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Dr. Robin Stern: Welcome to The Gaslight Effect Podcast. I'm Robin Stern, co-founder and associate director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, and author of the bestselling book, the Gaslight Effect. I'm an educator and a psychoanalyst, but first and foremost, I'm a wife, a mother, a sister, aunt, and healer. And just like many of you, I was a victim of gaslighting. Please join me for each episode as I interview fascinating guests and explore the concept of gaslighting. You'll learn what it truly means to be gaslighted, how it feels, how to recognize it, and how to understand it, and ultimately, how to get out of it.
Dr. Robin Stern: Before we begin, I want you to know that talking about gaslighting can bring up challenging and painful emotions. Give yourself permission to feel them. Some of you may wanna go more deeply with your emotions. While some of you may hold them more lightly, no matter what you're feeling, know that your emotions are a guide to your inner life. Your emotions are sacred and uniquely you respect and embrace them for they have information to give you. If you want to listen to other episodes of the Gaslight Effect Podcast, you can find them at robinstern.com or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you for being here with me. Welcome everyone to this episode of The Gaslight Effect podcast. I'm really excited today to have with me two incredible women who've written an incredible book called Not Your Parents' Politics. Thank you for this contribution. It's a really important book, and the authors are Netta, klier, ic, and Ana
Dr. Ioana Literat: Sure. Yeah. So first of all, it's great to be here. Thank you so much for the invitation. Uh, we're very excited for this conversation. Uh, my background, I'm Ira, I'm a teacher's college, Columbia University, where I also co-direct the Media and Social Change Lab. And really, I think that's a good starting point to consider, uh, my entire research trajectory because, um, at heart I've always been interested in this very relationship between media and social change. And in what ways can media be good at, at, uh, fostering social change and paving the way for social change? And in what way? In what ways may it maybe hinder or, or challenge this process? My background is in communication. Etta and I actually went to the same, um, graduate school, the, uh, USC Annenberg, the programming communication. We did our PhD there under the wonderful Henry Jenkins. And, um, I was always more interested in the creative side.
Dr. Ioana Literat: So my, my dissertation was on online participatory art. I was interested in youth and online creativity, and that I was more interested in the civic or political aspects. I, I will let her describe that a lot better than I can. Um, but basically now I'm at an education school. So what I really care about is the educational implications of young people's online practices. I think it's extremely important that we pay attention to what young people are doing online, in, in spaces like social media, like online creative communities, and then also try to learn, listen, and learn, um, so that we might be able to support them better, especially when it comes to their civic and political participation.
Dr. Robin Stern: Well, I have lots of questions, but NetApp, please, before I ask questions, introduce me.
Dr. Neta kilgler-Vilenchik:
Dr. Neta kilgler-Vilenchik: And then when I came to, um, to Israel, I started looking at all kinds of, um, politics. I didn't even call it political expression at the time, but just sort of like expressions of politics, um, that happened in all kinds of spaces online. So Iwana and I have a paper, for example, about, um, politics and kids like gaming websites or learning how to code websites a really cute, um, uh, cute project that we did there. Um, and different, um, social media sites where we suddenly saw young people talking about politics, expressing their politics, and doing it in a way that's very different from what adults often expect mm-hmm
Dr. Robin Stern: So, I, I do have a, a question for both of you. Um, what was the particular inspiration for writing the book to, to co-author it, to, like, was there a moment where you said, wait a minute, this is a book.
Dr. Ioana Literat: Yeah. Netta, do you want you tell that story so well? Do you wanna
Dr. Neta kilgler-Vilenchik: I definitely have a moment.
Dr. Neta kilgler-Vilenchik: Um, and he know he has his like, MAGA hat and like his mask and so on. And like, how interesting is that? Like, what kind of weird political expression is that? Um, and that was really the incentive for us to, um, embark on the first project that then became one of the chapters of this book, uh, looking at young people's political expression around the 2016 presidential election on what was then musically. And while we were writing, it became TikTok, uh, which was also a challenge, um, understanding what to do with a platform that changes ownership and name and, um, you know, changes its character while we're studying it. Um, so that was a challenge we had to also work with. Um, so that was really the moment for us that, um, that started this book. You wanna, do you wanna Yeah.
