 Hi everyone. Thank you so much for joining us today. My name is Ashley Zahn. I'm the Senior Director of Learning and the Impact at the Knight Foundation, where I lead our research and our assessment program. I'm really excited today because we've partnered with Circle for a great conversation about media and the emerging electorate. And hi, I'm Abby Kisa, Director of Impact at Circle, which is part of Tufts University's Tisch College of Civic Life. I'll be co-moderating today with Ashley. And before we start, I want to thank everyone at the Knight Foundation for their collaboration on this, including Terry, Roshni, Sam, and the rest of the Knight Foundation team. Over the past 20 years, Circle's done a lot of research into young people's participation in elections. And we're thrilled to focus this conversation on the important role of media defined broadly in the middle of this 2020 election cycle. We're talking about the emerging electorate today, which includes 49 million young people ages 18 to 29, 15 million of whom have turned 18 since the 2016 election. And bring engagement to a wide diversity of experiences and perspectives. Ashley's going to start by sharing some of the Knight research with us, and I'll share some of Circle's research. And then we're excited to welcome an all-star panel to discuss. Our panelists will be Kyra Kiles from YR Media, Erika Dilday from Futuro Media, and Nicole Hensel from New Era, Colorado. Ashley? Great. Thanks so much. So Knight Foundation commissions original research to add to the general understanding of the present and future of informed and engaged communities. A few of the studies that we released in 2020 offer interesting insights about young adults, their perceptions of the media, how they interact with the media, and what that might mean for their civic engagement. We also explore their faith in the democratic process. So the insights that I'm going to share with you today are coming from a few different studies that we've released this year. First, we have the 100 million project, which is a landmark study of 12,000 chronic non-voters, nationally in intense swing states. And it compares chronic non-voters, and so they have to be aged 25 or older to have an established voting history to voters, as well as to the emerging electorate ages 18 to 24. We also did an in-depth deep dive of that data, particularly the nationally representative sample, to understand how media habits relate to voter participation. Then we followed up with a college poll, partnering with college polls, where we polled 4,000 students in four-year colleges to get their attitudes on voting in the election. And then finally, we have American Views, Trust Media and Democracy, which is a landmark study, one of the most comprehensive studies on public opinion and the media. So a few of the key findings that I want to share with you, they start with a majority of young adults, like younger non-voters, tend to bump into news rather than seek it out. So we see that 18 to 24-year-olds are mostly bumping into news, and that that pattern is similar to 25 to 29-year-olds and 30 to 50-year-olds who are non-voters. We also note that 18 to 24-year-olds are less likely to have discussed the news with their family growing up. In addition to that, we also see that following news closely is related to age. So in the 100 million study, which is not on this slide, we see 16% of 18 to 24-year-olds say that they follow news very closely, and this is less than the 24% of non-voters or 40% of voters who say they follow news about politics very closely. But we see this finding confirmed in our American Views study, where we see that 18 to 29-year-olds are less likely to follow news very closely about political figures in Washington, issues affecting their local community, international affairs, or their state government. This also translates to them rating themselves as less knowledgeable about the issues facing their local community and facing the United States. Not surprisingly, we do see that social media is young adult's primary source of news, and that news sources appear to be related to voting patterns. So 40% of 18 to 24-year-olds say that they most often got news or information by seeing it on social media, which is very different than the pattern that we see broadly among voters and non-voters. But when we did a deep dive into the main source of news and based on age, we do see that younger non-voters are more likely to get their main source of news from social media, whereas younger voters are more likely to get news from news websites and apps. When we look particularly at the disengaged, we do see apathy as a primary driver as to why folks are not engaging in politics. So 28% of those who answered the question, why aren't you currently registered to vote, said because they're not interested or they don't care. When we asked them what might motivate them to vote, 15% said nothing. But we did see some ways that they might engage if they could vote online, if there was a candidate that they believed in, or if they had better quality information. We also see when we asked them to rate their interest in politics broadly, they score them, 18 or 24-year-olds score themselves as less interested than older voters and non-voters. We also see that young adults are highly skeptical about the elections. Only 15% are very confident that elections represent the will of the people. And when we asked specifically about the 2020 election when we polled the college students, we did see that 81% of them say that special interest groups have influence over the election. 55% were concerned that it wouldn't be administered well, and 49% were concerned that it wouldn't be fair and open. That said, we do have hope for 2020. When we did the 100 million project study, 59% of 18 to 24-year-olds were absolutely certain that they would vote. And more recently, when we polled college students, 71% were absolutely certain that they would vote in November. And that group was led by college women and Democrats. So these are just a few of the key insights that we have in our research. I encourage you to check out the rest of it to get more details. And with that, I'll turn it over to Abby to share some of the research that they've been doing at Circle. Thank you, Ashley, for providing that great overview of your recent research from the Knight Foundation. And thank you to all of you who are joining us in providing wisdom from your own experiences and work. Our team brings our diverse experiences and our knowledge of what supports diverse young people to this conversation to discuss access and representation, two areas we consistently come back to in our work. We want to ask questions about why young people have had to turn to new media to tell their own stories, and what news media can do to increase civic