{"id":9948,"date":"2026-11-15T13:31:53","date_gmt":"2026-11-15T19:31:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/?p=9948"},"modified":"2026-11-15T13:53:05","modified_gmt":"2026-11-15T19:53:05","slug":"beyond-us-them-an-interview-with-podcaster-trey-kay-part-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/blogs\/beyond-us-them-an-interview-with-podcaster-trey-kay-part-one\/","title":{"rendered":"Beyond Us & Them: An interview with podcaster Trey Kay (Part One)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The night that Donald Trump was elected in 2016, I was strung out on painkillers due to an as yet undiagnosed neuropathy attack. It helped to dull the pain but left me with a sense of unreality about the outcome. For the following weeks, I found myself waking up in pain at the wee hours of the morning and listening to podcasts to try to go back to sleep. Trey Kay\u2019s Us & Them<\/em> podcast (produced by West Virginia Public Radio)  was one of those I discovered during this period \u2013 a voice of sanity in insane times, a source of comfort for me as someone who had spent large chunks of my life in Rural North Georgia (Marjorie Taylor Green\u2019s district) and did not want to walk away with reductive explanations for why so many of the folks there had joined the MAGA movement. Us and Them<\/em> brings Appalachian perspectives to national debates and cultural divides, allowing us to hear from multiple perspectives and understand why people feel the ways they do. I hear there voices I would not encounter in my daily interactions in Los Angeles and as such, I start to understand the state of the nation with greater nuance and with some degree of hope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through the years, as a loyal fan, I reached out to Kay and invited him to come to USC. He framed an episode around our Civic Imagination workshops and brought me to West Virginia. I taught some of his episodes in my class on podcasting and he joined us via Zoom to share how they were made. Recently, we had a long conversation which touched on the value I saw in what he was doing from the perspective of educators trying to foster civic responsibility and media literacy with their students. We saw this exchange as a starting point for giving them the support and resources they might need to map its values into their instructional practices.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"A<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Henry:<\/strong> How would you describe your vision for Us & Them<\/em>? What inspired you to start the series?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trey:<\/strong> As you know, the origins of Us & Them<\/em> really go back to the radio documentary I made called The Great Textbook War<\/em>, about the 1974 Kanawha County textbook controversy in West Virginia. I was 12 years old and living in Kanawha County when that conflict erupted, so when I returned to it as a journalist decades later, I was revisiting something I had experienced as a child.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I began developing the documentary around 2008, during the Obama vs. McCain presidential campaign. At the time, people were already talking about the country being more politically polarized than it had been in generations. Looking back now, that period almost seems mild by comparison. But the textbook controversy of 1974 helped me recognize that the cultural and political divisions we were seeing were not new. Many of them had been developing for decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I followed that project with reporting on curriculum battles in Texas, and by 2014 I began developing Us & Them<\/em> with West Virginia Public Broadcasting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People sometimes interpret the title as meaning that the premise of the program is, \u201cThere are two sides to everything, and both sides probably have a point.\u201d There are certainly times when we bring people with opposing views into conversation, but that isn\u2019t really the central idea behind the program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What interests me more is the human impulse to divide ourselves into groups<\/strong> \u2014 political tribes, religions, classes, races, regions, factions and identities \u2014 and then to begin seeing the people outside our group as \u201cthem.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regarding Us & Them<\/em>, I have often thought about the traditional Bedouin proverb that states: “Me against my brother; me and my brother against my cousin; me, my brother, and my cousin against the stranger.”<\/em> It captures something elemental about how human beings organize themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bill Bishop\u2019s The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart<\/em> was an early influence on my thinking. I became fascinated by the ways Americans increasingly sort themselves geographically, culturally and politically into communities of people who think like they do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A recent experience has caused me to revisit this question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am working with a group exploring Christian nationalism, and I put out a crowdsourcing request asking to speak with people who believe that America is a Christian nation founded on Christian principles. I specifically said that I wasn\u2019t looking to stage an argument on Facebook; I wanted people who actually hold those beliefs to contact me privately so that I could understand how they describe themselves and what those beliefs mean to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Someone I respect objected strongly. Her concern was essentially that attempting to \u201cunderstand\u201d certain beliefs can inadvertently legitimize ideas that are historically false or morally indefensible<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I take that criticism seriously. Journalism can create false equivalence, and I do not believe that every factual assertion has equal validity simply because somebody believes it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I also think there is an important distinction between saying:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese two propositions are equally supported by the evidence,\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

