Tara McGowan returns to The Great Battlefield podcast to talk about founding Courier Newsroom, where they're working in 8 battleground states to fight back against disinformation by publishing good information.

The Great Battlefield Podcast

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In this episode, Madison Center for Civic Engagement Democracy Fellow Leia Surovell interviews the new interim Executive Director, Dr. David Kirkpatrick and the new interim Associate Director Dr. Kara Dillard about their vision for the Madison Center and their views for what campus Centers for Civic Engagement should do for higher education.

See the show notes with links mentioned in this episode at https://www.jmu.edu/civic/podcast/index.shtml

Democracy Matters Podcast

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Rigid polarization and political division are among the biggest challenges facing our country. Young people often feel that tribalism is better than unity and that conversations across political and cultural divides are impossible.

College students Clare Ashcraft, who comes from a conservative background, and Jackson Spencer Richter, who calls himself a committed liberal, are active members of BridgeUSA, a national movement of students working to emphasize the importance of empathy, understanding, and ideological diversity.

In this episode we hear about students' personal experience of cancel culture, the impact of social media on Generation Z, and why many young people actually feel that free speech can harm or threaten their safety. We also learn about efforts to find common ground, equip students with skills to find solutions across divides, and build bridges with others of different backgrounds and points of view. 

Let's Find Common Ground Podcast

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Jonathan Friedman is the director of free expression and education programs at PEN America. He oversees research, advocacy, and education related to academic freedom, educational gag orders, book bans, and general free expression in schools, colleges, and universities. We discuss the driving forces behind campaigns to ban books and silence teachers.

Education has always been political and a part of the culture war. We’re currently experiencing an eruption of citizen anger against schools, books, school librarians, and teachers for allegedly engaging in something dangerous. For example, anything about diversity and inclusion is labeled as critical race theory. Libraries were actually put inside schools to encourage literacy and development, civic engagement, and exploration that is very healthy for a society. Politicians are increasingly trying to label whatever they don't like in schools as something that should be censored, and there are efforts to defund or close public libraries. 

Follow Jonathan on Twitter: 

https://twitter.com/jonfreadom

Follow Mila on Twitter: 

https://twitter.com/milaatmos

Future Hindsight Podcast

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CPF Director Bob Shrum joins Congressman Ro Khanna (D-CA) to discuss his new book “Dignity in the Digital Age: Making Tech Work for All of Us,” which is a roadmap to facing America’s digital divide and offering greater economic prosperity to all. They also discuss the digital economy, technological innovation, progressive capitalism, and the future of American democracy. Featuring:

• Ro Khanna - U.S. Representative (D-CA) for California’s 17th Congressional District
• Bob Shrum - Director, Center for the Political Future; Warschaw Chair in Practical Politics, USC Dornsife

The Bully Pulpit Podcast

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A recording from our Twitter Space Event with Public Citizen

Hosts

• Justin Kempf, Host of Democracy Paradox

Guests

• Craig Holman, Public Citizen’s Capitol Hill lobbyist

If you would like to listen and ask questions live, follow us @GroupDemocracy or subscribe to our newsletter are democracygroup.org/newsletter to be the first to know about upcoming events.

In country after country - we've counted over 130 news outlets of 30 countries that were republishing content that was produced by Chinese state media outlets or the Chinese embassy. So, these state media outlets are actually formally under the control of the Communist Party's propaganda department.

A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com.

Sarah Cook is the Research Director for China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan at Freedom House. She also directs their China Media Bulletin and authored the executive summary of this latest report, "Beijing's Global Media Influence 2022: Authoritarian Expansion and the Power of Democratic Resilience."

Key Highlights

• Introduction - 0:38
• China and its Media Influence - 2:58
• Chinese Influence Tactics - 12:48
• The Effectiveness of Chinese Influence - 18:30
• Resiliency of Democracies - 27:47

Key Links

Read the report "Beijing's Global Media Influence 2022: Authoritarian Expansion and the Power of Democratic Resilience"

Follow Sarah Cook on Twitter @Sarah_G_Cook

Follow Freedom House on Twitter @freedomhouse

Democracy Paradox Podcast

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Following the Dobbs  v. Jackson Women's Health Organization Supreme Court decision, reproductive rights are heading to ballots in states across the country this fall. Are states the right venue for this and other issues? Our guest this week says yes and makes the case that state courts and constitutions are more democratic than their counterparts at the federal level.

In Who Decides? State as Laboratories of Constitutional Experimentation, U.S. Appellate Court Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton focuses on the constitutional structure of the American states to answer the question of who should decide the key questions of public policy today. We also discuss work by Jake Grumbach in his book Laboratories Against Democracy and the forthcoming Moore v. Harper case in the U.S. Supreme Court, which grapples with what's come to be known as the Independent State Legislature Theory.

Sutton is the  Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He was previously a partner with the law firm of Jones Day and served as State Solicitor of the State of Ohio. He also served as a law clerk to the Honorable Lewis F. Powell, Jr. (Ret.), the Honorable Antonin Scalia, and the Honorable Thomas J. Meskill. His previous book is 51 Imperfect Solutions, published in 2018.

Who Decides: States as Laboratories of Constitutional Experimentation

Democracy Works Podcast

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Robert Costa, chief election and campaign correspondent for CBS News and a scholar at the Center for Politics this academic year, shares his approach to covering campaigns, elections and politics to help the public make sense of the complex issues facing the nation. “It can become a blizzard that's hard to follow," says Costa, "You have to report deeply and you want to break news...Unless it's breaking ground on the biggest players, it's important, but not THE story."

Links in this episode: 

• Peril
• Watergate at 50: The political scandal that changed Washington
• Rep. Liz Cheney Speaks joins Robert Costa, CBS Sunday Morning, June 5, 2022

Politics is Everything Podcast

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This week, Farai interviews Dr. Sayu Bhojwani, civic entrepreneur and founder of Women’s Democracy Lab, about what it takes to create a more inclusive democracy and what current intraparty tensions reveal about the election field ahead of the midterms. Then, we re-air a conversation from “One With Farai” featuring Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry and her 2011 book “Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America.” And in this week’s segment of ‘Sippin’ the Political Tea’, Farai interviews Bobby Ghosh, Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering foreign affairs and Hagar Chemali, foreign policy expert and host of “Oh My World!” on YouTube, about the death of Queen Elizabeth II amidst the United Kingdom’s energy crisis.

Our Body Politic Podcast

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