SHOW NOTES
Dr. Lena Hübner, an assistant professor of communication at the University of Ottawa, discusses her research on cyber violence and its impact on women’s digital information practices. The conversation explores Hübner’s work, conducted in collaboration with Co-Savoir, a Montreal-based community organization, examining how online harassment such as hate speech, and exposure to harmful content affects racialized women’s access to news and activism. The discussion concludes with reflections on the politics of not caring and positionality in research.
Come check out the launch of her latest project Voix Plurielles on April 10 @ 17h15 at the University of Ottawa (en francais). The project includes three exhibits including Lena’s research results, a series of podcasts with community organizations, and art by Fanny Constatino, Yasmine Hadid, and Dion Prints that explore how racialized women navigate online misogyny and other forms of cyberviolence.
GUEST BIO
Dr. Lena Hübner is an Assistant Professor of Communication at the University of Ottawa, specializing in cyber violence, digital information practices, and feminist activism. Her doctoral work at the Université du Québec examined how individuals from working-class backgrounds engage with online political spaces. She continued this work as a postdoctoral fellow at McGill University, where she collaborated with community organizations to investigate the impact of cyber violence on racialized and marginalized women’s access to information.
Beyond academia, Dr. Hübner engages in feminist activism, critically examining whiteness in research and in the politics of knowledge production. Dr Hubner has many published works including her 2019 article, Femmes autochtones et militantisme en ligne: usages de Facebook et Twitter pour contrer les violences sexuelles dans la foulée du scandale policier de Val-d’Or. Through her scholarship and advocacy, she sheds light on the often-overlooked consequences of digital violence, pushing for more inclusive and equitable digital spaces.
WORKS CITED
Hübner, L.A. (soumis). The Privilege Not to Care: Rethinking Political Disengagement amongst Quebec’s White Working-Class, dans Nazon, É. (éd.), Rethinking a World in Crisis. Ottawa : Presses de l’Université d’Ottawa, (chapitre accepté, sous presse).
Hübner, L. A. (2022). «It’s Not Like I Could Change Anything, so Why Should I Care?»: Exploring Political Narratives in Depoliticized White Working-Class Environments. Interactive Film & Media Journal, 2(3), 39–55.
Hübner, L.A. et A.-M. Pilote (2020). “Mobilisations féministes sur Facebook et Twitter : Le cas du mouvement #StopCultureDuViol au Québec,” Revue Terminal, 127.
Hübner, L.A. (2019). “Perspectives critiques et études sur le numérique : à la recherche de la pertinence sociale.” Dans Piron, F., L. Brière et M. Lieutnant-Gosselin (dir.). Et si la recherche scientifique ne pouvait pas être neutre ? (p. 459-474). Québec, Canada : Éditions Science et Bien Commun.
Pilote, Anne-Marie, and Lena A. Hübner. 2019. “Femmes autochtones et militantisme en ligne: usages de Facebook et Twitter pour contrer les violences sexuelles dans la foulée du scandale policier de Val-d’Or.” Recherches féministes 32(2): 167-196.
DSR Relevant Content
TRANSCRIPT
00:00:01 Speaker 1
Hello and welcome to doing Social Research where I talk with some of my favorite people who do Social Research to dig into the cool projects they’re working on, along with the struggles and successes they’ve had in their careers.
00:00:12 Speaker 1
My goal is to help demystify research for students.
00:00:14 Speaker 1
Inspire other researchers and provide a platform for all the brilliant work of folks doing research in the humanities and social sciences.
00:00:20 Speaker 1
I’m your host, Phyllis Rippey, professor of sociology, the University of Ottawa, and creator of the website doingsocialresearch.com.
00:00:27 Speaker 1
But today, we’re not here to talk about me
00:00:29 Speaker 1
We’re here to talk with the lovely and amazing doctor, Lena Hubner, assistant professor of communication at the University of Ottawa.
00:00:35 Speaker 1
She’s published and teaches in both French and English, including in the Journal of the Feminist and Interactive Film and Media Journal, on the role of cyber violence on the world that cyber violence plays in the digital information practices of racialized and are disadvantaged women in the Quebec text.
00:00:51 Speaker 1
She also is interested in issues of poverty.
00:00:53 Speaker 1
Feminist activism against sexual violence and the role whiteness plays an academic.
00:00:57 Speaker 1
Research for her doctoral thesis, she examined the links between relationships to politics and digital information practices, and depoliticized modest income settings, and Quebec through the prism of class, whiteness, nation, and gender.
00:01:10 Speaker 1
She completed her doctorate and communications at the University, of Qubec
00:01:13 Speaker 1
Michael followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at McGill University’s Department of Art.
00:01:18 Speaker 1
The street and communicate.
00:01:19 Speaker 1
Studies and I got to know Lena in organizing a workshop with a very cool and excellent Natalie Corey from Concordia University where we organized a workshop called Difficult Encounters Inclusive approaches to challenges in the classroom, which is a workshop.
00:01:33 Speaker 1
And then also as a panelist there who shared about her research on cyber violence, both inside and outside the classroom.
00:01:40 Speaker 1
So I’m super excited they get to.
00:01:43 Speaker 1
Share some of her ideas with all of you
00:01:45 Speaker 1
You, all of my many 10 listeners.
00:01:49 Speaker 1
Hello to friends out there and also I discovered in writing this bio which basically I just plagiarized from her website that she also wrote a book chapter in 2019 titled perspective Critique to Chocolate Numeric, another Schechtel Albertino social from a book out of A.
00:02:07 Speaker 1
From titled Easy (Speaking French) LaRoche scientific nepas that nutra which for you anglos out there translates to her title being critical perspectives and data science or digital.
00:02:16 Speaker 1
I wanna find out what is the right numeric, what is the translation for anyway and so sure of social relevance from the book.
00:02:23 Speaker 1
What if scientific research isn’t neutral?
00:02:26 Speaker 1
So I’m I think this is also relevant to the things that.
00:02:29 Speaker 1
We’ve been talking about on this podcast.
00:02:32 Speaker 1
So um and this came from also quoting her work, her doctoral thesis on the online political experiences of citizens from working class backgrounds like comeback, who are far removed from political participation.
00:02:44 Speaker 1
So I’m I’m very excited to talk about that, but also what you’re working on.
00:02:48 Speaker 1
But most of all, first welcome to my podcast.
00:02:51 Speaker 2
Hello, thanks for having me.
00:02:54 Speaker 1
I’m so excited.
00:02:55 Speaker 1
So as I always like to start.
00:02:56 Speaker 1
With what research are you doing these days?
00:03:00 Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:03:00 Speaker 2
So these days I’m working on the links between cyber violence and information practices, so I’m basically I’m interested in how uh, cyber violence can prevent women from getting the News Online.
00:03:17
Hmm.
00:03:18 Speaker 2
Um, which kind of comes out of my thesis research, but also some research I did with a car.
00:03:24 Speaker 2
Leak at about feminists activism.
00:03:30 Speaker 2
So in both of those projects, like we talked to activists, but we also talked to women who didn’t actively do like Middleton work and all of them were like, you know, the Internet is a great place to, you know, get informed about activism, about news and
00:03:54 Speaker 2
But it’s it’s also a very violent place.
00:03:57 Speaker 2
And they kind of.
00:04:00 Speaker 2
Regret that.
00:04:02 Speaker 2
But they felt it was like inevitable.
00:04:05 Speaker 2
So they kind of resigned of having to deal with this, which I feel really, you know, vandalizes the impact that that violence has on our Internet practices, like how we use the web, how we usual media, what we do, what we don’t do.
00:04:25 Speaker 2
And so I wanted to explore this more.
00:04:30 Speaker 2
1st in my postdoc, which I did at McGill.
00:04:34 Speaker 2
And I started to work with some community organizations who work with mostly marginalized populations in Quebec and who got a lot of.
00:04:49 Speaker
People coming in, talking to them about violence and line and how this affects their life.
00:04:54 Speaker 2
So with a very nice organization in Montreal.
00:04:58 Speaker 2
Who?
00:04:59 Speaker 2
Who’s called Co savoir?
00:05:02 Speaker 2
They do like.
00:05:05 Speaker 2
adult education, but also like, um, they document the women’s movement and equality stuff.
00:05:18 Speaker 2
So um, they have they organize some some focus groups where community representatives came in and we just kind of asked him what cyber violence is for them and yeah.
00:05:30
Yeah.
00:05:31 Speaker 1
I was gonna ask that actually by one question was like, what do you mean by violence online?
00:05:33 Speaker 2
And like yes, so that’s a really, really broad subject.
00:05:38 Speaker 2
And like when we just ask that question it was.
00:05:41 Speaker 2
Which, well, hate and maybe hate speech and you know, like heinous comments and stuff.
00:05:48 Speaker 2
But when you get really get into it like there’s really much to it.
00:05:53 Speaker 2
So it can occur in very different settings.
00:05:56 Speaker 2
It can be like you read an article and you read some, like very Nasty comments.
00:06:02 Speaker 2
Uh, you can, like stumble upon some.
00:06:07 Speaker 2
Stuff like some violent video that you see on TikTok, with or without trigger warning.
00:06:14 Speaker 2
Yeah, it can be something very personal.
00:06:17 Speaker 2
Some, as some of the women really like, witnessed I am.
00:06:24 Speaker 2
Criminal behavior like being harassed by an ex partner or like you know.
00:06:28 Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:06:31 Speaker 2
A.
00:06:32 Speaker 2
Their organization, for which there are which they work, had, like problems with doxing.
00:06:38 Speaker 2
So that’s when they publish, like the address online, because some of the organization don’t, they don’t do that for the safety of their clients.
00:06:48
Hmm.
00:06:49 Speaker 2
So that kind of in line they were like, oh, we never realized that this kind of like.
00:06:55 Speaker 2
Of violence or like that we had an experience with that.
00:06:58 Speaker 2
So it was really interesting just to like figure this out and it gave me like a sense of what people really are aware of and what they’re just like kind of take for granted on a daily basis as just something that happens on the Internet.
00:06:58 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:07:17 Speaker 2
But you know, we live with it.
00:07:20 Speaker 2
Where you were, you read through it, but we kind of like, forget it about it.
00:07:22
Yeah.
00:07:24 Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah.
00:07:25 Speaker 1
I mean, I think like you use the word and I was, I learned this word when I first was learning French.
00:07:29 Speaker 1
Is the word banal because it’s like a very common word in French, but sort of a fancy word in English.
00:07:31 Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:07:33 Speaker 2
Oh yeah.
00:07:35 Speaker 1
But I think I heard you say, like Banalize, which is sort of like a way of being like like in French, like banali.
00:07:41 Speaker 1
OK, like that, it’s this way of just making something that is actual violence that is actually, like harmful to people.
00:07:42 Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:07:49 Speaker 1
Banal.
00:07:50 Speaker 1
Just like so commonplace.
00:07:50 Speaker 2
Yeah, like there’s, like, come and play.
00:07:52 Speaker 2
It’s like people are just like banging for.
00:07:54 Speaker 2
Granted, it’s like, yeah, it’s a violent place, but what?
00:07:56 Speaker 2
Do you can I do about it?
00:07:57 Speaker 2
You know, like I can block someone.
00:07:58 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:07:59 Speaker 2
I can unfollow someone I can think, but yeah, if you go to the Internet, you can if you have to deal with it and that’s it.
00:08:05 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:08:07 Speaker 1
It’s like it’s such a place of.
00:08:09 Speaker 1
Like a space in which it’s.
00:08:11 Speaker 1
So I think even people who just generally think structurally, really individualize it.
00:08:18 Speaker 1
You know where it’s just like, oh, well, you should know that you shouldn’t do this or you should do like, as opposed to being like we need to, like, address this or even just think about it.
00:08:29 Speaker 2
Yeah, it’s also like when you talk to people about like strategies to prevent this.
00:08:34 Speaker 2
It’s always like this strategy they mention are always very individualized, which puts a lot of responsibility in the women themselves.
00:08:42 Speaker 2
Because it’s like, yeah, you.
00:08:44 Speaker 2
Well, don’t talk about race.
00:08:45 Speaker 2
Don’t talk about gender.
