June 18, 2024 • 60 mins
How does sensationalist media shape our political outlook and contribute to a widespread sense of hopelessness? Join us for a thought-provoking discussion with Dr. Kenneth Bryant, an associate professor of political science, as we dissect the impact of mass media on American politics. Inspired by the 1976 film "Network," Dr. Bryant shares his insights on the media's obsession with conflict and scandal, and we explore the cyclical nature of societal pessimism. Equip yourself with tools for critical media literacy to better navigate the barrage of negative news and regain control over your perspective.
Ever feel overwhelmed by the constant stream of negative news? You're not alone. We discuss practical strategies for combating this sense of hopelessness, focusing on what we can control in our own lives. From engaging in small, impactful actions to prioritizing self-care and education, we highlight how these steps can foster a sense of empowerment and well-being. By letting go of grandiose hopes and concentrating on manageable, positive changes, we can all make a meaningful difference within our immediate spheres.
Local politics often flies under the radar, but its impact on our daily lives is profound. We explore the importance of youth engagement in local governance, sharing a compelling anecdote from Segalville, Texas, where a mayoral election was decided by a single vote. Discover why young people are crucial to breaking the cycle of low voter turnout and how consuming information from multiple sources can help you develop a well-rounded perspective. We also touch on media bias and political discernment, empowering you to actively participate in your community and drive meaningful change.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Stay tuned to the Ask Dr Ross podcast.
It's created to give you infoto succeed at college.
Our hosts are highly qualified.
Dr Catherine Ross is a memberof the University of Texas
System's Academy ofDistinguished Teachers.
She's also a popular professorof 19th century English
literature.
Co-host and multimedia editorNathan Wood provides a student
(00:27):
perspective.
Ask Dr Ross is a communityservice of the University of
Texas at Tyler.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Hi, I'm Katherine Ross and this is a podcast for
parents, students in school whoare thinking about going to
college, college students whoparents students in school who
are thinking about going tocollege, college students who
are already here, adults who arethinking of maybe going back to
college and really anyone whowants to know more about what
life in colleges anduniversities is like today in
the US of A.
I'm here with my friend, nathanWitt, who's a student here.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
If you'd like to ask Dr Ross a question, you can
email us at adrquestions atgmailcom.
Today we're going to talk alittle bit more about hope.
So we've got a little kind ofmini segment about hope, maybe
the feeling of hopelessness inthe incoming generations, and
how we can address that, how wecan respond to that feeling.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Yeah, a lot of the times that Nathan and I've been
working on these interviews, youknow we've tried to talk about
all the different aspects ofcollege but there's also the
aspect of the.
You know, where does it all fitin the students' lives and
where are they going?
And we're all trying to getthem prepared for the future and
yet so many of your students,you and your classmates, have
expressed a real doubt about thefuture.
(01:41):
So Nathan and I have talkedabout it a lot and we've had
someone come in and talk to us alittle bit about finances.
But I wanted to bring in myfriend, dr Kenneth Bryant, who
is an associate professor ofpolitical science here at UT
Tyler, an award-winning teacher,but he's also taught mass media
in American politics and I feelas though so much of what is
(02:03):
giving students today a lot ofanxiety is the mass media
coverage of politics.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
So handing that over then to you, want to tell us a
little bit about how you cameabout to this topic yourself,
and then maybe just startplowing in.
Speaker 4 (02:19):
Okay.
So how did I come to the topicof mass media and American
politics?
The origin my favorite film ofall time.
It's a film called Network,released in 1976.
And this film was prescient.
It predicted where we are nowwith cable news.
The sensationalism, theover-the-topness, the fixation
(02:46):
on conflict was what PaddyChayefsky, who was the writer of
the film, was trying to put outthere in the 1970s to predict.
Where is this mass media going?
Where is this coverage going?
What are we fixated on?
Why is there so much doom?
Mind you, this is in themid-70s, so this is right after
(03:08):
Watergate.
So the public, the Americanpublic, were in a pretty cynical
mood.
As a matter of fact, you couldsay it was the first time in
American history when thebroader general public began to
distrust our institutions.
Okay, except for theinstitution that blew all of
this open, which was the media.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
The Washington Post the.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
Washington Post.
Yes, so Network is my all-timefavorite film and as I'm
watching this film throughoutthe years, and as I get to my
current post, I'm thinking years.
And as I get to my current post, I'm thinking, oh, I would love
to figure out a way to bringthe content of what this film is
talking about, but also so manyother films related to mass
(03:53):
media and American politics, andalso so many television shows
and also so much, right inbroader media.
How do I bring that into aclass?
Speaker 2 (04:07):
So we can think about it intelligently critically?
Speaker 4 (04:10):
Yes, and it has been my favorite course to teach,
because it is an opportunity tonot only consume but also to
critique what it is that we'reseeing and what it is that we're
hearing, and also to put thingsin a broader context, that what
(04:31):
we see today is a little bitdifferent than what we saw 50
years ago, but so much of it isthe same.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
The trends in it maybe yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Same in what way?
Same kind of sensationalism.
If it bleeds, it leads, if it'sscandalous, it's what we hear
about first.
Speaker 4 (04:50):
Absolutely that part, but also the public's
perception of our society.
Right now, things feel prettydark.
They feel pretty hopeless isthe word that you all have
shared about hope.
That is something that hashappened in cycles.
That is something that wasthere with us 50 years ago, that
(05:11):
is something that is with usnow and that is something that
will be with us 50 years fromnow.
But that doesn't mean thatimprovements cannot be made,
that advancements are not made,and that educating our public
about this cycle and who'sresponsible for this cycle
(05:34):
that's why I think what we do isso important.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Well, now one of the things that Nathan and I talked
about yesterday is just who doyou trust?
This is very yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Could you address that?
Who do you trust out there?
This is very yeah and could youaddress that?
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Who do you trust Yourself?
Someone is getting a call, areal quick call.
Speaker 4 (05:53):
Sorry.
And what do I mean by yourself?
I don't mean you know the I didmy own research crowd, right,
do your own research, certainly.
But what I mean by trustyourself is equip yourself with
the skills that you need todevelop a discernment that's
necessary as a consumer of news,as a consumer of media, in 2023
(06:16):
.
Develop the skills that youneed to have to discern when
something is maybe not socredible, because the signs will
be there, right, the telltalesigns will be there, okay.
And when something, hey, okay,that kind of makes sense.
But I also know I can't takejust one source.
(06:37):
I've got to take another, andanother, and another and see if
there's a pattern, and anotherand another and see if there's a
pattern.
The pattern, the multiplesources, the discernment comes
from equipping yourself with theeducation necessary.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
Okay.
So I have now to play devil'sadvocate a little bit and try to
defend this position of why itfeels hopeless.
And I feel like a lot of youngpeople right now are kind of
throwing their hands up andgiving up.
And there's a couple things inthere.
The first one I want to addressis you know, because I agree,
(07:16):
to really know if you're gettinga credible source, you need to,
you know, look at multipledifferent sources from multiple
different political leanings andkind of see where it meets in
the middle.
The difficult thing is thatinformation is so accessible,
the 24 hour news cycle is sodense, that it is impossible
(07:37):
Like I believe, genuinelyimpossible to fact check, by
multiple sources, every piece ofnews that you get.
And it is very difficult to doto fact check the important
pieces of news that you get,because there's just so many,
there's just a overwhelmingamount of information constantly
(08:02):
being thrown in front of us byeveryone.
And what's also difficult and Ithink it's interesting, because
I hear this perspective a lotand I'll I'll don't know the
truth because I didn't grow upin other generations and I am
not educated enough on othergenerations, but I always hear
people say you know well, this,is this a thing, and people
(08:25):
always feel like it's bad.
They always feel like theeconomy is bad.
They always feel like thepolitics are bad.
But it is so hard for me tolook at where things are at
today and believe that thingswere this bad in the past.
So you feel like can I clarifythat?
(08:47):
Do you feel like the state ofAmerican politics are not worse
now than they have been in thepast?
Speaker 4 (08:55):
The state of American politics are as bad as they've
been.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
Okay, so it hasn't been like a crazy increase.
Speaker 4 (09:05):
It's just different.
So what I mean by that is, forexample, in the 1960s to give
some context, 1960s ourpolitical leaders we didn't just
disagree with our politicalleaders, they were being
assassinated, they were beingkilled.
Movements, the leadership ofmovements, assassinated, killed.
(09:27):
Students literally taking overadministrative buildings by a
protest protesting the war inVietnam, where they were being
drafted to go to war, to fight awar where a lot of folks
couldn't really figure out whatthe rationale was.
A lot of folks couldn't reallyfigure out what the rationale
was.
Today, I don't want to poo-poothe challenges today, because
(09:49):
they are very real.
They're just different.
They're structural challenges.
We have a problem withgerrymandering in this country,
For sure.
We have a broader problem withthe lack of trust in our
institutions which started inthe 1970s, right, but when I say
it's always been pretty bad,it's like when I speak with my
(10:10):
students about the state of ourdemocracy, the United States as
a democracy has it lived up toits name?
Has it lived up to its promises?
We sort of look at the 250years we've been around almost
250 years and I can pinpoint,maybe you know, 30 years-ish
(10:34):
where we can say, oh okay, wewere actually actively going
towards increasing voting rights, increasing the ability, you
know, suffrage.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
To be truly democratic.
Speaker 4 (10:49):
To be truly democratic and respect all
perspectives, and it feels alittle bit like a backslide now,
and so that is sort of anotherreminder that we haven't always
lived up to that.
We haven't always lived up tothat, and so to say that it's
worse now would be almost toignore where we've been and what
(11:10):
we've been dealing with.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Yeah, I don't know.
I do feel like there's room tosay, hey, it was really bad, or
it was significantly bad, it isworse.
And even if it is worse orisn't worse, I feel like maybe
there's a sense of hopelessnessin the statement hey, it's
always been this bad.
Well then, how do you have hopein it getting better if it's
(11:37):
almost been 250 years and no onehas been able to make
significant improvements in thestate of American politics?
How do I, as a young person,have confidence that my
generation will be the one?
You know where your hope comes?
Speaker 4 (11:52):
from?
Please tell me.
The fight, the fight.
Where does your hope come from?
How do you feel less hopeless?
Get a little fight in you andsay's going on right now not
acceptable and we are not goingto?
Yes, this is the way thingshave been and perhaps things
will be challenging movingforward.
(12:13):
We're not going to live in autopia, but we're going to fight
to change things, to make themthe way that we see.
We want this country to exist.
And how do do we fight?
There's your question.
Like I said once upon a timeago, it was literally college
students taking overadministration buildings.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
I mean, I think they did that in Seattle not too long
ago, right?
Speaker 4 (12:34):
Yeah, it was massive, it was across the country.
Maybe that doesn't look likethat now, in 2023.
But one thing that I want toshare with students right, if
the definition of hope is havingsomething to look forward to,
what is it that you can lookforward to in this fight to make
(12:55):
change?
The one tool that you have thatyou wouldn't have had 50 years
ago is the vote.
If you were under the age of 21, you didn't have the vote, so
there's one tool that you canuse just as a base to fight to
make changes the vote.
(13:17):
We've spoken about the media,the overwhelming amount of
sources.
Social media has been, I think,a blessing and a curse.
The curse, I think, is prettyobvious, but the blessing is
also it has democratized theability to mobilize people
(13:38):
behind a cause.
No matter what the cause is nomatter what the cause is.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Conservative or liberal or in between.
Speaker 4 (13:46):
And that's a useful tool that didn't exist 50 years
ago, and so the tools are here.
You just got to have the fightand having something to look
forward to.
We've got an election coming up2024.
We've got local elections.
We've got local elections.
We've got statewide elections,vote and also, whatever your
(14:12):
political persuasions are,whatever it is, whoever it is
that you support, have somefight.
That's going to help you feel alittle less hopeful hopeless, I
should say because that issomething, you can do something.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
So I think one of the reasons why you feel hopeless
is you feel helpless.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
And, I think, being able to do some action.
