Reflecting on Conversation

In June, I got to experience the Media Literacy Research Symposium, alongside my peers and my wonderful Professor, Belinha De Abreu.

One of the main things I often think about from this experience was the intuitive recap video presented to all the attendees. The video made it clear that mis and dis information curated by artificial intelligence can be difficult to detect, even among professionals. For example I found it so interesting that the AI generated voice over of President Biden fooled many people at the conference, who’s jobs include sifting through mis and dis information.

Other takeaways that still stick with me are conversations of care. How are we instilling the value of care within our children?… Are we losing our ability to care as adults?… What is the root of this…. How do we solve this? This related heavily to my peers presentation about having civil discourse in the modern world. How are we supposed to solve the major political divide in our country, if we first can’t even understand the root of our differences in values. We care about our values, they mean something to us and our experiences. We have to care to listen to other people’s stories and perspectives to understand why their opinions may differ than ours. Then hopefully, empathy can allow us to have more peaceful conversations, and reach middle grounds.

Lastly, my favorite experience was not only to connect with the peers I traveled with, but to also make new connections. It was refreshing to be in a space to have conversations that weren’t interrupted by a cellular ping. Conversations are the pillars to our growth in understanding the media and how it affects us. Though it sounds like a basic skill, it’s still important to practice listening, and having conversations. We can bring civil conversation into our everyday lives and hopefully help family members and peers better understand the media, and to better understand other peoples perspectives.