WEBVTT - S14, Ep4 | The Media As a Tool of Climate Obstruction 0:00:01.920 --> 0:00:06.000 Hello, and welcome back to Drilled. I'm Amy Westervelt. In 0:00:06.080 --> 0:00:09.880 this season, we are going chapter by chapter of a 0:00:10.039 --> 0:00:13.480 great new book that pulls together all of the social 0:00:13.520 --> 0:00:17.759 science that we have so far peer reviewed social science 0:00:17.920 --> 0:00:23.880 on climate obstruction globally. It's called Climate Obstruction a Global Assessment. 0:00:24.000 --> 0:00:27.400 It's been pulled together by the Climate Social Science Network 0:00:27.440 --> 0:00:32.080 at Brown, which includes hundreds of social scientists working all 0:00:32.159 --> 0:00:37.479 over the world on trying to understand this issue. Today 0:00:37.640 --> 0:00:39.879 we are digging into a subject that is near and 0:00:39.960 --> 0:00:43.400 dear to my heart, the role of pr and media 0:00:43.800 --> 0:00:47.200 in climate obstruction. And to do that, I'm joined by 0:00:47.240 --> 0:00:50.800 two people who have been guests on this show before, 0:00:51.479 --> 0:00:56.200 Melissa Aronchek at Rutgers University and Max Boykoff from the 0:00:56.320 --> 0:01:00.320 University of Colorado at Boulder. We had a great conversation 0:01:00.640 --> 0:01:04.760 about the role that media plays both in helping to 0:01:04.760 --> 0:01:08.440 shape the public's understanding of climate and therefore the role 0:01:08.480 --> 0:01:12.280 it can play in obstruction, especially if it is targeted 0:01:12.480 --> 0:01:15.520 by bad faith actors, which it often is. It is 0:01:15.560 --> 0:01:18.920 a super interesting conversation. I hope you enjoy it as 0:01:18.959 --> 0:01:21.560 much as I did. That's coming up right after this 0:01:21.680 --> 0:01:27.400 quick break. 0:01:38.160 --> 0:01:41.320 My name is Max Boycott. I'm a professor here in 0:01:41.480 --> 0:01:44.960 environmental studies and a fellow in the Cooperative Institute for 0:01:45.000 --> 0:01:48.280 Research and Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado Bowlder 0:01:48.320 --> 0:01:49.280 in the US. 0:01:49.760 --> 0:01:53.560 I'm Melissa Aaronjik. I'm a professor in the School of 0:01:53.680 --> 0:01:57.800 Communication and Information at Rutgers University in New Jersey. 0:01:57.960 --> 0:02:00.280 So I've probably talked to both of you about this 0:02:00.360 --> 0:02:02.320 separately before, but it does seem to me that the 0:02:02.360 --> 0:02:07.640 media fin avoids responsibility for climate obstruction or for playing 0:02:07.680 --> 0:02:09.240 any kind of a role in it. I think you 0:02:09.280 --> 0:02:11.400 show really clearly hear how it's kind of been used 0:02:11.440 --> 0:02:13.679 as a tool. So I want to kind of start 0:02:13.680 --> 0:02:18.919 by having you explain how, particularly the weaponization of this 0:02:19.200 --> 0:02:24.000 journalistic norm balanced reporting has contributed to the disparity between 0:02:24.560 --> 0:02:29.920 scientific consensus and the public's understanding of climate change. 0:02:30.240 --> 0:02:32.639 Yeah. I'm happy to start us off, and if you'll 0:02:32.680 --> 0:02:34.480 allow me to back out just a little bit to 0:02:34.520 --> 0:02:37.839 answer that question. And I think if we look back 0:02:37.840 --> 0:02:42.000 through time we can track in our group, the Media 0:02:42.080 --> 0:02:45.600 Climate Change Observatory has done this where we've tracked media 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:48.639 coverage of climate change over time, and it really came 0:02:48.639 --> 0:02:52.919 into public consciousness and into the news starting the late 0:02:53.000 --> 0:02:57.520 nineteen eighties, and when that was happening, it was a 0:02:57.560 --> 0:03:00.920 new story to tell, and there a lot of different 0:03:01.600 --> 0:03:04.320 journalists and actors trying to make sense of what was 0:03:04.360 --> 0:03:08.320 going on and how to tell these stories. And as 0:03:08.400 --> 0:03:10.639 time went on, though, there was you know, in the 0:03:10.720 --> 0:03:13.639 late nineteen eighties was the establishment of the IPCC, the 0:03:13.680 --> 0:03:18.440 and a governmental pedaloid climate change. There was increasing understanding 0:03:18.440 --> 0:03:22.040 within the scientific community that humans contribute to climate change. 