It was really fun. I used two case studies of recent and current work that I’m doing on designing conversations for trust, collaboration, and building capacity for conflict.
The design students asked great questions about managing tensions between stakeholder interests, facts v emotions, and more.
Title slide of presentation.
My "return to normalcy" after this week?
Giving a talk to design students on building communication infrastructure that sustains multiple perspectives.
Translation: teaching people how to collaborate and have conflict without maiming each other.
occurs to me that we might be getting the "there's a problem of lonely males with no friends or romantic partners" and "there's a lucrative industry of toxic male influencers who tell young men to act like assholes" causation arrow backwards
The Chiefs are also declining a bowl bid this year.
My scrappy little podcast “Democracy & Destiny” based on my book _Corporatocracy_ has had over 1,500 listens. Please join the fun. 🤩 m.soundcloud.com/profciara/po... 🗳️⚖️📖🎧✍🏾 #booksky #podsky #blacksky #beans
"It's past time to recognize that university administrators aren't going to lead the way out of this, [setting] the stage for leadership... from faculty, staff, & students, [where] most if not all progress in higher ed over the past 100 yrs has occurred."
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
#AcademicSky
The Swift-Kelce engagement isn’t remarkable because it happened; it’s remarkable because of how we organized around it. The real story isn’t the ring; it’s the reminder that communication doesn’t just reflect culture, but also shapes it.
We treat these moments as entertainment, but they’re also lessons in digital organizing. Fan cultures aren’t “just fans”—they’re decentralized, resilient publics that brands and institutions learn from. Swift & Kelce didn’t just get engaged; they activated an organizational collective.
What fascinates me is how networked publics instantly co-produce meaning: Swifties deploy numerology, NFL fans meme the Chiefs, and brands scramble for relevance. It’s a live case study of participatory organizing: distributed labor creating coherence (and chaos) simultaneously.
Taylor Swift & Travis Kelce’s engagement wasn’t just a personal milestone; it was an organizational event. Sports fandom, pop fandom, and brand opportunism collapsed into one giant digital stage. That’s not celebrity gossip, that’s cultural infrastructure at work.
Imagine dedicating your career to studying tech & new media, only to be utterly overwhelmed by the unholy combination of Zoom and Outlook. That’s me. I am the research subject.
Caitlyn Jarvis and I talk about this in our 2021 paper on ‘conservative chimeras.’ But seriously: BIG YIKES.
Because of course…when I first started the line of research around red pill ideologies, it was relatively siloed into parts of the Manosphere. In a little over a decade, the language and logic has gone from the corners of the internet to being a “legitimized” form of political organizing.
Important message from @ethanvporter.bsky.social @aaronshaw.bsky.social @emmaspiro.bsky.social
“NSF has accepted a dangerous myth that misinformation research (and research more generally) is really just partisan activism […] Nothing could be further from the truth”
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
It's Launch Day! Faculty across the country are rising up to say:
🔹 We will defend academic freedom.
🔹 We will protect our students.
🔹 We will safeguard the public mission of higher ed.
Join us: www.standtogetherhighered.org
#StandTogetherForHigherEd #DefendHigherEd #AcademicFreedom #academicsky
Who goes to @citylightsbooks.bsky.social while celebrating a friend’s 40th birthday and buys a book by Derrida and another by Freire?
Me.
The academic in me stays evergreen.
It might be the one aspirational thing I would acknowledge about TFG.
So now, studying misinformation is a threat to free speech? I guess disinfo is just “diverse viewpoints” now. 🫠🫠🫠🫠
Booker: "I confess that I have been imperfect. I confess that I've been inadequate to the moment. I've confess that the Democratic Party has made terrible mistakes that gave a lane to this demagogue. I confess we all must look in the mirror and say 'we will do better.'"
Additional ways to support trans authors: Support trans-owned and led bookshops. Donate/volunteer for mutual aid organizations. Promote their stories on your social channels. Join your school board to fight book bans. Attend author events in person or virtually." Slide four: "View the full playlist at the link in bio. Follow @librofm for more audiobook recommendations.
audiobook covers for: The Risk it Takes to Bloom; Model Home; Okay Cupid; Little Rot; Wild Geese; Stag Dance; The Prospects; Paper Doll; Map of Salt and Stars; Pretty; He/She/They; The Bruising of Qilwa; Bellies; Infinity Alchemist; She Who Became the Sun; A Gentleman's Gentleman; Woodworking; How to Tell When We Will Die; Celestial Monsters; Falling Back in Love With Being Human.
Today is Trans Day of Visibility ❤️ Check out these audiobooks, perfect for reading today and every day!
libro.fm/playlists/tr...
They're called public records for a reason. Starting today, WIRED will *stop paywalling* articles that are primarily based on public records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, becoming the first publication to partner with @freedom.press to offer this for our new coverage.
“This is one reason why conservatives (and fellow travelers like Arnade) hate liberalism so much: free choice disproves their biological essentialism.”
@lspaineddy.bsky.social and I are in NYC for a few days, and folks keep saying, “Welcome to NY.” The restraint it has taken me to not respond, “It’s been waiting for [us].” IYKYK.
I think about spaces like Western KS that are in legitimate media deserts, and the importance of offering that type of VfA…this typically happens online through communities that are increasingly being policed/censored by the tech broligarchs.
That’s pirate radio…hopefully something like NPR would work... I keep thinking about the point you made a few weeks ago about the geographic size of the US being a boon and a curse for mobilizing.
