How Public Interest Communications Can Benefit Communities, with Angela Bradbery

In this episode, we talk with Angela Bradbery – Frank Karel Chair in Public Interest Communications at the University of Florida’s College of Journalism & Communications. Bradbery spearheads the annual Public Interest Communications Summer Institute — bringing educators, researchers, practitioners and others together to explore how to best communicate in the public interest.

Bradbery’s work in Public Interest Communications focuses on communicating and building relationships across divides to advance campaigns that help communities.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
We've got to stand together on common ground.

(00:08):
We've got to be together before we all fall down.
Welcome to This is Civity. I'm Gina Baleria.
Civity is a culture of deliberately engaging in relationships of respect and empathy with others who are different.
Moving people from us versus them to we all belong.
To learn more, go to civity.org.

(00:30):
In this episode, we talk with Angela Bradbury, Frank Carell Chair in Public Interest Communications at the University of Florida's College of Journalism and Communications.
Angela spearheads the annual Public Interest Communications Summer Institute, bringing educators, researchers, practitioners, and others together to explore how to best communicate in the public interest.

(00:52):
Angela's work in Public Interest Communications focuses on communicating and building relationships across divides to advance campaigns that help communities.
So thrilled to talk with you. I think you're amazing and it's been so much fun. Full disclosure, we have worked together on the Public Interest Communications Summer Institute and it's been so fun.

(01:13):
You are amazing as well. Thank you for your help with this.
And so Public Interest Communications or PIC as sometimes shorthanded is this really amazing way of thinking about communications and being intentional about as a professional communicator, making sure that what you're doing is in the public interest.
And I come from it as a journalist or as a former journalist thinking about that that should be the default for all journalism.

(01:40):
But there's also ways that other communicators in PR etc. can be thinking about this. And so the reason we have you on is how many ties and overlaps and weaves come together between public interest communications and civity.
And so I look forward to exploring that with you. But first, let me ask you, can you talk a little bit about what Public Interest Communications is to you?
Public Interest Communications is research based strategic communications for positive and sustained social change. And when I say research based, that means that it draws from fields like cognitive linguistics, neuroscience, the social sciences, political sciences to help inform our communications strategies and approaches.

(02:26):
The idea is that by understanding how people react to messages and communications, how they see things, how narratives land, how framing works that we can be more effective and strategic in the way we communicate so that we don't unintentionally communicate in a way that creates harm or backfires on us.

(02:53):
What brought you to PIC? How did you end up here as the representative for this field of Public Interest Communications?
Well, if we go way back, I've come full circle because I graduated from this College of Journalism and Communications many years ago with a degree in journalism.
And I worked as a newspaper reporter for 10 years, which I absolutely loved. That was in the heyday of newspapers. And towards the end of that 10 years was when the cracks began to form in the newspaper industry.

(03:28):
And newspapers started dialing back on their budgets and their investigative teams and their travel. And I felt that I wanted to use the skills that I gained as a journalist to do more advocacy.
I went into journalism because I wanted to make a difference. I wanted to help lead to and encourage positive social change. And so I wanted to then pivot to advocacy communications.

(04:01):
I went to Washington, D.C. I got a job with Public Citizen, a fabulous public interest organization that works on a variety of policy issues in the public interest and was there for almost 21 years doing communications and practicing public interest communications.
I learned about this opportunity here at UF. I had no intention of leaving D.C. or Public Citizen. I loved my job. But then this opportunity came up to come here and help develop our curriculum and spread public interest communications around the country, which was such a good opportunity.

(04:42):
I could not pass it up. And that's the thing, even though people have been practicing communications and using communications for social change for centuries, only now has it become an academic discipline in a few places.
And we are trying to make it more so. The idea is one day students will be able to major in public interest communications the way they major now in journalism and PR and advertising.