00:08:47 Speaker 2
Don’t talk about feminism online or you know you will have to do with this or it’s so there’s, like, some talk about censoring themselves or taking another name or not, like putting their pronouns on, on their profile or or changing them into like, male, for example.
00:08:51 Speaker 1
Hey.
00:08:57 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:09:06 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:09:08 Speaker 2
So they can like participate in online discussion without having to deal with insults on their sexuality, which it’s kind of sad, right? So.
00:09:14 Speaker 1
Right.
00:09:17 Speaker 2
A because it kind of really contradicts this utopic idea we had when the Internet first came up that it’s like a space where we can set our demographics and our background aside.
00:09:25 Speaker 1
Freight.
00:09:34 Speaker 2
And just like comment on stuff.
00:09:35 Speaker 1
Yes. Yeah.
00:09:37 Speaker 2
But yeah, I know.
00:09:38 Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:09:38 Speaker 2
Well, well, that kind of went away when the Internet was merged like like.
00:09:45 Speaker 2
Like platforms became like corporations.
00:09:45 Speaker 1
Early on.
00:09:48 Speaker 1
But yeah, no, I mean it’s funny cause I do think that there was this.
00:09:52 Speaker 1
Yeah, there was this kind of idealism of like, it’s this free place and like, anybody can act like YouTube used to be a special, you know, it’s like you could just be a silly kid and suddenly people could be watching you and that it was this sort of free place.
00:10:05 Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:10:08 Speaker 1
And yet it is more like the Wild West.
00:10:10 Speaker 1
Well, it’s interesting too.
00:10:12 Speaker 1
Like talk about it.
00:10:13 Speaker 1
I’ve been like, I was just telling you that I was on vacation recently, and so I.
00:10:16 Speaker 1
Have like I’ve not been paying attention to the news, but like I just checked and saw the whole Mark Zuckerberg like all excited about Trump.
00:10:22 Speaker 2
Oh yeah.
00:10:25 Speaker 1
Like, I don’t really understand what’s happening exactly, but it seems s very relevant.
00:10:29 Speaker 2
Well, they abolished, like the fact checking services.
00:10:32 Speaker 2
So they were gonna go in the same direction.
00:10:35 Speaker 2
Twitter and Ellen Musk go, so it’s going to be like, yeah, far West on Facebook too.
00:10:36 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:10:41
Yeah.
00:10:41 Speaker 2
Um, I think you know in Canada on top of that we have the.
00:10:47 Speaker 2
The the law that prevents us from seeing the news and meta as platforms.
00:10:51 Speaker 1
Oh, I forgot about that.
00:10:53 Speaker 1
That’s right.
00:10:53 Speaker 2
Yeah, because because the government wants to make them pay.
00:10:57 Speaker 1
Right, right.
00:10:58 Speaker 2
But um, and that’s kind of also something that is very interesting in that when you research on the role violence plays, when people get their news.
00:11:10 Speaker 2
Because when I in a second step, I actually did interviews with the racialized women in in Ottawa and in Montreal, who used the Internet to get their news.
00:11:24 Speaker 2
And they all told me that, like, this is actually a bad idea because it totally like kind of A disrupted my whole information cycle because I only get my news on the Internet and I primarily got it them like on Instagram where on Facebook and now.
00:11:46 Speaker 1
Right.
00:11:49 Speaker 2
I don’t know.
00:11:49 Speaker 2
I just didn’t do the work to I don’t know like download an app or I mean there’s Apple News, but it’s like less the I don’t know.
00:11:56 Speaker 1
Right.
00:11:59 Speaker 2
Less interactive.
00:12:00 Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:12:02 Speaker 2
That said, it’s not like that news have totally disappeared from platforms.
00:12:07 Speaker 1
Right and.
00:12:08 Speaker 2
I mean, they’re like they’re content creators.
00:12:10 Speaker 2
Would like do resumes of of.
00:12:13 Speaker 2
What happens today or there is like people doing screenshots or?
00:12:17 Speaker 2
There there is also sort of stuff that circumvent the law, so you can still get the news, but it’s harder and it makes it so much easier for disinformation to to pop up.
00:12:21 Speaker 1
Right.
00:12:30 Speaker 2
And this is also something that sometimes this information can be very discriminatory like a lot of them is like, but immigrants about, you know, immigration about how about about and I don’t know like Muslims about like, very stereotypical and some other women I met.
00:12:30 Speaker 1
Right.
00:12:36
Here.
00:12:39
Is he?
00:12:55 Speaker 2
Did quit like for example Twitter, because since Ellen Musk took over, they see a lot of right wing comments.
00:13:05 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:13:06 Speaker 2
Uh, that are hurting them because they’re insulting their culture and they are insulting.
00:13:09 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:13:15 Speaker 2
What they stand for, and it’s just not real facts.
00:13:21 Speaker 2
So so so.
00:13:23 Speaker 2
But I feel like if this gets bigger and bigger, this can really lead to.
00:13:30 Speaker 2
These women, being excluded from getting the news, which is the basis for democratic participations, I think this is a phenomenon that we have to monitor closely, which is it’s very dangerous.
00:13:45
Yeah.
00:13:45 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:13:46 Speaker 1
Why?
00:13:46 Speaker 1
I mean, I have all kinds of guesses, but why do you think that?
00:13:48 Speaker 1
It’s like like, why do we see?
00:13:51 Speaker 1
Such a right wing influence, and like why?
00:13:56 Speaker 1
Like, do you think that there’s more false, you know, like Donald Trump was the one like, he was always claiming fake news.
00:14:04 Speaker 1
Um, you know that it was about him, which always felt like just a projection of, like, whatever he says is untrue is like what he says other people are doing is what he’s doing so.
00:14:15 Speaker 1
But like, what do you what?
00:14:16 Speaker 1
Do you what do you think explains this?
00:14:17 Speaker 2
Look, the question is really hard to answer because we don’t have access to the algorithms.
00:14:24 Speaker 2
So um, this is a very common problem and like communication studies, because we study like what people do in the Internet, but we can’t access the real algorithms of big corporations like Twitter.
00:14:38 Speaker 2
Twitter actually gave access to a lot before Ellen Musk, so we know how it worked before.
00:14:42 Speaker 1
Brains.
00:14:45 Speaker 2
But he cannot really change the algorithm, though we don’t know.
00:14:48 Speaker 2
It’s like a black box.
00:14:51 Speaker 2
What research does show is that there are some differences.
00:14:56 Speaker 2
How left wing activists and right wing activists use the Internet to disseminate the information?
00:15:04 Speaker 2
So you know what we see in feminists and left wing activism.
00:15:10 Speaker 2
A lot is like using hashtags and campaigns like me too or even before idle and more.
00:15:18 Speaker 2
All these, all these.
00:15:20 Speaker 2
A activist campaigns that kind of gain the momentum with the media, which was very powerful.
00:15:28 Speaker 2
Um, that’s not really how.
00:15:30 Speaker 2
Like right Wing Media works.
00:15:33 Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:15:33 Speaker 2
So they put a lot of effort in niche media like, you know, like bright Bart and stuff.
00:15:39 Speaker 1
Can you?
00:15:41 Speaker 1
Breitbart.
00:15:42 Speaker 1
Bird.
00:15:43 Speaker 2
And and they really invested a lot in like how you target a specific audiences, because that’s also something that like big data really helps with.
00:15:56 Speaker 2
So you can really predict who is going to be likely to see this comments.
00:16:01 Speaker 2
Um and the the last thing that we I could say about this is and in the last years what you can observe with the algorithms is that there was a lot of talk about these filter bubbles.
00:16:02
Each.
00:16:16 Speaker 2
So you can only see what you like, right?
00:16:19 Speaker 2
But actually all these platforms, they realized that engagement is also very high with.
00:16:27 Speaker 2
Stuff you hate.
00:16:29 Speaker 2
Ah, so you’re likely to stumble on something that you hate that makes you very emotional, but you stay on it and you look at it, and that’s already making them money.
00:16:41 Speaker 1
Ohio.
00:16:41 Speaker 2
So you don’t have to click X on some things that Jay can monetize it.
00:16:45 Speaker 2
You just have to stay on the video and watch it actually and yeah, so this is also something they they discovered and they that you see more and more.
00:16:47 Speaker 1
Right.
00:16:48 Speaker 1
It’s just right.
00:16:50 Speaker 1
What are they?
00:16:50 Speaker 1
Call the impressions, yeah.
00:16:57 Speaker 2
So they show you content that makes you angry, or that makes you emotional, or that makes you sad.
00:17:01
Brightness.
00:17:04 Speaker 2
So does this also?
00:17:04 Speaker 1
Right, it’s.
00:17:05 Speaker 2
Something just to that.
00:17:06
Yeah.
00:17:07 Speaker 2
They make money.
00:17:08 Speaker 1
Of that’s so interesting.
00:17:09 Speaker 1
I’ve read because of this podcast and my website and wanting to like build my brand and I’ve been wanting to do more social media stuff like make little videos about like teaching things and also because my husband has a website and so like wanting to help him, I’ve done some social media stuff for him and so like researching how do you do like how do you get?
00:17:32 Speaker 1
It’s, you know, how do you go viral?
00:17:33 Speaker 1
How do you which I have clearly not done?
00:17:37 Speaker 1
I am a total failure, but one of the things was like put a mistake in cause it’ll drive people crazy and I see it all the time where it’s like typos or people like I saw the I was.
00:17:48 Speaker 1
I drove my kids crazy cause I corrected them.
00:17:51 Speaker 1
I was like, no, I saw an ad.
00:17:52 Speaker 1
But on the that Chinese company Temu, it’s like they had an ad where they were like, oh, on temu I did.
00:17:55 Speaker 2
Can you OK.
00:17:58 Speaker 1
And I was like, no, it’s temu.
00:17:59 Speaker 1
They’re like.
00:18:00 Speaker 1
I’ve swear they’re like, no, it’s Temu.
00:18:02 Speaker 1
Everyone says team and I’m like, Oh my God, I bet that they did that on purpose.
00:18:06 Speaker 1
So that then we would be talking about this like stupid like company over the Christmas dinner table or whatever it’s like.
00:18:12 Speaker 2
Or maybe I don’t know.
00:18:14 Speaker 1
So like it’s so insidious though, like challenge like the the things that will happen that seem there will get us active exactly as you said.
00:18:23 Speaker 1
It’s like it’ll get us worked up.
00:18:25 Speaker 1
It’s like, oh, my God, don’t these people know how to spell?
00:18:27 Speaker 1
And it’s like, yes, they do.
00:18:29 Speaker 1
But they want you to watch and share and be like.
00:18:31 Speaker 1
Look how dumb this person is.
00:18:32 Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:18:32 Speaker 1
And then they still have all the hits or whatever.
00:18:35 Speaker 2
Yeah, this probably is probably a marketing tactic really.
00:18:37 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:18:38 Speaker 1
Yeah, like it literally was like recommended by someone.
00:18:43 Speaker 2
That’s funny.
00:18:44 Speaker 1
It’s so crazy.
00:18:46 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:18:47 Speaker 1
So what did you like?
00:18:48 Speaker 1
What were the in the research that you that you did with the women?
00:18:52 Speaker 1
Like what?
00:18:52 Speaker 1
What would you say was like the impact of this like so you were saying that it meant that they were using?
00:18:58 Speaker 1
Like not sort of engaging in the news as much as they weren’t watching it like and that and you said that that sort of foundational to democracy.
00:19:07 Speaker 1
Like what?
00:19:07 Speaker 1
What were they reporting and what?
00:19:09 Speaker 1
Like what are you?
00:19:11 Speaker 1
What do you make of these results?
00:19:12 Speaker 2
Yes, I’m sure some of these.
00:19:14 Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:19:15 Speaker 2
So there is some some stuff that kind of surprised me.
00:19:18 Speaker 2
So I when I was originally going into interviews, I was like, yeah, people are going to talk to me.
00:19:23 Speaker 2
I would hate comments and like I don’t know, maybe some.
00:19:29 Speaker 2
Minor like you know, feedback on their comments from friends with Eric and and there were some people talked about like, I don’t know, like once I commented it and then you know it led to a friend not being my friend anymore.
00:19:45 Speaker 2
So I stopped or one person has like say like you know I saw my.