And, of course, then, well, howdo you get going on that?
Well, there's the League ofWomen Voters, there's students,
there's sometimes, you know youI don't know if you know this,
kenneth, but this young mancreated his own nonprofit
organization.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
Bravo.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
And you have that kind of energy, that kind of
organizing energy and leadershipto think in terms of let's have
the anti-hopelessness brigadeor whatever.
I mean truly.
And here again I come back tothe two things that we sort of
came up with yesterday.
And here again I come back tothe two things that we sort of
came up with yesterday.
One is getting better educatedabout what is possible, what has
(15:13):
happened, you know what are thelegalities of things, but also
recognizing that you always giveup something.
You can't have it all.
And you know, I hear, I knowthat one place you go sometimes
is away from the starry-eyedidealist where everything's
going to be perfect.
And that's one of the hardestthings about coming of age is
you begin to realize oh man, Ithought it was going to be so
(15:34):
great to be in college.
Oh man, I thought it was goingto be so great to be out of
college.
I thought it was going to be sogreat to be married.
I thought it was going to be sogreat to be a professor or
whatever.
And you get in that job.
You go.
Oh, my goodness, this is hardand you're just beginning to see
the hard things in front of you, but they're also excitingly
hard because you get to do more.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Still, I know that sounds like pablum, doesn't it?
Speaker 3 (15:59):
Well, it's, I don't know, I think.
I think that there's, there'sand it is, I feel like, very
heavily influenced by theintroduction of media,
specifically social media,specifically these, you know,
little pocket computers we havethat we carry around everywhere,
where I think just beingoverwhelmed, just as a general
(16:21):
experience is so much moreprevalent in our incoming
generations, and I think itmakes it's hard, it's harder to
mobilize, it's hard to feel theexcitement, it's hard to feel
the hope.
And this is an argument my dadalways says and boy, I don't
like it is.
You know, I talk to him aboutman, it just feels like the
(16:41):
world is horrible.
And everywhere you know, Italked to him about man it just
feels like the world is horrible.
And everywhere you look, there'sjust horrible things.
Because, like we said, you know, outrage sells, shock sells,
and so the algorithm doesn'tcare about you, it just wants
your attention.
And you know the whole sayingabout train wrecks and how you
can't look away.
I mean, that's what it showsyou all day is just terrible
(17:04):
things because you can't lookaway.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
So what's your dad say so?
Speaker 3 (17:07):
my dad always says he's like well, the world has
always been this horrible, youjust haven't been able to see it
.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
That's kind of what we're saying too, isn't?
Speaker 3 (17:15):
it, and maybe that's the case, but it doesn't change
the fact that now all we see isthe bad stuff, and so I feel
like it makes it that muchharder to have hope.
You know, kind of like what youI think you said this yesterday
about something about you know,if I would have known it was
going to be this hard, I mightnot have done it Right.
(17:36):
And I think that may apply hereto this feeling of hope,
because for the oldergenerations who have had hope
through life, I wonder that samequestion would it have been as
easy for them to have hope ifthey knew just how horrible the
world was?
Speaker 4 (17:55):
let me first say this , because I don't want to sit
here and make it seem like Idon't understand exactly what
you're saying.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Yeah, absolutely, doom-scroll myself yeah, I
absolutely sit in front of andmake it seem like I don't
understand exactly what you'resaying, nor do I.
Speaker 4 (18:05):
I get it too Absolutely doom scroll myself.
I absolutely sit in front ofthe news and contemplate oh my
gosh, this is awful, this isawful, and nothing's going to
right this feeling.
Nothing's going to change, ifnot get worse.
I can't remember who gave methis piece of advice, but it's
(18:30):
one that I try to hang on to.
I think part of the sense ofbeing overwhelmed and feeling
that hopelessness is you'retrying to take on more than
necessary.
You're trying to think abouthow do I change the world, or
how does the world changeinstead of how does my world
change?
How can I impact my world?
(18:51):
What can I do as an individual?
Even a small thing is a bigthing.
Small things can be big thingsall the time, and so I think one
of the things, at least for me,is thinking about what it is.
What I understand, that I can'tsnap my finger and change the
(19:11):
outcome of an election.
I can't snap my finger and saythe economy is going to do this.
I can't snap my finger and saywar is going to end all across
the globe or that people aregoing to be wonderful to each
other on social media Can'tchange that.
I can't do that.
What I can change is what I dofor myself.
Causes do I involve myself in?
(19:33):
Where do I give my money to?
How do I vote when I am in aclassroom?
What are the issues that I'mtalking about, that students
should know, that they shouldhave an education on?
(19:57):
And again, one thing that Ithink there's a misnomer and I
know you understand this becauseyou're on this campus but one
of the misnomers is thatprofessors are indoctrination
machines.
Sure, are indoctrinationmachines.
Sure, and I always find that abit objectionable because A it's
tough enough getting folks toread syllabi, let alone change
their entire worldview based onwhat it is that I'm saying in my
(20:20):
class.
Sure, yeah, but also, educationis giving you all the
information and then giving youthe opportunity to make choices,
particularly in my field, right, I always say it's my job to
give you the information, toinform you.
It is not my job to tell youwhat to do with it, right?
(20:40):
So all of this discussion aboutwokeness or woke is the idea of
really just being aware.
Once you leave my class, youcan no longer say you're not
aware.
What you do with that awarenessis completely up to you.
Yeah, and that's where I get to, how do you feel a little less
hopeless?
Figure out what you can do inyour own individual life at your
(21:02):
own scale.
That is, making some form ofpositive change.
That might help just a littlebit.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
I want to insert two other pieces to that too,
because I teach English, so Idon't get to teach something
quite as currently fascinatingas politics are right now, but I
do teach skills that have to dowith living an examined life,
and one of the things a lot ofpeople don't do is they don't
pay attention to their need forrecreation, their need for
(21:35):
friendships, need for sleep andhealthy food.
And as much as that sounds likemom's talking to you, it's
really true that it's so easy toget off into these dark places
if you're not also having somefun, having a chance to be with
friends and also taking care ofyour body, absolutely.
(21:56):
So that's another little pieceof this.
What can you do to prevent thehopelessness too?
And that may seem real selfish,but it's actually what makes
you able to give more be abetter friend, a better lover, a
better student, whatever betterson.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
Yeah, as you know, I mean that is my perspective on
it.
My perspective on it is give upon the hope.
So follow me on this, Give upon the hope, Give up on.
And so follow me on this Giveup on the hope, Give up on.
And it's been my experience ofthis working of.
I came right out of high schooland I was on fire and I wanted
(22:37):
change and I saw the entireglobe.
I felt, you know,metaphorically, looked back and
saw the whole thing and was likewe've got so much we need to
fix and so quickly was my flamestomped out.
Because it's just such a bigundertaking to change the world
or change America, even tochange the state of Texas, you
(22:58):
know, and it crushed me and Igave up and I gave up and I just
happened to be in love withskateboarding and the when the
pandemic happened and I had tomove back in with my parents, my
hometown, I was living oncampus, so my college shut down.
I was so lost and frustrated.
(23:19):
I had no hope in the world.
All I had was likeskateboarding was fun and we had
a really old rundown skate park.
This is where the nonprofitstarted for me.
We had this old rundown skatepark and it was never in my mind
to do something good for thecommunity, for the world.
It was completely selfish.
It was just I loveskateboarding, I need
skateboarding.
I don't have skateboarding.
How do I have skateboarding?
(23:40):
Small little, justskateboarding.
Rest of my life is horrible.
I have skateboarding smalllittle, just skateboarding.
Rest of my life is horrible.
I'm so unhappy.
And so I worked on this park andby doing this people working on
this park I mean by myself,just me and a drill and some
screws and some plywood.
And as I was doing this, peoplewould drive by or, like you
know, I would post it on mySnapchat and people would see
(24:02):
and they're like, hey, I'll comehelp you, I'll come help you,
I'll come help you do this Like.
For the longest time there wasthis group of high schoolers
that would just go hang outthere, Like they would go grab
Sonic after school, and theywould just go sit there and
listen to music.
They wouldn't really skate toomuch, they wouldn't help build
ramps, they would just be therebecause they needed somewhere to
be.
And that's when I started torealize like, oh wait, like this
(24:26):
could kind of be something.
And we built a skate parkcommunity.
And then, yeah, and then Istarted to feel hope in this
little community, Like maybe,maybe I, we can do something
right here in this little groupof skaters.
And then some community members, some some older peers, came
alongside us and said, hey, howdo we do something more for you
guys?
And so we made this little gameclub and that started the
(24:48):
formation of the nonprofit.
And as the nonprofit formed,our city came alongside us.
And then all of a sudden I hadhope in my tiny little city and
I'm like, well, maybe the wholeworld is ruined, but maybe here
in this small little town we cando something.
And as that grew, the countyembraced us and came along board
with the non-profit.
And now I'm at this point whereI'm like I have faith in my
(25:12):
county.
Maybe this county can besomething.
And as I've gotten here toTyler and started to see the
same kind of communities andmovements build in Tyler, I'm
like well, maybe if we can buildup enough of these little
communities and towns, maybethere's hope for Texas.
And so my personal perspectiveis like give yourself the air to
(25:35):
breathe of, like giving up.
Speaker 4 (25:38):
Yeah, build hope from the bottom up.
That's what it sounds like.
Yes, yes, I was thinking ofthis metaphor.
Maybe this is because I'm home.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
We're going out to lunch later, okay.
Speaker 4 (25:53):
When you go to the buffet, there's no way possible
that you can consume everysingle thing at that buffet.
But you want to.
You may want to and you mayfeel compelled to, but you can't
.
It's not possible, it's nothealthy to do that.
(26:15):
Right, take your plate and puton your plate what you can and
tackle that.
That is building hope from thebottom up.
I love that tale of buildingcommunity from you started with
one yourself, trust yourself,and you build a community and
(26:37):
then you notice, oh, there areother communities building up
around here.
We we have a commonality, ormaybe we don't.
Maybe the only commonality wehave is that we want to build
community.
Right, that is beautiful.
That is, think, a change maker.
If all of us participated inthat way, we might look up and
(27:02):
see the world itself change.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
So I wanted to ask about local politics, how, how,
I know I don't know what classesyou teach and what your
research and study is in classesyou teach and what your
research and study is in, but doyou feel like you know?
As we're talking about lookingsmall, do you feel like a good
advice for young people lookingfor hope is to get yourself
(27:27):
involved in voting for localpolitics, or is that kind of a
waste?
Because I feel like that's aperception among young people,
that local politics I mean whatcan they really influence Like,
what is it really doing?
Speaker 2 (27:36):
What books are in the library.
Speaker 4 (27:38):
For one thing I'll give you a perfect example why
local politics not only arelocal politics the most
important to your life, on aneveryday right, local politics
is the police department, thefire department, the roads right
, the schools, the libraries andso forth.
In a little town calledSegalville, texas, there was a
(28:02):
mayoral election back in May.
The race, the final tally ofthat race in this town of 10,000
or so, was 222 votes to 221votes.
The difference between thewinner and the loser was one
(28:24):
vote and the reason this is, Ithink, funny to me, is my
husband and I had just movedfrom Segalville Okay, where two
votes, our two votes, could havedetermined that election.
That's a powerful reminder thatyour vote, particularly in those
(28:45):
local elections, count for morebecause fewer people are
showing up.
So imagine if you did the Gen Z, millennial, younger folks
showed up en masse to vote inthese local elections.
They're going to make adifference because one of the
things that you don't see areyounger folks showing up to
(29:07):
local elections, which may bewhy you look around and you are
discontented with what's goingon in the city because your
voice isn't a part of thedecision making.
So local elections huge.
I cannot impress upon the folksenough how important local
(29:28):
elections are and, as a matterof fact, I understand that
presidential elections get themoney, get the attention.
Presidential elections get themoney, get the attention.