and political access and representation among young people. For those of you just joining, my name is Abby Kisa, and I have the privilege of serving as director of impact at Circle, which is part of Tufts University's Tisch College of Civic Life. Circle was founded in 2001. And for 20 years, we've been working to understand, communicate, and work to shift the systemic issues and potential supports for what helps and hinders young people's participation in our community's decision making. One area we've long focused on because of its ubiquity and influence on who has power is elections. Elections are just one of the ways young people influence society and society influences whether and how youth engage. Circle has a broad portfolio that touches on many aspects of young people's lives and view youth civic learning and engagement through a holistic and developmental lens. After 20 years of work, one thing is clear. Some communities develop youth agency and in others, youth develop it for themselves. This is why we speak about youth election engagement not as an issue of interest, but an entrenched issue of young people's access and inclusion that manifests other inequalities in this country. So today, I come to this conversation looking at some recent research wondering what it can mean for this election and for the future, and especially for what we call civic institutions. I want to start with trust. While we talk a great deal about trust in news media, we need to complicate our understanding of this in our view. Before the 2016 election, only 17% of young people 18 to 29 years old who we surveyed agreed that they trust reporters and journalists to cover issues in their communities accurately. And in our advanced analysis of this data, which I'm excited to share here first, we found that trusting media is actually negatively associated with believing you have a legitimate voice in the political process. So I want to ask, is that the kind of trust we're going for? Second, we have to talk about access. In the 2018 election, only 33% of first time eligible voters who we surveyed found that local news had been helpful to them to prepare to vote in the midterm election. Interpreting this number can go a series of directions as can our emerging analysis of local newspapers and youth voter turnout, which finds no nationally consistent relationship. And finally, I want to talk about representation. In the spring and early summer of 2020, amidst uprisings around the country, largely led by young black organizers, 36% of young people said that in the past seven days before they took the survey, they created media or other content online about politics, a current event, or a social or political issue you care about at least occasionally. This is an increase from 20% who had done so in the previous month before our 2016 survey, a notable shift illustrative of agency and passion that I look forward to hearing from our panelists. Additionally, in 2020, among those who had created media, 64% who did so reported feeling more informed as a result. And a similar number said that they feel more represented when they create and share media about politics or social issues and feel like their voice is more powerful as a result. Over the summer, our young interns, Ruby and Emma, also identified that access to the benefits of this media creation can differ by gender and race as well. In our work, we have regular conversations about democracy and civic life and the role of institutions and newer, more inclusive spaces. Media is not new to this list of talking about institutions versus other spaces, but I worry that we have not fully understood the facilitation role of diverse youth voices in storytelling and the ways young people are represented and not in news media as it influences young people's agency. In the next year, we have much more planned and we'll continue our work to delve into whether and how institutions can support increased access and increased representation by learning from the work of young people themselves and possibly by seeing them as partners. So at this time, we're going to be joined by our amazing group of panelists. I'm excited to introduce everyone and get started with a few questions. Ashley is monitoring all of the questions that you all are sending in via the Q&A feature here in Zoom. So please write them into the Q&A box and she'll come back and bring some of those questions in a little while. First, I want to welcome Kyra Kiles. Kyra is the CEO of YR Media, an award-winning national nonprofit serving youth storytellers. Among her media roles, Kyra served as editor-in-chief and senior vice president and head of digital editorial at Ebony and well at Jet launched their first ever app. Welcome, Kyra. Second, I'd like to welcome Erica Dilday, the CEO and executive director at Futuro Media Group. Erica is the CEO and executive director there where she has tasked with shaping and guiding Futuro Media's strategic vision and long-term sustainability. Erica Dilday brings over 20 years of experience in not-for-profit organizations specializing in local and national media companies. And third, I'd like to welcome Nicole Hensel. Nicole is the executive director of New Era Colorado, which was founded in 2006 and Nicole joined in 2019. New Era is a voice for young people in Colorado politics on policy and elections and as leaders. Welcome. Thank you all for being with us today. So let's start this off with just a few more to hear a little bit about you know how you view your work. So Kyra, thank you so much for joining us today and for trying to include one of your many young storytellers with us. We really appreciate it and sorry that they couldn't join us. Can you tell us a little bit about wire media and how wire media supporting diverse young voices in this moment? Absolutely. So wire media is based in Oakland, but we have a national reach and we've worked with other outlets including NPR, New York Times, PopSugar and others to amplify youth voice the way we work and in two ways we educate. So we have young people that come into our headquarters or virtually learn about reporting storytelling, music production, and then we also have our platform wire.media which is where we're amplifying that voice and we have everything from day-to-day narrative to documentaries to podcasts, anything that we can do to keep youth voice at the center and they co-lead the work. I think you know it's great that we're having this discussion especially about diversity because most of our storytellers are BIPOC youth and you know the way that we're working right now is allowing them to kind of help lead where the coverage should go. So they're interested in reporting about immigration, about environmental justice, systemic justice, Black Lives Matter and it's really important to us to be able to provide