MEDIASCAPE: Insights From Digital Changemakers
Join hosts Joseph Itaya and Anika Jackson as they dive into conversations with leaders and changemakers shaping the future of digital media. Each episode explores the frontier of multimedia, artificial intelligence, marketing, branding, and communication, spotlighting how emerging digital trends and technologies are transforming industries across the globe.
MEDIASCAPE is proudly sponsored by USC Annenberg’s Master of Science in Digital Media Management (MSDMM) program. This online master’s program is designed to prepare practitioners to understand the evolving media landscape, make data-driven and ethical decisions, and build a more equitable future by leading diverse teams with the technical, artistic, analytical, and production skills needed to create engaging content and technologies for the global marketplace. Learn more or apply today at https://dmm.usc.edu.
MEDIASCAPE: Insights From Digital Changemakers
Exploring Global Security: Dr. Mara Karlin's Journey in Policy and Communication
Discover the fascinating world of war, communication, and policy-making with the esteemed Professor Mara Karlin in this gripping episode of Mediascape. As a leading authority in international relations and defense, Mara takes us through her incredible journey from a college student with a thirst for global understanding to a pivotal figure in shaping U.S. defense strategy. With vivid anecdotes from her transformative experiences, including a Semester at Sea program, Mara illustrates the pivotal role of adaptability and curiosity in navigating the complex landscape of global security.
We also address the often-overlooked communication gap between civilians and veterans in academic settings, offering practical advice to foster meaningful conversations. Dive into the art of critical thinking as we analyze how Americans can sift through biased media and misinformation to better understand foreign policy. With the right strategies, including seeking diverse sources and maintaining a healthy skepticism, we can develop a more informed perspective on world events.
Ever wondered how journalists balance public interest with national security concerns? This episode provides an in-depth examination of the tensions between government and media, shedding light on how misinformation and financial pressures shape news reporting. As we tackle the delicate dance of policy decision-making, the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine serves as a poignant example of the intricate choices faced by policymakers. Join us for an episode filled with rich insights and compelling stories that unravel the complexities of communication, policy, and global affairs.
This podcast is proudly sponsored by USC Annenberg’s Master of Science in Digital Media Management (MSDMM) program. An online master’s designed to prepare practitioners to understand the evolving media landscape, make data-driven and ethical decisions, and build a more equitable future by leading diverse teams with the technical, artistic, analytical, and production skills needed to create engaging content and technologies for the global marketplace. Learn more or apply today at https://dmm.usc.edu.
Welcome to Mediascape insights from digital changemakers, a speaker series and podcast brought to you by USC Annenberg's Digital Media Management Program. Join us as we unlock the secrets to success in an increasingly digital world. Hi everybody and welcome to this week's episode of Mediascape, where we speak with digital changemakers across a number of industries. And today we have an incredibly special guest and one of my very favorite people in the world, and I'm going to do my best to introduce this amazing person and then I will turn it over to her and let her introduce herself, because she can do it much better than I can. But today we are being joined by Professor Mara Carlin. Mara is a professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. She is a visiting researcher at the Brookings Institution. That's now.
Speaker 1:But before that, Mara worked for the US Department of Defense. But before that Mara worked for the US Department of Defense, she was the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy Plans and Capabilities and the Acting Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Policy. She worked under the Biden-Harris administration in those roles, but she's worked for many administrations before that, all related to defense and policy and international relations. But that's not how we met. We met when she took a sabbatical from working for the Department of Defense about what is it now about? Nine, 10 months ago, and she went on semester at sea as a professor, where she was teaching political science and international relations, and that is where we first met. We met in Bangkok, Thailand, and then we floated around the globe to what was it? 11 different countries, with our families and kids in tow, and worked with some amazing college students, and it was just one of the most wonderful experiences and you were one of the most beloved professors and people on the boat.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'm going to keep going because that's not all. So Mara is also a published author and I'm holding her book right here. Her book the Inheritance was published a couple years ago, in 2022. It is a discussion of America's military after two decades of war, and I encourage you to pick it up. I'm reading it right now and, Mari, you do an amazing job of taking pretty sophisticated and potentially scary situations and breaking them down in a way that ordinary Americans can understand. So I really appreciate that about you and it's just a blessing to have you with us. You're just a bright light in this world, so I want to turn it over to you so we can hear less of my voice and more of yours, and thank you for being with us and would love it if you could tell us about you and your area of specialization, to set some context for our discussion today.