Dr. Ioana Literat: I would say just that whole period, that 2016, especially the summer of 2016, um, as Donald Trump's campaign, um, was, was really revving up. That was a really interesting period in American politics. Um, and especially from my perspective, I was, you could say, lurking in these online spaces where young people hung out. And I was really interested in creativity. So I was on, um, fandom websites and online creative communities and pixel art communities and coding communities for kids. So, you know, most of these people were not even really teenagers, just kids. Even this one that Netta was talking about, the, the Trump fan must have been around, I don't know, 10, 12 or so at the time. It, so really young kids. And I noticed that conversations that previously were about creativity or pop culture, fandom all of a sudden turned really political in 2016.
Dr. Ioana Literat: So now a conversation that used to be about Captain America and this, uh, fandom website was about will my parents be deported? Uh, or what will happen to my civil rights? Or will my identity be recognized? Um, like really big questions that young people were grappling with in these decidedly non-political spaces. That was something that was really interesting to both of us, and I think connected us in, in a, in a really wonderful way. Uh, the fact that this very significant political expression and political interaction was happening in the spaces that we don't tend to take seriously for political expression.
Dr. Neta kilgler-Vilenchik: And I'll just give one counter example to our huge Trump fan, uh, which is the example that we open up our book with, um, is another girl on musically, she's also maybe 10 or 12. And she's standing there in her room, in her pajamas, mismatched pajamas,
Dr. Robin Stern: That's fascinating. But what's what's interesting to me personally about what you're saying and very relevant to this podcast is when I first wrote The Gaslight Effect, it was 2007 and, um, it, the, the work came out of, uh, my research came out of working with patients for many years and hearing, um, them complain about not feeling particularly women, mostly, but men as well, feeling like there was something wrong with them. Why weren't they more cooperative in their relationship? Or they just didn't feel well and something was wrong and they didn't know what it was. And it turned out that somebody was spinning their reality, somebody was gaslighting them. And that, um, in naming that and seeing the impact of it, people were able to then, uh, take steps towards either stopping it, limiting it, or getting free. But then, and it was not really a popular term, but then in 2016, suddenly gaslighting was political.
Dr. Robin Stern: Suddenly everybody was talking about Mr. Trump, the Gaslight. And my, um, I, uh, my, my agent and myself decided this would be a good time to re-release the Gaslight Effect. And as I was doing that, gaslighting became even more popular in the political realm. So it seems like a lot of what was either under the radar or in Popp culture suddenly turned political with Mr. Trump in the, in the storing role of that. And so I wonder whether any of that interpersonal, uh, collective anxiety, um, questioning was part of what you were hearing too. Were there questions in political expression? Were people feeling, um, well, you tell me. I I made the connection. Let's see if it can take us somewhere.
Dr. Neta kilgler-Vilenchik: Yeah. I think for me, one connecting point that I see, and I must say I haven't thought about it before you reached out to us, but then after you did, and I was, you know, listening to the podcast a little bit, and I thought more about gaslighting, I saw that that connection is, I think there's gaslighting in the way that adults, um, even see or think or talk to young people about what, what we see as their political expression on social media and what so many adults just see as, um, a waste of time or, uh, narcissism or just, you know, silliness or, you know, a search for attention. Um, so we talk in the book about how often as adults, we come with these expectations about what political, uh, expression should look like, and we think that it should be rational and it should be, uh, objective, and it should be serious, and it should be fact-based.
Dr. Neta kilgler-Vilenchik: And, you know, young adults often come to young people and they, you know, they, they criticize them if their expression is not that way. But if we take a serious look at our political reality, is any of it, um, standing up to these ideals,
Dr. Neta kilgler-Vilenchik: And so I really, um, can relate to the concept of gaslighting in that sense of how, even the very idea that young people, especially when it's kids, but even when it's like teenagers or even young adults at some sense, even the idea that they have a political opinion and that political opinion is valid, even if you know, this, this 11-year-old, you know, let's, like either the Trump fan or the Trump critic, right? Both of them, we don't know what their parents think, you know, they may very much agree with them, or they may not, and and their, you know, friends may agree with them, or, and, or they may not. But either way, they have a valid political opinion. It's still in the process of development, it's still maturing. Um, it may be, you know, that right now they're, um, uh, maybe expressing it in a way that seems shallow to us.