00:19:51 Speaker 2
And um, like reposting a private message to another friend, like shaming her for her opinion about DASA or something.
00:20:01 Speaker 2
And there was like, this was the moment where was like, I’m not putting anything up on line.
00:20:06 Speaker 2
I’m like blocking her.
00:20:08 Speaker 2
And you know, this is not my friend anymore.
00:20:10 Speaker 2
Wow.
00:20:11 Speaker 2
So the stuff happened, but most people like a lot of a lot of the women that I encountered when they thought about violence and news.
00:20:21 Speaker 2
They also thought about like uh, videos from.
00:20:27 Speaker 2
War zones or?
00:20:28 Speaker 2
Hmm.
00:20:29 Speaker 2
From police violence or from, you know, stuff that they saw and that really traumatized them.
00:20:39 Speaker 2
Um, either in a good or in a bad sense.
00:20:43 Speaker 2
You know, they like like this open like one of them said, like all these videos from Black Lives Matters.
00:20:49 Speaker 2
Manifestations.
00:20:50 Speaker 2
They open my eyes, unlike journalistic bias.
00:20:54 Speaker 2
Because what I saw was not what was reported.
00:20:57 Speaker 1
Interesting.
00:20:57 Speaker 2
Um, so since then, kind of the she lost trust in like traditional media.
00:21:03 Speaker 2
And since then, she’s like, you know, when I read something in a media, I kind of go on social media and see if there’s some.
00:21:09 Speaker 2
And like right there, that reports life and like, I can kind of compare to see if there’s bias.
00:21:16 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:21:17 Speaker 1
Yeah, that’s so disturbing to me though, because so speaking this is also relevant.
00:21:24 Speaker 1
It like it’s resonating with experiences I’ve had, but so I have a friend that I I’m no longer friends with because when the trucker convoy with yeah.
00:21:30
If.
00:21:34 Speaker 1
In town.
00:21:35
I.
00:21:35 Speaker 1
Um, this friend of mine.
00:21:38 Speaker 1
We I won’t go into all the details, but basically she was very supportive of the truckers and I found out that she gave them $600.00 because when the like data from one of those things dropped, I like saw it because I was actually very active in the like online resistance to the truckers.
00:21:48 Speaker 2
Oh yeah.
00:21:55 Speaker 1
Because I live in centre town where this was happening and she kept alright.
00:21:59 Speaker 1
She doesn’t live in Ottawa.
00:22:00 Speaker 1
She lives in.
00:22:01 Speaker 1
Area, but much further away.
00:22:03 Speaker 1
And she kept telling me that the news was biased and that all the videos she was seeing was, like, ever.
00:22:09 Speaker 1
It was like loving and peaceful and I’m like, I live in this town.
00:22:14 Speaker 1
I they are like in front of my kids school like you are making my kids like be traumatized by this and she’s like, no.
00:22:21 Speaker 1
And I’m like, I like I am here.
00:22:24 Speaker 1
And so it’s like I find that so interesting this question of like, what is truth?
00:22:28 Speaker 1
What is bias?
00:22:29 Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:22:30 Speaker 1
What is not truth like?
00:22:31 Speaker 2
Well, it’s also if, like we have so many sources of information now that it’s really hard for some people to like.
00:22:41 Speaker 2
Distinguish between good and quality information and bad quality information.
00:22:46 Speaker 2
When I was doing my PhD research, I talked to a lot of folks who had less education and um, they they had a kind of a sense of that.
00:22:57 Speaker 2
Fake news exist and fake news are bad and you know they were not actively searching for information, but sometimes.
00:23:05 Speaker 2
They were aware of the fact that, like, you know, I saw this video and I found it really interesting, but I have no idea if it’s true or not and or and or if it was the media that like the the video and influencer or, you know, some commenter or some, I don’t know.
00:23:12
Yeah.
00:23:24 Speaker 2
I just saw it on on the Instagram of my friend and then I just shared it because I watched it and I liked it.
00:23:32 Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:23:33 Speaker 1
So how like not to put you on the spot?
00:23:36 Speaker 1
But like how?
00:23:38 Speaker 1
How are people supposed to tell the difference between good information and bad information?
00:23:44 Speaker 2
There are some strategies that also came up in the videos, so they had like dare strategies would like you know, if you see something you can.
00:23:52 Speaker 2
If it’s not from a news outlet, um, you can Google.
00:23:57 Speaker 1
Right.
00:23:58 Speaker 2
See if it comes up on CBC or like at a no globally news, real news outlet and some of the some of the the women I met did that.
00:24:10 Speaker 2
So it is like you know, if I’m really interested or if I’m not sure, I’m gonna Google it.
00:24:16 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:24:16 Speaker 2
Um, Butters didn’t I mean you?
00:24:20 Speaker 2
You need to know like who’s.
00:24:24 Speaker 2
Sharing it, you know, is is that person like a trustful person.
00:24:25 Speaker 1
Yeah, consider the source.
00:24:27 Speaker 2
Is that person like a professional or not?
00:24:30 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:24:31 Speaker 2
And if it’s not a professional, you know, maybe not.
00:24:34 Speaker 2
Take it for granted.
00:24:35 Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:24:36 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:24:36 Speaker 1
And like what?
00:24:38 Speaker 1
Like I always think, it’s important, like my mom always said.
00:24:41 Speaker 1
Consider the source, which will often was like her comeback.
00:24:44 Speaker 1
If I was like mad at someone she like, just consider the source villas.
00:24:48 Speaker 1
So do you like so?
00:24:48 Speaker 2
Ha.
00:24:50 Speaker 1
But I think that it’s also true that it’s like, what does this person have?
00:24:55 Speaker 1
Like, what are their interests?
00:24:56 Speaker 1
What are they trying to get out of this?
00:24:56 Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:24:57 Speaker 2
I mean, even if you read like a news article.
00:25:00 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:25:00 Speaker 2
And it’s the same as the same project, like it’s just news outlet, like more right wing or more left wing.
00:25:02 Speaker 1
So what it leave?
00:25:05 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:25:05 Speaker 2
Why?
00:25:06 Speaker 2
Why are are we talking about this issue from this perspective and why didn’t he, the journalist not interview?
00:25:09 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:25:11 Speaker 2
I don’t know another stakeholder who would have something to say in this.
00:25:16 Speaker 2
Is it because they didn’t want to talk to them, or does it because he didn’t go?
00:25:20 Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:25:20 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:25:21 Speaker 1
Well, and I think it brings me to that also like to the work that the book chapter that I mentioned in the intro about sort of you know this idea of bias and charity and new.
00:25:34 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:25:34 Speaker 1
Sorry, that’s what I was looking for.
00:25:35 Speaker 1
Thank you.
00:25:36 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:25:36 Speaker 1
Neutrality of like.
00:25:38 Speaker 1
Like I think that there is the sense that like neutrality equals truth, and I I find that really problematic.
00:25:44 Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:25:47 Speaker 2
I think there is this like kind of sense that we had for a long, long time that like, you know, um, there is a.
00:25:58 Speaker 2
Ideal and journalism, where you need to show both perspectives.
00:26:05 Speaker 1
Yes.
00:26:05 Speaker 2
If there are two perspectives through the to a problem you you’re supposed to show them both and if one side 1 doesn’t want to talk to you, you’re going to you see it in the articles.
00:26:10 Speaker 1
Right.
00:26:15 Speaker 2
That’s like the other side.
00:26:16 Speaker 2
Didn’t wanna give an.
00:26:17 Speaker 2
Interview right.
00:26:18 Speaker 2
At least you tried, right?
00:26:20 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:26:20 Speaker 2
Um, but I think uh.
00:26:25 Speaker 2
When we talk about like mistrust and media, I think in the last years with the Internet, I think maybe people got more aware of like you know, human limits to the set to this concept of objectivity, which even journalists it journalism students learned it.
00:26:28
Hmm.
00:26:40 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:26:49 Speaker 2
Objectivity doesn’t exist, right?
00:26:50 Speaker 1
Great.
00:26:51 Speaker 2
But it’s an ideal where you kind of want to go.
00:26:57 Speaker 2
Where you want to go to or what do you want to approach it a little bit, right?
00:27:00 Speaker 1
Hmm.
00:27:02 Speaker 2
But I feel like a lot of people, I I I met, they don’t really want that.
00:27:08 Speaker 2
And they also said, like, you know, that the objective feel like it’s like they they feel like I would feel more comfortable if the person that like it reports on it is very transparent about his positionality.
00:27:10 Speaker 1
What do you mean they don’t want what?
00:27:11 Speaker 1
They don’t want.
00:27:13 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:27:26 Speaker 1
Yes.
00:27:27 Speaker 1
Yes.
00:27:28 Speaker 2
So people are kind of like.
00:27:31 Speaker 2
Let’s say it they like when it did the interviews.
00:27:34 Speaker 2
It was like the protest was outside, right for for Gaza and the people people are like, you know, when people talk about this crisis or this war or this genocide, you know, I want to know if they talk from which perspective they talk and everyone has, like, a preference and like, you know, I just want to know, it’s not that, like, I’m judging them for taking sides. It’s.
00:27:58 Speaker 2
This the side you take influences how you talk about it.
00:28:02 Speaker 2
Even if you try to be neutral and that’s not interesting to me, like I wonder I wanna read like both sides.
00:28:10 Speaker 2
But like the more engaged perspective, right?
00:28:15 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:28:16 Speaker 1
And it’s it’s like I want.
00:28:19 Speaker 1
Yeah, it.
00:28:20 Speaker 1
I mean, I think all you know, there’s also the idea that just presenting two sides suggests that there is equal evidence for each side as well, which is really problematic because sometimes like that always drives me crazy when.
00:28:31 Speaker 1
There’s, you know it, like, well, the people who are opposed to this issue say these things.
00:28:36 Speaker 1
And so we need two people.
00:28:37 Speaker 1
But I’m like, well, there’s, you know, 10,000 articles supporting this idea.
00:28:42 Speaker 1
And then there’s like this one guy.
00:28:44 Speaker 1
So it’s like, yeah, why are we giving equal weight to them?
00:28:45 Speaker 2
Well, yeah, I mean, like, yeah, yeah.
00:28:48 Speaker 2
I mean like activism and maybe influencers they like.
00:28:54 Speaker 2
Who?
00:28:55 Speaker 2
Who are popular like on TikTok on Instagram and says like I mean they do this like this.
00:29:01 Speaker 2
Like they’re like, OK, like I’m pro this.
00:29:04 Speaker 2
I’m pro this and This is why I am defending this opinion and it’s really clear journalists don’t work like that.
00:29:09 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:29:12 Speaker 2
But I think the fact that they see more and more of these these.
00:29:16 Speaker 2
Contents like.
00:29:17 Speaker 1
Stein.
00:29:17 Speaker 2
I don’t know.
00:29:18 Speaker 2
It’s kind of in kind of sparks interest, so you know.
00:29:21 Speaker 1
That’s so interesting.
00:29:22 Speaker 1
Yeah, because I get into these arguments with my kids.
00:29:24 Speaker 1
And now, since my daughter is editing this podcast, we’ll see how this goes back.
00:29:30 Speaker 1
But we get into these arguments about Hassan.
00:29:32 Speaker 1
Do you know this guy?
00:29:33 Speaker 1
Hassan.
00:29:34 Speaker 1
He’s like a lefty.
00:29:35 Speaker 1
He was started on.
00:29:35 Speaker 1
He was like a Twitch streamer.
00:29:37 Speaker 2
OK.
00:29:38 Speaker 1
Um, and we’ll get into these sort.
00:29:40 Speaker 1
Of.
00:29:41 Speaker 1
Are like.
00:29:42 Speaker 1
I don’t even know how to put it, but it’s like I know that he was very important to my kids because he’s very like he was very supportive of Bernie Sanders in 2016.
00:29:53 Speaker 1
Um, his uncle, I guess was.
00:29:56 Speaker 1
Um, do you know what there was like a group called The Young Turks?
00:29:58 Speaker 1
They had, like a they were anyway.
00:30:01 Speaker 1
Sort of like Bernie Democrat adjacent kind of people, but but really like aggressively pro Bernie in 2016 and I.