0:03:22.200 --> 0:03:26.360 And so from that period of time, journalism, as we've 0:03:26.440 --> 0:03:29.040 tracked it through various studies, had tried to make sense 0:03:29.080 --> 0:03:31.520 of that. And as they did that, and as they 0:03:31.560 --> 0:03:35.480 started to drawn expert voices and others to give them 0:03:35.480 --> 0:03:39.400 a sense of where science was on human contributions to 0:03:39.400 --> 0:03:44.960 climate change, journalists leaned back into their journalistic norms, including 0:03:45.000 --> 0:03:48.600 the journalistic normal balanced reporting, which one perspective to get 0:03:48.600 --> 0:03:52.440 another and help reader or the viewer the listener makes 0:03:52.440 --> 0:03:56.080 sense of what's going on. And so some early research 0:03:56.280 --> 0:03:58.560 that I had done with my brother, Jules Boykoff, who's 0:03:58.560 --> 0:04:02.320 at Pacific University and Political Science, we had just taken 0:04:02.320 --> 0:04:04.480 a look at how had US media been covering it 0:04:04.960 --> 0:04:07.800 from that time in the late nineteen eighties through at 0:04:07.800 --> 0:04:10.040 that point in two thousand and two when we finished 0:04:10.080 --> 0:04:13.360 up the study, and while there had been that conversion 0:04:13.400 --> 0:04:17.680 agreement in the scientific community and that had been communicated 0:04:17.800 --> 0:04:23.200 clearly through Dinner Governmental Panel and climate change assessments, that 0:04:23.600 --> 0:04:26.120 we had found that the journalistic community had continued to 0:04:26.160 --> 0:04:30.200 tell this quote unquote balance story and in so doing 0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:35.440 had perpetrated an informational bias and actually skewed the conversations 0:04:35.480 --> 0:04:38.880 in the public arena. And you know, part of the 0:04:38.920 --> 0:04:42.120 reason that we make those claims, and then others have 0:04:42.240 --> 0:04:45.640 also been looking at this Ober time, is that you know, 0:04:45.720 --> 0:04:48.520 quite frankly, people don't pick up peer review literature of 0:04:48.560 --> 0:04:52.480 the IPCC assessment reports. They rely on news coverage to 0:04:52.480 --> 0:04:54.960 help make sense of what's going on around them, and 0:04:55.040 --> 0:04:58.560 so news become this important bridge and this powerful driver 0:04:58.800 --> 0:05:03.520 of public conversation station. There has been a learning going on, 0:05:03.640 --> 0:05:06.719 a maturation or just sort of an integration of new 0:05:06.800 --> 0:05:10.520 understanding within the journalistic community. So we had put out 0:05:10.520 --> 0:05:15.640 that study, it actually gained traction. It ended up in 0:05:15.640 --> 0:05:18.479 al Gore's and Inconvenient Truth just briefly mentioned, so it 0:05:18.560 --> 0:05:22.520 got a lot more attention and journalists some were very 0:05:22.760 --> 0:05:26.560 eager to think carefully and recalibrate how they're telling these 0:05:26.560 --> 0:05:31.559 stories through their own reporting. Others, you know, weren't quite 0:05:31.600 --> 0:05:35.800 as receptive to that messaging and critique. But nonetheless, you know, 0:05:35.839 --> 0:05:38.839 we did some follow up work years later and found 0:05:38.880 --> 0:05:41.400 that that coverage had improved it, you know, when we 0:05:41.480 --> 0:05:45.960 looked it's with another collection of researchers here, led by 0:05:46.000 --> 0:05:48.400 Lucy mckelister. When we looked at it again in twenty 0:05:48.440 --> 0:05:52.280 twenty one, we found that there had been tremendous improvements 0:05:52.279 --> 0:05:56.160 in US press along with UK, Australian, Canadian and New 0:05:56.240 --> 0:05:59.760 Zealand newspapers. But there it still isn't one hundred percent. 