that amplification for them especially in this moment where as you mentioned you know agency is such an important part of engaging youth and so that that's what wire media is doing in this moment and then last I'll just add that we have a project we're doing that specifically about the election called 18-29 Now and we've got young people from all over the country and for all this talk about apathy you see none of that on 18-29 Now because they're talking about the issues that really matter from college affordability to race and it's really exciting to watch. Thank you so much Kyra. Erica can you tell us a little bit more about fruitero media and how your team is thinking about youth engagement with media? Sure we cover topics that are of interest to people of color our media our journalism is fact-based storytelling for and about people of color and one of our newest about three years old now projects is our in the sick talk show which is where we look at politics from a POC lens but one of the things that we found most interesting about it is that this podcast skews so much younger than most of the other things that we do we have a large youth audience and as Kyra was saying they're very engaged they ask a lot of questions they participate they want to know their very issued rhythm and they very much want direct answers about the issues that they care about the other thing that we find very interesting is that they will push the envelope if we say something they don't like or they don't agree with we'll hear from them we'll you know we'll hear from them via instagram we'll hear from them via twitter and we will end up having discussions at a level where we incorporate a lot of what they say into what we do the next time and one thing that I think at least is new for us is that level of engagement I you know I'm not sure how people say that youth aren't engaged because as soon as we do something we hear from them we hear if they like it we hear if they don't like it we hear if they have more questions about it we hear if they want to share a particular story so at least for us it's been a way to build an audience around not just issues about communities of color but issues that communities of color are concerned about and one thing that I do find a lot with the feedback that we get is that our youth are concerned about a number of different issues not the ones that they've been pigeonholed to supposedly care about and there's a good and bad of the fact that they get everything from social media they may not be as in-depth on a particular topic but they sure do know a lot about a number of things and they look to us for answers and they also like I said challenge us very much on those answers and for us it's probably the most dynamic uh audio uh project we have right now what an amazing example thank you so much for sharing that so Nicole turning to you know young folks in Colorado um tell us can you tell us a little bit more about Colorado about new era and also you know how the pandemic has affected your work and what you're seeing resonated resonate with young folks in 2020 absolutely and thank you so much for having me here um and so just a bit more about new era you mentioned this in your introduction but we were founded in 2006 by a group of students at CU Boulder who graduated and then realized that young people didn't really have a seat at the table in our democracy and thought that that was pretty messed up because young people are like the most diverse generation that has ever existed in this country um one out of five Gen Zers identify as Latinx um young people also historically throughout our country have always played this role as the moral compass right they are the ones who are the first to speak out when they see injustice they are on the front lines of many of our major movements for justice throughout history and so young people are this really important renewal force they are imaginative they're futuristic they're optimistic um I love being here with my co-panelists who like it's very clear we all believe in youth power and see the ways in which young people are engaged in shaping their worlds um and their lives and um it's very important as a result of that that young people are engaged in the civic process and so um you know a new era aims to reinvent politics for young people mobilizing and empowering a new generation and we do that primarily through three main programs the first of which our bread and butter program is our civic engagement program so we register young people to vote and then we turn them out at some of the highest rates in the country and we've registered over 200,000 young people to vote since we were founded in 2006 which is not a small number um that is like you know can potentially shift the tides of many elections that we have here in the state and we also do issue advocacy work so um you know both Kyra and Erica talked about young people being motivated by the issues and that's absolutely what we find young people are issues first voters and so we connect um you know the civic process to the issues that young people care about so we do work at the state legislature we do work on state ballot measures which is this wild thing in Colorado if you are out west you might know about these ballot measures but there's a wild world with these ballot measures and so we make sure that we connect the issues that young people care about to the power of their of their voice and of their vote um and then we also do leadership development programs so oftentimes new era is the first stop for young people on their political journeys um and they get real experience um practicing campaign management and um organizing and community organizing and then they go on to work within the the infrastructure here in Colorado um and so everything about our work changed very dramatically with the pandemic I think we we are a peer-to-peer organization it's why we're so effective we are young people talking to young people for young people and a lot of what's powerful about our work is our in-person element the in-person conversations that we can have in the field with young people and get a pulse check of where young people are at and obviously that's shifted dramatically with the pandemic but what hasn't changed is that we are still meeting young people where they're at luckily young people are pretty digitally savvy so we were able to pivot pretty quickly into digital organizing and reaching up to young people when the pandemic hit initially we just did massive outreach to check in with our young people to make sure they were okay to see if they needed support um that wasn't just the right thing to do but also like trust is the greatest currency you can have as an organizer and so um it also built trust with our young people which makes them that much more likely