(05:09):
We want to equip students with the best tools possible to go forth and work for social change because we know so many students want to go into careers that are meaningful and can lead to change.
We want to give them the ways to do that.
That's awesome. So I want to get a little civety on you. So that was I would love to hearing about all of that. And when we have civety conversations, we want to get to the heart.

(05:36):
And so you've talked about what led you here and that's so important. Why do you think you do what you do? Like, why do you think you as a person are so drawn to this concept of communication in the public interest of social change of helping students in this regard?
Why this for you?

(05:57):
That is, that is such a good question. I think it's, well, it's rewarding.
Right. It's rewarding to help people. It's rewarding to empower students really and it's not that I'm telling them, here's what to do. I'm opening doors for them and showing them paths. Not all of them take the path. Some of them take the class and they're majoring in something else and they continue on that path.

(06:28):
But others, suddenly the lights shine in their eyes and they say, I didn't know this existed. I would love to do this. And that is fabulous to help be that conduit and that catalyst to help show students the path that they might take that they otherwise did not know existed.
What do you think it is about your life? Like for me, why I do what I do, whether it was journalism or involving in public interest or being with my students is I want to make the world better.

(07:02):
I feel like we can all have just a better time with each other if we listened and heard each other. And you're right, it's rewarding. And I think that's just inherent in me just always wanting, you know, desiring to connect myself to other people and other people to other people and feeling so good about that.
Why do you think for you, this is the space you ended up and why do you think you love helping guide students off on this journey so much?

(07:29):
Well, I think ultimately I want to help make the world a better place. That's always what has driven me. That's why I went into journalism. That's why I went into public interest communications.
And I can see as students go out into the world and start working in the field that they are doing good. And I feel as though the positive change is magnified rather than just one person, me kind of working in the field and helping shepherd others into the field.

(08:00):
And they are doing great work now, which is so fabulous to see. Yeah. So we're talking about this idea of making the world a better place and how we're both pretty much driven by that.
And we just had our election in which Donald Trump won a second term and for half the country pretty much. Some people are happy about it. Some people are not. Some people think, hey, world's going to be better now.

(08:24):
And some people are saying, oh my gosh, hey, don't think the world's going to be better now. And so in this context of, you know, we've been polarized, we've been fractured for a while.
And part of the culmination of that is this election. And so in this context of, wow, I want to make the world a better place.
And I'm concerned that maybe the world or the nation is going in a different direction than the better place I'm hoping to see, but also having great compassion for people across political spectrums and their needs and concerns and hurts and desires.

(08:59):
You know, I'm grappling with how to listen and hear and connect. And how are you thinking about your work in this current moment?
I love that you asked that because after the election, I really was thinking hard about public interest organizations, advocacy organizations, the role of public interest communicators, and what that all looks like going forward.

(09:26):
And what really crystallized for me is the fact that half the country, this is a generalization, but this is what we get from what we're reading and seeing is that half the country was appalled.
And the other half was happy, right? So one half is just baffled at how the other half could have voted the way it did each half.

(09:53):
And I think that's because we have so immersed ourselves in our bubbles that we haven't had conversations. We've stopped conversing with the people who see the world differently.
So we are utterly flabbergasted by how anyone could think like that or do that or vote like that. And it just, it points to the need to have those conversations.

(10:18):
I think social media is a large part of it. People hide behind social media. The messages on social media are much more simplified and not nuanced.
And so if we hope to make any progress on issues, we're going to have to talk to people who we don't normally talk to.

(10:39):
And everyone woke up the day after the election and some things hadn't changed. We still have all these thorny problems, right? We still have the housing crisis. We still have climate change that we need to deal with.
We have a lack of affordable health care. We have income inequality. All these things still exist. So what are we going to do now? How are we going to move forward?