But Joe Biden or Donald Trumpor Barack Obama or Bill Clinton,
the odds of them having animpact on your life here in
Tyler, texas, is very smallcompared with the impact of your
(29:51):
local city council person oryour mayor.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
And most of us don't even know who they are, and most
of us don't even know who theyare, and most of us don't even
know who they are Much less whatthey represent.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
Do you have a theory or an opinion on why young
people don't vote in the samepercentages that older
generations are?
That's not a new thing, thoughright, it's not a new thing?
Speaker 4 (30:13):
Yeah, but why is that ?
I ask this question everysemester because we look at the
numbers and it's there Usuallythe 18 to 29-year-old crowd.
They vote roughly half of the65 plus.
Part of it, I think, has to dowith the politicians and what
the politicians are talkingabout.
If the politicians look at thelast election and they see 18 to
(30:38):
29 year olds probably not goingto show up to vote, they're not
going to talk about the issuesthat resonate with 18 to 29 year
olds, because why they're notgoing to show up?
I need votes.
So I'm going to fixate on theissues that matter to the senior
citizens, the boomers, as theysay.
Now, right, it's like aself-fulfilling cycle where the
(31:05):
politicians don't talk about theissues that resonate with young
people, so young people don'tvote.
And because young people don'tvote, the politicians don't talk
about the issues that resonatewith young people.
Just keeps doing it so one ofthe solutions that we've seen in
the last um six years is we'veseen more and more young people
running for office aoc yeah,maxwell frost down in florida,
(31:30):
right?
young people saying, okay, well,if y'all are not going to talk
about what we care about, we'regoing to run because you're
eligible, right?
Most of you running for localoffice.
I don't know what the rules areand, tyler, in terms of an age
limit, I doubt there is probablyjust have to be 18.
If you want to run for Congress, right, you got to be a certain
age.
You want to run for the Senate?
(31:51):
You got to be a certain age.
You want to run for president?
But that's later on down theline, what we say about local
elections.
You could, you could run formayor, right?
Speaker 2 (32:01):
right right now.
Or you could organize yourfriends to say, hey, local
candidates, talk about the stuffwe care about.
Here's the stuff we care about,yep, and and you know being as
proactive, and I know that seemskind of overwhelming too, but
it's something you know about.
(32:22):
I mean, listen, all the thingswe've talked about this summer
and fall and spring when we'vebeen working on this project.
You all have so many things tosay.
Say them, and this is one ofthe reasons why we did the
podcast too is to try to saythings out there to people that
might be listening.
Yeah, but sometimes it's justit's hard finding an audience
too.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
Sure, yeah, well, fine, influencing a city
election feels a lot moretangible than influencing a
national election, absolutely soI think.
So, like off podcast I would be.
Do we have like, when's ourTyler's election cycle coming
Like?
We don't even know.
Speaker 4 (33:02):
I wish I knew I don't live in Tyler, so yeah, I don't
either.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
Yeah, I live in Mineola, but Well, I live in
Tyler and I should know, but Idon't Okay yeah.
But you know like, my husbandquit taking the local paper for
a while because he just couldn'tstomach it.
But I finally said, no, we'vegot to take the paper.
Just see what folks.
Speaker 4 (33:19):
Well, the one thing I would say to the audience, if
you want to find out, is go tothe Secretary of State.
Whatever your Secretary ofState if you're in Texas or
you're in Georgia or you're inOhio go to your Secretary of
State's website or go to yourCounty Board of Elections
website and they will have veryimportant dates for upcoming
(33:39):
elections, registrationdeadlines and things of that
sort, or League of Women Voters.
They also have really greatinformation there.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
Although you know, I'll just share this with you.
I've started going to theLeague of Women Voters, and they
are not doing a real good jobeither of getting the news out
to folks.
They seem to feel sort ofoverwhelmed by it as well, and I
remember when I first got here,I think it was the AAUW that
sends out a kind of a recap ofwho all the candidates are and
(34:10):
what they stand for, and that'sthe AAUW American Association of
University Women and I haven'tseen some of their work recently
either.
My guess is, Nathan, that anawful lot of us are feeling it.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
I don't think that it's exclusive to young people
the more I feel it is harder onyoung people, and we talked
about this after yesterday'sepisode.
I feel like it's harder onyoung people because we are new
to this world, we don't have thewisdom and perspective to
(34:44):
understand the broader pictureand and even there's a
difference, even for myself andand I'm very fortunate to have a
family that, like you know,like you could talk with Well
since yeah, since I was a kidlike they never babied me, like
they talked to me like an adulteven before I was an adult.
And so I am very fortunate to atleast understand that it may be
(35:09):
the case like things havealways been bad Right, or it may
be the case that, in the grandscheme of things, we're headed
in a positive trend, even thoughthings seem really bad right
now.
But there is a differencebetween knowing that because you
have been told, andunderstanding that because you
have lived a full, you know 40,50, 60 years and you understand
(35:32):
that because you've seen it.
And there's a difference there.
And there's also the differencebetween, like our formative
years were spent in this chaoswhere every generation before us
at least, even if now y'all areexperiencing the chaos of a
cell phone your formative yearswere in a much more peaceful I
(35:53):
feel like, kind of simpler atleast not as dense,
informationally dense world.
And that's, I feel, difficult.
You know, you were saying howyou recognized yesterday you.
You were doom scrolling alittle bit and you realize, oh,
this is probably not going to begood for me, and then you oh,
it's making me crazy, yourecognize the next day how it
(36:15):
influenced your mood, becauseyour frontal lobe is developed,
you have wisdom, you haveperspective.
We have 18-year-olds who are notfully developed.
They're not fully aware thatthese things will influence your
brain chemistry or understandwhat that means.
You know.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
Well, and it's been made worse by COVID, because
everybody wants to shut in.
I think it ramped it up evenmore.
The one thing I was going tosay to you that's interesting
besides education is that someof the students I know that have
the most hope are actuallystudents who've done things like
been on missionary trips toIndia or to South America, to
(36:54):
countries where children, orAfrica, where kids really I mean
what we have is really good.
And I can remember my motherlooking at me saying, well,
think about the starvingchildren in Armenia.
And I was going yeah, mom, yeahright, it still sucks to be in
Tyler, texas, but actually therelative comfort we live in is
(37:15):
something.
We don't often feel gratitudeand I know that I'm the worst
person about doing gratitudelists and stuff like that, but
every now and then it probablyis a good idea just to take a
look.
You know, one of the things Ido, girl.
I see these precious littleAfrican children doing these fun
dances and then behind them aredirt streets and hovels and
(37:37):
they're dancing and I'm going,let's do that.
So I danced down the streetwhen I walked the dog listening
to music.
You know, I don't know whereI'm going with this exactly.
We'll probably take all thisout.
But you know, another thought Ihad was you know, you know my
story that I went back to gradschool at 40 and started a whole
new career and I got to highereducation thinking it was going
(37:57):
to be what I remembered as anundergraduate.
And I got in and went whoa, itwas really different.
And you heard Professor Dotysaying yesterday you know you
were always so idealistic,catherine.
I used to always have to tellyou, calm down, calm down.
And what I realized is, over the20 years I've been doing this
now, is that I have had to makechoices about the kind of
scholarly work I would do, thewhere I put my time.
(38:18):
Was I going to put it inhigh-powered scholarship?
Was I going to put it inleadership?
I'm doing a podcast now which Ithink is probably more valuable
than some of the articles I'vewritten.
If it gets out to an audiencein that it can make a difference
.
And I will still probably go tomy grave complaining about the
things that are wrong withhigher education, at the same
(38:39):
time saying how many wonderfulthings there are about it and
how glad I am that I'm in it andhow glad I know Kenneth and I
know you and we get to teachstudents and that students get
to come to places like this andtry to sort out their hopes and
their despair and to get thekind of knowledge and the kind
of experience and also the kindof fellowship with people like
(39:00):
professor brian.
Speaker 3 (39:02):
Yeah, I think fellowship is a real tangible,
approachable way to find hopetoo.
Absolutely, you know it's thereis, there's definitely some
sense of solace and at least,even if you're just all in the
room together banging the wardrum, saying the world is
burning, at least you're alldoing it together and I think
(39:25):
there is genuinely there may beputting out a few of the fires
maybe.
So yeah, and, and that's whereyou can you can focus local, as
we said.
Dr brian, I have a questionabout so.
So we can all agree that mediais skewed to the negative, to
(39:46):
the outrageous right.
What makes money right?
Yeah it, you know me being withyou know the, the student media
.
You know I, I saw research thatsays that outrageous stories,
outrageous headlines increaseclick rate by 2.4%, which
(40:07):
doesn't sound like a lot, butfor media that's a huge number,
2.4% and so it's so tantalizingfor media organizations to
really tempting it's hard forthem to not.
But, dr Bryant, what advice doyou have to young people,
incoming college students, whoare trying to get good political
(40:32):
news media, because they haveto stay informed.
You know the alternative cannotbe like, well, I just don't
consume news.
Speaker 4 (40:40):
Yeah, yeah it's a it's a wonderful question and I
struggle with it myself and justin terms of my own media
consumption yeah what I found,at least for myself, is that, as
I said earlier in thediscussion, not taking one
source, there are websites thatexist that aggregate sources,
(41:02):
like allsidescom, that haveliterally, they put it out there
.
This article was written fromthe right-wing perspective.
This article was written fromthe left-wing perspective.
This article is neutral and youcan see in the headlines a lot
of times.
You can see blatantly how theheadlines are written to
(41:23):
sensationalize one bias or theother.
But having that and being ableto see it transparently, I think
for most people okay and maybe,if you decide you want to read
them all, you can do that.
But it's a place thataggregates all of that
information in one place andallows you to choose and also,
(41:47):
again, it develops that sense ofdiscernment.
The one other thing I want tosay is that so often and I fall
victim to this myself readbeyond the headlines.
People, please read the article, because the headline is
designed, exactly as you said,to draw a person in or make them
(42:08):
upset, but to make them upsetbased on whatever their
presupposition is, whatevertheir predisposition is,
whatever their thinking is onthe issue at hand, and they
don't need to think beyond that,they don't need to read beyond
that.
It says this this is theheadline and I'm off.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (42:28):
Read the article Because a lot of times all the
context in there you read, yougo that headline was misleading
that headline.
Maybe it isn't as bad as theymade it sound.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
Well, and I was just going to add, there's a magazine
called the Week which is likethe allsidescom, and it does
that you can either get itonline or you can get a hard
copy, a paper copy, and it doesthe same thing.
It has the articles and it alsocovers international news as
well, which I think is a realimportant thing for folks to pay
attention to right now, and soif there's others like that, one
(43:02):
of the things we do on thepodcast is we put up lists of
things, and so allsidescom theWeek.
Are there other sources thatyou can think of that we could
add to his posting on thewebsite, the podcast?
Speaker 4 (43:17):
I am a reader of the Washington Post.
Speaker 2 (43:19):
I am a reader of Tell him why it's okay to still read
the Washington Post.
Speaker 4 (43:26):
The legacy of that publication itself is a legacy,
I think, that has built up myrespect, at least has earned my
respect and my trust.
Does everything that comesthrough the Washington Post?
Is it up to par?
No, but again, I don't justread the Washington Post, I read
the Dallas Morning News as well.
(43:48):
I read the Austin Statesman.
Right, you take differentsources at different levels
local, state, national, online,not online cable news.
Local news Take as much as youcan in and then develop that
(44:11):
discernment.
Speaker 2 (44:13):
Didn't you argue yesterday?
But doesn't Jeff Bezos own theWashington Post?
Yes, and so does that matter,like Murdoch owns Fox.
Speaker 4 (44:23):
I haven't seen any.
It could matter I don't want tosay that it doesn't or it does
but I haven't seen anything orread anything that Bezos is
involving himself day to day ineditorial or gatekeeping what
gets put in that newspaper orwhat isn't.