um to listen to us and for us to be able to break through the noise um during a very very busy election cycle so um luckily also Colorado had um really we have you know very great um election access laws here we have online voter registration and um elections are very accessible um compared to other states and so we were able to engage young people um even in the midst of the pandemic and we are in full get out the vote mode right now making sure that we're breaking down barriers for young people about the kind of um you know it's their first time voting and democracy takes practice um especially if you haven't had opportunities to practice democracy in your life um and we'll talk more about that later thank you so much Nicole so at this topic about media and the emerging electorate can go so many ways from young people taking their own space to what news media can do to be more inclusive and we want to cover sort of three or four of these amazing areas so let's start with media um like the title of this event and how can today's media um define broadly meet use where they are to create more healthy vibrant democracy so Erica I'd love to start with you you recently wrote an article for Neiman lab titled journalists can help people tell their own stories by talking less and listening more can you elaborate on this for how journalists can engage with younger adults in that participatory way that you just said sure and one thing that I think we all know that media is guilty of is telling people what to think and how to think and at least with the youth audience in particular uh we have found that that does not work that it is about in engaging them in asking questions and also in listening to what it is that concerns them or what they've seen one of the things that we believe is that no one can tell your story for you and the journalist has to unlock that story be the catalyst to getting it out there and I think particularly with young people is we have new ideas part of what we want to do is form a bridge to introduce them to some of what's happened in the past as a way to feed what they want to do not to dictate what they should do or how things should be done and I think we have a tendency to preach and talk down to you to tell them how they should be energized or what they should be doing one of the things that we did for a while was when we decided we wanted to talk about voting was instead of just urging people to vote was to ask them why they weren't what was it and I believe Nicole had in her research some very good information and what we found was the desire to make a difference didn't correlate with an actual vote necessarily it was more belief that making a difference was not going to be done through voting so we've seen a lot of that what we have also found is that addressing issues and providing clear ideas and breakdowns of why things are happening so that you can make their own decisions about how they'd like to get involved with for us DACA has been a big big topic and one of the things that we found is that our youth audience has wanted to know okay we want DACA we know it's under threat what is it that could change that how can that be changed and then we can get involved but we want to know what it is specifically that we can do to support that and so I think providing that path to action and providing different options to action and as opposed to just focusing on well you know vote for your local congressperson who will do this it's it's not necessarily always the way that we're finding youth want to engage they are interested many times in in looking at you know how do we do this in a different way because your way hasn't worked and so we're we're we're open and it takes a lot to be open to that and one of the things that we've done is also tried to make sure that we have more youth voices particularly we're finding youth of color feel invisible and that you know they they don't need to be empowered they have the power they lack the platform and we're trying to provide the platform for them to be able to use their voices and also for us to shut up and listen so we can figure out more about how we amplify what it is they believe in and what they need thank you so much Erica Kyra and Nicole this theme of reinvention the participation of being participatory co-leading reinvention seems to be themes already in our conversation here what do you see as possibilities if any um with existing media sort of meeting young people diverse young people a little bit more where they are you know I can jump in and I want to say I agree with everything that Erica said and you know that that's one of the things that we see in other communities it's not just young people it's diverse audiences where somebody in this homogenous newsroom has decided what is important to this specific group and then they package it up the way that is relatable to them and bring it to you and so I think one of the keys in getting youth engaged in voting and media is to let them be part of it because that is true they do have the agency they have the knowledge people often like to talk about all the misinformation and disinformation that impacts young people to my knowledge young people aren't the ones who fill for the Russian bot foolishness on Facebook during our last election right so we can't just you create and keep this narrative going that it we need to be there as these guardrails in some cases we provided the wrong guardrails so the best thing to do is to co-create with them provide them with a platform so that they can speak to their own issues one of the things we found at wire media is that they are looking for tips and tools and resources so some of the more popular pieces we put up of late have been things like why you may not want to take a a selfie in the in the ballot booth depending on where you are in the country you know when you go to a protest how do you you know what how do you navigate that what should you bring and what should you leave at home what kind of identification do you need so you're looking for that kind of information and i want a hundred percent agree they're like some of this has been packaged as young people don't care about the countries or they don't vote they care about the country they vote they don't see any change so what is the you know what's the urgency of you getting to to a poll box i just read a study that said that young people are motivated more by issues and by resolution and that whole like do your civic duty does not resonate on any level and i think that's something that we just have to get used to is that making people part of the solution is that no matter what kind of people they are you know is the key and not us deciding in this prescriptive way from behind our little you know ivory tower or zoom boxes so to speak what they're interested in