the bottom up and the top down. He introduces new apps and bots to help readers avoid misperceptions and engage in better conversations with the other side. Finally, he explores what the virtual public square might look like if we could hit “reset” and redesign social media from scratch through a first-of-its-kind experiment on a new social media platform built for scientific research. Providing data-driven recommendations for strengthening our social media connections, Breaking the Social Media Prism shows how to combat online polarization without deleting our accounts. Marshall Poe is the founder and editor of the New Books Network. He can be reached at marshallpoe@newbooksnetwork.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics

Polarisation is seen as a threat to democracy - and social media is seen as a cause. But what can be done? Does the blame really lie with tech alone? And what could the virtual public square look like if we dared to hit "reset" and redesigned our apps from scratch? A radical and counter-intuitive conversation between Chris Bail, head of the Polarization Lab at Duke University, and Samira Shackle, editor of New Humanist magazine, on tribalism,  extremism, and not logging off. For fans of Azeem Azhar, Jonathan Haidt, Nick Srnicek and Shoshana Zuboff.Podcast listeners can get a year's subscription to New Humanist magazine for just £13.50. Head to newhumanist.org.uk/subscribe and enter the code WITHREASONHosts: Samira Shackle and Niki Seth-SmithExecutive producer: Alice BlochSound engineer: David CracklesMusic: DanosongsFurther Reading:"Breaking the Social Media Prism: How to Make Our Platforms Less Polarizing" (2021) Chris Bailwww.polarizationlab.com"Terrified: How Anti-Muslim Fringe Organizations Became Mainstream" (2014) Chris Bail"The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion" (2012), Jonathan Haidt"The Age of Surveillance Capitalism" (2018) Shoshana Zuboff"Platform Capitalism" (2016) Nick Srnicek"Does the Left Have a Problem with Empathy?" (2020) Nicola Cutcher, New Humanist Magazine

------------------Support the channel------------ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter PayPal Subscription 1 Dollar: https://tinyurl.com/yb3acuuy PayPal Subscription 3 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ybn6bg9l PayPal Subscription 5 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ycmr9gpz PayPal Subscription 10 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y9r3fc9m PayPal Subscription 20 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y95uvkao ------------------Follow me on--------------------- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT This show is sponsored by Enlites, Learning & Development done differently. Check the website here: http://enlites.com/ Dr. Christopher Bail is Professor of Sociology, Public Policy, and Data Science at Duke University, where he directs the Polarization Lab. A leader in the emerging field of computational social science, Dr. Bail's research examines fundamental questions of social psychology, extremism, and political polarization using social media data, bots, and the latest advances in machine learning. Dr. Bail is the recipient of Guggenheim and Carnegie Fellowships. His research appears in top journals, such as Science, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Sociological Review. He is the author of the recent book, Breaking the Social Media Prism: How to Make Our Platforms Less Polarizing. In this episode, we focus on Breaking the Social Media Prism. We go through topics like online political behavior; political polarization; the effects of political campaign; misinformation; eco-chambers; the social media prism; online extremism; how moderates get muted online; what social media platforms can do; solutions to fight against political polarization; Dr. Bail's social media platform, Discuss-It; and polarization during the covid-19 pandemic. -- A HUGE THANK YOU TO MY PATRONS/SUPPORTERS: KARIN LIETZCKE, ANN BLANCHETTE, PER HELGE LARSEN, LAU GUERREIRO, JERRY MULLER, HANS FREDRIK SUNDE, BERNARDO SEIXAS, HERBERT GINTIS, RUTGER VOS, RICARDO VLADIMIRO, CRAIG HEALY, OLAF ALEX, PHILIP KURIAN, JONATHAN VISSER, JAKOB KLINKBY, ADAM KESSEL, MATTHEW WHITINGBIRD, ARNAUD WOLFF, TIM HOLLOSY, HENRIK AHLENIUS, JOHN CONNORS, PAULINA BARREN, FILIP FORS CONNOLLY, DAN DEMETRIOU, ROBERT WINDHAGER, RUI INACIO, ARTHUR KOH, ZOOP, MARCO NEVES, COLIN HOLBROOK, SUSAN PINKER, THOMAS TRUMBLE, PABLO SANTURBANO, SIMON COLUMBUS, PHIL KAVANAGH, JORGE ESPINHA, CORY CLARK, MARK BLYTH, ROBERTO INGUANZO, MIKKEL STORMYR, ERIC NEURMANN, SAMUEL ANDREEFF, FRANCIS FORDE, TIAGO NUNES, BERNARD HUGUENEY, ALEXANDER DANNBAUER, OMARI HICKSON, FERGAL CUSSEN, YEVHEN BODRENKO, HAL HERZOG, NUNO MACHADO, DON ROSS, JONATHAN LEIBRANT, JOÃO LINHARES, OZLEM BULUT, NATHAN NGUYEN, STANTON T, SAMUEL CORREA, ERIK HAINES, MARK SMITH, J.W., JOÃO EIRA, TOM HUMMEL, SARDUS FRANCE, DAVID SLOAN WILSON, YACILA DEZA-ARAUJO, IDAN SOLON, ROMAIN ROCH, DMITRY GRIGORYEV, TOM ROTH, DIEGO LONDOÑO CORREA, YANICK PUNTER, ADANER USMANI, CHARLOTTE BLEASE, MIRAN B, NICOLE BARBARO, ADAM HUNT, PAWEL OSTASZEWSKI, MAX BEILBY, AL ORTIZ, NELLEKE BAK, KATHRINE AND PATRICK TOBIN, GUY MADISON, AND GARY G HELLMANN! A SPECIAL THANKS TO MY PRODUCERS, YZAR WEHBE, JIM FRANK, ŁUKASZ STAFINIAK, IAN GILLIGAN, SERGIU CODREANU, LUIS CAYETANO, TOM VANEGDOM, CURTIS DIXON, BENEDIKT MUELLER, VEGA GIDEY, AND NIRUBAN BALACHANDRAN! AND TO MY EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS, MICHAL RUSIECKI, ROSEY, JAMES PRATT, AND MATTHEW LAVENDER!