00:30:14 Speaker 1
Was as an American, was like, more like excited about Hillary Clinton.
00:30:20 Speaker 1
And so they and I had a lot of other friends on social media who were like, she’s just a neoliberal hack shell, and she’s and then like would swear at me and be like, how could you?
00:30:32 Speaker 1
And I’m like, like saying that anyone who likes there is a **** he and like, I’m like, this was like, really toxic and really unpleasant.
00:30:42 Speaker 1
And so in my mind, I always put Hassan in with that.
00:30:44 Speaker 1
But my kids are like, no, no, no, he’s not like that.
00:30:46 Speaker 1
He’s not like that.
00:30:47 Speaker 1
But he is like, and I haven’t watched him enough.
00:30:49 Speaker 1
And I’ve seen a few some things that I’m like, OK, this is like extrapolating beyond the evidence.
00:30:54 Speaker 1
And the other things I’m like, he’s making extremely important arguments, but it’s very clear that he’s like he and he’s like huge.
00:31:02 Speaker 1
He’s got, like, millions of followers like YouTube channel, whatever.
00:31:05 Speaker 1
Um, but it is like what?
00:31:07 Speaker 1
I think they appreciate about him so much is his very clear like he like.
00:31:14 Speaker 1
There’s no question about where he falls on these issues, like and draws on data as much as he possibly can and like makes.
00:31:23 Speaker 1
You know, like it’s constantly watching the news or whatever.
00:31:26 Speaker 1
So he has this sort of appearance of being more informed than anybody else.
00:31:31 Speaker 2
I mean, it’s not entirely new like.
00:31:31
And.
00:31:33 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:31:34 Speaker 2
In the beginning of the 20th century, there were a lot of Union newspapers that would take a sense exactly for what they’re standing for.
00:31:38
Hmm.
00:31:43 Speaker 2
Yeah, and this was very popular.
00:31:44 Speaker 1
Interesting, yeah.
00:31:46 Speaker 2
So you know, um, maybe there’s some links to do here.
00:31:51 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:31:51 Speaker 2
Historically, I don’t know.
00:31:52 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:31:53 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:31:53 Speaker 1
And it’s like, I mean, and I do think it is the question of like.
00:31:57 Speaker 1
Like it always feels like it’s bad when the politics, the paper or whatever is promoting is not my politics.
00:32:04 Speaker 1
It’s it feels less bad when it aligns with me like it is this question of like because it’s.
00:32:10 Speaker 1
I mean, when you know, going back to the Facebook meta, whatever Mark Zuckerberg.
00:32:19 Speaker 1
Alien.
00:32:19 Speaker 1
Whatever guy.
00:32:20 Speaker 1
Know.
00:32:20 Speaker 1
Just kidding, this is this is not the podcast for.
00:32:23 Speaker 1
Conspiracy theories, you know.
00:32:25 Speaker 1
But, but that sort of that shift that they’re making to like no longer sort of track fake news or whatever, trying to not get rid of any of the violence and all that stuff.
00:32:36 Speaker 1
It is like you know, it is very hard to assess.
00:32:39 Speaker 1
Like what is the right answer?
00:32:41 Speaker 1
What is?
00:32:42 Speaker 1
How?
00:32:42 Speaker 1
How are we supposed to have information shared?
00:32:47 Speaker 1
How are people?
00:32:48 Speaker 1
I mean, I would say that’s partly why I have this podcast.
00:32:50 Speaker 1
List and why have the website is to help demystify research and to help people understand the difference between conspiracy theory and like academic inquiry, and to also sort of bring it off of a pedestal to be like they’re like here are my really smart friends who are doing really interesting things.
00:33:08 Speaker 1
But look, they’re also normal people, so don’t be like, think that this is like just a bunch of.
00:33:15 Speaker 1
I don’t know.
00:33:15 Speaker 1
It leads ivory tower people.
00:33:18 Speaker 1
It’s like these are just people doing research and studying something a lot and they have interesting and important things to say and I.
00:33:23 Speaker 1
Want and I.
00:33:24 Speaker 1
Want to give you and all my other friends on the on the podcast a platform for that.
00:33:29 Speaker 1
Um, but it is really hard to like sift.
00:33:31 Speaker 1
But you know, I have like 10 people who this is not.
00:33:35 Speaker 1
I do not have a million people.
00:33:36 Speaker 1
I am not a I’ve not yet become a millionaire so I can quit my job.
00:33:40 Speaker 1
Um, but it it’s like it feels like there’s also so much.
00:33:44 Speaker 1
Um, like I think Hassan is an interesting example.
00:33:47 Speaker 1
Like I don’t know.
00:33:48 Speaker 1
Like I assume he’s made.
00:33:50 Speaker 1
He’s like he’s got he’s like a socialist like.
00:33:52 Speaker 1
But, and I think he’s talked about like, you know, sort of having being wealthy while also being a socialist.
00:34:00 Speaker 1
But it’s not because he was like in with the Koch brothers, you know, like, it’s not that there were like, these billionaires who were creating him as a means to to support their agenda, sort of behind, like a curtain that people aren’t seeing.
00:34:16 Speaker 1
And so like it, but it so it feels like a really big uphill battle, I guess to like try to get.
00:34:23 Speaker 1
Help people understand how to think through information and how to like.
00:34:26 Speaker 1
Understand the nuances of like bias and objectivity and sort of these things that we’re trying to do while also in the face of you know, pull it like money, political interests that have a lot of like spare change to like, you know, Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk have, like, more money than they could ever possibly spend.
00:34:50 Speaker 1
So they, you know, they could just start a whole university of.
00:34:53 Speaker 1
Meta University and how to understand news that like that’s what the Rockefellers did like.
00:34:59 Speaker 1
That’s why we have so many American universities.
00:35:00 Speaker 2
If they do, they they give money to research, you know, it’s gracious.
00:35:05 Speaker 2
Who?
00:35:06 Speaker 2
Who accepts it?
00:35:07 Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:35:08 Speaker 2
But I mean I I think a lot of it of the answers that you get is like, you know, media education.
00:35:16 Speaker 2
Which is obviously very important because it’s got it’s not as simple as getting a newspaper or listening to the radio or like watching TV at 8 anymore.
00:35:27 Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah.
00:35:29 Speaker 2
So I think a lot of there’s has to be a lot of updated information for students in high schools and even in like younger kids.
00:35:40 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:35:43 Speaker 2
You know how to like, what’s the danger of going and like, what can?
00:35:48 Speaker 2
What information do you put on the Internet?
00:35:50 Speaker 2
Which information do you don’t think you know?
00:35:52 Speaker 2
There’s a lot of danger in the.
00:35:52
Yeah.
00:35:54 Speaker 2
And there too.
00:35:56 Speaker 2
So I think there’s a lot of education efforts that are made, but since technology is like evolving very, very, very quickly, yes, it kind of feels like we’re always a little.
00:36:06 Speaker 2
Bit hind yes.
00:36:09 Speaker 2
But and I feel it’s also sometimes the question of investing in school systems.
00:36:16 Speaker 2
So yeah, to be left behind, we would need more financing for research, but also for implementing these programs in school.
00:36:25 Speaker 2
Bills, even in like, you know, our bachelor’s degrees in communication studies, you know, like, if this is you, you can’t just like few years ago age HTML was like the thing like, you know, and now it’s it feels like there’s not enough anymore.
00:36:38 Speaker 1
We.
00:36:43 Speaker 2
Like we need them to understand how you how and artificial intelligence works and quickly because this is like changing so rapidly.
00:36:43 Speaker 1
Oh, God no.
00:36:53 Speaker 2
If we teach them something now, they won’t be able to use it at the end of their degree.
00:36:58 Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah.
00:36:58 Speaker 2
So you need experts.
00:37:01 Speaker 2
You need money to.
00:37:03 Speaker 2
And get new instructors.
00:37:06 Speaker 2
Get the technology into the university to do research with it, so it’s like it’s kind of a struggle to keep up with the with the innovation.
00:37:16 Speaker 2
And I think that’s also something, you know that in the last last year or the year before, when like all the AI companies that like these media outreach where they said like we need to think about ethics guys like we stop.
00:37:28 Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah.
00:37:29 Speaker 2
Yeah, it’s like this is going too fast and I think that’s like it’s like one of the.
00:37:34 Speaker 2
In it, it is really a concern that even inside, like the developers, they are like, you know, this is going really, really fast.
00:37:40 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:37:41 Speaker 1
Although yes, yes, although I will also say and I haven’t released it yet, but one of my the last recordings I did was with my colleague, Kelly Bronson, and she so you’ll have to list everyone list for that episode as well.
00:37:56 Speaker 1
And she was talking she does.
00:37:59 Speaker 1
She does like science, AI, sociology of science stuff, but specifically within agriculture and sort of big Ai..
00:38:05 Speaker 2
Hmm.
00:38:06 Speaker 1
And she was talking about this issue and saying that in some ways it also these notices that companies are putting out, it’s almost like that in itself is a kind of way of framing the conversation, you know, that it’s like it becomes like, OK, we’re going to, we’re going to point out these little problems with it over here.
00:38:19
Probably.
00:38:26 Speaker 1
So everyone pay attention to it.
00:38:27 Speaker 1
But then there’s other problems over here that we’re not like that they’re not going to mention.
00:38:32 Speaker 2
So everybody, yeah, there’s literally like Streeting what’s a little bit like.
00:38:32 Speaker 1
And it’s like it feels so frustrating.
00:38:36 Speaker 2
In washing or gender washing, right?
00:38:36 Speaker 1
Yes, exactly.
00:38:38 Speaker 2
So it’s like you’re like you’re.
00:38:40 Speaker 2
We’re gonna quickly put out some stuff that we’re, like, concerned about ethics.
00:38:44 Speaker 2
So if people think we’re doing something but we’re not, right.
00:38:44 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:38:48 Speaker 2
Yeah, I mean this is this.
00:38:49 Speaker 2
That’s clearly something that exists.
00:38:51 Speaker 1
Yeah, totally.
00:38:52 Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:38:52 Speaker 1
Well, I think one of the things she was talking about too is that what you were talking about?
00:38:56 Speaker 1
So like, we don’t know what is in the algorithm and so it’s like and she was saying that like with these agricultural companies, it’s like they’re collecting all this data from farmers because all of their, like, tractors are basically a giant computer.
00:39:08 Speaker 1
You know.
00:39:09 Speaker 1
And so it’s like they collect all the data and then they, like, run these models to try to predict.
00:39:14 Speaker 1
How is this?
00:39:15 Speaker 1
You know what is the most effective crop yield?
00:39:17 Speaker 1
Whatever. Whatever.
00:39:18 Speaker 1
But and then they sell that information back to the farmers for how they should be doing it.
00:39:23 Speaker 1
But nobody knows like, no, it’s all proprietary.
00:39:26 Speaker 1
So nobody has access to the data to know like.
00:39:29 Speaker 1
Is this accurate?
00:39:30 Speaker 1
Are they telling the truth?
00:39:32 Speaker 1
Is this like how were these models run?
00:39:35 Speaker 1
Um, which is what I think people don’t realize.
00:39:38 Speaker 1
And then also, though, then those people at the companies get called on at like congressional hearings as the experts right that it because they’re the only ones who know how to do it because.
00:39:48 Speaker 1
Nobody can access their information.
00:39:49 Speaker 2
Yeah, I mean.
00:39:50 Speaker 2
Like.
00:39:51 Speaker 2
There is no protocol on like if these companies need to kind of publicize their methodology. Like you know, when like journalists talk about, like, science research in like day or supposed to talk about methodology.
00:40:08 Speaker 2
So people can actually like.
00:40:09 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:40:10 Speaker 2
You know, understand where it is.
00:40:12 Speaker 2
Science comes from and I mean that that that is a really important I think that is really important to like for people to understand statistics to understand.
00:40:13 Speaker 1
Yeah, exactly.
00:40:14 Speaker 1
I mean like.
00:40:22 Speaker 2
Like I don’t know, even as even qualitative research, you know, like how many people that they interview and like who and who did they not.
00:40:23 Speaker 1
Yes.
00:40:27 Speaker 1
100%.
00:40:31 Speaker 1
Me.
00:40:33 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:40:33 Speaker 1
Like, how did you draw your conclusion?