I haven't seen that and quitefrankly again, I know you don't
(44:44):
want to hear this, but you couldgo back to William Randolph
Hearst and on through to richpeople have owned news
publications for the existenceof this country communications
for the existence of thiscountry.
Speaker 2 (45:01):
And so Well, there was a, there was a documentary
about two or three years agocalled.
The Fourth Estate, yeah, whichwas really well done.
And it followed it was the NewYork Times and the Washington.
Speaker 4 (45:09):
Post the Times.
Speaker 2 (45:09):
And the way they pursued a couple of stories and
that whole team and I rememberwatching it was four episodes
it's really worth watching realtime and watching the checks and
balances they had on who youknow, what they publish and when
they could publish it and if itwas accurate and the number of
times they had to really be surethat everything was
substantiated.
And you know so much.
(45:31):
Today we hear people saying,well, everybody knows and that's
not a good enough source thateverybody knows.
And so my feeling has alwaysbeen.
Of course, I also come from theWatergate generation and
Woodward Bernstein, I think,were two of my early-on heroes.
Actually, bernstein actuallydated with my friends in college
(45:52):
.
Speaker 4 (45:53):
Oh wow, all right, one degree of separation.
Speaker 2 (45:56):
Yeah, but he was a jerk as a boyfriend, but anyway.
So I do think one of the thingsI do sometimes, Nathan is, I
will watch.
My media of choice is MSNBC,because I like Rachel Maddow and
the old guy there what's hisname?
It does the last word.
Speaker 1 (46:17):
Lawrence O'Donnell.
Speaker 2 (46:18):
Yeah, but then I'll turn on Fox and watch Fox for a
while to hear how the twodifferent people are going at
the story.
You know it's a crazy worldright now and this is probably
not going to go in the podcast,but listening to what was said
on the day of January the 6th bypeople like McCarthy and
(46:40):
Lindsey Graham.
Well, but also you know MitchMcConnell and then what was said
recently.
You know what they didafterwards.
It's crazy making you know.
It's crazy making Everybody sawwhat happened that day, knew
what was going on and yetsomehow there's been this.
I don't know if you'd call itgaslighting.
(47:01):
That's exactly what it is, andalso, you know it's sort of like
.
I love that.
You know that word, oh, I knowthat word.
And you know the kids aresaying, hey, but the emperor
doesn't have any clothes on, andthe grown-ups are all saying,
oh, yeah, he does.
And you know there's thatcraziness going on.
But that makes me crazy.
I don't like to be gaslighted.
Speaker 3 (47:21):
I do.
I want to ask this Dr Bryantabout.
You see, I want to ask this, so, real, pop In about three
minutes.
Speaker 2 (47:31):
I'm going to take him to lunch because he's going to
pass out.
Speaker 3 (47:33):
Okay, yeah, we're almost.
We're at 47 minutes, so we'reon the phone.
Oh, because he's going to passout.
Speaker 4 (47:36):
Okay, yeah, we're almost, we're at 47 minutes, so
we're on the phone.
Oh, we've been having a gooddiscussion here, yeah.
Speaker 3 (47:39):
So I just wanted to ask.
I feel like a real top geez.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
I'm tired too, so I feel like you want to come to
lunch with us.
I didn't have.
Speaker 3 (47:49):
I got to go get coffee with my girlfriend, but
that's why I'm feeling this way.
I haven't my coffee yet, soI'll say it this way.
I feel like a real popularterminology in the political
space right now is far right,far right, far left, all this
kind of stuff.
I am a young person so I can betransparent in that.
(48:14):
I mostly align with a lot moredemocratic, left-signing,
liberal perspectives, and what Ihear from a lot of my peers is
just how they try to present thescene, the political scene as
well.
There's all these crazyfar-right people and the
far-left isn't.
They're not even that far-left,but I'm not so convinced.
(48:37):
I think that there might beequal amounts of crazy on either
side.
How do you perceive thatpolitical spectrum of people?
Speaker 4 (48:54):
it just so happens that in the United States there
is always, for the better partof our history, save maybe the
new deal period there was centerright nation.
So the the idea of having arobust left wing, far left wing,
(49:18):
is harder in our contextbecause we've got some boogie
words socialism, communism,right and so that tempers a bit
of the sort of politicalmovement on the far left, which
is why you hear often people sayin the American context, our
leftists are not really thatleftist and indeed if they were
(49:40):
in Europe they'd probably becenter right.
It's kind of true right In theUnited States the way that our
politics are oriented.
We have been for the most parta center right country and so
it's I don't want to say it'ssafer, but it's certainly been
more fertile ground for your farright to have a platform and be
(50:04):
amplified, yeah, and have amovement, especially if it's
tied in with race.
That is where it really sort ofbecomes a thing, and so I think
the far left, far right thing Idon't want to both sides it.
I think there is an asymmetricthing going on.
But that's because of the natureof the country and the politics
(50:27):
in this country and if you lookat the political spectrum again
.
Just look at the presidents.
We've had even Democraticpresidents.
These are not hard leftists,right?
If you look at a Democraticprimary, say in 2020, who were
the hard left candidates?
Bernie Sanders, perhaps.
Did Bernie win?
(50:49):
No, no.
But if you look on the right andyou look at the candidates who
are being put up and who aredoing very well, at least up to
now, these are not your moderateRepublicans.
We're away from Mitt Romney,and Mitt Romney was even a
pretty conservative Republican,but even he in the primary was
(51:13):
seen as not conservative enough.
We're a long way from 2012,when Mitt Romney was a nominee
of the Republican Party.
And so on the right, I thinkthere is more of a fire and also
there's more leeway given inmedia and in the broader public
to that perspective, because thecountry is I don't want to say
(51:37):
naturally tilted that way, buthistorically has been tilted in
that direction.
So, without sitting here andreally putting together a whole
treatise that's sort of mypreliminary answer to that
question.
I think it's asymmetric.
I don't think it's equally farleft, far right, at least in
(51:58):
terms of what gets recognizedand what gets legitimacy in the
United States.
Speaker 3 (52:03):
That's very interesting because and yet the
right feels like they're theones who are not being given a
platform in today's.
I don't know, I'm sure you'veheard that drum beat.
Speaker 4 (52:14):
Which is a result of having an information bubble and
an information ecosystem thatconstantly tells them that they
are being victimized, that theyare being silenced, and if
that's the only thing you'rehearing, you're probably going
to believe it.
Speaker 3 (52:30):
Can I ask one more question?
And I just because ideally youwant to make change, so you
start a movement right, and so Iwant to ask what your opinion
on a successful movement intoday's generation looks like.
When I look at the policebrutality movement, that kind of
(52:54):
also morphed into just ageneralized Black Lives Matter
movement.
I participated in a lot of thatand had a lot of hope at first,
and I feel like it wasunsuccessful.
You are a person of color.
How do you perceive theeffectiveness of that movement?
Speaker 4 (53:15):
And then from there, what does a successful movement
look like in today's world whenthe movement was successful was
first of all broadening thecoalition of support and also
broadening awareness of theissue and the problems that
exist in our criminal justicesystem, with our law enforcement
(53:36):
, but also across ourinstitutions and across our
systems.
Right when it has failed, or atleast where it has come up
short, is in the hard part,which is changing policy, which
is writing laws, and that isbecause we have a political
(53:57):
structure and a political systemwhere there are, you know, by
design, it's tough to do that.
So at the national level youcan't get your voting rights
bill passed through the UnitedStates Senate because of
something called a filibusterRight.
You can't get the, the, therecognition Bill passed through
(54:18):
the United States Senate becauseof something called a
filibuster Right.
You can't get the, the, therecognition of that.
The movement in the states to,I would argue, suppress votes is
unconstitutional.
You can't get that recognizedby the Supreme Court because the
(54:40):
Supreme Court is one that wasbuilt by you mentioned Mitch
McConnell built by MitchMcConnell and Senate Republicans
and Donald Trump, and so a lotof the pushback has been
structural pushback,institutional pushback, and so I
would say where there have beensuccesses on that front has
been at the local level, whereyou're getting prosecutors who
are more progressive mindedelected to office judges,
(55:05):
prosecutors, local politicians,folks again starting from the
bottom and moving up.
We haven't got to the national,but I think change can happen.
It will happen.
It can't happen overnight, it'sgoing to happen slow and you
have to be persistent.
(55:26):
2020, summer of 2020, peoplewere out hitting the streets.
Doesn't mean that people stillneed to be hitting the streets
in 2023, but they need toremember what made them go out
in them streets in 2020 whenthey go vote First of all, to
vote and then remember how tovote.
And again, I ain't telling youhow to vote.
But again, if you have theawareness you make the decision.
(55:49):
But you have to develop thatawareness.
So I think it's been a mixtureof successes and failures.
Success, certainly, on theawareness front, on the movement
front, galvanizing young people, but not just young people,
people across the age spectrum,but also bumping up against
(56:10):
those institutional barriersthat are there, that are very
difficult to get rid of.
You need, again, more massvoting behavior to support the
type of politicians who will goto the institution and change
those rules.
So that's sort of the nextlevel of it.
Yes, we recognize this is aproblem, but now we have to
(56:33):
recognize where the barriers arein our institutions and decide
whether or not we want to keepthem.
Speaker 3 (56:40):
So a successful movement in today's generation
looks like what then from them?
Speaker 4 (56:46):
A successful movement ?
I almost feel unqualified tosay exactly.
From my perspective, asuccessful movement is one that
is multi-pronged,multi-dimensional, multi-layered
, multi-leveled, and is arecognition of both.
What is what we want, what ispossible.
Speaker 2 (57:12):
Fully informed.
Speaker 4 (57:14):
Fully informed, fully informed.
Fully informed what we, whatutopia would look like, but also
what reality looks like, andfinding somewhere where we can
make the middle, get finds, makesome changes.
You're not going to geteverything.
It's not an all or enough, allor nothing proposition right,
and that may be the.
The real perspective is is notthinking in sort of an absolute
(57:37):
terms that I'm going to geteverything I want or nothing.
That's going to kill yourmovement.
Speaker 3 (57:47):
All right, thank you, dr Ross.
Do you have any?
Speaker 2 (57:52):
Well, now you can see how come I enjoy talking to you
, I do.
Speaker 3 (57:55):
Yeah, thank you for being here.
This is fun.
Thanks for having me.
This is the stuff that I liketo talk about, and it is you too
.
It's hard to motivate I feellike my peers to have these
conversations, because peopleare overwhelmed.
I mean, it's just Without adoubt Reality.
I mean, that's not exclusive toyoung people, but Exclusive to
young people.
Speaker 2 (58:14):
Well, and you know, the thing I always want to say
is you know we have people likeKenneth and me here at
universities that you can talkwith Right, and just staying in
your bubble of hopeless youngpeople is not a good thing
either.
Speaker 3 (58:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (58:31):
Reaching out to us, letting us reach into you,
sharing the things that we, youknow, get frustrated about too.
And also, the thing I'm alwaysso happy about is I just have
lots of time.
I've got a lot of life.
Speaker 3 (58:45):
Yeah.
So, that is.
Our greatest commodity is ourtime and energy.
Speaker 2 (58:50):
And you're investing in yourself by doing so.
Speaker 3 (58:53):
Keep on investing, keep on building your ability to
make good decisions yeah, and Ilike the point you made about
talking to people like dr bryantlike that's great advice for
young people is like seek, youknow people that you can look up
to with more life experience,with more education than you and
(59:13):
in one-on-one conversationswith those people.
Speaker 2 (59:16):
And expect them to care about you.
Speaker 4 (59:18):
Yes, I can tell you, and I'll say this, at least on
our campus.
It doesn't have to be Kathy orI.
There are so many faculty onthis campus who care deeply
about their students, who caredeeply about the world, and will
willingly sit down and listento what you have to share, and
so use that resource.
(59:38):
And there are so many resourceson this campus that can be used
.
Seek those resources out anduse them.
They're here, you paying forthem.