Speaker 2:And absolutely, joseph. It is such a treat to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me. I really enjoyed our adventure living with 500 college students as we sailed around the world on a giant ship. It was a real treat.
Speaker 2:So a little bit about me. So I have spent most of my career in the Pentagon. I've worked for six secretaries of defense and three presidents. So if you're thinking about an issue that happened in international security or foreign policy over the last 20 years, I probably touched it in some way, and that was as a policymaker. So trying to figure out from the US perspective, what do we do about this right? What should we take action? Should we learn more? Should we spend resources? Should we deploy the military? What does all of that look like? What are the options for the United States? And while I've been in and out of government, I wrote a couple books. I really appreciate you citing this one, which really tried to figure out what are the legacies for the United States. Being at war for two decades it's the longest period of time in US history and I wanted to try to understand that and understand what we should try to get out of that.
Speaker 1:That's fantastic, all right. So here's my first question that I want to ask you and for our audience, many or most of whom are college students, undergraduate and graduate, and they're in this very important part of life where they're beginning to think about, you know, which industry should I be in, what's going to be the best synthesis of the things I care about and the things that I'm good at and all of the priorities of life, etc. So for you this bubbly, warm, funny not the sort of person that we see in like Tom Clancy books, working at the Pentagon and figuring out war strategy Can you take us back to the beginning, when you were in college and thinking about what you wanted to do? How did you find this the beginning of this journey for you in your career?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I think I'm much too short for a Tom Clancy novel, but I do appreciate it. You know, one thing I always like to tell college students is you have to be open to serendipity. You might come in with a plan. I was one of that kids that 100% came in with a plan. I was going to study political science, then I was going to go to law school, et cetera, et cetera. But you have to be open to serendipity and your plans might change.
Speaker 2:And actually the big turning point for me was studying abroad my junior year on this great program Semester at Sea that you and I just experienced earlier this year. And then I spent my second semester, junior, living in the Middle East and, frankly, what really struck me was just this kind of thirst in trying to understand international security issues. I had had an interest in the world more broadly but hadn't really started to appreciate that issues of defense and security were in many ways universal, and I wanted to try to figure out what was the trajectory, which way were they going? Not long after the September 11th attacks happened following my move to DC, and it really made me think through OK, so what does this mean for the US government? What role do you take in trying to be able to help countries exert their sovereignty over their territory Right Do the one thing that we expect the government to be able to do to secure your country and then just trying to find kind of different issues within that.
Speaker 1:OK, great. Now you've had a couple of decade career so far, so at this point, you've been working in a on the same trajectory for a couple of decades now. But what, would you say, is your current area of specialization?
Speaker 2:Right now I'm really trying to understand how war is changing. So we've got these interesting laboratories for conflict. When we look around in Europe, we see the largest land war in 70 years. When we look at the Middle East, we see a number of different conflicts that are occurring. When we look at the Indo-Pacific, we see real challenges to deterrence. I mean, frankly, China and the Philippines keep getting very close to going to war over a dilapidated ship, all the way up to a bunch of efforts by the Chinese Air Force and the Navy to kind of disturb the security surrounding Taiwan. So I'm trying to figure out, looking at these different areas, what's happening, what do we learn about how warfare is changing and then what are the lessons that we should take from that?