and what they should be doing at this moment in history like if you noticed most of the people marching up the street young people so they don't really need us to give them an instruction booklet about how to fix some of the mess that many people in the generations that like to vote let happen yeah i couldn't agree more i think um something that we've been really thinking about with our messaging this year is um how do we expand what we define as democratic engagement right like i think for so long civic engagement has been seen as voting and you know that has been the universal message is vote vote vote and then everything will change but young people have like called bs on that and they know that it's far more than voting it's also protesting it's organizing it's calling your legislator it's getting your friends activated um and we've seen that and i think that's something that we've been trying to shift in our messaging this year is that this idea that voting is going to lead to liberation is something that young people know is not right um i think we also need to recognize the ways in which our democracy is rigged and the ways in which our democracy isn't functioning um in the ways that we like to think it is and and young people are not oblivious to this i think young people really know can really target inauthent inauthenticity um very well and they know when they're being lied to um and they understand um that just voting isn't going to lead to the kind of world that they want to create it's going to be a fight and there are multiple ways to engage now that being said we do know that young people are ready to vote this election they do see it as a you know existential threats that they're facing whether it's racial justice income inequality climate change like they understand the power of their vote um but i think we um can often be patronizing to young people when we say oh just vote and everything will be better when they know that with special special interests and money in politics and the ways in which our democracy is not um fair or just and has built has been built to maintain white supremacy like they know these things and they um concede through that and so i think something that i'm hearing also from our co-panelists is that um young people also need to be given an opportunity to practice what it looks like to engage in democracy in their life i'm a former teacher and a lot of our um schools are set up are not set up like democracies right where young people actually have an authentic voice in the kinds of environments that they're that they're living in um instead it's like a very top down um kind of approach and so and then they graduate and we expect them to just know how to participate in democracy when they haven't been given a voice the first 18 years of their lives um and so it takes a lot of rebuilding and reshaping power with young people um to really bridge that gap to have them see like actually i do see a path forward um in solving collective challenges through the democratic process thanks so much nicole so speaking of youth voices we've we've heard really really clearly from from the panel that young people's voices need to be at the center of conversations not on a side or not a secondary um and i'm wondering kaira you know in and our research i mentioned at the beginning that we're seeing young people say that when they create media they feel more informed more represented and more powerful i'm wondering um you know does that resonate with what you find at wire media and what are you hoping that the effects are of young people telling their own stories you know i think it's something that like i said represents what many communities that don't feel heard feel that you need to be part of the solution that's what kind of creates those echo chambers of people who are not in certain communities or in certain circumstance deciding what's of importance urgency and worthy of coverage and consideration uh you know i i grew up in and just recently moved from chicago where there was a study done that demonstrated that the news media had one idea of what people wanted and it was coverage of crime and other things and then there were people in the community saying they wanted to learn about culture arts business enterprise there was a total disconnect i believe it was in the kormick foundation that did this or underwrote the study and you know it's i think that's what it is it's it we are living in a world where young people don't really need our permission to create media you know they there are tiktoks with way more followers and and way more audience than some of these so-called mainstream media outlets so if you don't learn how to connect with them and communicate with them they have alternatives i mean we have to remember that a lot of uh some of the black lives matter protest video and visuals and information was going from tiktok users who were communicating what they were seeing on the ground the media might be telling a story of vandalism and what have you and then hear these young people that are there telling you what actually did happen and so when you see that you see the the disconnect i think one of the things that's been really popular over the last decade is receipts you can't just say things you have to actually have to back up the receipts and so the mainstream media at this point doesn't have the receipts because they have a newsroom structure and leadership for the most part present company excluded and i'm pleased to be part of that and look at this lineup that we have right now um but you know the key is that when you don't mirror the community you can't serve them accurately you know you want to have everyone at the table we see that in the film industry the tv industry advertising so this is nothing new or different and you know my hope is that when young people because what i'm hearing at wire media is they are so excited for the opportunity and i'm not going to say grateful because they deserve it you know that we're not giving them anything they deserve it so when they are grateful in their way though because they want to be able to be heard they have certain issues that are not being discussed they want to talk about the environment greater depth they want to talk about remote learning and the discrepancies we had a story from a young black woman who talked about how zoom is just replicating systemic inequities you know something that you wouldn't read in these other stories about people who are disappointed because they can't find their tablet you know that's one story but then there are these other you know much deeper stories and so creating in concert with young people is I think what is important and not deciding what they want by looking at different social media feeds and so finding a way to do that to have them in that