00:40:35 Speaker 1
I think that’s something people don’t understand or don’t like.
00:40:38 Speaker 1
There’s no reason non academics would know it, but.
00:40:41 Speaker 1
You know, like if you have grants that I assume it’s in, can I know in the US it’s like if you collect a big data set like you have to make that publicly available, it’s like you like, that is like cause because your money is publicly funded, you are you are producing something for the populace.
00:40:54 Speaker 2
Hmm.
00:40:59 Speaker 1
So some of that information, you know, you have to obviously for confidentiality reasons like you’re going to secure some things.
00:41:07 Speaker 1
For the most part, the data like we need to be able to reply like either replicate our studies or at least be able to assess why it is that like how we came to those conclusions.
00:41:17 Speaker 2
Then I mean that’s like that when you when you send an article into people read it like, that’s also something you know.
00:41:24 Speaker 2
Yeah, you do.
00:41:26 Speaker 2
Like for all the journals you like ***.
00:41:29 Speaker 2
So if this methodology is valid.
00:41:32 Speaker 1
Exactly. Does it make sense?
00:41:33 Speaker 1
Could you have drawn a different conclusion?
00:41:35 Speaker 1
Could you thought about this?
00:41:35 Speaker 2
Or is are there limits that are not mentioned are like?
00:41:38 Speaker 2
Please clarify.
00:41:39 Speaker 1
Yeah, exactly.
00:41:40 Speaker 2
Right.
00:41:41 Speaker 1
Exactly.
00:41:41 Speaker 1
And it’s, you know, so it can seem like, quote un quote research is just about collecting data or running something in a lab or but it’s like to me it’s it’s a very democratic open process of like.
00:41:56 Speaker 1
Trying to figure out what are we getting wrong whereas capitalism or like, you know commercial rest quote UN quote research is about trying to sell a product like trying to increase.
00:42:09 Speaker 1
I mean I I I used to have a much more cynical perspective and I I think my husband, who’s a bit more um, I don’t want to say concern.
00:42:17 Speaker 1
He’s not like, anyway, whatever sent like more.
00:42:19 Speaker 1
He’s not like anti capitalist and he has.
00:42:22 Speaker 1
He’s like a small business owner himself, and so he.
00:42:25 Speaker 1
He has, I think, sometimes presents like his idea of, like someone would end, like, create a company is because they want to make something better, which I think is really lovely.
00:42:36 Speaker 1
It’s like they want.
00:42:37 Speaker 1
It’s like they see a problem in social life and they have a solution that they want to create something that could fix it, which I’m like that is lovely.
00:42:43 Speaker 1
And I think that’s really great and that should be supported, but it is like when you get to be like a mega, mega multinational corporation, it’s like you are accountable to your shareholders.
00:42:55 Speaker 1
Like, if you’re you know if your money goes down, you look bad.
00:42:59 Speaker 1
People are going to disinvest and then every like the whole House of Cards falls apart.
00:43:03 Speaker 1
So it’s not that it’s like, well, we don’t have to say it’s evil to say it is the nature of what it is to like, say that it’s different than what we do in academic research. Yeah.
00:43:17 Speaker 2
Yeah, I agree with that.
00:43:18 Speaker 2
Like there’s like, yeah, there’s like a component to it that makes you kind of dependent on who was where.
00:43:25 Speaker 2
The money comes from which you don’t have.
00:43:26 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:43:27 Speaker 2
If you have for like a government fund.
00:43:30 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:43:30 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:43:31 Speaker 1
It’s like we have a lot more freedom, like our interest is in sort of getting at the, quote UN quote truth rather than.
00:43:37 Speaker 2
Hmm.
00:43:38 Speaker 1
Supporting any or it should be anyway, but obviously there’s always our own biases and what not.
00:43:46 Speaker 1
But yeah, what was it in your paper?
00:43:48 Speaker 1
I just read it, so this might be unfair to ask you, but I was especially and this is like from 2019, I had it here.
00:43:55 Speaker 1
It was because you were talking about Viber and I was especially interested cause your German and favor was German and so you were talking about the mistranslation.
00:43:57 Speaker 2
Smile.
00:44:03 Speaker 2
Oh yeah.
00:44:04 Speaker 2
Oh my God.
00:44:04 Speaker 2
You’re gonna.
00:44:05 Speaker 2
Can you translate these these terms in English?
00:44:08 Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:44:08 Speaker 2
Great, but yes, so it’s like and.
00:44:09 Speaker 2
So you know what I’m.
00:44:10 Speaker 1
You want me to pull it up?
00:44:11 Speaker 1
Do you?
00:44:12 Speaker 2
And hi.
00:44:15 Speaker 1
First, something it was not.
00:44:16 Speaker 2
First day so as it’s because there was a nutrient slation.
00:44:16 Speaker 1
Stay in it was.
00:44:21 Speaker 2
So I’m not sure what neutrality axiologix is in.
00:44:28 Speaker 2
English, like the neutrality acts.
00:44:30
Ohk.
00:44:31 Speaker 1
Good logic.
00:44:31 Speaker 1
I’m gonna look it up, but it’s like now.
00:44:32 Speaker 2
Excel, logical neutrality or something like it’s the concept that you attribute to weiber that’s like you.
00:44:40 Speaker 2
You’re not supposed to give any judgment to your research.
00:44:45 Speaker 2
So you’re like basically being more descriptive and let people judge from the results, which is very positive to vistic.
00:44:52
Rates.
00:44:57 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:44:57 Speaker 2
So, but this new translation from German um did make it difference between um.
00:45:09 Speaker 2
The outdoor tile and some other term so that one was like referring to measuring instruments.
00:45:17 Speaker 2
So how you measure what you what you like research on and then the other was like of value judgment.
00:45:29 Speaker 2
So basically what this translator says is that, UM, the previous English and French translation treat it weiber like someone who was against um.
00:45:49 Speaker 2
Critical or engaged research because he was arguing for neutrality, saying that you should not like you should talk about your research results in a descriptive way and say like you know this, this is this came out and then what people do with it.
00:46:08 Speaker 2
It’s like not our job.
00:46:10 Speaker 1
Right.
00:46:11 Speaker 2
And but like in this new translation, there might have been a nuance where he said you just have to clearly define what’s actually coming out of your measurements.
00:46:24 Speaker 1
Hmm.
00:46:24 Speaker 2
So and.
00:46:26 Speaker 2
What in your paper is kind of a discussion and might integrate a little judgment, right?
00:46:35 Speaker 2
Like with where you put your values in.
00:46:38 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:46:39 Speaker 2
So she argued that he actually did like not exclude that you just argued that you have to be very.
00:46:47 Speaker 2
Clear about it.
00:46:48 Speaker 1
See, this is what this is like.
00:46:50 Speaker 1
This is like a very old Phillis-like argument from like 2004 or something because I remember.
00:46:56 Speaker 1
Spare.
00:46:57 Speaker 1
When I went to grad school, it was very like positivistic department, very like classical theory, and I remember coming out of that with the idea from my first sociological classical theories course with this idea that vaber is not like suggest that like it’s that objectivity comes about by.
00:47:20 Speaker 1
Honestly, presenting your results and then people sort of discussing them and like that, it’s through the like the volume of research that we start to see this like that we can sort of get at the truth.
00:47:24
Yeah.
00:47:31 Speaker 1
But that, that, that it isn’t purely objective.
00:47:34 Speaker 1
And then I had some later visiting professors who were.
00:47:40 Speaker 1
There actually one thing they were like a couple anyway, but they were like, no, no, no, no, no.
00:47:47 Speaker 1
Like they was all about objectivity and I was like, I swear.
00:47:50 Speaker 1
But I never could figure out where it was that I read it, and I never I didn’t really work that hard to find it, but relation, right?
00:47:54 Speaker 2
Yeah, you can maybe like look at that translate.
00:47:59 Speaker 2
She may like the this whole like preface on like how this got misinterpreted.
00:48:05 Speaker 1
Yeah, like it just seemed like such a like.
00:48:07 Speaker 1
Anyway, I was like that.
00:48:09 Speaker 1
This is, I feel more justified than anything I’ve ever felt, and I’m probably misremembering because it was so long ago, but.
00:48:17 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:48:18 Speaker 1
I just see.
00:48:19 Speaker 1
I’m always right.
00:48:20 Speaker 1
Children of mine, if you’re ever listening to this, remember that.
00:48:25
It’s.
00:48:26 Speaker 1
Um.
00:48:27 Speaker 1
I also wanted to.
00:48:28 Speaker 1
I’m just becoming a little bit aware of the time and it’s always when I become aware of the time that then we talk for another 30 minutes.
00:48:33 Speaker 1
So, but um, but I’m just interested because I noticed I was like looking at the titles of your work.
00:48:38 Speaker 1
And I was looking at your work and it really seems like a theme that comes through.
00:48:41 Speaker 1
Is this idea of caring and I often like.
00:48:44 Speaker 1
I’m very interested in the theoretical framework of care ethics, but you’re thinking about care in a very different way, I think.
00:48:52 Speaker 1
Um, which is like should we care about things should be concerned.
00:48:55
No.
00:48:55 Speaker 1
Should we be bothered by?
00:48:57 Speaker 1
Although I do think actually I love Joan Toronto, who’s a political scientist who does care ethics stuff, and she sort of differentiates between kinds of caring, like caring about caring for caring with.
00:49:09
Hmm.
00:49:10 Speaker 1
And I think yours is very much like a caring about and.
00:49:14 Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:49:15 Speaker 2
So when I was doing my PhD research, so I was really interested in like, you know, our leave Russell Hawk Shields work and you know how people like, you know, so and also like Nina Elias Softworks about, you know, how people just get very disengaged from politics even though you love.
00:49:25 Speaker 1
I had a dog named Arlene, by the way.
00:49:37
Hmm.
00:49:38 Speaker 2
We live in a climate crisis like there’s so much violence around us and people will just like I don’t care.
00:49:45 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:49:45 Speaker 2
Like it doesn’t affect.
00:49:47 Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:49:49 Speaker 2
And I was really interesting in knowing why they don’t care and how they came there.
00:49:53 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:49:54
Ah.
00:49:54 Speaker 2
So and so when I started this research, it was like in the beginning of the pandemic and I had a hard time like finding people to talk to because I wanted to talk to people that don’t care about politics but.
00:50:00 Speaker 1
OK.
00:50:09 Speaker 2
About politics right now, we’re just like kind of.
00:50:12 Speaker 2
Do you think politics tell me about have people were like like, you know?
00:50:12 Speaker 1
Care about?
00:50:14 Speaker 1
Please talk to.
00:50:15 Speaker 1
Why you don’t?
00:50:15 Speaker 1
Care about that?
00:50:18 Speaker 2
Because because I don’t like care about politics, I don’t know anything about it.
00:50:23 Speaker 2
And I feel like really bad about that sometimes.
00:50:26 Speaker 2
Like I don’t want to talk to a researcher with like super educated and knows everything that’s in their mind.
00:50:30 Speaker 1
Right.
00:50:31 Speaker 1
Which right?
00:50:32 Speaker 2
It’s like what we are, you know.
00:50:33
Yeah.
00:50:33 Speaker 2
Well, walking Wikipedia the thing.
00:50:38 Speaker 2
And they’re like, like Nick, this is like embarrassing.
00:50:40 Speaker 2
Why wouldn’t talk to me?
00:50:41 Speaker 2
Talk to someone who knows about this stuff.
00:50:43 Speaker 2
Does must be so much more interesting.
00:50:45 Speaker 2
You know, it’s like, no, that’s, like exactly what.
00:50:47 Speaker 2
I’m yeah, I want to know.
00:50:49 Speaker 2
And and it was really funny because, like, I had a hard time to recruit and I had to do it online because we didn’t couldn’t go out.
00:50:59 Speaker 1
Ray.
00:51:00 Speaker 2
So I did a lot on social media, actually.
00:51:02 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:51:03 Speaker 2
And so I had this idea about.
00:51:06 Speaker 2
Like you know, diversifying my like was a very qualitative approach and narrative approach.