Dr. Neta kilgler-Vilenchik: But that's part, part of the process of learning. I mean, every, all of us have to, um, learn somehow and develop our political view until it is, you know, mature. And we can say that it's mature and still, right? Like I'm 42, I still like change my political view and I'm still adjusting it based on things that are happening. And so I definitely see gaslighting there in, you know, telling young people, no, you know, your opinion is not valid. It's not even opinion or no, what you're expressing. That's not political expression. That's just, you know, like goofing out on social media and no, you know, it's just fine. Right? You're just wasting your time.
Dr. Robin Stern: Yes, exactly. They're that your, you young person don't know what you're doing, and there's something wrong with you because you're expressing it in that way. Don't, you know? Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. That's very interesting.
Dr. Neta kilgler-Vilenchik: Yeah. And I, I'll just share, um, briefly that one of my early projects on this, even before I started working with Yoanna, is a paper with Kirsten Thorson around, um, the year 2012. Um, there was a, um, 30 minute movie called, um, uh, Coney 2012, um, that talked about, um, uh, a warlord in Uganda. Um, and it's a movie that when it was released, got a lot of young people really, really excited and really passionate about, you know, trying to do something. And we talk about in this paper about how so many of the, these young people were immediately belittled and just told, you know, you have no idea what you're talking about. Either you are, you know, you're naive and you're stupid, and you don't understand, or you're, you know, white saviors who are trying to save the world and know, like in a, in a, but in a negative, um, sense.
Dr. Neta kilgler-Vilenchik: And really no appreciation to how for so many young people, this was the first time, a first moment when they found out about something political that really mattered to them. And they wanted to say something about that. And I think that like, just like in gaslighting, I think that, um, especially when, when people are at a sensitive time in their life, um, a very harsh response like that can really put them off from that. And they'll say, you know, they may say, oh, you are right. I mean, maybe I really don't understand anything. Maybe I'll, you know, go back to just caring about what happens, you know, in my little world, because I was told that my views don't matter.
Dr. Robin Stern: I think that's so important. Jowan, what, what are your thoughts about what Netta is saying?
Dr. Ioana Literat: Yes. I I think the youth aspect is really paramount here. Age really matters in this equation. Um, when it comes to the gas side effect, because young people are in a, a kind of double bind. Um, we are telling them that their voices matter, right? Even by encouraging them to participate politically, having civics education in school, right? Even my son is in first grade and, and, and the fall, they had a whole unit on voting, right? And why voting matters. So we're, we keep telling them that their voice matters, that they, we encourage them to engage politically, but then like Netta says, when they do, they're dismissed as, um, naive, um, and knowledgeable, sometimes performative. We talk a lot about this in our book, too emotional, too funny, not serious, right? All these ways in which their, their political expression is wrong.
Dr. Ioana Literat: And so what we are worried about is that we're also devolve into self-censorship. Um, and that's particularly danger, a danger for, for those from marginalized, uh, communities, or those with marginalized, um, identities, right? That we know based on a lot of research, that young people that come from, um, marginalized backgrounds often face disproportionate scrutiny, um, sometimes outright hostility online, depending on the platform too, sometimes algorithmic suppression or shadow banning or censorship. Um, so like Netta said at the beginning, the key argument in our book is really just the, the need to listen to young people's voices and, and reaffirm not only that their voices matter, but that their voices matter in the ways they want them to matter, and that their voices are, are valuable even when they don't conform to these traditional ideals, uh, or conceptions that we have about what political expression should look like.
Dr. Neta kilgler-Vilenchik: Just another, another quick few sentences about that, just because I want to make sure that it doesn't sound like we are maybe over romanticizing mm-hmm
Dr. Neta kilgler-Vilenchik: From a civic point of view. Um, it entails feeling a sense of commitment. Um, it entails, uh, feeling a sense of efficacy, right? That your voice does matter, that if something happens, it's important that you should speak out. But there are also disadvantages to it because, um, sometimes if you feel like you have to express about everything that happens, sometimes it can be performative. Um, and there is sometimes a disconnect from, um, from information. Uh, and we know from other research, we don't do this quantitatively, but other research shows that, um, some of the political participation and expression that happens on social media is often disconnected from actual political knowledge. Um, so you can sometimes express yourself without having that, that knowledge, and that then can be, uh, and often is, um, a problem, especially when, um, there are also, um, agents of misinformation that sometimes, you know, come from the politics, from, um, uh, external influences and so on.