and asking:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhy do millions of people believe this, how did they arrive there, and what happens in a democracy because they believe it?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The latter question is central to Us & Them<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A belief can be historically inaccurate and still be enormously consequential if enough people organize, vote, govern or educate their children according to it. Understanding those people does not require accepting their factual claims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That tension \u2014 between understanding and legitimizing<\/strong> \u2014 is actually something I think the program should continue wrestling with openly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Henry<\/strong>: \u201cHillers and Creekers” has always been one of my favorite episodes. It is an example of a cultural conflict that at first seems very location specific but it always seems to touch my students when I play it in class. Why do you think this has become one of the most popular of your episodes? And how does it illustrate the ways Us & Them<\/em>  addresses cultural divides?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trey<\/strong>: I think one reason \u201cHillers and Creekers\u201d has connected so strongly with listeners is that, although the story is rooted in a very specific place and a very particular West Virginia social division, the emotional experience underneath it is nearly universal. Most people know something about feeling out of place, looked down upon, left out, economically inferior, socially inferior, or simply not part of the group that seems to matter. You do not have to have grown up as a \u201ccreeker\u201d in Kanawha County, West Virginia, to understand what it feels like to believe that the people on the hill have better clothes, more money, more status, more social acceptance, or a greater sense that they belong. I have played the episode for audiences far removed from the world in which it took place, including predominantly African American audiences, and people immediately recognize the dynamic. They may not know the words \u201chiller\u201d and \u201ccreeker,\u201d but they know the experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The story also helped me understand something fundamental about Us & Them<\/em> itself. In 2017, Us & Them<\/em> was part of PRX\u2019s Project Catapult, an accelerator for public-radio podcasts. We had been making the program for a couple of years, but the people working with us kept describing it as a show about politics. I kept resisting that definition. Politics was obviously present in the work, but I did not believe politics was really the subject. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eventually, during one of those workshops, I said that I thought Us & Them<\/em> was really about sorting<\/strong> \u2014 the same human tendency I described earlier, where we form groups, decide who belongs to \u201cus,\u201d and almost inevitably create a \u201cthem.\u201d I was challenged to come back with a prototype episode about that kind of sorting that was unmistakably rooted in West Virginia. Driving home, I immediately thought of the \u201cHillers\u201d and \u201cCreekers\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My original plan was fairly conventional. I would interview people from my hometown, talk with former classmates, perhaps speak with current students, assemble a lively montage about this strange local class distinction, and then find some social scientist to explain what it meant. But the story changed when I interviewed my childhood friend Randy Thomas. Randy grew up in the poorer part of our community, the part associated with the \u201ccreekers,\u201d while I lived on the hill. We were sitting together in his truck outside the high school we had attended, talking about how kids from the hill used to tease kids from the creek. I remembered one particular form of teasing involving their shoes that came from a discount store and asked Randy about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He stopped talking for a while, and at first I did not understand what was happening. Then I realized he was crying. We were men in middle age, decades removed from high school, and yet a casual question about a pair of shoes had reached something that was still profoundly alive in him. That changed the entire story. Instead of imposing the story I had planned, we followed the emotional truth that emerged from the tape. That is one of the things I value most about documentary journalism. Sometimes the reporting takes you somewhere you did not know you were going.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think that helps explain how Us & Them<\/em> approaches cultural divides. We try first to identify the divide, but then we try to move beneath the argument and understand the human experience that gives the divide its power. Sometimes distance helps. Randy and I could talk about those experiences thirty or forty years later in ways we probably could not have talked about them when we were teenagers. In many of today\u2019s culture-war conflicts, people are still standing directly inside the wound. They are defensive, angry, afraid, and prepared to fight. \u201cHillers and Creekers\u201d gives us a smaller and somewhat safer model for examining the same dynamics. