{"id":2665,"date":"2024-09-04T22:49:22","date_gmt":"2024-09-04T22:49:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buildersmovement.org\/?p=2665"},"modified":"2024-09-04T22:50:18","modified_gmt":"2024-09-04T22:50:18","slug":"skeptical-not-cynical-media-literary-geoffrey-baym","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buildersmovement.org\/2024\/09\/04\/skeptical-not-cynical-media-literary-geoffrey-baym\/","title":{"rendered":"Be Skeptical But Not Cynical: Advice From a Media Professor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThe key is to not be cynical, but skeptical\u2026 Cynicism is when we believe that everyone is lying, everyone has an agenda, and you can trust no one. Skepticism is when we have healthy doubt.\u201d<br \/>\n<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0 \u00a0 \u2014 Geoffrey Baym, on the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">12 Geniuses<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> episode<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the latest episode of <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/buildersmovement.org\/2024\/08\/21\/debate-without-hate-podcast-series-navigate-divisive-election\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cDebate Without Hate: Elections 2024\u201d<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> on the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">12 Geniuses<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> podcast, media expert Geoffrey Baym talks about news media, social media, and our toxic divides. He discusses how to think about media literacy during this contentious presidential election.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Professor Geoffrey Baym \u2014 A Media Literacy Diet for 2024 Elections\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/jhSOTxXbQms?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0It\u2019s healthy to be skeptical. Journalists and other content creators often get things wrong, and sometimes, the distortions are even intentional. Our toxic divides ramp up our emotions and fears, making bad and biased information even more common.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Baym, professor of media studies and director of the PhD program in Media and Communication at Temple University, makes the case for embracing skepticism \u2014 and avoiding the temptation to be cynical. When we reject information simply because we perceive the person or outlet sharing it as \u201cnot being on our team,\u201d that\u2019s a problem. It leads to a fracturing of narratives, where we try to fit complex issues into us-versus-them buckets. We must try to be as skeptical of information shared by our political peers as we are of information shared by our political opponents.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Baym also talks about how our cynicism and team-based filtering harms democracy:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI know I can turn on Fox News every single night, and I can find out what Joe Biden has done today to destroy America. Or I can turn on MSNBC and find out the ever-impending threat that Donald Trump poses. That, I think, characterizes so much of our media landscape, and it\u2019s a tremendous disservice to national unity, but also, you know, to the democratic system itself.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=jhSOTxXbQms\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Watch this <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">12 Geniuses<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> episode now<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Want to stay in the loop about efforts to overcome toxic divisions? <\/span><\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/buildersmovement.org\/join\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sign up for our newsletter<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cThe key is to not be cynical, but skeptical\u2026 Cynicism is when we believe that everyone is lying, everyone has an agenda, and you can trust no one. Skepticism is when we have healthy doubt.\u201d \u00a0 \u00a0 \u2014 Geoffrey Baym, on the 12 Geniuses episode In the latest episode of \u201cDebate Without Hate: Elections 2024\u201d&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":2666,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"collection_feed":[],"type_feed":[72],"class_list":["post-2665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Be Skeptical But Not Cynical: Advice From a Media Professor - Builders<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/buildersmovement.org\/2024\/09\/04\/skeptical-not-cynical-media-literary-geoffrey-baym\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Be Skeptical But Not Cynical: Advice From a Media Professor - Builders\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201cThe key is to not be cynical, but skeptical\u2026 Cynicism is when we believe that everyone is lying, everyone has an agenda, and you can trust no one. 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