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:02.120 And so you know, the way in which we went 0:06:02.160 --> 0:06:04.400 about it to look at the unit of analysis being 0:06:04.400 --> 0:06:07.440 each newspaper article. We can still see there's this room 0:06:07.480 --> 0:06:10.760 for improvement. But if somebody's picking up the paper and 0:06:10.839 --> 0:06:16.560 reading a very influential piece that isn't accurate, that is 0:06:16.600 --> 0:06:21.240 still falling, whether unwittingly or wittingly, to this sort of 0:06:21.279 --> 0:06:25.360 quote unquote balanced reporting that they themselves then start to 0:06:25.360 --> 0:06:27.240 get a skewed views. Still to this very day. 0:06:27.520 --> 0:06:30.159 Yeah, I don't know if I've ever told either or 0:06:30.160 --> 0:06:31.960 maybe both of you this story. But I had I 0:06:32.000 --> 0:06:35.359 had this experience directly with I was a stringer at 0:06:35.400 --> 0:06:38.039 the Washington Post for a while, and like, because where 0:06:38.040 --> 0:06:41.680 I lived, that meant covering a lot of wildfires. And 0:06:42.760 --> 0:06:45.040 I went, I covered a fire once and the cal 0:06:45.080 --> 0:06:48.599 fire chief told me, give me this like very simple 0:06:48.960 --> 0:06:53.480 explanation for why fires were burning for so much longer 0:06:53.720 --> 0:06:55.400 now than they had. And this was, I mean, this 0:06:55.440 --> 0:06:59.760 wasn't that long ago. This was probably like twenty fifteen ish, 0:06:59.240 --> 0:07:02.640 and and he said, you know, are you from California. 0:07:02.720 --> 0:07:04.640 I said yes, And he said, well, you probably remember 0:07:04.680 --> 0:07:07.719 when you were growing up that you would like go 0:07:07.839 --> 0:07:09.840 to bout at night and the fire would be twenty 0:07:09.920 --> 0:07:11.920 percent contained, and you'd wake up in the morning and 0:07:11.960 --> 0:07:15.000 it would be like sixty percent contained or at least fifty. 0:07:15.040 --> 0:07:17.120 And I said, yeah, that was that was the norm, 0:07:17.200 --> 0:07:18.840 you know. And he said, yeah, that's how it used 0:07:18.880 --> 0:07:21.640 to work because it would get cool and humidity would 0:07:21.720 --> 0:07:24.560 increase at night. And now that doesn't happen anymore. So 0:07:24.680 --> 0:07:28.520 these fires are burning like the same intensity twenty four 0:07:28.560 --> 0:07:31.120 to seven and that's why they're getting so big, and 0:07:31.160 --> 0:07:34.000 that's climate change. And I was like, wow, what a great, 0:07:34.040 --> 0:07:36.600 like simple way to understand that. And I put it 0:07:36.600 --> 0:07:38.840 on this story and my editor, who at the time 0:07:39.000 --> 0:07:43.560 was the national editor of the Washington Post, suggested taking 0:07:43.600 --> 0:07:46.280 out the part where he said that's climate change because 0:07:46.320 --> 0:07:50.080 and his comment was, this is a wildfire story, not 0:07:50.160 --> 0:07:55.200 a politics story. I said, like, I had been a 0:07:55.200 --> 0:07:58.480 climate reporter for a long time, so I knew enough 0:07:58.480 --> 0:08:00.120 to kind of push back on that and say, well, 0:08:00.280 --> 0:08:03.680 you know, that's an industry talking point. There's nothing political 0:08:03.680 --> 0:08:07.560 about what he's saying, you do, and he like, O, 0:08:07.680 --> 0:08:09.080 listen to me and let me keep it in. But 0:08:09.120 --> 0:08:11.440 the average person that's just like getting sent off to 0:08:12.040 --> 0:08:14.800 you know, cover a flutter of fire, is not necessarily 0:08:15.160 --> 0:08:18.720 going to feel confident, you know, saying oh, you're wrong, 0:08:18.760 --> 0:08:21.360 it's not political. But like, you know, I don't think 0:08:21.360 --> 0:08:24.960 that that guy was being hounded by exon every day. 0:08:25.080 --> 0:08:29.560 It was just so ingrained in him that like, I 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:31.480 don't know, I think of it every time I think 0:08:31.480 --> 0:08:34.120 about this, because it's it was such a simple way 0:08:34.840 --> 0:08:36.800 that that stuff like creeps in. 0:08:37.720 --> 0:08:38.400 Yeah. 0:08:38.760 --> 0:08:42.720 Yeah, anyway, Obviously the media is not coming up with 0:08:42.800 --> 0:08:46.200 this stuff on their own. What entities are working to 0:08:46.360 --> 0:08:51.800 serve up misleading climate narratives to the media or ensure 0:08:51.840 --> 0:08:55.000 that people who are like spokespeople for the industry or 0:08:55.040 --> 0:08:58.160 who carry water for them and their ideas are given 0:08:58.160 --> 0:08:59.640 a voice in the media. 