00:51:14 Speaker 2
So I wanted to do portraits, but like you know, I wanted in the beginning, I wanted to do like some, I don’t know a worker with an immigrant background, like someone from Quebec, someone anglophone, someone francophone, you know.
00:51:29 Speaker 2
And then I ended up with, like, eight people who were all native born Quebeckers.
00:51:35 Speaker 1
I like.
00:51:37 Speaker 2
From, like you know, modest income households, but not really poor like you know like so.
00:51:41
Right.
00:51:43 Speaker 2
And I felt like, why and actually when I started the analysis of the first interviews, which were internally and a little before the pandemic in 2019.
00:51:55 Speaker 2
So after the legal government was elected, um so it was very interesting because they had a lot of to say about change and about, you know, being a little bit.
00:51:57 Speaker 1
Ohhhhh hmm.
00:52:08 Speaker 2
Cynical about all the corruption scandals with the Liberal Party.
00:52:12 Speaker 2
Who was in power before and you know, but also there was so much a like.
00:52:20 Speaker 2
There was a lot of progressive thoughts also, but then it kind of was in the next sentence.
00:52:25 Speaker 2
There was something really biased about the immigration policy or, you know, welfare recipients, which is really classical stuff you read in like, you know, working class literature from the.
00:52:38 Speaker 2
It’s 80s.
00:52:39 Speaker 1
OK. Yeah.
00:52:40 Speaker 2
You know where you like them.
00:52:41 Speaker 2
Us, you know the elites.
00:52:42 Speaker 1
Right river, right, right.
00:52:44 Speaker 2
The real poor and us were disadvantaged.
00:52:47 Speaker 2
Yeah, because of them.
00:52:50 Speaker 1
Right cause the poor get welfare and the rich are rich.
00:52:52 Speaker 2
Exactly.
00:52:53 Speaker 2
And we have nothing.
00:52:54 Speaker 1
Are.
00:52:55 Speaker 1
Yeah, exactly.
00:52:56 Speaker 2
And and it was a really, it was it was.
00:52:56 Speaker 1
Nobody cares about us.
00:52:59 Speaker 2
It became very obvious, like that nationhood and whiteness were so, so prominent in, like the samples I was.
00:53:08 Speaker 2
Like you know what, I’m not gonna diversify the sample.
00:53:12 Speaker 2
I’m just gonna just like, stay with the white people.
00:53:15
What?
00:53:15 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:53:15 Speaker 2
Yeah, and gonna explore this more.
00:53:18 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:53:19 Speaker 2
And what what I really like found like the the main finding is that they just like, they’re not privileged, they’re excluded from a lot of things, but they are privileged and.
00:53:27 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:53:30 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:53:32 Speaker 2
Enough that they can’t afford not to care about politics because politics don’t affect their that like daily life.
00:53:41 Speaker 2
Yeah, as much as it would for someone else.
00:53:44 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:53:45 Speaker 2
And so they can.
00:53:46 Speaker 2
They can kind of just tune it off.
00:53:49 Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:53:49 Speaker 2
And go on with.
00:53:50 Speaker 2
The lift.
00:53:51 Speaker 1
See, this is my explanation for the truckers for the like for the anti vaxxers like the the people, not every trucker but like the trucker convoy that came to Ottawa because to me it was like it was a group of like my friend who was like.
00:54:07 Speaker 1
Relatively privileged, not like a millionaire, but like her.
00:54:12 Speaker 1
You know, she could afford to be a stay at home mom for periods of time and then you know when she worked part time and and.
00:54:19 Speaker 1
But it was people who generally lived a life pretty free and pretty easy that they weren’t harassed by the police there.
00:54:26 Speaker 1
Their kids weren’t being murdered by cops.
00:54:26 Speaker 2
Exactly.
00:54:28 Speaker 1
There was, you know, there weren’t immigrants, like actually taking away jobs in their neighborhood and.
00:54:34 Speaker 1
Suddenly, the government was imposing itself on them.
00:54:38 Speaker 1
So it’s like you have to vaccinate, you have to wear masks.
00:54:40 Speaker 1
And they were ****** ***.
00:54:42 Speaker 1
It’s like I don’t wanna do it.
00:54:44 Speaker 1
You’re saying and to me it was like it could have been this beautiful moment for people to realize, like no one likes to be shutdown.
00:54:50 Speaker 1
No one likes to be controlled.
00:54:51 Speaker 1
People want autonomy.
00:54:52 Speaker 1
People want to have a sense of like as a sense of self and that it ****** people off.
00:54:59 Speaker 1
And so that is why Black Lives Matter emerges.
00:55:01 Speaker 1
Or the me too movement or whatever.
00:55:03 Speaker 1
But it’s like instead it became this like.
00:55:07 Speaker 1
Like hotbeds of like, racist xenophobes who were like, you know, putting flags like dog whistle flags in the back of their videos or whatever, you know?
00:55:20 Speaker 2
Yeah, funnily enough I didn’t get any extremist participants.
00:55:24 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:55:24 Speaker 2
I really hoped, Jules.
00:55:25 Speaker 2
I thought that it would have been very interesting to thank you.
00:55:27 Speaker 1
Yeah, right.
00:55:28 Speaker 2
Someone who might have this opinion, most people really were even apathetic towards this kind of activism, right? Yeah.
00:55:35 Speaker 1
Right.
00:55:38 Speaker 2
I don’t think any demonstration does anything for anyone, you know, like a lot of.
00:55:43 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:55:43 Speaker 2
Them were like.
00:55:45 Speaker 2
I mean, I feel you can maybe make a difference on a local level, but you know, stuff like climate change, like, rather Thunberg coming to Montreal or, you know, all of this stuff, they were like, even black life letters that are like, you know, I think this is a like, something we need to work on, I think like.
00:55:49 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:55:54
Right.
00:56:04 Speaker 2
But there was like one or two bad.
00:56:06 Speaker 2
And like I think racism is a problem.
00:56:08 Speaker 2
Yeah, but it needs to change like individually and I and they were like, I don’t think like going out to a demonstration will kind of change people’s minds.
00:56:11 Speaker 1
Oh, interesting.
00:56:18 Speaker 2
Interesting like you have to go about this like this.
00:56:21 Speaker 2
Global things there are too complex like this cannot happen like this and it’s not.
00:56:21 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:56:25 Speaker 2
I’m not going.
00:56:26 Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:56:26 Speaker 2
And they felt like a little bit like in Ilyasov book.
00:56:30 Speaker 2
It was like if it gets too complex, people feel like activists are just like they can afford to have time to do this stuff and there’s.
00:56:33 Speaker 1
Yes.
00:56:38
Game.
00:56:40 Speaker 2
Week why aren’t they doing the real work?
00:56:43 Speaker 2
You know, like, why are they picking up garbage in the wire?
00:56:44 Speaker 1
List. Hmm.
00:56:46 Speaker 1
Raves.
00:56:47 Speaker 2
They instead organizing a giant event where you have to pick up so much garbage after it should so so it was like if it if it’s local it was kind of appreciated and like you know if you could could see the results directly affecting your life like if it’s like some I don’t know someone talked about going to a demonstration in Montreal for dog owners because there was a new law that you couldn’t have this in this type of dog in the house and stuff and they kind of I complained and.
00:56:51 Speaker 1
Interesting.
00:56:53 Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah.
00:57:03 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:57:11 Speaker 1
OK.
00:57:13 Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah.
00:57:20 Speaker 2
It got it got thrown out.
00:57:23 Speaker 1
So.
00:57:23 Speaker 2
For the.
00:57:23 Speaker 2
So so, you know, they had, like, a game.
00:57:26 Speaker 1
Right.
00:57:26 Speaker 2
And this is something is like, dare you can do something like like lives matters like global like erase global racism within a demonstration?
00:57:30 Speaker 1
Right.
00:57:35 Speaker 2
I don’t think that works.
00:57:36 Speaker 1
Rights.
00:57:37 Speaker 2
It’s too complex and you don’t see like you don’t see an impact on your life directly after you know you didn’t change anything.
00:57:38 Speaker 1
Yes.
00:57:41 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:57:43 Speaker 2
Like you go out to school the next day and there will be racism again, right?
00:57:47 Speaker 1
It’s right, this is what they were arguing.
00:57:48 Speaker 2
So just.
00:57:49 Speaker 1
You think they would?
00:57:50 Speaker 1
Do you think there is?
00:57:51 Speaker 1
What do you think about that argument?
00:57:53 Speaker 1
Like, do you think that they’re right or I mean, I know that’s not our job as researchers to.
00:57:58 Speaker 2
But I feel I feel like they’re kind of what I felt like.
00:58:04 Speaker 2
It was like a light motive was like there were two things.
00:58:07 Speaker 2
Like they didn’t want to **** *** anyone, so this was a big deal for a lot of them, especially the older ones who had witnessed, like, the sovereignty movement in Quebec and where there were a lot of family conflicts between nationalists, federalists, and they didn’t want to recreate that four day family like there was like, like, you know, my uncle and my aunt, they didn’t talk to each other for 10 years because they were like, in a post sides.
00:58:10
Hmm.
00:58:12 Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:58:20 Speaker 1
All OK.
00:58:24
Right.
00:58:28 Speaker 1
Right.
00:58:34 Speaker 2
Like me and my kids were never talk politics because I don’t want this to happen.
00:58:39 Speaker 2
I love my kids too much, right?
00:58:41 Speaker 2
So there was a little bit of that, which explains also, you know, there’s kind of a trauma.
00:58:46 Speaker 2
Um, but um and the other thing was like, you know, they just completely detached from politics because also politics detached from them.
00:58:57 Speaker 2
They kind of had the feeling that they don’t do something for them, which kind of was interesting because then the pandemic hit and I reinterviewed them say.
00:59:02
Hmm.
00:59:07 Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:59:08 Speaker 2
Like we really like discovered ment because finally they kind of doing something for us because they kind of realized that politics does actually affect their life sometimes, right?
00:59:13 Speaker 1
OHP.
00:59:19 Speaker 1
Ah yeah.
00:59:21 Speaker 2
So they were really, really fond of the government of the local government in the beginning of the big endemic because they were like, you know, he does all these press conferences and he has Rick is measures and stuff, you know, kind of tries to keep us safe or something. Hmm.
00:59:33 Speaker 1
OK.
00:59:37 Speaker 2
Very uncritical, but they kind of had the feeling that something effects their life, which was different from before.
00:59:38 Speaker 1
Braves.
00:59:41 Speaker 1
Traits, yeah.
00:59:44 Speaker 2
But then, like the disillusion came back in like 2021 I.
00:59:48 Speaker 2
I did the interview three times.
00:59:50 Speaker 1
Oh wow. OK.
00:59:51 Speaker 2
So and then like in 21, that was like, yeah, it kind of **** **** kind of moved back from the really, like, you know, stuff that just happened here and now they’re like talking about.
01:00:02 Speaker 2
I don’t know global.
01:00:03 Speaker 2
Whatever again.
01:00:04 Speaker 1
Right.
01:00:05 Speaker 2
And like you know this item, like I don’t care, right?
01:00:08 Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah.
01:00:08 Speaker 2
And I don’t care about any global treaty or immigration politics that we like, this is nothing that like kind of.
01:00:13 Speaker 1
Yeah.
01:00:15 Speaker 1
Yeah.
01:00:16 Speaker 2
And and that kind of got like also a little bit of overkill of media.
01:00:20 Speaker 2
And then, like, they’re kind of like, OK, now like, this is going away again.
01:00:22 Speaker 1
Yeah, that’s so interesting.
01:00:25 Speaker 1
Like my guess like I live in such.
01:00:27 Speaker 1
Yeah, I have lived in silos of, like, very like, my mom was a political scientist.
01:00:33 Speaker 1
So, like we were always talking Polly like and there was like American politics and so.
01:00:39 Speaker 1
But I can say that I have or currently have or have had in the past partners who are very much like what you’re describing of this sort of the political like, not necessarily like any particular political.
01:00:55 Speaker 1
Like they don’t proudly wear any cat like they.
01:00:57 Speaker 1
Vote.
01:00:58 Speaker 1
It in a like let’s say they in the US. I would vote for Democrats and that was kind of the the extent of it and maybe they skipped some elections because they just were like, you know, exactly like what you just described is exactly my experience of.