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once we recognize the tribal mechanism in a high-school class distinction, perhaps we become a little better equipped to recognize it when the stakes are larger. In some ways, I wish we had been able to make more episodes like it, stories where we begin with curiosity and allow the reporting itself, rather than our original assumptions, to organically unfold and help us  determine where we end up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Henry<\/strong>: What mechanisms do you use to bring people together across the political spectrum? What might teachers borrow from those methods?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trey:<\/strong> The first thing I would say is trust. Trust seems to be in extraordinarily short supply in American life. Before people will speak honestly about deeply held convictions, they need some reason to believe that I am not inviting them into an interview merely to embarrass them, defeat them or turn them into a caricature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have never pretended that I am a person without opinions. I have political views, and when it is relevant, I try to be candid about that. What I tell people is that my purpose in speaking with them is not to win a debate or advance my own political agenda. My purpose is to understand their worldview well enough to represent it fairly. That has been especially important when I am interviewing people whose beliefs differ substantially from my own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the things I discovered almost accidentally while reporting The Great Textbook War<\/em> was the value of encountering people outside the formal interview. Sometimes I went to church with people I was interviewing. I did not go pretending to believe what they believed. I went respectfully, participated as a guest, listened and tried to understand something important in their lives. I found that worshiping with people could lower barriers in a way that simply sitting across from someone with a microphone often could not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meals work in much the same way. I have had breakfast, lunch or dinner with many people I have interviewed. I remember interviewing a coal miner whose political and cultural worldview was very different from mine, and his family served me deer sausage they had prepared themselves. Something changes when somebody feeds you. For a little while, you stop being simply \u201cjournalist\u201d and \u201csubject,\u201d and you encounter one another in a more ordinary human way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That instinct eventually intersected with an experiment we had heard about in Europe. ZEIT ONLINE, a German news organization, had created a project called Germany Talks<\/em>, which later expanded into Europe Talks<\/em>. Participants answered questions about contentious political issues, and a matching system paired people with significantly different political views so they could meet and talk face to face. The idea had a kind of dating-service quality to it, except instead of trying to find your ideal match, the system was deliberately trying to find someone who saw the political world differently from you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What fascinated us was that the encounters often did not produce the reaction one might expect. People did not simply emerge saying, \u201cThat was unpleasant, and I never want to do it again.\u201d Many found the experience worthwhile and wanted more opportunities to talk with people outside their normal political circles. The project eventually grew to involve thousands of participants across Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We began thinking about whether we could try something similar in West Virginia. We actually planned a live event built around that concept for March 30, 2020. People with different political worldviews would be paired for conversations. Then COVID shut everything down, and the event obviously could not happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we tried to imagine another way of creating that kind of encounter, the Us & Them Dinner Party<\/em> began to take shape. Instead of pairing two strangers in a public place, we began thinking about bringing a small group of people together around a table. We generally invite four people who identify as politically conservative and four who identify as liberal. Everyone brings food, often something with a family or cultural story attached to it. We try to gather somewhere that feels more like a home than a debate stage. Before we discuss politics, people eat together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first Dinner Party was necessarily virtual because of the pandemic, but even in choosing that first group we were looking for people who could model what we were trying to create. In an earlier episode, The Abortion Divide<\/em>, I had interviewed a woman who advocated for abortion rights. I asked her whether there was anyone on the anti-abortion side whom she encountered at the West Virginia Legislature and still had a cordial relationship with. There was. We brought those two women together for a conversation in that episode, and later invited both of them to participate in our first Dinner Party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I thought they were important because they already embodied one of the ideas behind the experiment. They disagreed profoundly on an issue that is among the most divisive in American politics, but each was still willing to sit with the other and talk. We were not asking either woman to surrender her convictions. We were asking whether strong disagreement had to eliminate relationship and conversation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That remains central to the Dinner Parties. We explicitly tell participants that this is not a game of \u201cKing of the Hill.