0:09:00.320 --> 0:09:03.880 Well, are you asking Amy about public relations firms outages 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:05.520 looking for fossil fuel? 0:09:06.080 --> 0:09:11.160 Yeah, like the like broad ecosystem of like people that 0:09:11.320 --> 0:09:16.760 are approaching the media with these narratives or talking points. 0:09:16.920 --> 0:09:23.040 I would think of PR firms maybe like internal PR folks, companies, 0:09:23.480 --> 0:09:26.960 prink tanks, I think are doing a fair bit, you know, 0:09:27.600 --> 0:09:28.840 that whole ecosystem. 0:09:29.240 --> 0:09:32.840 What does it look like. Well, one thing we need 0:09:32.840 --> 0:09:38.560 to think about is the network of influence. That's really 0:09:38.600 --> 0:09:41.440 something that has taken us a while to really get 0:09:41.920 --> 0:09:45.440 our thinking around. And I think, you know, we're still 0:09:45.520 --> 0:09:49.520 finding connections that we didn't really know existed, which is 0:09:49.640 --> 0:09:53.360 kind of amazing. At least since the nineteen seventies, we 0:09:53.520 --> 0:09:59.920 have started to see connections among not just media platforms 0:10:00.080 --> 0:10:04.080 and people who set the agenda in the media, but 0:10:04.760 --> 0:10:11.960 think tanks, research centers, private donors, lobbyists, and lawyers PR firms. 0:10:12.640 --> 0:10:16.040 We're starting to get better and better evidence of this network, 0:10:16.360 --> 0:10:20.439 and both journalists and researchers are uncovered just how far 0:10:20.480 --> 0:10:24.360 back these relationships of denial go. But I do think 0:10:24.400 --> 0:10:28.079 it's also important to remember that we're you know, all 0:10:28.120 --> 0:10:32.360 of those groups I just mentioned operate in society and 0:10:32.400 --> 0:10:35.840 that society in general, and really, you know, if we 0:10:36.040 --> 0:10:40.160 just again zoom out from fossil fuels per se and 0:10:40.280 --> 0:10:44.679 just look at our entire consumer society, the way our 0:10:44.760 --> 0:10:48.160 lifestyles are set up right now, the status quo is 0:10:48.920 --> 0:10:51.880 one in which fossil fuels play a very big role, 0:10:52.520 --> 0:10:57.439 and it's very hard for people to imagine alternatives, especially 0:10:57.520 --> 0:11:00.520 when we don't see a lot of presentation of those 0:11:00.559 --> 0:11:05.600 alternatives in public communication. So it's a very vast and 0:11:06.240 --> 0:11:09.319 really has been for a long time, very intractable problem 0:11:09.640 --> 0:11:11.440 that we've been trying to work through. 0:11:11.880 --> 0:11:15.720 Yes, definitely, I mean we can draw links directly from 0:11:16.000 --> 0:11:19.000 through the structures from who owns a lot of the 0:11:19.000 --> 0:11:22.599 corporate media. But then also, as you mentioned, Mellissa, that 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:27.280 just the pr the way that these firms are so influential, 0:11:27.360 --> 0:11:30.479 the way they play roles in the network developing strategy, 0:11:30.600 --> 0:11:34.280 we really get immersed if you're watching commercial television just 0:11:34.320 --> 0:11:38.960 with all kinds of marketing and imagery and assertions that 0:11:39.080 --> 0:11:42.800 can at times be seen as greenwashing. But then on 0:11:43.360 --> 0:11:48.360 top of that, you know, at the very core, we're 0:11:48.520 --> 0:11:52.000 primed to fall into this because we've got a lot 0:11:52.000 --> 0:11:54.360 of other things that we want to focus in on. 0:11:54.480 --> 0:11:57.200 We don't have to worry about it. And so when 0:11:57.520 --> 0:12:00.800 this sort of apparatus, when it flows through courses, through 0:12:00.840 --> 0:12:03.559 the veins of our lives, we take it. We're ready 0:12:03.559 --> 0:12:06.960 for it. Would just say all right, let's focus in 0:12:07.000 --> 0:12:10.200 on other things. And so this apparatus gives us