advisory and also an execution capacity I think is what's really important and I have high hopes that not only are they writing about these things creating these things gives them agency but we're seeing that there's a lot of excitement around not only voting you know to Nicole's point because that's not it it's a you know a yes and you'd vote and you get out there and you do grassroots organizing and you invest if you can or you volunteer if you don't have the financial means to invest in different causes that you believe in so I see a lot of hope even though this is a really dark time for our country I see a lot of hope in that and just I wanted to add one thing on to what Kyra's saying which is about young people participating in media regardless of whether or not we are inviting them to they have the ability to of the most significant media events in the past 10 years Eric Garner's death and George Floyd's death were captured and shared by young people it wasn't the news media it wasn't professionals it was it was both of those were captured by young people and I think we sometimes have to realize that there is a sense of responsibility and even an understanding of how important it is to amplify the understanding of injustice that they have an experience in the tools they can use in a way that we just where we're not we don't have that facility we're not that supple we're not that quick thank you so much for making that unbelievably important point one of the young people who advises us um asked the question about one wanted to pose to the panel this question about you know media narratives about young people right and there's many and some are um just flat out stereotypical um and she's wondering how to change the narrative about young people in media to be much more nuanced um clearly you know young people being part of creating media is something um and as Kyra said part of the solution are there other ways that you think that we have opportunities to shift the narratives about young people um you know whether it's about protest whether it's about voting or whether it's just general um you know like you were talking about distance learning thoughts i think one of the things that we have to do is start to invite young people to lead the conversation and to ask questions of us at least in the media we tend to have older people asking questions of young people when we include them they do not lead the process and because we don't allow them to lead the process we in a sense are controlling that narrative if we are to give them the agency to lead the process to ask us the questions to you know decide where the focus will be i think we'll we'll have much better answers and much better questions one thing that we did recently and i mean we had really young people we brought in a group of eighth graders and asked them to interview our two hosts about the election and the questions that they asked i i really couldn't have planned and uh one of them for instance wanted to know why we were all talking about things that biden had done in 1996 why weren't we just focusing on what he done in the past couple of years i mean isn't that more likely what he's going to do which again is just not the way that we normally think about it and uh it was refreshing to hear that it's it's not something that i would have thought to ask and i think for us it's it's a new way of thinking and you know they were willing to ask questions that you know we just hadn't thought about one of the math why don't we start moving to different states where we need support for our ideas why can't we just start doing that why don't more people that's funny that the young people noted that charles blow said that too about how we don't live in the electoral college that's awesome well you know so yes see they've got the ideas that new york times columnists do too yeah for sure well so um you know we've talked about digital media a good bit and nicole you mentioned that you know you had to pivot after making sure that the young people who are involved in new era are okay that you really needed to pivot since so much of your work is face to face so i want to go to another question um from a young person who is on our part of our advisory group for our media work um her name is ali she's a high school student and she's wondering how how can we use digital media to reach the young people who you know are already extremely active on social media aren't the influencers um and who may not frankly have regular access to broadband um and you know when so when many folks are thinking about you know engaging young people via digital media they're you know maybe thinking about these influencers on youtube or otherwise and i'm wondering how how do youth organizers how do new news media reach beyond that group i could hop in here but um i feel like my co-panelist will probably have better ideas than i do but um it's definitely a huge um issue in terms of the digital divide that we have um we've seen that with the you know the um access to virtual learning with schools closing down um access to broadband um and the issues um that we're facing there in terms of equity and one of the ways that we've been um trying to engage young people um across the spectrum is through um something called relational organizing so relational organizing is not a new concept it's been going on forever but it's basically the idea that you organize the communities around you right so you you um are more likely to break through the noise um when there's a trusted messenger on the other line and oftentimes that means when you're talking to your friends or to your family rather than getting a cold call from someone that um you might not have a personal relationship with and so um although you know our move to digital um organizing in many ways has expanded our reach right especially in rural Colorado where we maybe weren't able to go out to a high school and register voters we are able to hop on their webinar link and register high school students out in the rural regions that we may not have been able to access beforehand um but that doesn't fill all of the gaps right and so um relational organizing is a really strong tool that we have to reach networks that we might not always be able to reach but still leveraging the power of relationships and social connection in order to expand our audience and I think um you know definitely the the influencer culture is one that has been really helpful at getting the word out very quickly to a large group of young people but oftentimes like hearing from a friend that you know shares your values and has shared lived experiences can have a longer term impact than maybe one viral post from an influencer might have and one thing we found is that we have to go where they are we have to do events I mean we had a whole plan