Use them.
Speaker 3 (59:47):
Absolutely.
There you go yeah that is adrum I bang as well.
Speaker 1 (59:50):
So thank you for saying that.
Speaker 3 (59:51):
Yeah, wonderful Well is there anything else that you
want to say?
Speaker 2 (59:56):
Right Thanks for having me, let's go get some
wood.
Speaker 3 (59:59):
Yeah, y'all go eat.
Let me close this out.
This has been the Ask Dr Rosspodcast.
If you have any questions thatyou want answered, you can
always ask us at adrquestions atgmailcom.
That's it for today.
Thanks so much for listening.
Dr Bryant, thanks for beinghere.
Thank you much.
Stay tuned to the Ask Dr Ross podcast.
It's created to give you infoto succeed at college.
Our hosts are highly qualified.
Dr Catherine Ross is a memberof the University of Texas
System's Academy ofDistinguished Teachers.
She's also a popular professorof 19th century English
literature.
Co-host and multimedia editorNathan Wood provides a student
(00:27):
perspective.
Ask Dr Ross is a communityservice of the University of
Texas at Tyler.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Hi, I'm Katherine Ross and this is a podcast for
parents, students in school whoare thinking about going to
college, college students whoparents students in school who
are thinking about going tocollege, college students who
are already here, adults who arethinking of maybe going back to
college and really anyone whowants to know more about what
life in colleges anduniversities is like today in
the US of A.
I'm here with my friend, nathanWitt, who's a student here.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
If you'd like to ask Dr Ross a question, you can
email us at adrquestions atgmailcom.
Today we're going to talk alittle bit more about hope.
So we've got a little kind ofmini segment about hope, maybe
the feeling of hopelessness inthe incoming generations, and
how we can address that, how wecan respond to that feeling.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Yeah, a lot of the times that Nathan and I've been
working on these interviews, youknow we've tried to talk about
all the different aspects ofcollege but there's also the
aspect of the.
You know, where does it all fitin the students' lives and
where are they going?
And we're all trying to getthem prepared for the future and
yet so many of your students,you and your classmates, have
expressed a real doubt about thefuture.
(01:41):
So Nathan and I have talkedabout it a lot and we've had
someone come in and talk to us alittle bit about finances.
But I wanted to bring in myfriend, dr Kenneth Bryant, who
is an associate professor ofpolitical science here at UT
Tyler, an award-winning teacher,but he's also taught mass media
in American politics and I feelas though so much of what is
(02:03):
giving students today a lot ofanxiety is the mass media
coverage of politics.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
So handing that over then to you, want to tell us a
little bit about how you cameabout to this topic yourself,
and then maybe just startplowing in.
Speaker 4 (02:19):
Okay.
So how did I come to the topicof mass media and American
politics?
The origin my favorite film ofall time.
It's a film called Network,released in 1976.
And this film was prescient.
It predicted where we are nowwith cable news.
The sensationalism, theover-the-topness, the fixation
(02:46):
on conflict was what PaddyChayefsky, who was the writer of
the film, was trying to put outthere in the 1970s to predict.
Where is this mass media going?
Where is this coverage going?
What are we fixated on?
Why is there so much doom?
Mind you, this is in themid-70s, so this is right after
(03:08):
Watergate.
So the public, the Americanpublic, were in a pretty cynical
mood.
As a matter of fact, you couldsay it was the first time in
American history when thebroader general public began to
distrust our institutions.
Okay, except for theinstitution that blew all of
this open, which was the media.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
The Washington Post the.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
Washington Post.
Yes, so Network is my all-timefavorite film and as I'm
watching this film throughoutthe years, and as I get to my
current post, I'm thinking years.
And as I get to my current post, I'm thinking, oh, I would love
to figure out a way to bringthe content of what this film is
talking about, but also so manyother films related to mass
(03:53):
media and American politics, andalso so many television shows
and also so much, right inbroader media.
How do I bring that into aclass?
Speaker 2 (04:07):
So we can think about it intelligently critically?
Speaker 4 (04:10):
Yes, and it has been my favorite course to teach,
because it is an opportunity tonot only consume but also to
critique what it is that we'reseeing and what it is that we're
hearing, and also to put thingsin a broader context, that what
(04:31):
we see today is a little bitdifferent than what we saw 50
years ago, but so much of it isthe same.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
The trends in it maybe yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Same in what way?
Same kind of sensationalism.
If it bleeds, it leads, if it'sscandalous, it's what we hear
about first.
Speaker 4 (04:50):
Absolutely that part, but also the public's
perception of our society.
Right now, things feel prettydark.
They feel pretty hopeless isthe word that you all have
shared about hope.
That is something that hashappened in cycles.
That is something that wasthere with us 50 years ago, that
(05:11):
is something that is with usnow and that is something that
will be with us 50 years fromnow.
But that doesn't mean thatimprovements cannot be made,
that advancements are not made,and that educating our public
about this cycle and who'sresponsible for this cycle
(05:34):
that's why I think what we do isso important.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Well, now one of the things that Nathan and I talked
about yesterday is just who doyou trust?
This is very yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Could you address that?
Who do you trust out there?
This is very yeah and could youaddress that?
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Who do you trust Yourself?
Someone is getting a call, areal quick call.
Speaker 4 (05:53):
Sorry.
And what do I mean by yourself?
I don't mean you know the I didmy own research crowd, right,
do your own research, certainly.
But what I mean by trustyourself is equip yourself with
the skills that you need todevelop a discernment that's
necessary as a consumer of news,as a consumer of media, in 2023
(06:16):
.
Develop the skills that youneed to have to discern when
something is maybe not socredible, because the signs will
be there, right, the telltalesigns will be there, okay.
And when something, hey, okay,that kind of makes sense.
But I also know I can't takejust one source.
(06:37):
I've got to take another, andanother, and another and see if
there's a pattern, and anotherand another and see if there's a
pattern.
The pattern, the multiplesources, the discernment comes
from equipping yourself with theeducation necessary.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
Okay.
So I have now to play devil'sadvocate a little bit and try to
defend this position of why itfeels hopeless.
And I feel like a lot of youngpeople right now are kind of
throwing their hands up andgiving up.
And there's a couple things inthere.
The first one I want to addressis you know, because I agree,
(07:16):
to really know if you're gettinga credible source, you need to,
you know, look at multipledifferent sources from multiple
different political leanings andkind of see where it meets in
the middle.
The difficult thing is thatinformation is so accessible,
the 24 hour news cycle is sodense, that it is impossible
(07:37):
Like I believe, genuinelyimpossible to fact check, by
multiple sources, every piece ofnews that you get.
And it is very difficult to doto fact check the important
pieces of news that you get,because there's just so many,
there's just a overwhelmingamount of information constantly
(08:02):
being thrown in front of us byeveryone.
And what's also difficult and Ithink it's interesting, because
I hear this perspective a lotand I'll I'll don't know the
truth because I didn't grow upin other generations and I am
not educated enough on othergenerations, but I always hear
people say you know well, this,is this a thing, and people
(08:25):
always feel like it's bad.
They always feel like theeconomy is bad.
They always feel like thepolitics are bad.
But it is so hard for me tolook at where things are at
today and believe that thingswere this bad in the past.
So you feel like can I clarifythat?
(08:47):
Do you feel like the state ofAmerican politics are not worse
now than they have been in thepast?
Speaker 4 (08:55):
The state of American politics are as bad as they've
been.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
Okay, so it hasn't been like a crazy increase.
Speaker 4 (09:05):
It's just different.
So what I mean by that is, forexample, in the 1960s to give
some context, 1960s ourpolitical leaders we didn't just
disagree with our politicalleaders, they were being
assassinated, they were beingkilled.
Movements, the leadership ofmovements, assassinated, killed.
(09:27):
Students literally taking overadministrative buildings by a
protest protesting the war inVietnam, where they were being
drafted to go to war, to fight awar where a lot of folks
couldn't really figure out whatthe rationale was.
A lot of folks couldn't reallyfigure out what the rationale
was.
Today, I don't want to poo-poothe challenges today, because
(09:49):
they are very real.
They're just different.
They're structural challenges.
We have a problem withgerrymandering in this country,
For sure.
We have a broader problem withthe lack of trust in our
institutions which started inthe 1970s, right, but when I say
it's always been pretty bad,it's like when I speak with my
(10:10):
students about the state of ourdemocracy, the United States as
a democracy has it lived up toits name?
Has it lived up to its promises?
We sort of look at the 250years we've been around almost
250 years and I can pinpoint,maybe you know, 30 years-ish
(10:34):
where we can say, oh okay, wewere actually actively going
towards increasing voting rights, increasing the ability, you
know, suffrage.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
To be truly democratic.
Speaker 4 (10:49):
To be truly democratic and respect all
perspectives, and it feels alittle bit like a backslide now,
and so that is sort of anotherreminder that we haven't always
lived up to that.
We haven't always lived up tothat, and so to say that it's
worse now would be almost toignore where we've been and what
(11:10):
we've been dealing with.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Yeah, I don't know.
I do feel like there's room tosay, hey, it was really bad, or
it was significantly bad, it isworse.
And even if it is worse orisn't worse, I feel like maybe
there's a sense of hopelessnessin the statement hey, it's
always been this bad.
Well then, how do you have hopein it getting better if it's
(11:37):
almost been 250 years and no onehas been able to make
significant improvements in thestate of American politics?
How do I, as a young person,have confidence that my
generation will be the one?
You know where your hope comes?
Speaker 4 (11:52):
from?
Please tell me.
The fight, the fight.
Where does your hope come from?
How do you feel less hopeless?
Get a little fight in you andsay's going on right now not
acceptable and we are not goingto?
Yes, this is the way thingshave been and perhaps things
will be challenging movingforward.
(12:13):
We're not going to live in autopia, but we're going to fight
to change things, to make themthe way that we see.
We want this country to exist.
And how do do we fight?
There's your question.
Like I said once upon a timeago, it was literally college
students taking overadministration buildings.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
I mean, I think they did that in Seattle not too long
ago, right?
Speaker 4 (12:34):
Yeah, it was massive, it was across the country.
Maybe that doesn't look likethat now, in 2023.
But one thing that I want toshare with students right, if
the definition of hope is havingsomething to look forward to,
what is it that you can lookforward to in this fight to make
(12:55):
change?
The one tool that you have thatyou wouldn't have had 50 years
ago is the vote.
If you were under the age of 21, you didn't have the vote, so
there's one tool that you canuse just as a base to fight to
make changes the vote.
(13:17):
We've spoken about the media,the overwhelming amount of
sources.
Social media has been, I think,a blessing and a curse.
The curse, I think, is prettyobvious, but the blessing is
also it has democratized theability to mobilize people
(13:38):
behind a cause.
No matter what the cause is nomatter what the cause is.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Conservative or liberal or in between.
Speaker 4 (13:46):
And that's a useful tool that didn't exist 50 years
ago, and so the tools are here.
You just got to have the fightand having something to look
forward to.
We've got an election coming up2024.
We've got local elections.
We've got local elections.
We've got statewide elections,vote and also, whatever your
(14:12):
political persuasions are,whatever it is, whoever it is
that you support, have somefight.
That's going to help you feel alittle less hopeful hopeless, I
should say because that issomething, you can do something.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
So I think one of the reasons why you feel hopeless
is you feel helpless.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
And, I think, being able to do some action.
And, of course, then, well, howdo you get going on that?
Well, there's the League ofWomen Voters, there's students,
there's sometimes, you know youI don't know if you know this,
kenneth, but this young mancreated his own nonprofit
organization.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
Bravo.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
And you have that kind of energy, that kind of
organizing energy and leadershipto think in terms of let's have
the anti-hopelessness brigadeor whatever.
I mean truly.
And here again I come back tothe two things that we sort of
came up with yesterday.
And here again I come back tothe two things that we sort of
came up with yesterday.
One is getting better educatedabout what is possible, what has
(15:13):
happened, you know what are thelegalities of things, but also
recognizing that you always giveup something.