that 0:12:10.280 --> 0:12:13.360 opportunity to not have to face it. 0:12:14.160 --> 0:12:19.120 Yeah, you mentioned four key contrarian viewpoints that are amplified 0:12:19.120 --> 0:12:21.000 by the media, and I wonder if I could have 0:12:21.120 --> 0:12:25.160 you name those and talk about how you or the 0:12:25.200 --> 0:12:27.680 research that you were looking at honed in on those 0:12:27.720 --> 0:12:28.480 four Yeah. 0:12:28.520 --> 0:12:34.119 One really influential source for thinking about these four viewpoints 0:12:34.200 --> 0:12:37.040 these kind of arguments for climate delay comes from the 0:12:37.080 --> 0:12:41.040 scholar William Lamb and collaborators. It's in the academic Journal 0:12:41.040 --> 0:12:44.280 of Global Sustainability, and it's really become a go to 0:12:44.440 --> 0:12:47.120 source for a lot of us. They have this fantastic 0:12:47.240 --> 0:12:51.640 chart which summarizes the argument, so it's very useful. So 0:12:51.679 --> 0:12:56.439 the first argument for climate delay is to suggest that 0:12:56.520 --> 0:12:59.319 someone else should take actions first, so in other words, 0:12:59.360 --> 0:13:04.480 redirecting responsibility for the problem away from themselves, which in 0:13:04.520 --> 0:13:07.840 this case would often be a fossil fuel company onto 0:13:07.960 --> 0:13:12.880 somebody else. So the classic one is suggesting that consumers themselves, 0:13:12.960 --> 0:13:17.800 individuals themselves should take actions to address climate change, you know, 0:13:17.880 --> 0:13:22.160 recycle for instance. The second argument has to do with 0:13:22.559 --> 0:13:27.120 saying that we can't mitigate climate change. It's simply not possible. 0:13:27.520 --> 0:13:30.000 You have to just kind of give in to the 0:13:30.080 --> 0:13:32.600 fact that it's never going to happen. And you've seen 0:13:32.640 --> 0:13:36.360 a lot of arguments like that, especially by climate deni 0:13:36.400 --> 0:13:39.079 as saying, you know, change is just impossible. We can't 0:13:39.200 --> 0:13:41.640 change our current way of life, we can't do that, 0:13:42.120 --> 0:13:45.920 or saying it's basically a catastrophe and you know, doom 0:13:45.920 --> 0:13:49.560 and bloom apocalypse, there's nothing to be done. There's a 0:13:49.559 --> 0:13:52.720 third argument, which is actually a little more insidious, where 0:13:52.960 --> 0:13:57.800 fossil fuel companies will push non transformative solutions. That's how 0:13:57.960 --> 0:14:00.720 Lamb and his collaborators put it. And you know, this 0:14:00.760 --> 0:14:04.400 one's insidious because it seems like solutions are just around 0:14:04.440 --> 0:14:08.359 the corner, but in fact these solutions are very problematic 0:14:08.440 --> 0:14:12.280 and often really backwards. One would be to say future 0:14:12.320 --> 0:14:14.440 technologies are going to solve the problem, so you know, 0:14:14.480 --> 0:14:16.800 we don't have to worry now because in the future 0:14:17.280 --> 0:14:21.040 we'll have AI solving climate change. These kind of very vague, 0:14:21.240 --> 0:14:25.120 very always future focused ideas for how the problem will 0:14:25.160 --> 0:14:29.080 be solved. Another one is to say you can't restrict 0:14:29.160 --> 0:14:33.480 or regulate companies because then they won't be able to 0:14:33.600 --> 0:14:36.720 come up with solutions for climate change, so you have 0:14:36.760 --> 0:14:39.080 to kind of give them time to figure it out. 0:14:39.440 --> 0:14:44.560 Yet again, this future facing solutionism. Again, these are problematic 0:14:44.600 --> 0:14:48.200 because they seem like, back to what Max was saying 0:14:48.240 --> 0:14:51.800 a moment ago, they seem to make us feel better, 0:14:51.960 --> 0:14:54.200 and they make us feel like we don't have to 0:14:54.280 --> 0:14:56.760 do anything that you know, companies have. It's kind of 0:14:56.760 --> 0:15:00.440 the opposite from the redirect responsibility frame anyway. And then 0:15:00.480 --> 0:15:03.920 the last one is about emphasizing all of the problems 0:15:04.000 --> 0:15:08.720 with the solutions that are being proposed that are viable. So, 0:15:08.880 --> 0:15:11.760 for