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And I really believe, especially on the state and local level, because that's where a lot of change happens. It's not from the top down, from Congress down. It's from the bottom up.
On the state and local level, we need to have those conversations. We need to reach out. Advocacy organizations need to reach beyond the usual suspects that they work with and talk about the issues in ways that respect the people they're talking to

(11:35):
and hear the concerns and acknowledge them. And there's a lot more about kind of how issues are more nuanced than they're represented in a lot of communications. But that's what I've been thinking about since the election.
Yeah, I'm so glad you brought that up. And you wrote an article recently in Medium. And in it, you talk about some of these things. And you mentioned this idea of cutting across the red-blue, which is something civety does not live in the red-blue.

(12:05):
Civety lives at the socially salient differences, whatever those may be. And you called it biconceptualism, the idea that we can hold a progressive view and a conservative view at the same time, or a view along a spectrum that doesn't fit with whatever the list of views were said.
The list of views we're supposed to have as ex-political party. And so it's not really, I mean, honestly, if we get right down to it, I think civety argues, and it sounds like you might also agree that it's not really about the red-blue.

(12:32):
It's about really kind of moving beyond that or setting that aside and talking about something specific where we can actually find a lot of common ground.
I always, I think about my own dad, who he and I have very divergent political views, and he's an NRA member. And we agree on, gosh, 95% of gun, you know, if we talk about, like you say, it's much more complex and nuanced than I think our media communications writ large would have us understand.

(13:01):
And so this idea of sitting down, listening, hearing, and actually seeing the humanity of these people that we've potentially stopped engaging with, and I think your point about us being so shocked is sort of proof of that, and remembering the humanity and trying to reach across these divides so that we can get at these issues.
And you talk about this local and state. How are you thinking about public interest communications as a way to make some of these connections at the local level? I always like to look to examples and case studies, and about a decade ago, a conservation photographer named Carlton Ward Jr.

(13:40):
and a University of Florida wildlife ecologist named Tom Hochter looked at GPS data and realized that black bears were relying on this patchwork of public and private land to move around.
And they thought, well, if the black bear is doing that, then probably other animals are like the panther and the Florida panther has been endangered and they were quite concerned about it and they realized that the panther needs like a 200 mile radius to live and thrive and do what it does to exist.

(14:13):
Florida, as you know, there's a lot of development and it increasingly encroaches on areas where these animals live. The photographer and the wildlife ecologist got together and said, well, it looks like right now we have a wildlife corridor in the state, but a lot of this is private land that could be sold off so we need to preserve it.

(14:34):
And we want to make sure that this habitat is not sold off to developers. So they launched the Florida Wildlife Corridor Project.
And in 2019, they went to the Florida legislature and asked the Florida legislature to please declare this corridor, a corridor and put money towards buying up the private land, so that it could be preserved. Well, the Florida governor and our legislature they've been good about preserving the

(15:08):
natural park lanes, asking them to take private land out of circulation and take it away from developers. That's a tall ask right so how do you do that.
They have a super majority Republican legislature, and the way they they approached it was to use a public interest communications approach, and they started talking to ranchers and farmers and realize that the ranchers and farmers were concerned about development

(15:43):
too. For them it wasn't so much about saving animals as it was preserving their way of life. And they talked about the way of life and how the farm had been in their families for generations and so the Florida Wildlife Corridor Project folks worked with National
Geographic to do this beautiful film that really amplified and elevated the voices of the farmers and the ranchers and showed pictures of families with kids fishing and talked about the Florida way of life.