You can't have it all.
And you know, I hear, I knowthat one place you go sometimes
is away from the starry-eyedidealist where everything's
going to be perfect.
And that's one of the hardestthings about coming of age is
you begin to realize oh man, Ithought it was going to be so
(15:34):
great to be in college.
Oh man, I thought it was goingto be so great to be out of
college.
I thought it was going to be sogreat to be married.
I thought it was going to be sogreat to be a professor or
whatever.
And you get in that job.
You go.
Oh, my goodness, this is hardand you're just beginning to see
the hard things in front of you, but they're also excitingly
hard because you get to do more.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Still, I know that sounds like pablum, doesn't it?
Speaker 3 (15:59):
Well, it's, I don't know, I think.
I think that there's, there'sand it is, I feel like, very
heavily influenced by theintroduction of media,
specifically social media,specifically these, you know,
little pocket computers we havethat we carry around everywhere,
where I think just beingoverwhelmed, just as a general
(16:21):
experience is so much moreprevalent in our incoming
generations, and I think itmakes it's hard, it's harder to
mobilize, it's hard to feel theexcitement, it's hard to feel
the hope.
And this is an argument my dadalways says and boy, I don't
like it is.
You know, I talk to him aboutman, it just feels like the
(16:41):
world is horrible.
And everywhere you know, Italked to him about man it just
feels like the world is horrible.
And everywhere you look, there'sjust horrible things.
Because, like we said, you know, outrage sells, shock sells,
and so the algorithm doesn'tcare about you, it just wants
your attention.
And you know the whole sayingabout train wrecks and how you
can't look away.
I mean, that's what it showsyou all day is just terrible
(17:04):
things because you can't lookaway.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
So what's your dad say so?
Speaker 3 (17:07):
my dad always says he's like well, the world has
always been this horrible, youjust haven't been able to see it
.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
That's kind of what we're saying too, isn't?
Speaker 3 (17:15):
it, and maybe that's the case, but it doesn't change
the fact that now all we see isthe bad stuff, and so I feel
like it makes it that muchharder to have hope.
You know, kind of like what youI think you said this yesterday
about something about you know,if I would have known it was
going to be this hard, I mightnot have done it Right.
(17:36):
And I think that may apply hereto this feeling of hope,
because for the oldergenerations who have had hope
through life, I wonder that samequestion would it have been as
easy for them to have hope ifthey knew just how horrible the
world was?
Speaker 4 (17:55):
let me first say this , because I don't want to sit
here and make it seem like Idon't understand exactly what
you're saying.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Yeah, absolutely, doom-scroll myself yeah, I
absolutely sit in front of andmake it seem like I don't
understand exactly what you'resaying, nor do I.
Speaker 4 (18:05):
I get it too Absolutely doom scroll myself.
I absolutely sit in front ofthe news and contemplate oh my
gosh, this is awful, this isawful, and nothing's going to
right this feeling.
Nothing's going to change, ifnot get worse.
I can't remember who gave methis piece of advice, but it's
(18:30):
one that I try to hang on to.
I think part of the sense ofbeing overwhelmed and feeling
that hopelessness is you'retrying to take on more than
necessary.
You're trying to think abouthow do I change the world, or
how does the world changeinstead of how does my world
change?
How can I impact my world?
(18:51):
What can I do as an individual?
Even a small thing is a bigthing.
Small things can be big thingsall the time, and so I think one
of the things, at least for me,is thinking about what it is.
What I understand, that I can'tsnap my finger and change the
(19:11):
outcome of an election.
I can't snap my finger and saythe economy is going to do this.
I can't snap my finger and saywar is going to end all across
the globe or that people aregoing to be wonderful to each
other on social media Can'tchange that.
I can't do that.
What I can change is what I dofor myself.
Causes do I involve myself in?
(19:33):
Where do I give my money to?
How do I vote when I am in aclassroom?
What are the issues that I'mtalking about, that students
should know, that they shouldhave an education on?
(19:57):
And again, one thing that Ithink there's a misnomer and I
know you understand this becauseyou're on this campus but one
of the misnomers is thatprofessors are indoctrination
machines.
Sure, are indoctrinationmachines.
Sure, and I always find that abit objectionable because A it's
tough enough getting folks toread syllabi, let alone change
their entire worldview based onwhat it is that I'm saying in my
(20:20):
class.
Sure, yeah, but also, educationis giving you all the
information and then giving youthe opportunity to make choices,
particularly in my field, right, I always say it's my job to
give you the information, toinform you.
It is not my job to tell youwhat to do with it, right?
(20:40):
So all of this discussion aboutwokeness or woke is the idea of
really just being aware.
Once you leave my class, youcan no longer say you're not
aware.
What you do with that awarenessis completely up to you.
Yeah, and that's where I get to, how do you feel a little less
hopeless?
Figure out what you can do inyour own individual life at your
(21:02):
own scale.
That is, making some form ofpositive change.
That might help just a littlebit.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
I want to insert two other pieces to that too,
because I teach English, so Idon't get to teach something
quite as currently fascinatingas politics are right now, but I
do teach skills that have to dowith living an examined life,
and one of the things a lot ofpeople don't do is they don't
pay attention to their need forrecreation, their need for
(21:35):
friendships, need for sleep andhealthy food.
And as much as that sounds likemom's talking to you, it's
really true that it's so easy toget off into these dark places
if you're not also having somefun, having a chance to be with
friends and also taking care ofyour body, absolutely.
(21:56):
So that's another little pieceof this.
What can you do to prevent thehopelessness too?
And that may seem real selfish,but it's actually what makes
you able to give more be abetter friend, a better lover, a
better student, whatever betterson.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
Yeah, as you know, I mean that is my perspective on
it.
My perspective on it is give upon the hope.
So follow me on this, Give upon the hope, Give up on.
And so follow me on this Giveup on the hope, Give up on.
And it's been my experience ofthis working of.
I came right out of high schooland I was on fire and I wanted
(22:37):
change and I saw the entireglobe.
I felt, you know,metaphorically, looked back and
saw the whole thing and was likewe've got so much we need to
fix and so quickly was my flamestomped out.
Because it's just such a bigundertaking to change the world
or change America, even tochange the state of Texas, you
(22:58):
know, and it crushed me and Igave up and I gave up and I just
happened to be in love withskateboarding and the when the
pandemic happened and I had tomove back in with my parents, my
hometown, I was living oncampus, so my college shut down.
I was so lost and frustrated.
(23:19):
I had no hope in the world.
All I had was likeskateboarding was fun and we had
a really old rundown skate park.
This is where the nonprofitstarted for me.
We had this old rundown skatepark and it was never in my mind
to do something good for thecommunity, for the world.
It was completely selfish.
It was just I loveskateboarding, I need
skateboarding.
I don't have skateboarding.
How do I have skateboarding?
(23:40):
Small little, justskateboarding.
Rest of my life is horrible.
I have skateboarding smalllittle, just skateboarding.
Rest of my life is horrible.
I'm so unhappy.
And so I worked on this park andby doing this people working on
this park I mean by myself,just me and a drill and some
screws and some plywood.
And as I was doing this, peoplewould drive by or, like you
know, I would post it on mySnapchat and people would see
(24:02):
and they're like, hey, I'll comehelp you, I'll come help you,
I'll come help you do this Like.
For the longest time there wasthis group of high schoolers
that would just go hang outthere, Like they would go grab
Sonic after school, and theywould just go sit there and
listen to music.
They wouldn't really skate toomuch, they wouldn't help build
ramps, they would just be therebecause they needed somewhere to
be.
And that's when I started torealize like, oh wait, like this
(24:26):
could kind of be something.
And we built a skate parkcommunity.
And then, yeah, and then Istarted to feel hope in this
little community, Like maybe,maybe I, we can do something
right here in this little groupof skaters.
And then some community members, some some older peers, came
alongside us and said, hey, howdo we do something more for you
guys?
And so we made this little gameclub and that started the
(24:48):
formation of the nonprofit.
And as the nonprofit formed,our city came alongside us.
And then all of a sudden I hadhope in my tiny little city and
I'm like, well, maybe the wholeworld is ruined, but maybe here
in this small little town we cando something.
And as that grew, the countyembraced us and came along board
with the non-profit.
And now I'm at this point whereI'm like I have faith in my
(25:12):
county.
Maybe this county can besomething.
And as I've gotten here toTyler and started to see the
same kind of communities andmovements build in Tyler, I'm
like well, maybe if we can buildup enough of these little
communities and towns, maybethere's hope for Texas.
And so my personal perspectiveis like give yourself the air to
(25:35):
breathe of, like giving up.
Speaker 4 (25:38):
Yeah, build hope from the bottom up.
That's what it sounds like.
Yes, yes, I was thinking ofthis metaphor.
Maybe this is because I'm home.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
We're going out to lunch later, okay.
Speaker 4 (25:53):
When you go to the buffet, there's no way possible
that you can consume everysingle thing at that buffet.
But you want to.
You may want to and you mayfeel compelled to, but you can't
.
It's not possible, it's nothealthy to do that.
(26:15):
Right, take your plate and puton your plate what you can and
tackle that.
That is building hope from thebottom up.
I love that tale of buildingcommunity from you started with
one yourself, trust yourself,and you build a community and
(26:37):
then you notice, oh, there areother communities building up
around here.
We we have a commonality, ormaybe we don't.
Maybe the only commonality wehave is that we want to build
community.
Right, that is beautiful.
That is, think, a change maker.
If all of us participated inthat way, we might look up and
(27:02):
see the world itself change.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
So I wanted to ask about local politics, how, how,
I know I don't know what classesyou teach and what your
research and study is in classesyou teach and what your
research and study is in, but doyou feel like you know?
As we're talking about lookingsmall, do you feel like a good
advice for young people lookingfor hope is to get yourself
(27:27):
involved in voting for localpolitics, or is that kind of a
waste?
Because I feel like that's aperception among young people,
that local politics I mean whatcan they really influence Like,
what is it really doing?
Speaker 2 (27:36):
What books are in the library.
Speaker 4 (27:38):
For one thing I'll give you a perfect example why
local politics not only arelocal politics the most
important to your life, on aneveryday right, local politics
is the police department, thefire department, the roads right
, the schools, the libraries andso forth.
In a little town calledSegalville, texas, there was a
(28:02):
mayoral election back in May.
The race, the final tally ofthat race in this town of 10,000
or so, was 222 votes to 221votes.
The difference between thewinner and the loser was one
(28:24):
vote and the reason this is, Ithink, funny to me, is my
husband and I had just movedfrom Segalville Okay, where two
votes, our two votes, could havedetermined that election.
That's a powerful reminder thatyour vote, particularly in those
(28:45):
local elections, count for morebecause fewer people are
showing up.
So imagine if you did the Gen Z, millennial, younger folks
showed up en masse to vote inthese local elections.
They're going to make adifference because one of the
things that you don't see areyounger folks showing up to
(29:07):
local elections, which may bewhy you look around and you are
discontented with what's goingon in the city because your
voice isn't a part of thedecision making.
So local elections huge.
I cannot impress upon the folksenough how important local
(29:28):
elections are and, as a matterof fact, I understand that
presidential elections get themoney, get the attention.
Presidential elections get themoney, get the attention.
But Joe Biden or Donald Trumpor Barack Obama or Bill Clinton,
the odds of them having animpact on your life here in
Tyler, texas, is very smallcompared with the impact of your
(29:51):
local city council person oryour mayor.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
And most of us don't even know who they are, and most
of us don't even know who theyare, and most of us don't even
know who they are Much less whatthey represent.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
Do you have a theory or an opinion on why young
people don't vote in the samepercentages that older
generations are?
That's not a new thing, thoughright, it's not a new thing?
Speaker 4 (30:13):
Yeah, but why is that ?
I ask this question everysemester because we look at the
numbers and it's there Usuallythe 18 to 29-year-old crowd.