instance, you've got a solution in mind which involves 0:15:12.080 --> 0:15:16.000 social justice, but you know that means that vulnerable members 0:15:16.080 --> 0:15:19.200 of our society might have to bear the brunt of 0:15:19.480 --> 0:15:22.200 the solutions, So we can't do that. We need solutions 0:15:22.440 --> 0:15:25.080 that work for everyone. Otherwise we shouldn't have solutions at all. 0:15:25.640 --> 0:15:32.040 So these discourse types to be fancy shows this tendency 0:15:32.080 --> 0:15:36.920 among actors of disinformation to actually move away from overt denial, 0:15:37.040 --> 0:15:40.760 like moving away from saying climate change isn't happening, it's 0:15:40.800 --> 0:15:45.880 not real, and having more subtle tactics to just undo 0:15:46.320 --> 0:15:50.000 or delegitimate climate solutions just by saying that they're not 0:15:50.040 --> 0:15:51.800 going to work for a variety of reasons. 0:15:52.000 --> 0:15:54.960 It could be a good opportunity to just to point 0:15:54.960 --> 0:15:58.120 out that Melissa and I were leading on this chapter 0:15:58.200 --> 0:16:02.240 where we were essentially pulling together a lot of the 0:16:02.320 --> 0:16:06.000 current research to help us understand how this discourse is 0:16:06.040 --> 0:16:11.960 being steered through news, social media, advertising, public relations, and 0:16:12.640 --> 0:16:17.040 we led on this chapter, but Trav Cone, Maanelas, and 0:16:17.120 --> 0:16:20.040 Hannah Morris and Chris Russell also contributed to this. So 0:16:20.040 --> 0:16:22.080 it was a great opportunity for us to pull together 0:16:22.200 --> 0:16:25.120 this kind of research from William Lamb and colleagues and 0:16:25.160 --> 0:16:28.600 others to help provide a bit more of a cogent picture. 0:16:29.200 --> 0:16:33.400 Yeah, yeah, I love that study. The graphic so simple, 0:16:33.480 --> 0:16:38.440 but like it's so helpful. Okay, so you mentioned social 0:16:38.520 --> 0:16:43.040 media there Obviously, the media itself has gone through quite 0:16:43.080 --> 0:16:46.880 a few pretty big transitions over the last couple decades. 0:16:47.640 --> 0:16:53.479 How have those transitions contributed to the ability of corporations 0:16:53.480 --> 0:16:56.360 and PR firms and these other entities that you've mentioned 0:16:56.640 --> 0:17:02.000 to really kind of hijack the new even more, or 0:17:02.360 --> 0:17:06.720 push even legacy media to kind of amplify these sorts 0:17:06.720 --> 0:17:07.840 of talking points. 0:17:08.080 --> 0:17:11.639 Well, it will be no surprise to anyone if I 0:17:11.760 --> 0:17:15.280 say that in the Western hemisphere, at least in the 0:17:15.280 --> 0:17:20.480 global North, our media are in crisis, especially news media, 0:17:20.520 --> 0:17:23.880 and even more in trouble our legacy news media such 0:17:23.920 --> 0:17:29.800 as radio and newspapers, which are dealing with economic and 0:17:29.880 --> 0:17:35.000 political crises as well as extreme political polarization, which has 0:17:35.760 --> 0:17:39.840 shattered the sense among a lot of the public that 0:17:39.920 --> 0:17:45.680 our news outlets provide fact based and reliable information. That's 0:17:45.880 --> 0:17:48.440 kind of the current picture. But it has been quite 0:17:48.480 --> 0:17:51.680 a while now that oil and gas producers and their 0:17:51.720 --> 0:17:56.919 collaborators have actively worked with both legacy news and social 0:17:56.960 --> 0:18:01.639 media platforms, as well as PR firms and advertising agencies 0:18:02.119 --> 0:18:07.719 to promote disinformation that obstricts climate policy. Max talked about 0:18:07.840 --> 0:18:11.840 the news balance, but we've also seen how oil and 0:18:11.920 --> 0:18:18.240 gas companies do source building with journalists to promote their 0:18:18.760 --> 0:18:21.879 industry point of view and news coverage. But then, of 0:18:21.920 --> 0:18:25.280 course we also have social media where there's less of 0:18:25.320 --> 0:18:29.080 an intermediary or date keeping function, so oil and gas 0:18:29.080 --> 0:18:32.919 companies can pretty much post whatever they want. Not to 0:18:32.960 --> 0:18:38.760 mention blogs, instant