(16:16):
In addition to mentioning the panther and, but those were the voices that they really led with an amplified.
Well the Florida legislature this really resonated with them, and they approved this corridor unanimously, which was phenomenal and it's a huge win it's a it's a win for the ranchers and the farmers it's a win for the panther and the bear and other

(16:43):
animals, and it just shows that that kind of approach is a way forward. Had the Florida Wildlife Corridor people not reached out and talked to the ranchers and just built a coalition of pure environmentalists and in organizations that were focused on

(17:04):
conservation and wildlife.
I highly doubt that they would have gotten as far as they did and certainly to get that past that is, like you said incredible it's all about very civity is public the PIC approach was to bridge these differences to build relationships across these
divides and differences, and to showcase and and call out and highlight the humanity of the people who were being affected people and animals in this case were being affected, but to help us all see, see each other more right and these are all very civity

(17:40):
concepts as well. When I was listening to your story, the through line I heard was everyone agreed that preservation is important that preserving and saving and helping whether it's the way of life or the animals or the land.
We have a common purpose we have a common desire. And if we can find our way to that space by hearing each other and listening and sharing stories. We can do something as you have so potently said right exactly and that's another core concept of public

(18:13):
communications is basing messages on values shared values, rather than start with a discussion about policy. Let's start with what do we agree on and there are values that hopefully we all share justice, fairness, safety, protection, health, opportunity, all

(18:34):
of those things that hopefully we can agree yes, those are good and we want them. So now let's, let's work from there. That's the starting place. Now let's go forward. Yeah, you're listening to this is civity I'm Gina Valeria, we're talking with public interest
expert, Angela Bradbury, how does public interest communications envision relationships. How does that play into the process of engaging in a public interest communications campaign or applying public interest communications to an issue, I think

(19:04):
it goes back to my mindset of how do we make progress on issues. It starts with relationships in communities it starts with talking to neighbors and being engaged in organizations and meeting people and being part of those organizations that even if

(19:26):
you have different views you get to know them in a different way and you get to learn about them, and then working on projects together if you, you say okay well let's work on this one small change that we would like you learn a lot about each other while
working together and you hear about each other's problems and what's happening on a day to day basis, and you have more compassion and understanding and then you grow that from there.

(19:56):
And then you learn about relationships between organizations and among organizations and organizations reaching out to other groups that they don't normally speak with and and reach out to.
And then you have relationship building in that sense, as well, and hopefully in the digital realm I would love to see the digital space be less caustic and and more a space where you can grow communities that happens to some extent on Facebook

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groups that are most of them are private and you have to, you know, try and get into them but a lot of community happens in those groups that can be a space as well if you're not physically located next to each other or near each other.
That's a good point is building those communities and then and really inviting people in, and you make a good point I mean obviously an amazing point about social media because it's even gotten more caustic in recent years with the purchase of Twitter and the removal of all safeguards

(20:58):
and I think it's those safeguards in that work and that curation that can lead to community I mean you talked about Facebook groups which is one place because those are again, curated and closed, but the Facebook feed is not a place I ever want to be, you know, but the
Facebook feed is open to all. I'm happy to be there. There's a great example that Ted gave when Monica Lewinsky years ago gave her Ted talk and for those who don't know Monica Lewinsky was an intern in the Clinton White House and had an and Clinton and Lewinsky

(21:28):
she was largely blamed for it as a young 22-year-old woman rather than, and it really ruined her
life for a lot of years.
So she did a TED talk on the price of shame and discussing sort of that experience.
Well, they posted it, and there's a great article about this process, but they posted
it.
It was 22 minutes long, something like that, and within seconds, no one had watched it

(21:50):
yet.
There was just this vitriol and hatred and really disgusting, awful things being said.
And so the TED social media curators were like, whoa, and started curating and deleting
and gardening, basically, pruning out those comments.
And it was a lot of work, and I think they said it took them days.
Once they did that pruning, a beautiful discussion emerged about these issues, and it was amazing

(22:13):
and incredible and really helpful and thoughtful.
And so this idea of the work that it does take or the commitment that it does take to
get there, especially when our default is, as it is on social media, to just knee-jerk
and again, stay in our bubbles and not push through that divide.

(22:35):
How do you see PIC or public interest communications as playing a role in healing that or advancing
that cause?
Public interest communications can help foster those conversations.
It's a challenge because of the nature of the platforms, and as you say, all the cost
of comments.
And if you're not moderating those, then it's not a productive conversation.