before the pandemic hit where we were going to universities we were going to community centers we were going to Puerto Rican day parades and Caribbean festivals and we realized we have to go to places where young people are and who you know where we can meet people who are not necessarily connected and show up a lot of it is about showing up and one of the things that we learned was you know nothing beats left and right you've got to walk there and do the meeting and do the talking and share the ideas and reach out to people and for us we found that it's the only way to do it is to show up because you're right everybody doesn't have great broadband everybody doesn't you know have even a TikTok account everybody doesn't have you know high-speed internet and you've got to be willing to show up so that you can start to plant the seeds that Nicole is talking about within a group so that then it will start to grow and spread so we've been getting in several questions so Ashley is going to fill us in on what people have been asking to integrate you know some of these parts of the conversation yeah we've got a ton of great questions in here I don't think we'll have time to get to all of them I'm going to merge a couple of different questions that have have come through you guys have already given some great advice in terms of how traditional media might need to to change to do some of the things that we've been talking about what advice would you have in particular for someone who's inside of a traditional media organization who is passionate about making sure that the youth perspective is included how might you sort of advise them to get started well I think one one easy way to get started is just you know going on these platforms where these conversations are being had you know it's like in the old days we when I used to have to do man on the street as they called it I would go to the city civic center because I would meet different people from cross-section of life and now you can do that virtually so wire media for example we're on twitch you know at the urging of our music department production team you know we we have our own slack where we invite our youth contributors to come in and join and talk with us we're on you know tiktok instagram having conversations noticing story ideas from that following up with people on twitter you know I think there are fewer barriers to reaching out to people but you just have to make it a consistent effort and don't just you know stunt cast and only when you need something do you come out and then all of a sudden you're trolling you know all these different platforms I think if you're there in an authentic way and you're part of that community when you do come and you ask thoughtful questions then you will get answers so I think the the key is to go where young people are and don't think that you can track or being them to you and I would say that's a similar situation for any specific community or demographic that that you're trying to reach and I think for us it's asking them to create instead of just asking them to fill a spot or answer a question it's asking them to create so we want to do a podcast what would you like to do what are the topics you would like to cover how would you leave it who would you want to hear by asking them to create I think we give them an agency that allows them to fit outside of this narrow box but sometimes we try and put youth in and I think that's important because until people feel the thing of the freedom to do that you're not really going to know exactly what they think how much they want great thanks so much um and then we got another question about uh youth education and the question was about um should there be more media literacy education um but I want to brought it in a bit and say you know is there are there is there anything that you would change in terms of the way that youth are educated about media about civics about politics um that you think um would be influential in in um how they engage have done a lot of work in trying to incorporate the shows that we make some of the stories that we do into a way that can be part of a lesson plan or within school and I do believe that we should be teaching physics and even current history through different uh news sources I think the biggest thing that we have to do is introduce our youth to the wide variety of news sources that are out there and also make sure that we're showing them how to question and what to question um there's there's no media entity that doesn't deserve to have you know holes in what they're doing or questions asked about why they've done it this way or that way and I think that one of the best things that we can do is introduce them to the broad spectrum of media and teach them how to ask questions and how to look for things that maybe don't resonate with them or maybe don't make sense uh I think if we don't do that then we open them up to being indoctrinated into media in a way that feels inauthentic or that will lead them to turn off because I think along with news media with any sort of news you've got to find the different sources that you can trust and also read the ones that you don't and I think we have to make sure that they are aware that knowing what the ones they agree with is important and knowing you know knowing what's being said and the ones that they don't agree with is just as important. Yeah I'll briefly add on to that um I think that we also need to reimagine what the purpose of school is I spent the bulk of my career as a teacher I worked in um the public schooling system here in Denver um and you know what the skill sets that Eric is talking about right now are the skill sets that we would like to imagine would lead to a flourishing life for someone to be able to participate in our democracy for a young person to really step into their power right the ability to analyze arguments and form opinions and debate and form you know perspectives on the world and I think oftentimes in schools we see schools and environment in which students are an empty vessel of which they should be filled with knowledge and the knowledge that they're filled with is at the purview of the teacher um rather than this actual democratic process of engaging in dialogue engaging in meaning making um and so if we actually saw that the role of school was actually to support a thriving democracy we would see different ways of teaching civics instead of you know memorizing um the Bill of Rights you would see students actually enacting the Bill of Rights in their own lives and in making in assessing actually are my rights being infringed upon in my school and how am I going to organize my students to make sure that where these rights are protected for us so I alluded to this earlier but I think you know we students go through the schooling system