Dr. Neta kilgler-Vilenchik: And so we do complicate like, um, although we definitely, throughout the book, we argue for the importance of listening to young people's, um, voices, and we see a lot of importance in their speaking out, both for mobilization processes, um, and also, uh, potentially for dialogue. We also see, um, the, the weak points. Uh, and speaking of dialogue, one of the weak points is there that a lot of the expression that we see on social media, it's conducive towards, um, maybe, um, convincing those who are already convinced and sort of like getting out the word and getting them mobilized and active and so on. Uh, but it's not, um, conducive towards, um, meaningful dialogue, uh, with those who see differently from us. And that's one of the weak points of, um, uh, expression on social media in general, not only of young people.
Dr. Robin Stern: So is that something then, um, that you would want people to take away from, uh, from reading your book that, um, when young people, or if young people are reading your book, uh, parents or young people or friends of young people, um, encouraging expression to then be followed with an invitation, you know, tell me what you think, let's talk about it, that kind of thing. 'cause one of the things that I'm thinking, like, as you're saying, everything you're saying, I'm thinking, yes, yes, yes. So when I'm done with your book, what am I, what am I to do? Do I go home and do it differently with my kids? Okay, so I'm gonna listen to them. Is there anything else I can do? Maybe I have a social media company. What can social media giants do to encourage, and, and that's actually a question. What would you say for, um, the opportunity for people to, or who are creating social media platforms to help with dialogue or something, or expression?
Dr. Ioana Literat: Yeah, that's one of the points we make, uh, in the discussion. I think it's a very important point. One that I come back to a lot, regardless of the audiences I'm speaking to, is that we often tend to put the onus of responsibility on the individual, right? Like, you should know better. Or sometimes when we're talking about young people that onus is on educators, you should teach them better. And that's why media literacy is often the go-to response when we think about strategies to foster better political expression. But actually, there's a whole range of players in the game that often escape responsibility or are not held accountable enough. Platforms of course, come to mind first, but even beyond platforms, um, governments and other regulatory agencies, uh, funders, journalists, policy makers, there's so many, uh, stakeholders that have power with respect to this issue.
Dr. Robin Stern: Can you, can you unpack that a little bit? What, what would it look like for a journalist or a, um, a funder to have Yeah. To speak to this issue?
Dr. Ioana Literat: Yeah. Um, in my classes, I like to ask students to come up with lists of who has power in this equation. So then when we first come up with a list, uh, because sometimes it's, you know, maybe stakeholders that we don't think of first, like journalists or, or like funders. And then in the second round we brainstorm what they can each do. I think for journalists, a big one is just the way in which they talk about youth political expression, or often youth activism. That's something that Netta and I are actually really interested in from a research perspective is, uh, the media portrayals of youth activism, because they often still seem to be quite reductive. Um, sometimes they misrepresent youth activism, sometimes they look down upon it, uh, often they don't present it with much nuance. Sometimes they tokenize youth activism. And that's something that adults do even more broadly, broadly.
Dr. Ioana Literat: So for journalists, I think the big one is just reporting with more nuance, talking to experts. I've been trying to engage with journalists a lot in my work to try to inject a little bit more, um, nuance and research based findings in these discussions for funders right now, given the era of technological development that we're in, I think ethical investing is really important. There's a whole move, uh, in the venture capitalism world towards more ethical, uh, funding models that take into account social educational impact. Um, and then for parents, I, again, I'm in an education school at Teacher's College, so I often get asked about implications for parents and educators, and I think for parents, uh, first acknowledge that, that this kind of political engagement is valid, um, and recognize that it might look different today, you know, this the framing of, well, back in my day, it used to be like, this is not really helpful
Dr. Robin Stern: But I think I'm gonna interrupt you for a minute, because when I think about, um, a parent's response to examples that you gave either the pro-Trump or, or Trump, I could imagine the parent just totally missing it entirely as like, no, that's not a political expression. That's like he's acting out in some way, or, um, he's trying to, uh, impress his friends or, um, provoke his friends. And so the what is in fact political expression may go totally unmis e even. Um, and, and I, I also feel like, uh, where I believe that the opportunity for kids to get put down and humiliated, and gaslighted, of course, also is, uh, quite, um, important to think about. Because if they're misunderstanding the political expression, then, um, how are they react? What are they reacting from?