\u201d The purpose is not to \u201cown\u201d somebody on the other side. Nobody wins because somebody else loses. We try to establish some sense of commonality before moving into disagreement. Sometimes the food itself helps do that. A person brings a recipe from a grandmother, or something connected to the place where they grew up, and suddenly the first thing the group knows about that person is not how they voted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think there are lessons there for teachers. A teacher dealing with politically divided students or parents might begin by finding ways for people to know something about one another that precedes political identity. Where did your family come from? What traditions matter to you? What music do you love? Who raised you? What place feels like home? What is something you are proud of that has nothing to do with politics? Once people have encountered one another in that way, disagreement does not disappear, but the person across the room becomes harder to reduce to a caricature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have also been exploring an idea called Tough Talk and Tunes<\/em>: whether music could surround a difficult civic conversation and create another form of common ground. We have not yet tested that idea fully, but it grows from the same instinct as the Dinner Parties\u2014that disagreement works differently when it is embedded inside some shared human experience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Us and Them brings Appalachian perspectives to national debates and cultural divides, allowing us to hear from multiple perspectives and understand why people feel the ways they do.\u00a0I hear there voices I would not encounter in my daily interactions, and I start to understand the state of the nation with greater nuance and with some degree of hope.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9968,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":0,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"nfd_image_url":"","nfd_onboarding_generated":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_ppma_block_editor_authors":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[158,607,229,129],"series":[4451],"ppma_author":[108],"class_list":["post-9948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-blogs","tag-american-politics","tag-civic-imagination","tag-education","tag-polarization","series-beyond-us-them","entry"],"yoast_head":"\nBeyond Us & Them: An interview with podcaster Trey Kay (Part One) - Blogs - International Council for Media Literacy<\/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:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/blogs\/beyond-us-them-an-interview-with-podcaster-trey-kay-part-one\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"pt_PT\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Beyond Us & Them: An interview with podcaster Trey Kay (Part One) - Blogs - International Council for Media Literacy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Us and Them brings Appalachian perspectives to national debates and cultural divides, allowing us to hear from multiple perspectives and understand why people feel the ways they do.\u00a0I hear there voices I would not encounter in my daily interactions, and I start to understand the state of the nation with greater nuance and with some degree of hope.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/blogs\/beyond-us-them-an-interview-with-podcaster-trey-kay-part-one\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"International Council for Media Literacy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/IC4ML\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-11-15T19:31:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-11-15T19:53:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/us_them_1600_resolution.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Henry Jenkins, PhD\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@IC4ML\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@IC4ML\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Escrito por\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Henry Jenkins, PhD\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Tempo estimado de leitura\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"13 minutos\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":[\"Article\",\"BlogPosting\"],\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ic4ml.org\\\/pt-pt\\\/blogs\\\/beyond-us-them-an-interview-with-podcaster-trey-kay-part-one\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ic4ml.org\\\/pt-pt\\\/blogs\\\/beyond-us-them-an-interview-with-podcaster-trey-kay-part-one\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"ic4mladmin75\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ic4ml.org\\\/pt-pt\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/0310600ca60f8c9310e86d06d8a161f9\"},\"headline\":\"Beyond Us & Them: An interview with podcaster Trey Kay (Part