(22:58):
I think maybe creating spaces where you can invite people from different backgrounds in
to have the conversation about an issue.
Let's just pick one issue and let's see what we can agree on on that issue.
And maybe you have to make it more curated to be able to make progress on that.

(23:20):
I look at comments on social media and I think, no, people who write these, they would never
say those to the face of a person.
It's just so easy to hide behind and it really, it seems like it really has brought out the
worst in so many people, which is not productive at all and I think has led to the point we're
at now.
Yeah, I agree.

(23:41):
And even if the person maybe not, like if you're nudged by a bot, then it doesn't take
much nudging, right?
And so hopefully we can nudge the other way, right?
Nudge toward relationship, nudge toward bridging, nudge toward really wanting to engage.
And I think enough people are starting to realize that they don't want the hatred.
They realize that it's negative and the negativity is not helpful.

(24:03):
That's why groups like Civity and Braver Angels and Unify America are cropping up because
a lot of people want to get past the negativity and the divide and get back to before social
media when we had conversations with each other.
Yeah, completely.
Earlier, you mentioned the idea of social change and I think about with Civity, at first

(24:26):
when Civity started to talk about these kinds of things, building relationships across divides
and seeing and hearing and listening, everyone's like, that's nice.
But now we've got some research showing that it's actually foundational to change and to
solving problems.
You use the term social change, et cetera.
I can imagine that if I'm of a certain political leaning or if I have a certain set of perspectives,

(24:50):
that maybe that seems like a scary concept or a concept that's woke or whatever the case
may be.
So how would you or how do you talk about these ideas of social change in the context
of engaging with people who might have a knee-jerk reaction to that kind of phrase?
I'm glad you asked that.

(25:12):
It involves being very mindful of the language and the words used and understanding framing
and understand how everybody sees things differently.
When you say safety, that means one thing.
When someone else says safety, that means another.
That is because we all have our own set of unique experiences and life views based on

(25:36):
everything we've done and read and seen and our friends.
And so we have to really understand that when we talk to people and be aware that a lot
of the terminology that we use or that advocacy organizations use, kind of inadvertently just
because that's how they talk about it, can be perceived as being affiliated with a political

(26:01):
party.
There was something recently about the term Latinx and how Latinx is not something that
the Latino community uses and they feel that it doesn't apply to them.
And so when people talk about Latinx, that's signaling that they are of a different community

(26:22):
and not of the Latin community, which instantly creates a divide.
There's been talk about the word equity as well, and we know about DEI, right?
So if we can be mindful that certain words instantly are associated with a political

(26:42):
view, a political party, somewhere on the spectrum of the red, blue, and we need to
use language that really gets back to the basics and back to the core, right?
If we talk about guns, that can be such a polarizing issue, right?

(27:03):
But if you look at polls, pretty much like most people agree, they don't want guns in
the hands of dangerous people.
So if you can boil it down to that, that's our starting place.
We don't want guns in the hands of dangerous people.
We all agree on that.
Now let's go forward and talk about how we can move forward from there.

(27:27):
Yeah.
And I think having a relationship can also allow for inquiry.
I was with this friend recently who is on the opposite side of the spectrum on a lot
of things politically than I am.
And this friend asked me, hey, what's this deal with homeless versus unhoused?
Why do I have to say unhoused now?
And I said, oh, that's, hey, that's cool that you asked.

(27:50):
And then I acknowledged, I said, I don't know if it will make a difference because sometimes
the new word gets infused with the old things.
And I said, my explanation to her was, homeless is considered kind of a state of who you are
whereas unhoused is a momentary situation or a situation you can get out of.
And my friend said, oh, gosh, that makes a lot of sense.
I could use that.

(28:10):
I could say that.
We're engaging with each other across these political divides because we love each other.
And so we can usually have that moment.
But it's hard if you're staying in your bubble and not doing that.
And then it does feel like these impositions.
Being mindful of the language that is used and what those words can mean to people.