They vote roughly half of the65 plus.
Part of it, I think, has to dowith the politicians and what
the politicians are talkingabout.
If the politicians look at thelast election and they see 18 to
(30:38):
29 year olds probably not goingto show up to vote, they're not
going to talk about the issuesthat resonate with 18 to 29 year
olds, because why they're notgoing to show up?
I need votes.
So I'm going to fixate on theissues that matter to the senior
citizens, the boomers, as theysay.
Now, right, it's like aself-fulfilling cycle where the
(31:05):
politicians don't talk about theissues that resonate with young
people, so young people don'tvote.
And because young people don'tvote, the politicians don't talk
about the issues that resonatewith young people.
Just keeps doing it so one ofthe solutions that we've seen in
the last um six years is we'veseen more and more young people
running for office aoc yeah,maxwell frost down in florida,
(31:30):
right?
young people saying, okay, well,if y'all are not going to talk
about what we care about, we'regoing to run because you're
eligible, right?
Most of you running for localoffice.
I don't know what the rules areand, tyler, in terms of an age
limit, I doubt there is probablyjust have to be 18.
If you want to run for Congress, right, you got to be a certain
age.
You want to run for the Senate?
(31:51):
You got to be a certain age.
You want to run for president?
But that's later on down theline, what we say about local
elections.
You could, you could run formayor, right?
Speaker 2 (32:01):
right right now.
Or you could organize yourfriends to say, hey, local
candidates, talk about the stuffwe care about.
Here's the stuff we care about,yep, and and you know being as
proactive, and I know that seemskind of overwhelming too, but
it's something you know about.
(32:22):
I mean, listen, all the thingswe've talked about this summer
and fall and spring when we'vebeen working on this project.
You all have so many things tosay.
Say them, and this is one ofthe reasons why we did the
podcast too is to try to saythings out there to people that
might be listening.
Yeah, but sometimes it's justit's hard finding an audience
too.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
Sure, yeah, well, fine, influencing a city
election feels a lot moretangible than influencing a
national election, absolutely soI think.
So, like off podcast I would be.
Do we have like, when's ourTyler's election cycle coming
Like?
We don't even know.
Speaker 4 (33:02):
I wish I knew I don't live in Tyler, so yeah, I don't
either.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
Yeah, I live in Mineola, but Well, I live in
Tyler and I should know, but Idon't Okay yeah.
But you know like, my husbandquit taking the local paper for
a while because he just couldn'tstomach it.
But I finally said, no, we'vegot to take the paper.
Just see what folks.
Speaker 4 (33:19):
Well, the one thing I would say to the audience, if
you want to find out, is go tothe Secretary of State.
Whatever your Secretary ofState if you're in Texas or
you're in Georgia or you're inOhio go to your Secretary of
State's website or go to yourCounty Board of Elections
website and they will have veryimportant dates for upcoming
(33:39):
elections, registrationdeadlines and things of that
sort, or League of Women Voters.
They also have really greatinformation there.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
Although you know, I'll just share this with you.
I've started going to theLeague of Women Voters, and they
are not doing a real good jobeither of getting the news out
to folks.
They seem to feel sort ofoverwhelmed by it as well, and I
remember when I first got here,I think it was the AAUW that
sends out a kind of a recap ofwho all the candidates are and
(34:10):
what they stand for, and that'sthe AAUW American Association of
University Women and I haven'tseen some of their work recently
either.
My guess is, Nathan, that anawful lot of us are feeling it.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
I don't think that it's exclusive to young people
the more I feel it is harder onyoung people, and we talked
about this after yesterday'sepisode.
I feel like it's harder onyoung people because we are new
to this world, we don't have thewisdom and perspective to
(34:44):
understand the broader pictureand and even there's a
difference, even for myself andand I'm very fortunate to have a
family that, like you know,like you could talk with Well
since yeah, since I was a kidlike they never babied me, like
they talked to me like an adulteven before I was an adult.
And so I am very fortunate to atleast understand that it may be
(35:09):
the case like things havealways been bad Right, or it may
be the case that, in the grandscheme of things, we're headed
in a positive trend, even thoughthings seem really bad right
now.
But there is a differencebetween knowing that because you
have been told, andunderstanding that because you
have lived a full, you know 40,50, 60 years and you understand
(35:32):
that because you've seen it.
And there's a difference there.
And there's also the differencebetween, like our formative
years were spent in this chaoswhere every generation before us
at least, even if now y'all areexperiencing the chaos of a
cell phone your formative yearswere in a much more peaceful I
(35:53):
feel like, kind of simpler atleast not as dense,
informationally dense world.
And that's, I feel, difficult.
You know, you were saying howyou recognized yesterday you.
You were doom scrolling alittle bit and you realize, oh,
this is probably not going to begood for me, and then you oh,
it's making me crazy, yourecognize the next day how it
(36:15):
influenced your mood, becauseyour frontal lobe is developed,
you have wisdom, you haveperspective.
We have 18-year-olds who are notfully developed.
They're not fully aware thatthese things will influence your
brain chemistry or understandwhat that means.
You know.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
Well, and it's been made worse by COVID, because
everybody wants to shut in.
I think it ramped it up evenmore.
The one thing I was going tosay to you that's interesting
besides education is that someof the students I know that have
the most hope are actuallystudents who've done things like
been on missionary trips toIndia or to South America, to
(36:54):
countries where children, orAfrica, where kids really I mean
what we have is really good.
And I can remember my motherlooking at me saying, well,
think about the starvingchildren in Armenia.
And I was going yeah, mom, yeahright, it still sucks to be in
Tyler, texas, but actually therelative comfort we live in is
(37:15):
something.
We don't often feel gratitudeand I know that I'm the worst
person about doing gratitudelists and stuff like that, but
every now and then it probablyis a good idea just to take a
look.
You know, one of the things Ido, girl.
I see these precious littleAfrican children doing these fun
dances and then behind them aredirt streets and hovels and
(37:37):
they're dancing and I'm going,let's do that.
So I danced down the streetwhen I walked the dog listening
to music.
You know, I don't know whereI'm going with this exactly.
We'll probably take all thisout.
But you know, another thought Ihad was you know, you know my
story that I went back to gradschool at 40 and started a whole
new career and I got to highereducation thinking it was going
(37:57):
to be what I remembered as anundergraduate.
And I got in and went whoa, itwas really different.
And you heard Professor Dotysaying yesterday you know you
were always so idealistic,catherine.
I used to always have to tellyou, calm down, calm down.
And what I realized is, over the20 years I've been doing this
now, is that I have had to makechoices about the kind of
scholarly work I would do, thewhere I put my time.
(38:18):
Was I going to put it inhigh-powered scholarship?
Was I going to put it inleadership?
I'm doing a podcast now which Ithink is probably more valuable
than some of the articles I'vewritten.
If it gets out to an audiencein that it can make a difference
.
And I will still probably go tomy grave complaining about the
things that are wrong withhigher education, at the same
(38:39):
time saying how many wonderfulthings there are about it and
how glad I am that I'm in it andhow glad I know Kenneth and I
know you and we get to teachstudents and that students get
to come to places like this andtry to sort out their hopes and
their despair and to get thekind of knowledge and the kind
of experience and also the kindof fellowship with people like
(39:00):
professor brian.
Speaker 3 (39:02):
Yeah, I think fellowship is a real tangible,
approachable way to find hopetoo.
Absolutely, you know it's thereis, there's definitely some
sense of solace and at least,even if you're just all in the
room together banging the wardrum, saying the world is
burning, at least you're alldoing it together and I think
(39:25):
there is genuinely there may beputting out a few of the fires
maybe.
So yeah, and, and that's whereyou can you can focus local, as
we said.
Dr brian, I have a questionabout so.
So we can all agree that mediais skewed to the negative, to
(39:46):
the outrageous right.
What makes money right?
Yeah it, you know me being withyou know the, the student media
.
You know I, I saw research thatsays that outrageous stories,
outrageous headlines increaseclick rate by 2.4%, which
(40:07):
doesn't sound like a lot, butfor media that's a huge number,
2.4% and so it's so tantalizingfor media organizations to
really tempting it's hard forthem to not.
But, dr Bryant, what advice doyou have to young people,
incoming college students, whoare trying to get good political
(40:32):
news media, because they haveto stay informed.
You know the alternative cannotbe like, well, I just don't
consume news.
Speaker 4 (40:40):
Yeah, yeah it's a it's a wonderful question and I
struggle with it myself and justin terms of my own media
consumption yeah what I found,at least for myself, is that, as
I said earlier in thediscussion, not taking one
source, there are websites thatexist that aggregate sources,
(41:02):
like allsidescom, that haveliterally, they put it out there
.
This article was written fromthe right-wing perspective.
This article was written fromthe left-wing perspective.
This article is neutral and youcan see in the headlines a lot
of times.
You can see blatantly how theheadlines are written to
(41:23):
sensationalize one bias or theother.
But having that and being ableto see it transparently, I think
for most people okay and maybe,if you decide you want to read
them all, you can do that.
But it's a place thataggregates all of that
information in one place andallows you to choose and also,
(41:47):
again, it develops that sense ofdiscernment.
The one other thing I want tosay is that so often and I fall
victim to this myself readbeyond the headlines.
People, please read the article, because the headline is
designed, exactly as you said,to draw a person in or make them
(42:08):
upset, but to make them upsetbased on whatever their
presupposition is, whatevertheir predisposition is,
whatever their thinking is onthe issue at hand, and they
don't need to think beyond that,they don't need to read beyond
that.
It says this this is theheadline and I'm off.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (42:28):
Read the article Because a lot of times all the
context in there you read, yougo that headline was misleading
that headline.
Maybe it isn't as bad as theymade it sound.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
Well, and I was just going to add, there's a magazine
called the Week which is likethe allsidescom, and it does
that you can either get itonline or you can get a hard
copy, a paper copy, and it doesthe same thing.
It has the articles and it alsocovers international news as
well, which I think is a realimportant thing for folks to pay
attention to right now, and soif there's others like that, one
(43:02):
of the things we do on thepodcast is we put up lists of
things, and so allsidescom theWeek.
Are there other sources thatyou can think of that we could
add to his posting on thewebsite, the podcast?
Speaker 4 (43:17):
I am a reader of the Washington Post.
Speaker 2 (43:19):
I am a reader of Tell him why it's okay to still read
the Washington Post.
Speaker 4 (43:26):
The legacy of that publication itself is a legacy,
I think, that has built up myrespect, at least has earned my
respect and my trust.
Does everything that comesthrough the Washington Post?
Is it up to par?
No, but again, I don't justread the Washington Post, I read
the Dallas Morning News as well.
(43:48):
I read the Austin Statesman.
Right, you take differentsources at different levels
local, state, national, online,not online cable news.
Local news Take as much as youcan in and then develop that
(44:11):
discernment.
Speaker 2 (44:13):
Didn't you argue yesterday?
But doesn't Jeff Bezos own theWashington Post?
Yes, and so does that matter,like Murdoch owns Fox.
Speaker 4 (44:23):
I haven't seen any.
It could matter I don't want tosay that it doesn't or it does
but I haven't seen anything orread anything that Bezos is
involving himself day to day ineditorial or gatekeeping what
gets put in that newspaper orwhat isn't.
I haven't seen that and quitefrankly again, I know you don't
(44:44):
want to hear this, but you couldgo back to William Randolph
Hearst and on through to richpeople have owned news
publications for the existenceof this country communications
for the existence of thiscountry.
Speaker 2 (45:01):
And so Well, there was a, there was a documentary
about two or three years agocalled.
The Fourth Estate, yeah, whichwas really well done.
And it followed it was the NewYork Times and the Washington.
Speaker 4 (45:09):
Post the Times.
Speaker 2 (45:09):
And the way they pursued a couple of stories and
that whole team and I rememberwatching it was four episodes
it's really worth watching realtime and watching the checks and
balances they had on who youknow, what they publish and when
they could publish it and if itwas accurate and the number of
times they had to really be surethat everything was
substantiated.