One)\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-11-15T19:31:53+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-11-15T19:53:05+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ic4ml.org\\\/pt-pt\\\/blogs\\\/beyond-us-them-an-interview-with-podcaster-trey-kay-part-one\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":2759,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ic4ml.org\\\/pt-pt\\\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ic4ml.org\\\/pt-pt\\\/blogs\\\/beyond-us-them-an-interview-with-podcaster-trey-kay-part-one\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/i0.wp.com\\\/ic4ml.org\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/11\\\/us_them_1600_resolution.jpg?fit=1600%2C1600&ssl=1\",\"keywords\":[\"American Politics\",\"Civic Imagination\",\"Education\",\"Polarization\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Blogs\"],\"inLanguage\":\"pt-PT\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/ic4ml.org\\\/pt-pt\\\/blogs\\\/beyond-us-them-an-interview-with-podcaster-trey-kay-part-one\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ic4ml.org\\\/pt-pt\\\/blogs\\\/beyond-us-them-an-interview-with-podcaster-trey-kay-part-one\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ic4ml.org\\\/pt-pt\\\/blogs\\\/beyond-us-them-an-interview-with-podcaster-trey-kay-part-one\\\/\",\"name\":\"Beyond Us & Them: An interview with podcaster Trey Kay (Part One) - Blogs - International Council for Media Literacy\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ic4ml.org\\\/pt-pt\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ic4ml.org\\\/pt-pt\\\/blogs\\\/beyond-us-them-an-interview-with-podcaster-trey-kay-part-one\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ic4ml.org\\\/pt-pt\\\/blogs\\\/beyond-us-them-an-interview-with-podcaster-trey-kay-part-one\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/i0.wp.com\\\/ic4ml.org\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/11\\\/us_them_1600_resolution.jpg?fit=1600%2C1600&ssl=1\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-11-15T19:31:53+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-11-15T19:53:05+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ic4ml.org\\\/pt-pt\\\/blogs\\\/beyond-us-them-an-interview-with-podcaster-trey-kay-part-one\\\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"pt-PT\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/ic4ml.org\\\/pt-pt\\\/blogs\\\/beyond-us-them-an-interview-with-podcaster-trey-kay-part-one\\\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"pt-PT\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ic4ml.org\\\/pt-pt\\\/blogs\\\/beyond-us-them-an-interview-with-podcaster-trey-kay-part-one\\\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/i0.wp.com\\\/ic4ml.org\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/11\\\/us_them_1600_resolution.jpg?fit=1600%2C1600&ssl=1\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/i0.wp.com\\\/ic4ml.org\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/11\\\/us_them_1600_resolution.jpg?fit=1600%2C1600&ssl=1\",\"width\":1600,\"height\":1600},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ic4ml.org\\\/pt-pt\\\/blogs\\\/beyond-us-them-an-interview-with-podcaster-trey-kay-part-one\\\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ic4ml.org\\\/pt-pt\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Beyond Us & Them: An interview with podcaster Trey Kay (Part One)\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ic4ml.org\\\/pt-pt\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ic4ml.org\\\/pt-pt\\\/\",\"name\":\"International Council for Media Literacy\",\"description\":\"Bridging Academia to Action\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ic4ml.org\\\/pt-pt\\\/#organization\"},\"alternateName\":\"IC4ML\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ic4ml.org\\\/pt-pt\\\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"pt-PT\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ic4ml.org\\\/pt-pt\\\/#organization\",\"name\":\"International Council for Media Literacy\",\"alternateName\":\"IC4ML\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ic4ml.org\\\/pt-pt\\\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"pt-PT\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ic4ml.org\\\/pt-pt\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/logo\\\/image\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/i0.wp.com\\\/ic4ml.org\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2022\\\/06\\\/ic4ml-logo-400-px-no-byline.png?fit=400%2C255&ssl=1\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/i0.wp.com\\\/ic4ml.org\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2022\\\/06\\\/ic4ml-logo-400-px-no-byline.png?fit=400%2C255&ssl=1\",\"width\":400,\"height\":255,\"caption\":\"International Council for Media Literacy\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ic4ml.org\\\/pt-pt\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/logo\\\/image\\\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.facebook.com\\\/IC4ML\",\"https:\\\/\\\/x.com\\\/IC4ML\",\"https:\\\/\\\/www.instagram.com\\\/ICforML\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ic4ml.org\\\/pt-pt\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/0310600ca60f8c9310e86d06d8a161f9\",\"name\":\"ic4mladmin75\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"pt-PT\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ic4ml.org\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2022\\\/03\\\/cropped-ic4ml-international-council-for-media-liteacy-square-512-logo.jpg99fd93da9f35d0093f7cdb91d5c38e3d\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ic4ml.org\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2022\\\/03\\\/cropped-ic4ml-international-council-for-media-liteacy-square-512-logo.