Dr. Neta kilgler-Vilenchik: Yeah, I'll, I'll pick up on, on that point, because that's, I think exactly where we're also thinking about this. And Yona and I, you know, we wear also these double hats in, in some of these chapters because we are all, we are researchers, but we're also parents. And I also have a teenager who's, you know, 16 and, you know, is very much in these worlds. And so we had these conversations, Yona and I, when we were writing, especially the discussion chapter. And for example, I asked her at some point, so what do you think? If someone asks me, like, as a parent, is it a good thing? Like, should I encourage my kid to go on social media and express themselves politically? And we had to think through that question. And I think the answer is, um, not necessarily. Uh, it depends also on, uh, on their, the kid and sort of their inclination.
Dr. Neta kilgler-Vilenchik: Um, I have this other, um, research project that is sort of this typology of different types and their inclination towards political talk. And there are some people who, you know, who, who maybe not interested in politics, but there are also people who are interested in politics, but don't want to talk about it. And there are those who want to talk about it, but they don't want to do it online. So all these, um, you know, sort of like groups, I wouldn't necessarily push them to express themselves online, uh, or in social media, especially around politics, because we know there is what's called the participation misinformation paradox, which is that as you participate more on social media, you're also, um, exposed to more misinformation. And that's also true for bullying and for gaslighting, right? The more you participate, the more you can be bullied or harassed, the more you can be gaslit, um, expressing yourself politically in, uh, very polarized environments, like the ones we have now in the US and in Israel, and in a lot of parts of the world is really risky.
Dr. Neta kilgler-Vilenchik: Um, and young people expose themselves to risk, and it may be that they start off thinking that they're, you know, talking to their friends or goofing out, but it may come to, um, unintended audiences and they may get terrible reactions. Um, um, you know, it can be even traumatizing. So that, that is a risk that I don't take lightly. I think you can sort of, um, um, compare it to the question of like, would I take my kid to a protest? Um, you know, we have a lot of protests now in Israel, and I have that question. So my 16-year-old, I know he's really like, tough and resilient, and I take him to difficult protests with me because I know he can handle it. My 11-year-old I know is very sensitive, and he tells me myself, he's like, I don't wanna go there. You know, there's shouting and there's angry people.
Dr. Neta kilgler-Vilenchik: It's not for me. So, you know, I respect that. So I think really the question here is going with, with your young person, um, trying to support them in what they care about and what they, they believe in what they want to do. Um, it's hard sometimes not to force our own viewpoints on them, but we have to respect the process in which they're coming to their own views. Um, and I've had, you know, difficult political discussions with my teenager. He's at the, in an age where we don't necessarily agree politically anymore. Um, and I have to confront that, and he has to confront that. So, you know, taking that as a learning opportunity. Um, and so I think it's not necessarily that all kids should be on social media and expressing themselves politically, but I think that if they want to do it, if they're inclined to do it, if they're interested in it, if there's something that they are interested in, I would definitely encourage that and would try to be, um, a supportive, um, um, scaffold to that, right?
Dr. Neta kilgler-Vilenchik: So think with them together about visibility. Like, how visible do I want this to be? Um, think about intended audiences, think about unintended audiences and who this may reach. Um, think about how, you know, there's a person on the other side, right? Like, sometimes kids, uh, will write like a YouTube comment to someone and say, oh, you know, you're stupid and you have no idea. And they don't think about it, that, you know, there is a kid on the other side too, or an adult on the other side,
Dr. Robin Stern: And actually, you answered a question that I was gonna ask about what can parents do specifically, because kids, when they do put themselves out there, are leaving themselves open to, um, a lot of pushback, response, and some will be very difficult. So if a parent is there, uh, as a supportive scaffold, um, to, or scaffolding the experiences and, and also there to talk about what happens.