Speaker 1:I understand All right. So here's the first question, then, that I'd love to ask as we begin to really get into this discussion, and it has to do with this question of waging war. War has changed and evolved tremendously over the past, let's just say, 100 years Bombs, planes, ships, submarines, people, guns. In many ways that seems antiquated at this point. And my question because we are media creators, managers and all of us are, we're communicators and we're absorbing it all the time. So my first real question is how can countries and can they wage war without ever shooting a missile, just through means of communication, controlling the media, sending messages before any act of, you know, physical warfare is taken?
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:The role of information in either triggering or deterring war is huge because, frankly, you know conflicts are going to happen, because different sides may think it's in their interest, right, and that they will have a better situation after a conflict than they currently have, and so what one might want to do is to communicate to them that that's actually not true, right, to help them understand the thing you think you might be achieving you're not going to achieve it or it's going to be so incredibly painful that you're not going to want to pay the price.
Speaker 2:Those are actually some of the fundamental ideas and approaches behind deterrence trying to communicate to folks that it's actually not in their interest to do so. What's interesting and, I think, especially relevant for your world is are they actually hearing what you're trying to communicate? So there's this tremendous piece that gets written by Roberta Wohlstetter a number of decades ago, looking at the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and looking at the Cuban missile crisis, and what she effectively says is there's all this noise that the US has, that the Soviets have, that the Japanese have in these examples, and there's signals they're trying to send to one another, but they don't necessarily pick up the signals that the other side thinks they're picking up on. So, as folks who are thinking hard about communication, how do you make sure that those signals are the ones that folks are hearing and that they're not getting lost in sort of that fog of noise?
Speaker 1:Fascinating. And as we think about Americans, American taxpayers, American voters, there must be a question that you're thinking through within the government Department of Defense how much do American voters need to know? Are those conversations that you have I mean, there are probably all kinds of things that are classified or, frankly, are just a little bit too terrifying for most people to be able to understand and absorb? So how do you make those decisions at the Department of Defense about what information needs to be communicated?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's exactly the right question. Right, because you have a responsibility to the American public, to the American taxpayers. Right, the Department of Defense's budget is about $850 billion. Right, you have a responsibility to the American public, to the American taxpayers. Right, the Department of Defense's budget is about $850 billion. Right, you have a responsibility in a democracy to make sure that your public understands what are you doing, why are you doing these things. And yet you also don't want to kind of make folks nervous unnecessarily or give them a bunch of information that maybe they're not able to process in a timely manner. So it's, you know, it's a real, I think, dilemma to think through. I'll give you one example.
Speaker 2:So, over the last few years, when I was in the Department of Defense, there was a decision by the president to use force, to use the military.
Speaker 2:Sometimes this was in Syria, for example, and what would happen with that is we would always pull together a communications plan that included what we were going to tell the American public and when we were going to do that.
Speaker 2:Because the thinking is is, if you are using force, really on behalf of the American public, right to help secure America, you've got to find a way to ensure the public realizes that. What's kind of interesting and is a topic I tackle a bit in this book is, frankly, there's a real gap between those who serve in the military in America and the public. This is due to a bunch of reasons. The military is actually not that big. About one half of 1% of Americans serve in the military. It's increasingly a family business, which means that the overwhelming majority of folks who serve had a family member who served as well, right, so you can imagine that becomes much more insular as well, and so, despite the US military having been at war really from 9-11 onward, there's kind of this gap of knowledge that we see about the public, about what the military has been doing and why it has been doing that.
Speaker 1:Interesting. Thank you. You know, a question's bubbling to mind right now as it relates to veterans that you mentioned. I love what you just said about how it's a family business. We have many veterans in our program specifically, but also in our school of communication, and we have soldiers and veterans who are coming out of the military and now going. What is my next move here in life as I return to the civilian world? Move here in life as I return to the civilian world, not unlike what you've done over the past year when transitioning back into a more civilian role in your career? And so what I'd love to ask you is what advice and what sort of things are you working on, chewing on, thinking about for veterans who might be coming out of the military and who are now thinking about a new trajectory and how to take the skills that they've learned and utilize them in really interesting new ways?