(28:35):
And also a related concept is stereotypes.
Right?
Because if someone uses the word Latin X and you don't feel what that represents you, all
of a sudden you are envisioning who that person is and you are filling in the stereotype of
what you think that person is.

(28:56):
And it's really important to understand, as you mentioned, by conceptualism, people are
not stereotypes.
They are very nuanced.
They have a variety of views about different things.
One thing we haven't talked about yet that I would love to explore a little with you
is the idea of power differentials in difference and divides.

(29:18):
And how we can do all the talking we want or all the bridging we want.
But if there's a power differential that can really stymie anything because sometimes people
just don't have the ability to position themselves as changemakers.
Or if they do, it's going to take this real collective effort.
And so I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about how you see the role of public interest

(29:40):
communications in disrupting power differentials or addressing them or getting at them.
The old way of organizations, advocacy organizations, helping a community often was for, especially
with philanthropic organizations, for the organization to swoop into the community,
study, do research, interview, extract stories and information, decide on what the solution

(30:08):
is, put the solution in place, and then leave.
People finally realize that doesn't work too well because the community was not part of
the conversation.
And it goes beyond just being part of the conversation to stepping back and having the

(30:28):
community members be leaders and helping them be leaders and helping them shape the solutions.
There was a wonderful campaign in New York over tenants' rights and an organization that
was helping foster tenants' rights and bolster tenants' rights.

(30:49):
And they talked to the tenants.
And one of the big issues was housing court.
The big issue for people who were taken to housing court was that the landlords had attorneys,
but the tenants did not.
So they said, we should have, just as in a court of law, people have a right to representation

(31:09):
and there's a public defender, we want representation in housing court.
This had never been done before anywhere.
But that was the solution they wanted.
So this organization helped the tenants organize, and they organized themselves.
They led.
And that was the solution that mattered to them.
And they put together a campaign that was really creative.

(31:33):
It grew and grew and started bringing in other communities because coalition building is
important.
And they actually won a right to counsel bill.
It was the first in the country in New York City.
And then since then, other cities have started adopting it.
And at first, it looks like one of those things like that's impossible.

(31:53):
No one's ever done that.
You're actually going to get New York City to agree to provide representation to tenants
in housing court, really.
And they did.
And that was an effort that the solution came from the people who were most affected, the
tenants, and they led that effort.
That's empowering.
That's upsetting the differential.

(32:14):
What do you see as the intersections between public interest communications and civity?
I think it's the listening and understanding the mindset and viewpoints and worldviews
of the people that we're communicating with and talking with.
Being able to acknowledge the differences in opinions, it doesn't mean that we're trying

(32:37):
to get people to change their opinions, but to understand and respect each other.
In your work with PIC, what are you most proud of?
What's one or more of your proudest moments deep in your heart?
Probably the campaign to get smoke-free workplaces in Washington, D.C.

(33:01):
A long time ago, when this was when I was in D.C., when smoking in bars and restaurants
was ubiquitous, I co-founded an organization called Smoke Free D.C.
I went into just one restaurant too many when someone was smoking.
I've always hated cigarette smoke and realized it is toxic.

(33:22):
I thought people should not be exposed to this, and the workers in these places should
not be exposed to this.
I found someone who had been working in tobacco control in California, had moved to D.C.,
and he wanted to put something together too.
We started an organization, Smoke Free D.C.
It was all volunteer, proved that you can do a lot on zero money.

(33:43):
Very little money.
We helped with volunteers, and it took four and a half years, but we were able to get
a smoke-free workplace law passed by the District of Columbia.
That saves lives.
That's huge.
It taught me a lot about communicating with different groups, communicating with bar owners
who might not agree, communicating with lawmakers and policymakers who might not agree.