And you know so much.
(45:31):
Today we hear people saying,well, everybody knows and that's
not a good enough source thateverybody knows.
And so my feeling has alwaysbeen.
Of course, I also come from theWatergate generation and
Woodward Bernstein, I think,were two of my early-on heroes.
Actually, bernstein actuallydated with my friends in college
(45:52):
.
Speaker 4 (45:53):
Oh wow, all right, one degree of separation.
Speaker 2 (45:56):
Yeah, but he was a jerk as a boyfriend, but anyway.
So I do think one of the thingsI do sometimes, Nathan is, I
will watch.
My media of choice is MSNBC,because I like Rachel Maddow and
the old guy there what's hisname?
It does the last word.
Speaker 1 (46:17):
Lawrence O'Donnell.
Speaker 2 (46:18):
Yeah, but then I'll turn on Fox and watch Fox for a
while to hear how the twodifferent people are going at
the story.
You know it's a crazy worldright now and this is probably
not going to go in the podcast,but listening to what was said
on the day of January the 6th bypeople like McCarthy and
(46:40):
Lindsey Graham.
Well, but also you know MitchMcConnell and then what was said
recently.
You know what they didafterwards.
It's crazy making you know.
It's crazy making Everybody sawwhat happened that day, knew
what was going on and yetsomehow there's been this.
I don't know if you'd call itgaslighting.
(47:01):
That's exactly what it is, andalso, you know it's sort of like
.
I love that.
You know that word, oh, I knowthat word.
And you know the kids aresaying, hey, but the emperor
doesn't have any clothes on, andthe grown-ups are all saying,
oh, yeah, he does.
And you know there's thatcraziness going on.
But that makes me crazy.
I don't like to be gaslighted.
Speaker 3 (47:21):
I do.
I want to ask this Dr Bryantabout.
You see, I want to ask this, so, real, pop In about three
minutes.
Speaker 2 (47:31):
I'm going to take him to lunch because he's going to
pass out.
Speaker 3 (47:33):
Okay, yeah, we're almost.
We're at 47 minutes, so we'reon the phone.
Oh, because he's going to passout.
Speaker 4 (47:36):
Okay, yeah, we're almost, we're at 47 minutes, so
we're on the phone.
Oh, we've been having a gooddiscussion here, yeah.
Speaker 3 (47:39):
So I just wanted to ask.
I feel like a real top geez.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
I'm tired too, so I feel like you want to come to
lunch with us.
I didn't have.
Speaker 3 (47:49):
I got to go get coffee with my girlfriend, but
that's why I'm feeling this way.
I haven't my coffee yet, soI'll say it this way.
I feel like a real popularterminology in the political
space right now is far right,far right, far left, all this
kind of stuff.
I am a young person so I can betransparent in that.
(48:14):
I mostly align with a lot moredemocratic, left-signing,
liberal perspectives, and what Ihear from a lot of my peers is
just how they try to present thescene, the political scene as
well.
There's all these crazyfar-right people and the
far-left isn't.
They're not even that far-left,but I'm not so convinced.
(48:37):
I think that there might beequal amounts of crazy on either
side.
How do you perceive thatpolitical spectrum of people?
Speaker 4 (48:54):
it just so happens that in the United States there
is always, for the better partof our history, save maybe the
new deal period there was centerright nation.
So the the idea of having arobust left wing, far left wing,
(49:18):
is harder in our contextbecause we've got some boogie
words socialism, communism,right and so that tempers a bit
of the sort of politicalmovement on the far left, which
is why you hear often people sayin the American context, our
leftists are not really thatleftist and indeed if they were
(49:40):
in Europe they'd probably becenter right.
It's kind of true right In theUnited States the way that our
politics are oriented.
We have been for the most parta center right country and so
it's I don't want to say it'ssafer, but it's certainly been
more fertile ground for your farright to have a platform and be
(50:04):
amplified, yeah, and have amovement, especially if it's
tied in with race.
That is where it really sort ofbecomes a thing, and so I think
the far left, far right thing Idon't want to both sides it.
I think there is an asymmetricthing going on.
But that's because of the natureof the country and the politics
(50:27):
in this country and if you lookat the political spectrum again
.
Just look at the presidents.
We've had even Democraticpresidents.
These are not hard leftists,right?
If you look at a Democraticprimary, say in 2020, who were
the hard left candidates?
Bernie Sanders, perhaps.
Did Bernie win?
(50:49):
No, no.
But if you look on the right andyou look at the candidates who
are being put up and who aredoing very well, at least up to
now, these are not your moderateRepublicans.
We're away from Mitt Romney,and Mitt Romney was even a
pretty conservative Republican,but even he in the primary was
(51:13):
seen as not conservative enough.
We're a long way from 2012,when Mitt Romney was a nominee
of the Republican Party.
And so on the right, I thinkthere is more of a fire and also
there's more leeway given inmedia and in the broader public
to that perspective, because thecountry is I don't want to say
(51:37):
naturally tilted that way, buthistorically has been tilted in
that direction.
So, without sitting here andreally putting together a whole
treatise that's sort of mypreliminary answer to that
question.
I think it's asymmetric.
I don't think it's equally farleft, far right, at least in
(51:58):
terms of what gets recognizedand what gets legitimacy in the
United States.
Speaker 3 (52:03):
That's very interesting because and yet the
right feels like they're theones who are not being given a
platform in today's.
I don't know, I'm sure you'veheard that drum beat.
Speaker 4 (52:14):
Which is a result of having an information bubble and
an information ecosystem thatconstantly tells them that they
are being victimized, that theyare being silenced, and if
that's the only thing you'rehearing, you're probably going
to believe it.
Speaker 3 (52:30):
Can I ask one more question?
And I just because ideally youwant to make change, so you
start a movement right, and so Iwant to ask what your opinion
on a successful movement intoday's generation looks like.
When I look at the policebrutality movement, that kind of
(52:54):
also morphed into just ageneralized Black Lives Matter
movement.
I participated in a lot of thatand had a lot of hope at first,
and I feel like it wasunsuccessful.
You are a person of color.
How do you perceive theeffectiveness of that movement?
Speaker 4 (53:15):
And then from there, what does a successful movement
look like in today's world whenthe movement was successful was
first of all broadening thecoalition of support and also
broadening awareness of theissue and the problems that
exist in our criminal justicesystem, with our law enforcement
(53:36):
, but also across ourinstitutions and across our
systems.
Right when it has failed, or atleast where it has come up
short, is in the hard part,which is changing policy, which
is writing laws, and that isbecause we have a political
(53:57):
structure and a political systemwhere there are, you know, by
design, it's tough to do that.
So at the national level youcan't get your voting rights
bill passed through the UnitedStates Senate because of
something called a filibusterRight.
You can't get the, the, therecognition Bill passed through
(54:18):
the United States Senate becauseof something called a
filibuster Right.
You can't get the, the, therecognition of that.
The movement in the states to,I would argue, suppress votes is
unconstitutional.
You can't get that recognizedby the Supreme Court because the
(54:40):
Supreme Court is one that wasbuilt by you mentioned Mitch
McConnell built by MitchMcConnell and Senate Republicans
and Donald Trump, and so a lotof the pushback has been
structural pushback,institutional pushback, and so I
would say where there have beensuccesses on that front has
been at the local level, whereyou're getting prosecutors who
are more progressive mindedelected to office judges,
(55:05):
prosecutors, local politicians,folks again starting from the
bottom and moving up.
We haven't got to the national,but I think change can happen.
It will happen.
It can't happen overnight, it'sgoing to happen slow and you
have to be persistent.
(55:26):
2020, summer of 2020, peoplewere out hitting the streets.
Doesn't mean that people stillneed to be hitting the streets
in 2023, but they need toremember what made them go out
in them streets in 2020 whenthey go vote First of all, to
vote and then remember how tovote.
And again, I ain't telling youhow to vote.
But again, if you have theawareness you make the decision.
(55:49):
But you have to develop thatawareness.
So I think it's been a mixtureof successes and failures.
Success, certainly, on theawareness front, on the movement
front, galvanizing young people, but not just young people,
people across the age spectrum,but also bumping up against
(56:10):
those institutional barriersthat are there, that are very
difficult to get rid of.
You need, again, more massvoting behavior to support the
type of politicians who will goto the institution and change
those rules.
So that's sort of the nextlevel of it.
Yes, we recognize this is aproblem, but now we have to
(56:33):
recognize where the barriers arein our institutions and decide
whether or not we want to keepthem.
Speaker 3 (56:40):
So a successful movement in today's generation
looks like what then from them?
Speaker 4 (56:46):
A successful movement ?
I almost feel unqualified tosay exactly.
From my perspective, asuccessful movement is one that
is multi-pronged,multi-dimensional, multi-layered
, multi-leveled, and is arecognition of both.
What is what we want, what ispossible.
Speaker 2 (57:12):
Fully informed.
Speaker 4 (57:14):
Fully informed, fully informed.
Fully informed what we, whatutopia would look like, but also
what reality looks like, andfinding somewhere where we can
make the middle, get finds, makesome changes.
You're not going to geteverything.
It's not an all or enough, allor nothing proposition right,
and that may be the.
The real perspective is is notthinking in sort of an absolute
(57:37):
terms that I'm going to geteverything I want or nothing.
That's going to kill yourmovement.
Speaker 3 (57:47):
All right, thank you, dr Ross.
Do you have any?
Speaker 2 (57:52):
Well, now you can see how come I enjoy talking to you
, I do.
Speaker 3 (57:55):
Yeah, thank you for being here.
This is fun.
Thanks for having me.
This is the stuff that I liketo talk about, and it is you too
.
It's hard to motivate I feellike my peers to have these
conversations, because peopleare overwhelmed.
I mean, it's just Without adoubt Reality.
I mean, that's not exclusive toyoung people, but Exclusive to
young people.
Speaker 2 (58:14):
Well, and you know, the thing I always want to say
is you know we have people likeKenneth and me here at
universities that you can talkwith Right, and just staying in
your bubble of hopeless youngpeople is not a good thing
either.
Speaker 3 (58:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (58:31):
Reaching out to us, letting us reach into you,
sharing the things that we, youknow, get frustrated about too.
And also, the thing I'm alwaysso happy about is I just have
lots of time.
I've got a lot of life.
Speaker 3 (58:45):
Yeah.
So, that is.
Our greatest commodity is ourtime and energy.
Speaker 2 (58:50):
And you're investing in yourself by doing so.
Speaker 3 (58:53):
Keep on investing, keep on building your ability to
make good decisions yeah, and Ilike the point you made about
talking to people like dr bryantlike that's great advice for
young people is like seek, youknow people that you can look up
to with more life experience,with more education than you and
(59:13):
in one-on-one conversationswith those people.
Speaker 2 (59:16):
And expect them to care about you.
Speaker 4 (59:18):
Yes, I can tell you, and I'll say this, at least on
our campus.
It doesn't have to be Kathy orI.
There are so many faculty onthis campus who care deeply
about their students, who caredeeply about the world, and will
willingly sit down and listento what you have to share, and
so use that resource.
(59:38):
And there are so many resourceson this campus that can be used
.
Seek those resources out anduse them.
They're here, you paying forthem.
Use them.
Speaker 3 (59:47):
Absolutely.
There you go yeah that is adrum I bang as well.
Speaker 1 (59:50):
So thank you for saying that.
Speaker 3 (59:51):
Yeah, wonderful Well is there anything else that you
want to say?
Speaker 2 (59:56):
Right Thanks for having me, let's go get some
wood.
Speaker 3 (59:59):
Yeah, y'all go eat.
Let me close this out.
This has been the Ask Dr Rosspodcast.
If you have any questions thatyou want answered, you can
always ask us at adrquestions atgmailcom.
That's it for today.
Thanks so much for listening.
Dr Bryant, thanks for beinghere.
Thank you much.
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