Dr. Neta kilgler-Vilenchik: Yeah. But in that sense, I do want to go back to the platforms because we started with them, but I think we didn't go into that, um, enough. I think platforms have a very big, uh, responsibility because, you know, to social media today are such a central space for political conversations and for, uh, political socialization for young people, but also, you know, it's a general sphere where so many of us, um, talk about politics, and that's a huge responsibility, um, that has to be taken very seriously, especially when it comes to young people. And Yoa and I had had the opportunity in the past, um, to speak back to some platforms. I had a grant with, um, WhatsApp that was around misinformation and Yoa, and I had a conversation with, uh, TikTok around their, uh, policy around, uh, around young people. And we try to talk to them about the very careful balance between, on the one hand, uh, a safe space where young people feel spa feel safe, where they're not bullied, where they're not, uh, harassed. But on the other hand, um, uh, freedom of expression in the sense of, um, enabling young people to talk about politics. Um, so not, you know, shadow banning a political term, um, just because it can be conver controversial, right? And we saw, for example,
Dr. Robin Stern: For some of our listeners who may not know what shadow banning is. Can you talk about that for me? Yeah.
Dr. Neta kilgler-Vilenchik: So Shadow Banning is when, um, a platform decides that some content is, um, is, is banned. So say at some point, TikTok, Germany decided to ban the term Nazi. So anyone who used the term, um, they could upload a video, but then that video wouldn't reach anyone. Um, so maybe they just thought they didn't have an audience, but actually they were blocked from reaching audiences. And of course, I don't want anyone going around and calling people Nazis, but I also want young people, especially in Germany, right, to be able to talk about Nazism as, uh, as a social problem, as a social phenomenon. And so it's a very careful balance. And unfortunately, I think that the direction that, um, uh, many social media platforms are taking, um, uh, nowadays is not the right, uh, the right direction, uh, because they're, um, shedding their responsibility, um, for, uh, the kind of expression that's, uh, that's happening.
Dr. Neta kilgler-Vilenchik: They say, you know, free speech, but free speech, um, that just means, you know, anyone can harass and bully and, um, uh, say anything they want, um, uh, you know, insight politically, um, that's not, that's not free speech. It's definitely not in environment that's conducive to young people's political socialization. And so that definitely, you know, also as a parent, I would ask myself where, um, where do I want my, um, um, you know, my youth to, um, to be exposed to things? And, you know, just also just like the, the responsibility. There was an incident, um, uh, this week or last week with, with Instagram where for one day they had a problem with their algorithm or their, um, filter their content, um, filtering. And all Instagram users were exposed to horrifically graphic content including, uh, violence and, uh, terrorism and murder and so on, just freely, because for a full day, uh, Instagram just lost control of their, of their content filtering, right? And, you know, that reached so many young people and so many, you know, people in general. And we know the trauma that can happen just from exposure to, to violent and graphic content. And so we really see that the platforms are not taking seriously enough the, um, the huge responsibility that they have.
Dr. Robin Stern: Wan what would you say to that?
Dr. Ioana Literat: Yeah, I, I think a big problem is also the transparency or lack thereof that content moderation is, is happening, uh, behind closed doors. And, and there's so little that the general public, and honestly, even we as researchers understand about what's going on, um, and, and how these decisions are made. And like Netta was saying that the responsibility that they hold is so huge that it's really concerning that we have so little insight into it, and that the process is so, uh, opaque.
Dr. Robin Stern: So the, when you say the process is opaque, can you, um, embroider that a little bit for the listening the listeners? Like, what is it you want to know or we would need to know that we can't know.
Dr. Ioana Literat: Yeah. Like for instance, even shadow banning I think is such a good example of this, what Netta was talking about earlier, um, that as a user posting content, you wouldn't know that your content is shadow ban as someone engaging on the platform. I don't know which content is shadow banned. Um, and that shapes expression, it shapes consumption, it shapes the discourse. So even on, on a larger societal level, it really shapes what we can and, and cannot talk about. Um,
Dr. Robin Stern: And so who is making those decisions?
Dr. Ioana Literat: The platforms are making those decisions, um, and largely for commercial reasons, also, increasingly for political reasons. And so a very simple thing that should be happening is that platform should provide clear explanations when political content is removed, uh, why was it removed, what exactly was removed? How are you making this decision? What's your decision tree
Dr. Neta kilgler-Vilenchik: And I think platforms are also gaslighting their users in a sense,
Dr. Neta kilgler-Vilenchik: Um, and so not even the, the attempt to, um, to show the kind of, um, uh, content moderation that, that happens. And it's definitely happening. I mean, we see in, in the, in the Instagram example that I mentioned, right? The reason that everyone saw this graphic content is because they had an error with their content filtering, which means that usually there's content filtering that makes sure that not everyone sees this, uh, this kind of content, and it's not algorithmically amplified, right? So these are the kinds of decision making that we don't see. And as researchers, I will also say the platforms are increasingly making it harder and harder to study them. Um, so Yoanna and I often use very, um, I'd say like low tech, uh, ways of, um, accessing content, so content that any everyone could, could access, but researchers who use, uh, big data, um, uh, tools and would usually like scrape all the content through APIs, um, um, interfaces that allow them to, uh, to take all the content, uh, automatically and so on. Um, increasingly social media platforms are not allowing for that research to happen. So our understanding of what happens, uh, on them and our, um, uh, their accountability and, um, uh, transparency around it is only going back.