and they learn ways of being while they're in our schooling system and if the way of being that they're being taught is that I'm just I'm here to regurgitate information then that's the kind of um you know those are the kind of habits that we're going to build over time but if what they're taught is actually I am a meaning maker I um have control over my environment I can um participate meaningfully in my world then we'll see a different type of you know literacy with a broader um emphasis on what that means um for students that are emerging. Thank you all so much thank you Ashley for bringing in the audience questions there's several more which we could probably talk for hours about um but we want to close with what close with a question so I'm just wondering from Nicole and Kyra and Erica can you share you know one other thing that you feel one thing that you feel like is most needed or that you're most excited about and how media can be leveraged to expand and diversify youth engagement in democracy. I'll start with that one and I think for me the first of all the democratization of media the fact that anybody who has a phone or you know an account on social media can share ideas can poke holes and things I think that is has been you know both more of a blessing you know sometimes a curse for our democracy because you know sometimes it's abuse but the fact that there are so many more opportunities for people who otherwise wouldn't have had the ability to share ideas and to question things and to speak their truth the fact that that happens now to me is a natural uh balance in power and in how news is shared and spread and the one thing I think about that too is that you know there's a filter one of the things that you know we all have is the ability to say I don't agree with this or I don't like that and I am pleased to see that we have more of an opportunity to do that and I think it it's opened up so many ideas and so many avenues and it can be a little bit scary but I think all in all it's one of the best things to happen to us because we need to know we need to hear and we need to be able to make up our mind and I'll just you know add to that I think one of the great things that there aren't many great things that has come out of this pandemic and this this kind of racial and cultural reawakening is that authenticity is important going and turning your profile black if you really don't care anything about changes to systemic injustice can quickly be determined by your audience especially your youth audience who are looking for as I mentioned those receipts and they want to see meaningful action and I really don't think they're going to let up some people are afraid that what's happening right now is a fad or something that's just happening in this moment but I don't think that you know I'm very hopeful because what I think it is is the beginning of seeing really what our democracy is you know there's this ideal of what America is and then there's what America is and for many of us especially you black and people of color we've known that for some time so some people are surprised I'm not surprised you know what I mean like I've said this before my great-grandmother has faced this my grandmother my mother I faced it and I look out of the window and I see young people facing it and I don't think that we're at a place where we can just go back to polite conversations and we don't discuss politics at the table yes we're going to discuss politics at the table and we're also going to discuss politics where we can make some change so I'm seeing hope and energy in this I think the key is to have more people at the table I think that young people are not going to allow themselves not to be at the table which is even greater and that if you don't cover them properly they will do what they need to do and they have the tools and the digital savvy to do that and I applaud that I think we are seeing this integration of gatekeepers and when you see that you get more information different information different audiences represented different storytellers and that's what should have been happening so you know I'm here to say that I you know in my prediction could be wrong come back to me maybe in ten years but I think we're seeing the dismantling of a system that was meant to work in this way and I think that what what we can hope for is that young people will continue to leave the charge and not apologize not wait for permission and all indications to me are that they will not so I'm really excited to see what the future holds uh how can I follow Kyra that was amazing um because you're amazing I'm just gonna like retweet everything that you've said and I think um um wow that just like speaks so much to my core and the the faith that I have in young people and I think um you know just to double down on what Kyra said the media shapes the narrative right they tell the stories we can change policy as much as we want and until there's a shift in the culture and the norms and the values um we're not gonna see the large-scale movement that we want to and the media plays an important role in that and um you know we're in the midst of transformation as a country I like to believe that um like you said Kyra and if we aren't centering the voices of young people in that reimagination then we're going to be limited in the kinds of possibilities that we're envisioning because young people I taught kindergarten young people can imagine the most amazing futures for us they aren't limited by the ways things have been they aren't limited by people saying that's not possible they are the most creative and innovative and futuristic people that we have and so any type of reimagining that we're going to be doing as a country any type of restructuring has to have the vision of young people at the center because they are key to that renewal so I'm just in awe of the people that I we got to meet today on this panel so exciting. Thank you all so much and thank you for bringing that sentiment of reinvention and co-leadership and giving so many people so many ideas for how that might be possible for them um and especially for your time today so thank you all who participated for your questions um this is a small part of what's at play in all of these issues um I just want to say for more on circles research in this area of youth media and democracy you can visit circle.tuffst.edu um and I'm going to turn it over to Ashley to close us out. Thank you all just echo Abby thank you to our panelists for the amazing discussion thank you Abby for co-hosting uh with us um and thank you all for joining us this afternoon um to follow more about our research and more of our conversations um you can go to kf.org slash night live or follow the night live hashtag on twitter uh thank you again we're so glad to have had you today