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ic4ml.org\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2022\\\/03\\\/cropped-ic4ml-international-council-for-media-liteacy-square-512-logo.jpg\",\"caption\":\"ic4mladmin75\"},\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ic4ml.org\\\/pt-pt\\\/author\\\/ic4mladmin75\\\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Beyond Us & Them: An interview with podcaster Trey Kay (Part One) - Blogs - International Council for Media Literacy","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/blogs\/beyond-us-them-an-interview-with-podcaster-trey-kay-part-one\/","og_locale":"pt_PT","og_type":"article","og_title":"Beyond Us & Them: An interview with podcaster Trey Kay (Part One) - Blogs - International Council for Media Literacy","og_description":"Us and Them brings Appalachian perspectives to national debates and cultural divides, allowing us to hear from multiple perspectives and understand why people feel the ways they do.\u00a0I hear there voices I would not encounter in my daily interactions, and I start to understand the state of the nation with greater nuance and with some degree of hope.","og_url":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/blogs\/beyond-us-them-an-interview-with-podcaster-trey-kay-part-one\/","og_site_name":"International Council for Media Literacy","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/IC4ML","article_published_time":"2026-11-15T19:31:53+00:00","article_modified_time":"2026-11-15T19:53:05+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1600,"height":1600,"url":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/us_them_1600_resolution.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Henry Jenkins, PhD","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@IC4ML","twitter_site":"@IC4ML","twitter_misc":{"Escrito por":"Henry Jenkins, PhD","Tempo estimado de leitura":"13 minutos"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":["Article","BlogPosting"],"@id":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/blogs\/beyond-us-them-an-interview-with-podcaster-trey-kay-part-one\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/blogs\/beyond-us-them-an-interview-with-podcaster-trey-kay-part-one\/"},"author":{"name":"ic4mladmin75","@id":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/#\/schema\/person\/0310600ca60f8c9310e86d06d8a161f9"},"headline":"Beyond Us & Them: An interview with podcaster Trey Kay (Part One)","datePublished":"2026-11-15T19:31:53+00:00","dateModified":"2026-11-15T19:53:05+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/blogs\/beyond-us-them-an-interview-with-podcaster-trey-kay-part-one\/"},"wordCount":2759,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/blogs\/beyond-us-them-an-interview-with-podcaster-trey-kay-part-one\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ic4ml.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/us_them_1600_resolution.jpg?fit=1600%2C1600&ssl=1","keywords":["American Politics","Civic Imagination","Education","Polarization"],"articleSection":["Blogs"],"inLanguage":"pt-PT","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/blogs\/beyond-us-them-an-interview-with-podcaster-trey-kay-part-one\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/blogs\/beyond-us-them-an-interview-with-podcaster-trey-kay-part-one\/","url":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/blogs\/beyond-us-them-an-interview-with-podcaster-trey-kay-part-one\/","name":"Beyond Us & Them: An interview with podcaster Trey Kay (Part One) - Blogs - International Council for Media Literacy","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/blogs\/beyond-us-them-an-interview-with-podcaster-trey-kay-part-one\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/blogs\/beyond-us-them-an-interview-with-podcaster-trey-kay-part-one\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ic4ml.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/us_them_1600_resolution.jpg?fit=1600%2C1600&ssl=1","datePublished":"2026-11-15T19:31:53+00:00","dateModified":"2026-11-15T19:53:05+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/blogs\/beyond-us-them-an-interview-with-podcaster-trey-kay-part-one\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"pt-PT","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/blogs\/beyond-us-them-an-interview-with-podcaster-trey-kay-part-one\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"pt-PT","@id":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/blogs\/beyond-us-them-an-interview-with-podcaster-trey-kay-part-one\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ic4ml.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/us_them_1600_resolution.jpg?fit=1600%2C1600&ssl=1","contentUrl":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ic4ml.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/us_them_1600_resolution.jpg?fit=1600%2C1600&ssl=1","width":1600,"height":1600},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/blogs\/beyond-us-them-an-interview-with-podcaster-trey-kay-part-one\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Beyond Us & Them: An interview with podcaster Trey Kay (Part One)"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/#website","url":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/","name":"International Council for Media Literacy","description":"Bridging Academia to Action","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/#organization"},"alternateName":"IC4ML","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"pt-PT"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/#organization","name":"International Council for Media Literacy","alternateName":"IC4ML","url":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"pt-PT","@id":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ic4ml.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/ic4ml-logo-400-px-no-byline.png?fit=400%2C255&ssl=1","contentUrl":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ic4ml.