Dr. Robin Stern: Yeah. So, um, we're unfortunately, we're going to have to stop in a few minutes, not before I ask you, um, what, when people read your book and they put it down, what would you like them to do?
Dr. Ioana Literat: That's such a good question. I think I will just start when, um, young people themselves, I, I hope that they reader our book, or, you know, we really try to write it in a way that, that was accessible to broader audiences, or at least more so than our usual academic journal articles, which was a, a really interesting challenge, but it was a challenge. Um, so whether they, they read the book or they come across podcasts like this, or, or, or, or other media appearances, I really want them to take away this idea that, uh, their participation matters and, and that it shapes public discourse and can drive real change. Um, that digital activism is not lesser activism. Again, I think deep inside they know this, but they've been told otherwise a lot by a lot of different people in their lives. Um, and that, that kind of participation is valid, even if it doesn't always fit these traditional models.
Dr. Ioana Literat: Um, and also I would add that just that young people are part of this long history of, of youth activism, even if methods have changed to me, I'm trying to think if I were a young person in, in this position listening to this or, or reading the book, uh, that's an important point that would give me some confidence and gimme some validation that you are part of this long history of youth activism that literally changed history. Um, and so why would it be different now actually now you have more tools at your fingertips and a very, a, a broader range of possibilities when it comes to political expression.
Dr. Robin Stern: Yeah. Thank you. Nata, do you wanna add that?
Dr. Neta kilgler-Vilenchik: Yeah. So you, Anna took the perspective of, of young people themselves. So I'll take the, the adult perspective. So I'm hoping that adult, an adult reader, when they put down the book, that they look at, um, the expression they see around them, and so on social media, not only by young people, but by people in general, that they look at it through a different light. Uh, not necessarily trying to compare it to this ideal that we started off with, you know, of the rational and subjective and fact-based, but rather trying to ask themselves, what is this person trying to tell me? Uh, why is this meaningful to them? Um, what story are they trying to tell? Um, how are they using like, the platform to tell it in a certain way? So I think, um, just coming to, um, to political expression from that perspective, um, helps to both take it more seriously and also to think about it as hopefully an invitation for political conversation. I mean, as I said earlier, um, in our analysis and in others analysis, social media is not the best place to have these conversations, but at least think of it as a starting point and maybe, um, uh, use it also as an invitation to have, uh, more in depth conversations in other places, uh, of your life, uh, in other contexts and in other, um, uh, circumstances.
Dr. Robin Stern: Thank you and thank you both for coming here. Um, really, it's been a joy and, and I hope we'll do it again as, as you get more and more feedback and more and more, um, opportunity to talk to young people, to educators, to parents, uh, just it's so important, not your parents' politics. So important to read, tell people where they can find you
Dr. Ioana Literat: For the book. The easiest place to get it is Amazon. Um, and we both have our personal websites,
Dr. Robin Stern: How wonderful. Thank you very much. And to my listeners, I know it's been a very meaningful hour, and I look forward to seeing you next time. Thank you, Robin.
Dr. Ioana Literat: Thank you. That was so great.
Dr. Robin Stern: Thanks for joining me for today's episode. I hope you found it helpful and meaningful. If you want to listen to other episodes of the Gaslight Effect podcast, you can find them at robinstern.com or wherever you listen to podcasts. And please leave a rating and a review. I also invite you to follow me on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter. This podcast is produced by Mel Yellen, Mike Lens, and me. All of my work is supported by Suzen Pettit Marcus Estevez, and Omaginarium, also by Sally McCarton and Jackie Daniels. I'm so grateful to have many people supporting me and especially grateful for all of you, my listeners.
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