01:01:12 Speaker 1
And my guess is that there’s probably a huge amount of people who fit.
01:01:17 Speaker 1
Like it’s funny that there isn’t more research like there isn’t more on this because it’s like we get so like taken up with activists or with like the big shiny people when it.
01:01:30 Speaker 1
Like a lot of society or people just trying to go to work and take care of their kids and like just, you know, have enough in the bank to, like, go on vacation.
01:01:41 Speaker 1
It’s like they don’t want to get upset and bothered by politics.
01:01:44 Speaker 2
Exactly.
01:01:45 Speaker 2
But that’s a little bit where it got into that kind of research because I have the opposite like my family and never talks about politics.
01:01:51 Speaker 2
And I always felt a little bit like a like like excluded when I can.
01:01:58 Speaker 2
Went to university in in the grad studies was like how do you know about all these stuffs?
01:02:01 Speaker 1
Yeah.
01:02:04 Speaker 2
Like, yeah, my care and soul means like, OK.
01:02:04
It’s.
01:02:07 Speaker 2
Yeah.
01:02:07 Speaker 2
Mine didn’t, and it’s not like like you mean to watch the news?
01:02:08
Yeah.
01:02:12 Speaker 2
That’s from times and times, but it’s not something that we discussed like on a daily basis or like, you know, only if I asked and then and again, you know, it’s like the conversation didn’t go very far and it’s like, yeah, I heard that on the news and, you know, just send that and they they had political preferences, but, you know, they would vote.
01:02:20 Speaker 1
Ray, it’s.
01:02:27 Speaker 1
Yeah.
01:02:31 Speaker 1
Right, it’s.
01:02:33 Speaker 2
But nothing like to you know.
01:02:33 Speaker 1
Yeah.
01:02:36 Speaker 2
Daily concerns were more about like, I don’t know, how do we know?
01:02:40 Speaker 2
What do we like going to like Gary?
01:02:44 Speaker 2
Can we afford an apartment that’s larger or I don’t know, like you know.
01:02:48 Speaker 1
Rates.
01:02:51 Speaker 2
Do we have childcare? I don’t know.
01:02:52 Speaker 1
Yeah.
01:02:54 Speaker 2
What’s your schedule?
01:02:55 Speaker 2
Because my parents were separated, it’s like, what time do you go to your dad’s? When?
01:02:59 Speaker 2
Right.
01:03:00 Speaker 2
Here like I don’t know.
01:03:01 Speaker 2
It’s like always, like a lot about families, like in.
01:03:04 Speaker 2
It’s not it.
01:03:05 Speaker 2
It didn’t affect me or something.
01:03:07 Speaker 2
You know, it’s not like there was something missing about my life, but I just felt.
01:03:10 Speaker 1
Yeah.
01:03:11 Speaker 2
When I was at the end, Gratz cities was like I have these friends who come from families.
01:03:17 Speaker 2
They are so politically cultivated.
01:03:19 Speaker 2
They know so much and it’s like, I don’t know this stuff.
01:03:22 Speaker 1
Yeah.
01:03:23 Speaker 2
I had to read it, you know, to catch up.
01:03:26 Speaker 2
And I felt like at some point I caught up.
01:03:29 Speaker 2
But I myself sometimes struggled to keep up with with news.
01:03:34
Oht.
01:03:35 Speaker 1
Totally.
01:03:36 Speaker 2
Totally at like I’m totally someone who would, like, gets their news from social media because I I didn’t get like this training to like, you know.
01:03:41 Speaker 1
Yeah.
01:03:46 Speaker 2
Read the news every morning, then talk about it at breakfast, and then they, you know, go about your day.
01:03:51 Speaker 2
It’s like this is not something I’m like familiar.
01:03:51 Speaker 1
Braids.
01:03:54 Speaker 1
With right here and it’s also like I just think everything like. I’m so glad that you said that cause it’s like also I think there’s this expectation as academics like I remember first year pal I was a Poly Sci major my first year of university and it was like Internet American politics like you get here is the code to get a New York Times subscript.
01:04:15 Speaker 1
And and like everybody here should be reading it.
01:04:17 Speaker 1
And it was like there was a little padlock where, like you cause it was an actual newspaper and you had to, like, use this pad.
01:04:19
This.
01:04:22 Speaker 2
You.
01:04:23 Speaker 1
There was like if you had like, so I paid for my little subscription as part of my like as a sort of textbook and I would open it up and and like look at it and just sort of stare at it and then feel really guilty that I did not understand any of them.
01:04:35 Speaker 1
Yes, it was like I don’t understand.
01:04:37 Speaker 1
Like I’m supposed to be looking at this.
01:04:39 Speaker 1
So it’s like this idea, like we’re supposed to perform this.
01:04:42 Speaker 1
And yet I also find.
01:04:44 Speaker 1
Find like, especially if there’s, like strain in my personal life.
01:04:47 Speaker 1
It’s like lately I’m obsessed with playing this game.
01:04:49 Speaker 1
House Flipper on my Nintendo Switch, which it’s like all I can do.
01:04:54 Speaker 1
It’s like you just like it is the.
01:04:56 Speaker 1
I love this game so much I don’t wanna call it dumb, but it’s like there’s no like game to it.
01:05:00 Speaker 1
Like you, just like buy houses that are full of garbage and then you like, just push a button to like clean up the garbage and like, paint the walls and it is.
01:05:08 Speaker 1
Though call me and satisfy and I listen to it.
01:05:11 Speaker 1
I Oh my God, it’s so good and I play it while listening to, like, cozy mysteries from Ireland.
01:05:11 Speaker 2
Think.
01:05:11 Speaker 2
Have to get that.
01:05:17 Speaker 1
And then I started like talking with an Irish accent cause the reader is.
01:05:20 Speaker 1
Like this in my area.
01:05:21 Speaker 1
This is what I’ve been doing for the last like week.
01:05:23 Speaker 1
What I’m like on vacation on the like on the airplane.
01:05:26 Speaker 1
I was like, yeah, my kid, we had our seats were separate.
01:05:29 Speaker 1
I was like, yeah, yeah.
01:05:30 Speaker 1
Go, go, go with Dad.
01:05:31 Speaker 1
Go with Papa.
01:05:33 Speaker 1
You.
01:05:33 Speaker 1
I got to sit next to you on the 1st, right?
01:05:35 Speaker 1
It won’t be fair and I’m just like, I’m like 3 hours of just.
01:05:38 Speaker 1
I just so it’s like there are like what all this stuff about, you know, like there’s so much information out there like it’s so there’s so much news.
01:05:48 Speaker 1
There’s so much media and like, and they’re like the violence that you were talking about just to loop back.
01:05:54 Speaker 1
Like the research it’s like, there’s a, you know, it’s like, I don’t wanna be called a see you next Tuesday by like, former friends because I am excited about some political candidate that I acknowledge is problematic in many ways.
01:05:54 Speaker 2
Yeah.
01:06:07 Speaker 1
But whatever.
01:06:09 Speaker 1
But it’s like.
01:06:10 Speaker 1
It’s just there’s a point and then I start to feel guilty.
01:06:14 Speaker 1
Or a
01:06:15 Speaker 1
This is what they you know, whoever they are, what they want is for us to be totally overwhelmed.
01:06:20 Speaker 1
So then we become disaffected and not engage in the political process.
01:06:23 Speaker 1
And This is why Trump wins.
01:06:25 Speaker 1
And it’s like, but I just wanna flip one more house.
01:06:28 Speaker 1
OK, I went from 500,000.
01:06:29 Speaker 1
I now have $1.5 million I’ve made on my house flipping.
01:06:34 Speaker 1
But you know, it’s like it’s so hard to find that.
01:06:37 Speaker 1
That’s balance of like privilege and participation.
01:06:39 Speaker 2
Yeah.
01:06:40 Speaker 2
I mean, in Tulsa, there’s also like one of the other things I found, which was really interesting is like I I wanted to talk to them about cyber violence.
01:06:51 Speaker 2
But they’re also talked about, like, just media violence.
01:06:55 Speaker 1
Yeah.
01:06:56 Speaker 2
So some of the violence, I mean, they get their news on the Internet, but even if they would have gotten it, but on television like some of the violence.
01:07:06 Speaker 2
Where felt was very harming.
01:07:09 Speaker 2
There are like mental health was just like that.
01:07:14 Speaker 2
The world is very cruel and that some news just suck.
01:07:17 Speaker 1
Yeah.
01:07:21 Speaker 1
Yeah.
01:07:21 Speaker 2
And if you read too much about it, it can affect your mental health because you kind of feel overwhelmed and you can’t do anything about it.
01:07:25 Speaker 1
Yeah.
01:07:28 Speaker 2
But there’s like.
01:07:29 Speaker 2
All these stuff that like physically, um, touches your body and it goes through you and like, you know, you feel it because I don’t know, maybe you feel you have a relative in this area or even if just like, you know, distant family, but you can of you know, you feel connected to a situation.
01:07:37 Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah.
01:07:49 Speaker 2
And it gets really emotional.
01:07:53 Speaker 2
And then and that’s when people disconnect this also something like, you know or?
01:07:55 Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah.
01:08:00 Speaker 2
Like biased by biased journalistic practices and was like, you know, after the third time I read this month there that there was a feminist side, but the press called it, I don’t know, a dry air drummer or something.
01:08:04
Yeah.
01:08:15 Speaker 1
Right, yeah.
01:08:15 Speaker 2
It’s like I got so frustrated.
01:08:17 Speaker 2
I just like you know, didn’t wanna read the music anymore because it’s like I’m a woman.
01:08:23 Speaker 2
I feel I I feel this affects me as this frightening and I feel like.
01:08:25 Speaker 1
Rates, yeah.
01:08:30 Speaker 2
We have talked about this and immediatelyjust doesn’t get it right anyway and you know, like, you know, sometimes this can get overwhelming and people just wanted not talk about this and kinda no go have a beer.
01:08:33 Speaker 1
Yeah.
01:08:38
Totally.
01:08:43 Speaker 1
Yeah.
01:08:44 Speaker 1
Yeah.
01:08:44 Speaker 1
Like, just like turtle in and just play my house flipper.
01:08:50 Speaker 2
Yeah.
01:08:50 Speaker 1
You game.
01:08:50 Speaker 2
Just like go to the cinema, I have, you know, conversation with friends about, I don’t know, food.
01:08:52 Speaker 1
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
01:08:55 Speaker 1
Yeah.
01:08:56 Speaker 1
Yeah.
01:08:57 Speaker 1
And I think it’s like.
01:08:58 Speaker 1
Yeah, I don’t know.
01:09:00 Speaker 1
Like you know, it’s like impossible to answer, like my question was totally unfair of like, do you think that the participants are right?
01:09:07 Speaker 1
Like if like how much should we care?
01:09:10 Speaker 1
How much are we supposed?
01:09:11 Speaker 1
Like how much right or wrong?
01:09:11 Speaker 2
I don’t think
01:09:13 Speaker 1
Yeah.
01:09:13 Speaker 2
I mean, I think it’s also very personal question like what do you want to do with this knowledge that you have like do you need it for work?
01:09:19 Speaker 1
Yeah.
01:09:21 Speaker 2
Do you need it?
01:09:22 Speaker 2
Do you know?
01:09:23 Speaker 2
Do you know do you want to get active with with and do something about social justice?
01:09:26 Speaker 1
Yeah.
01:09:28 Speaker 2
And I think it’s also fair that some people.
01:09:31 Speaker 2
Don’t have the time to do this like this is something which I feel like was very hard for me and my thesis work to express because even though these people all had some bias which you can very easily call racism or classism or whatever, they also had like some you know.
01:09:33 Speaker 1
Yeah.
01:09:45
Hmm.
01:09:51 Speaker 1
Yeah.
01:09:57 Speaker 2
They Experienced some oppression themselves, so it was very like, you know, one of them was like a self-employed but also had a baby.
01:10:01 Speaker 1
Right.
01:10:10 Speaker 2
But then went back to work after the three months to not lose.
01:10:12 Speaker 2
Look her clients and he’s like, you know, sometimes I want to do something.
01:10:16 Speaker 2
But I was so tired when I get home, I just.