messaging, and because our mainstream media is 0:18:39.720 --> 0:18:44.720 under corporate control, and because their business model needs advertising 0:18:44.760 --> 0:18:48.520 revenue to stay afloat, it has also become harder and 0:18:48.600 --> 0:18:53.720 harder for news to remain separate from promotional content. Yes, 0:18:53.840 --> 0:18:55.560 I don't you know, there's even more we could say. 0:18:55.880 --> 0:18:58.480 We talk about this in the chapter for the book. 0:18:58.680 --> 0:19:03.280 We have these newer kinds of threats with emerging digital 0:19:03.280 --> 0:19:08.480 technologies and social media. Because now disinformation campaigns can operate 0:19:08.560 --> 0:19:13.240 at a massive scale and scope, they can target certain 0:19:13.280 --> 0:19:17.600 groups much more precisely. You have technology companies and their 0:19:17.600 --> 0:19:22.800 platforms that let powerful actors shape information in ways that 0:19:23.080 --> 0:19:26.960 lack accountability. And on top of everything else, we have 0:19:27.240 --> 0:19:32.520 the explosion of artificial intelligence, which is changing at day 0:19:32.720 --> 0:19:37.679 and is incredibly difficult to detect and predict. Not to 0:19:37.720 --> 0:19:41.640 mention the environmental costs of AI use, the energy consumption 0:19:42.320 --> 0:19:47.480 generated by AI, the waste generated by AI systems, especially 0:19:47.560 --> 0:19:52.080 data centers, which contribute to greenhouse gas emissions and environmental pollution. 0:19:52.320 --> 0:19:54.040 So we've got like a I was going to say 0:19:54.040 --> 0:19:56.160 a triple threat, but I think this is like an 0:19:56.520 --> 0:19:57.440 octuple threat. 0:19:57.520 --> 0:20:01.320 Yeah, there are definitely several dynamics that and they're pointing 0:20:01.320 --> 0:20:04.639 in discouraging directions. It means you've pointed out, Melissa, that 0:20:05.240 --> 0:20:09.040 there's been increasing consolidation. Some of the media mergers and 0:20:09.119 --> 0:20:11.240 acquisitions and everything that are going on just kind of 0:20:11.240 --> 0:20:15.280 feel beyond us as everyday people. Skydance is merging with Paramount, 0:20:15.359 --> 0:20:17.200 and what does that mean for Colbert and what does 0:20:17.200 --> 0:20:19.719 that mean for the news? I get it's getting just 0:20:20.640 --> 0:20:23.800 bigger and bigger all the time. And as we look around, 0:20:23.880 --> 0:20:28.040 we can see that our local independent news are strained. 0:20:28.320 --> 0:20:30.800 Just some of the recent decisions from the Trump administration 0:20:31.760 --> 0:20:34.480 have put even further strain on these news sources. And 0:20:34.520 --> 0:20:37.840 so we've across this country, across the world, we've got 0:20:38.040 --> 0:20:41.840 many news deserts. So people are increasingly reliant on these 0:20:41.880 --> 0:20:45.399 corporate media sources to make sense of what's going on 0:20:45.520 --> 0:20:47.720 in the world, and that's through legacy media. As Melissa's 0:20:47.760 --> 0:20:51.119 pointed out, once you get into social media, gets even 0:20:51.160 --> 0:20:55.639 more confusing with algorithms and the blending. Even some of 0:20:55.680 --> 0:20:58.320 your work amy has found its way into our chapter 0:20:58.400 --> 0:21:01.960 where you've pointed out this confusion that can take place 0:21:02.000 --> 0:21:04.760 between straight news reporting and some advertising that's going on 0:21:05.560 --> 0:21:10.240 from these carb based industry players. And so while there 0:21:10.240 --> 0:21:14.440 are definitely a lot of dynamics at play, it's discouraging 0:21:14.480 --> 0:21:15.080 and challenging. 