(34:08):
Look at how we started.
It was an almost impossible thing because on a 13-member council, only three people
were supporting us.
The city couldn't really tell us what the law was about smoking in public because it
was split up into various pieces of the city code, and the chair of the council's health

(34:30):
committee smoked in her office in City Hall, and it was legal.
That was legal.
That's how we started.
But we managed to build enough support and get creative, and we were catalysts, I think,
for people who really... It resonated with people.
People really wanted it, and we managed to get it passed.

(34:52):
I think that's made proud us because of the long-term benefits, health benefits that would
have grew from that.
In that process, whose stories were you telling?
We tried to really elevate the stories of people who worked in bars and restaurants.
A lot of them were afraid to speak out, but we had several.
We had one fabulous restaurant owner who was an outlier.

(35:15):
His was one of the only restaurants in DC that served alcohol and was smoke-free, and
he did that because the whole theme of the restaurant was singing waitstaff.
They needed to be able to breathe.
He was wonderful, so we wanted to elevate.
There were some other restaurant owners who were smoke-free, and we elevated their voices

(35:36):
because they were so important and the people who would be affected as well.
We tried to elevate those.
Wow, that is so cool.
Okay, back to the moment that we're in.
Given the moment that we're in, which for people listening to this recording is there
was a recent presidential election, Donald Trump was elected to a second term, the nation
is polarized, half the nation is shocked at the other half for the votes they cast.

(36:02):
It's difficult to figure out where to go from here.
You, with your expertise in public interest communications and bridging and connecting
and sharing stories, where do you see us going from here?
Where do we go from here?
Everyone who is working on an issue that they are trying to make positive change on needs

(36:25):
to think about how they're going about it, who they're talking to, who they're not talking
to, and how they might broaden their network and broaden their coalition to bring in more
people and more voices so that they create an overall campaign that really resonates

(36:51):
with the most number of people.
Because social change is about building people power, and enough people power can lead to
change.
We have to look strategically and figure out who is in power, what resonates with them,
what kind of messages, who do they listen to, and how can we build that broad coalition.

(37:15):
If you look at social change movements over time, historically the very broad-based movements
with wide-ranging coalitions are the ones that can get change to happen.
For someone who is concerned about what's going to happen in the future and feeling
low or paralyzed or really discouraged, what would you say to them?

(37:43):
I would say there are in any effort to achieve social change, there are ups and downs.
Finding that and realizing that this is one moment in a very long continuum of change
is important.

(38:03):
And then finding other people who want to make change and empowering each other and
having the conversations that lift each other up is helpful as well.
Just sitting by yourself and being upset is not going to be helpful.
But talking to other people who have ideas about how we can move forward can make you

(38:26):
feel more positive and can make you feel, yes, there is hope, there's another day, there
are other opportunities, we can make change.
And you can make a lot of difference in a very positive way within your community, even
just volunteering, even if you're not trying to change a policy or create social change,
you can help other people and that will help you feel better.

(38:47):
Yeah, and that community level is really where it's at and that's really where I think people
are going to find the most hope.
Yes.
Yeah.
Well, thank you, Angela.
I really appreciate you spending this time with me.
Thank you so much for inviting me.
I'm honored and I really appreciate it.
I've enjoyed our conversation.
Thank you to my guest, Angela Bradbury, Frank Carell Chair in Public Interest Communications

(39:11):
at the University of Florida's College of Journalism and Communications.
Angela spearheads the annual Public Interest Communications Summer Institute.
For more information, search Public Interest Communications at the University of Florida.
Civity is a culture of deliberately engaging in relationships of respect and empathy with

(39:31):
others who are different, moving people from us versus them to we all belong.
To learn more, go to civity.org.
Civity's theme song is Common Ground performed by Tommy Castro and the Painkillers.
Written by Tommy Castro and Kevin Bow and used courtesy of Alligator Records and Dangerous
Entertainment.

(39:51):
Thank you for listening to This is Civity.