01:10:18 Speaker 2
I just wanna watch Netflix and sleep.
01:10:21 Speaker 1
Right, right. Yeah.
01:10:21 Speaker 2
You know, it’s like, can you really be angry about that?
01:10:24 Speaker 1
Race racing.
01:10:25 Speaker 2
Probably not.
01:10:26 Speaker 2
She’s kind of kind of trying to be a good mom trying to have well enough.
01:10:29 Speaker 2
Need to like sustain our family and then she and that makes her really tired.
01:10:31 Speaker 1
Right.
01:10:33 Speaker 2
Which just kind of a classic working class issue.
01:10:35 Speaker 2
Also, you know you work so hard physically that you’re kind of just tired, which just also like a form of oppression in neoliberal society.
01:10:39
Yeah.
01:10:44
Yeah, right.
01:10:45 Speaker 2
So I feel like sometimes it’s like one of the things I thought was making this a little bit easier is that I took to a narrative approach.
01:10:54 Speaker 2
So I kind of write wrote a story about.
01:10:56 Speaker 2
Them.
01:10:57 Speaker 2
Which kind of gave me.
01:11:00 Speaker 2
The power to.
01:11:02 Speaker 2
Contextualize.
01:11:04 Speaker 2
And you know, show like two sides to the story.
01:11:07 Speaker 2
It’s like because I I felt like you meant, you know, there are a lot of.
01:11:11 Speaker 2
There’s there’s, there’s stuff you can talk about, white supremacy and privilege and whatever.
01:11:16 Speaker 2
But there’s also like these, who are also people.
01:11:19 Speaker 2
Will that didn’t have the easiest life ever, right?
01:11:23 Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah.
01:11:23 Speaker 2
And this also must be like and it didn’t wanna.
01:11:28 Speaker 2
It didn’t wanna paint a picture where they are all bad and all good because it was something in the middle.
01:11:31 Speaker 1
Yeah, right.
01:11:34 Speaker 1
Well, it’s like they’re human.
01:11:36 Speaker 1
You know, it’s like they’re complex human beings who probably have, I mean, and I think also trauma is like really.
01:11:36 Speaker 2
Yes, yes.
01:11:37 Speaker 2
And then and.
01:11:43 Speaker 1
An underexplored thing, you know, that it’s like there are traumatic childlike the just the descriptions of, like, the trauma that comes from like, violent or abusive homes where talking about politics can set people off.
01:11:58 Speaker 2
Yeah.
01:11:58 Speaker 1
It can be really scary for people to like even think about.
01:12:03 Speaker 1
Setting like stepping into that without it bringing up a lot of scary feelings.
01:12:07 Speaker 2
And even if it’s, something’s the Super like, you know, normal.
01:12:10 Speaker 2
But yeah, I don’t know.
01:12:11 Speaker 2
It’s like even if it’s like the the person had talked to me about her like aunt and uncles not talking to themselves anymore, I mean, clearly this person was really affected by the fact as her parents didn’t talk to her anymore, you know, that made her as a child very sad.
01:12:28 Speaker 1
Yeah.
01:12:28 Speaker 2
And she, like, took this very, too hard.
01:12:28 Speaker 1
Yeah.
01:12:31 Speaker 2
That much that for her own children, she decided to not get into any politics, which was really hard for her because her children were really activist.
01:12:36 Speaker 1
Yeah.
01:12:43 Speaker 1
That’s how it always.
01:12:44 Speaker 1
So it’s like you try to make your kids one way that is like a guarantee that they will be the opposite.
01:12:44 Speaker 1
I swear to God.
01:12:50
Yeah.
01:12:53 Speaker 2
Oh God, that I very.
01:12:54 Speaker 1
Know it is.
01:12:55 Speaker 1
It is scary, although I will say that my kids have come back from a few dark places.
01:13:02 Speaker 1
You know, they have to at least test it out.
01:13:03 Speaker 2
Leave. So find out, yeah.
01:13:04 Speaker 1
Yeah.
01:13:05 Speaker 1
Yeah.
01:13:05 Speaker 1
No, I shouldn’t.
01:13:06 Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:13:08
He.
01:13:08 Speaker 1
They’re they’re all good.
01:13:09 Speaker 1
I remember too and I forgot to mention it that you are working on like you give a conference coming out a symposium.
01:13:18 Speaker 2
And so one of the the outcomes of this research about the robot violence plays in news consumption.
01:13:26 Speaker 2
Is it that I’m putting together a virtual exhibit?
01:13:31 Speaker 2
So like it’s basically a website with like.
01:13:31
Cool.
01:13:35 Speaker 2
Where there are like 3 parts to it.
01:13:38 Speaker 2
So like there’s one part where I present my research results like in a simplified way for for the
big purple, greater public.
01:13:46 Speaker 2
So there were there is like I did some narrative portraits of participants and I did some.
01:13:54 Speaker 2
Graphics stuff about like which type of violence they encounter, etcetera, etcetera and some.
01:14:03 Speaker 2
And work is still working on some of the like.
01:14:06 Speaker 2
I don’t know some visualization of strategies to circumvent the the the violence they encounter, so everything from deep connection to I don’t know, you know, changing your pronouns or whatever or.
01:14:10 Speaker 1
Ohhhhh OK.
01:14:13
Yeah.
01:14:21 Speaker 1
Yeah.
01:14:23 Speaker 1
Put PhD at the end of your name.
01:14:25 Speaker 1
I did that when Joe Biden Joe Biden became president.
01:14:29 Speaker 1
People were like criticizing Jill Biden, saying because she like.
01:14:33 Speaker 1
Since she didn’t have her real pee like her cause, she was like calling herself Doctor Biden or something.
01:14:38 Speaker 1
We were like, oh, she’s not a medical.
01:14:39 Speaker 1
That something like something stupid.
01:14:40 Speaker 2
Well, she woke up pedia anything stands PhD.
01:14:41 Speaker 1
So yeah, so like a lot of women put PhD after their name on Twitter, which I did to like join the fun.
01:14:44 Speaker 2
What?
01:14:46 Speaker 1
And then I left it because I realized people really fracking defer to you as soon as you put that PhD on people that are like, oh, OK, OK or also I don’t have very many followers and I’m not on there very often.
01:14:58 Speaker 2
But since I quit.
01:15:00 Speaker 2
Because I’m no, I never refused to call it.
01:15:01 Speaker 1
I know it’s.
01:15:03 Speaker 1
What he called it.
01:15:04 Speaker 2
But yeah.
01:15:04 Speaker 2
But yeah, I mean and then there’s like a second part of it where I got like 3 young racialized artists to do some work on cyber violence.
01:15:17 Speaker 1
OK, cool.
01:15:17 Speaker 2
So they have.
01:15:18 Speaker 2
We have a series of photographs.
01:15:20 Speaker 2
The A collage and um one of my students.
01:15:27 Speaker 2
Funny Consentino, who is also very bright artist.
01:15:31 Speaker 2
She does like some installations that she photographed professionally and then you can also find this on the on the website.
01:15:40 Speaker 1
So what’s the website?
01:15:41 Speaker 1
Put it in the show notes, but what?
01:15:42 Speaker 2
And so it’s not online yet, ohk.
01:15:45 Speaker 2
OK, but the exhibition is called vapur.
01:15:50 Speaker 2
So floral voices and it’s gonna be online like at the end of the month because I have to put it online for the shirk grant, OK.
01:15:52
Yeah.
01:16:03 Speaker 1
Fair enough.
01:16:04 Speaker 2
Well, then I’m gonna.
01:16:05 Speaker 2
I’m gonna launch it like after.
01:16:07 Speaker 2
It’s because I’m kind of kind of like, have to work on that.
01:16:09 Speaker 2
And then there’s the third part actually to it where which is a very, very little for now.
01:16:17 Speaker 2
But I’m hoping to get more funding to like, extend it with.
01:16:20 Speaker 2
Alright, did a podcast with the Co Savoir?
01:16:23 Speaker 1
OHS.
01:16:25 Speaker 2
The organization I’ve worked with, so it’s kind of a Community Action, a part of this website where I want to put in more podcasts with a community, organizations that work on cyber, violence, gendered orange, less so.
01:16:41 Speaker 1
I love a good podcast.
01:16:42 Speaker 2
No.
01:16:42 Speaker 2
Um.
01:16:44 Speaker 2
For that will be out in February.
01:16:46 Speaker 1
If amazing.
01:16:47 Speaker 1
Well, I am like.
01:16:49 Speaker 1
My daughter has been very good about editing these and I’ve been very bad about releasing them, so I just like at the last one I released.
01:16:58 Speaker 1
Was recorded in October, so it would be amazing if I can get this out by so it could coordinate well.
01:16:58 Speaker 2
I’ll send you a link up to.
01:17:02 Speaker 2
Yeah, I’ll send you the link.
01:17:04 Speaker 2
So.
01:17:05 Speaker 2
Yeah, it’s.
01:17:06 Speaker 2
I’m still working on it, but it has to be finished.
01:17:10 Speaker 2
Of the month.
01:17:12 Speaker 1
Well, I I really appreciate you coming here and taking the time to do.
01:17:16 Speaker 1
Is there anything else you want to get in?
01:17:18 Speaker 1
But though we haven’t talked about before.
01:17:21 Speaker 2
No, I think I talked so much.
01:17:25 Speaker 1
No, this is my.
01:17:25 Speaker 1
It’s amazing.
01:17:27 Speaker 1
Favorite.
01:17:27 Speaker 1
That’s what I love.
01:17:28 Speaker 1
It’s like I keep saying, like, it’s so much fun for me because it’s, you know, it’s like you talk with colleagues, but you don’t really get into their research.
01:17:36 Speaker 1
And I just love hearing what people are doing and how they think about things.
01:17:40 Speaker 1
And it’s like it’s just strange that we don’t get this chance to do that very often.
01:17:45 Speaker 1
It’s like you can do it with a single paper at a conference.
01:17:48 Speaker 1
But it’s.
01:17:49 Speaker 1
True.
01:17:50 Speaker 2
Yeah, I’m very excited to listen to this.
01:17:50 Speaker 1
Oh, so it’s been some fun, little boy.
01:17:53 Speaker 2
Even if I hate listening to myself, I know.
01:17:56 Speaker 1
You get used to it.
01:17:57 Speaker 1
It’s like you really do so.
01:17:59 Speaker 1
Alright.
01:17:59 Speaker 1
Well, thank you so much again.
01:18:02 Speaker 1
And if you like this episode, please just give us a five star episode.
01:18:05 Speaker 1
And if you didn’t like it, just keep your mouth shut.
01:18:08 Speaker 1
This will help people this office to reach more listeners that make doing Social Research within the reach of everyone.
01:18:14 Speaker 1
Do you have a question about Social Research you’d like me to tackle on the podcast?
01:18:16
Yes.
01:18:18 Speaker 1
Or any thoughts?
01:18:20 Speaker 1
I’d love to connect with you.
01:18:21 Speaker 1
You can follow me on Insta.
01:18:22 Speaker 1
Gram and um, the website formerly known as Twitter, socio Mama, or join the Facebook, the doing Social Research Facebook group, which I realized I created a page and not a group.
01:18:25
This.
01:18:35 Speaker 1
But then I fixed it.
01:18:35 Speaker 1
So there’s a group actual group because I hired a research assistant Fiera who is amazing and helping me.
01:18:42 Speaker 1
So join that to keep the conversation going.
01:18:45 Speaker 1
Links to my social media and references will be on the show.
01:18:49 Speaker 1
Notes.
01:18:49 Speaker 1
You can also e-mail me at [email protected].
01:18:54 Speaker 1
And don’t forget to check out my website doing Social Research.
01:18:57 Speaker 1
Com It’s always a work of love and a work in progress.
01:19:01 Speaker 1
Special things to our sound editor.
01:19:02 Speaker 1
Will we’re be young for making a sound amazing.
01:19:05 Speaker 1
Jonathan Boyle wrote our theme music like a ******.
01:19:08 Speaker 1
Always remember.
01:19:09 Speaker 1
Don’t let the ******** get you down and keep doing Social Research.
01:19:12 Speaker 1
I’m Phyllis Rippey and this has been doing Social Research.
01:19:16 Speaker 1