0:21:15.320 --> 0:21:18.360 Yeah, I wonder if you've looked at or if there's 0:21:18.400 --> 0:21:20.879 any research yet, or if it's maybe too early on 0:21:20.920 --> 0:21:26.480 this around the way that influencers are sort of replacing reporters, 0:21:27.000 --> 0:21:29.520 Like I see this all the time, even I have 0:21:29.560 --> 0:21:31.640 an intern right now who was. 0:21:31.640 --> 0:21:34.240 Like, do you know this guy blah blah blah. 0:21:34.280 --> 0:21:36.520 I get all my news from him, and I looked 0:21:36.600 --> 0:21:39.200 him up and he's like one of these people who 0:21:39.240 --> 0:21:44.160 sort of reads headline in videos, which is all well 0:21:44.160 --> 0:21:47.760 and good, except that, like, if those people end up 0:21:47.760 --> 0:21:50.000 getting all the funding and all the audience, then there 0:21:50.040 --> 0:21:53.879 won't be any reporters writing the stuff for them to 0:21:53.920 --> 0:21:59.560 read anymore. I just see this huge shift in like 0:22:00.080 --> 0:22:06.600 the credibility that people are ascribing to influencers for what 0:22:06.720 --> 0:22:08.719 appears to be no rhyme or reason, and it's not 0:22:08.760 --> 0:22:10.840 like these people are like, hey, listen to me, I'm 0:22:10.920 --> 0:22:14.080 very credible for these reasons. It's just like some random 0:22:14.119 --> 0:22:15.200 guy anyway. 0:22:15.359 --> 0:22:15.840 I don't know. 0:22:15.800 --> 0:22:18.000 If you guys have looked at that, but it's freaking 0:22:18.080 --> 0:22:18.360 me out. 0:22:18.680 --> 0:22:18.879 You know. 0:22:19.040 --> 0:22:22.520 That problem first became really clear to me when I 0:22:22.600 --> 0:22:26.159 was teaching an undergraduate class on media and politics a 0:22:26.200 --> 0:22:29.639 few years ago and we had this assignment that I 0:22:29.680 --> 0:22:33.040 gave them where I said the student had to identify 0:22:33.080 --> 0:22:36.800 the source of the media they were looking at, and 0:22:37.160 --> 0:22:40.480 their answers were things like Facebook or well, probably not, 0:22:40.680 --> 0:22:44.200 because nobody under the age of twenty five books of Facebook, 0:22:44.200 --> 0:22:48.000 but you know, social media were listed as the source 0:22:48.080 --> 0:22:50.720 for these students, and I said, no, no, I don't 0:22:50.800 --> 0:22:53.840 mean where you saw it. I mean the original source. 0:22:54.440 --> 0:22:56.720 And they really didn't know what I was talking about. 0:22:57.040 --> 0:23:01.000 And that's when it hit me that the way our 0:23:01.119 --> 0:23:05.359 media platforms are organized, the way we access information online 0:23:06.280 --> 0:23:10.080 is really not the way we people of my generation 0:23:10.480 --> 0:23:15.199 used to access or understand. So the source is not 0:23:15.600 --> 0:23:20.960 nearly as relevant to younger people as the content itself 0:23:21.000 --> 0:23:23.959 and the way it's presented. So that you know, if 0:23:24.000 --> 0:23:27.040 we're talking about a space where influencers come to have 0:23:27.119 --> 0:23:31.240 a lot more credibility. That really does have to do 0:23:31.359 --> 0:23:34.120 with what's getting put in front of people, and that 0:23:34.240 --> 0:23:37.600 in itself has to do with how algorithms work, and 0:23:37.640 --> 0:23:42.000 how prior usage patterns work, and how the location of 0:23:42.040 --> 0:23:44.560 the individual works. We know about all of these data 0:23:44.560 --> 0:23:47.280 points that inform what kind of information is put in 0:23:47.280 --> 0:23:51.679 front of people, and so an influencer who might froughten 0:23:51.720 --> 0:23:55.240 your attention at some other time for some other completely 0:23:55.240 --> 0:23:59.480 different topic suddenly seems like somebody much more reliable and 0:23:59.520 --> 0:24:03.000 trust worth than a source you don't know. And that 0:24:03.440 --> 0:24:08.480 proximity in time and space to you is really problematic 0:24:08.520 --> 0:24:14.800 when it comes to information about complex, scientific and highly 0:24:14.840 --> 0:24:16.480 polarized issues like climate chain. 0:24:17.320 --> 0:24:18.040 Yeah. 0:24:18.440 --> 0:24:21.800 Yeah, yeah, I'm finding that too with students I work 0:24:21.840 --> 0:24:25.040 with my kids. As they're getting older, you know, they'll say, oh, 0:24:25.440 --> 0:24:30.600 same new sources, new sources, YouTube, new sources, TikTok, right, 0:24:30.720 --> 0:24:34.240 And so my experiences have been similar. And that's a 0:24:34.280 --> 0:24:37.639 demographic shift that we ought to be talking more about. 0:24:38.000 --> 0:24:40.840 But on top of that, I'd say, relevant to you know, 0:24:40.880 --> 0:24:43.080