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/ic4ml-logo-400-px-no-byline.png?fit=400%2C255&ssl=1","width":400,"height":255,"caption":"International Council for Media Literacy"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/IC4ML","https:\/\/x.com\/IC4ML","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/ICforML"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/#\/schema\/person\/0310600ca60f8c9310e86d06d8a161f9","name":"ic4mladmin75","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"pt-PT","@id":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/cropped-ic4ml-international-council-for-media-liteacy-square-512-logo.jpg99fd93da9f35d0093f7cdb91d5c38e3d","url":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/cropped-ic4ml-international-council-for-media-liteacy-square-512-logo.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/cropped-ic4ml-international-council-for-media-liteacy-square-512-logo.jpg","caption":"ic4mladmin75"},"url":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/author\/ic4mladmin75\/"}]}},"author_meta":{"display_name":"Henry Jenkins, PhD","author_link":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/author\/ic4mladmin75\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ic4ml.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/us_them_1600_resolution.jpg?fit=300%2C300&ssl=1","featured_image_src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ic4ml.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/us_them_1600_resolution.jpg?resize=600%2C400&ssl=1","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ic4ml.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/us_them_1600_resolution.jpg?resize=600%2C600&ssl=1","author_info":{"display_name":"Henry Jenkins, PhD","author_link":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/author\/ic4mladmin75\/"},"coauthors":[{"link":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/author\/henry-jenkins-phd\/","display_name":"Henry Jenkins, PhD"}],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["<a href=\"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/content\/blogs\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Blogs<\/a>"],"unlinked":["<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Blogs<\/span>"]},"tags":{"linked":["<a href=\"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/content\/blogs\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">American Politics<\/a>","<a href=\"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/content\/blogs\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Civic Imagination<\/a>","<a href=\"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/content\/blogs\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Education<\/a>","<a href=\"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/content\/blogs\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Polarization<\/a>"],"unlinked":["<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">American Politics<\/span>","<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Civic Imagination<\/span>","<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Education<\/span>","<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Polarization<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Publicado 8 horas h\u00e1","modified":"Atualizado 8 horas h\u00e1"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Publicado em Novembro 15, 2026","modified":"Atualizado em Novembro 15, 2026"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Publicado em Novembro 15, 2026 1:31 pm","modified":"Atualizado em Novembro 15, 2026 1:53 pm"},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":1,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"authors":[{"term_id":108,"user_id":0,"is_guest":1,"slug":"henry-jenkins-phd","display_name":"Henry Jenkins, PhD","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Henry-Jenkins.jpg","url2x":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Henry-Jenkins.jpg"},"avatar_alt":"","avatar_decorative":"","author_category":"","organization":"University of Southern California","title":"IC4ML Advisory Council; Provost Prof of Communication, Journalism, Cinematic Arts & Education","bio":"Henry Jenkins is the Provost Professor of Communication, Journalism, Cinematic Arts and Education at the University of Southern California. He is the author and\/or editor of twenty books on various aspects of media and popular culture, including Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture, Hop on Pop: The Politics and Pleasures of Popular Culture, and several others.\u00a0 His most recent books are Participatory Culture: Interviews (based on material originally published on this blog), Popular Culture and the Civic Imagination: Case Studies of Creative Social Change, and Comics and Stuff.He is currently writing a book on changes in children\u2019s culture and media during the post-World War II era.\r\n\r\n<span class=\"color_14\">\u00a0<\/span>","last_name":"Jenkins","first_name":"Henry","job_title":"","twitter":"","user_url":"http:\/\/henryjenkins.org\/","description":""}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ic4ml.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/us_them_1600_resolution.jpg?fit=1600%2C1600&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9948"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9948\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9971,"href":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9948\/revisions\/9971"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9948"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=9948"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=9948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}