Speaker 2:Joseph, if you don't mind, I might first answer the opposite question, which is advice for their civilian colleagues, right, advice for the other students who are in class with them, which is effectively a whole lot of those civilians probably haven't had an opportunity to talk to folks who served in the military. Growing up in Wisconsin, I did not meet anyone serving in the military until I went to college, right the first 18 years of my life, and it's possible that that may have been the case for many of your civilian students as well, and so finding a way to start a conversation is pretty worthwhile, and sometimes folks aren't exactly sure where to start. So I will suggest to the civilians you can start with questions like hey, why'd you join the military? Tell me about a day in the life of your experience in the military. I mean really basic level questions. That will get folks comfortable and then can get to kind of increasingly sophisticated topics, because that actually helps bridge the gap between those who serve and those for whom they serve. Now I'm turning to actually the thrust of your question advice for the vets. Probably two pieces of advice. One is kind of really thinking through how they are communicating If you have served in the military or spend time in national security, you have a certain way of communicating.
Speaker 2:It's usually speaking very fast, an issue that I have, I mean I suspect that resonates with you, joseph. You are often speaking in acronyms and you're often assuming a pretty sophisticated level of knowledge about issues. And so, as vets are thinking hard about communication, really distilling and synthesizing and trying to be able to communicate with folks for whom this world is just not the ecosystem they're worth living. You know that they're used to living in. That would be the key in terms of communication. And then, of course, when you have served in the military, you don't have as much kind of agency over how you're spending your time. Right, you can make suggestions on the sorts of assignments you want or the tours you want, but you don't have kind of 100% agency the way civilians have.
Speaker 2:And so the dilemma there is really for veterans to think through. So what's inspiring to them? You know, what's motivating them? Frankly, what I often tell folks is what is it that's keeping you up at night? At about, say, it's 11 pm midnight. You know you should have gone to bed, but you really want to read this one thing or you want to learn about this one thing, what are those one things, what are those topics that are captivating you? Because that's where you want to go, that's really where you want to start pursuing a real focus.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Thank you, Switching gears. I want to ask you a question For Americans who are curious about foreign policy, and we know that news articles are written by people who have bias, whether they mean to or not, that are hired by organizations that definitely have bias and an agenda. And so what are some do's and don'ts for all of us who are thinking about foreign policy, thinking about conflicts in places as sophisticated and confusing, frankly, as the Middle East, or what's happening with China, or any number of different foreign nations that we may understand, not understand? What are some do's and don'ts for how we can read the news, find our news, absorb that news so that we can have an understanding of what's going on in the world and not, you know, stick our heads in the sand?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And this has become an extra complicated topic, right, Because we've got social media, so anyone can say whatever they want at any point and you might not think about the credibility of the source. It's also gotten more complicated, tied to that because of misinformation and disinformation, right. So misinformation means I'm telling you something false, without necessarily meaning to. Disinformation is I am doing that on purpose, right, and I'm quite deliberately trying to tell you something, so you believe something that is entirely untrue. And, frankly, what we've seen in some countries Sweden and Finland are great and Estonia are great examples here has been a really deliberate effort to educate their publics on when to be aware of things like disinformation and misinformation, right? So if, for example, you're reading something that's clearly trying to kind of trigger emotions and to appeal to you in that way, be a little bit cautious, right, Because that may not be trying to give you kind of all of the information necessarily. So what do you do about it? So the first thing you do is exactly what you just noted, Joseph, which is recognize this stuff's complex and complicated, and if someone is trying to tell you actually, let me completely boil down this entire conflict to one thing this is right, this is wrong, you should be a little bit hesitant. Probably not the case, right? If we look at least at any contemporary conflicts or historic ones, I have a little bit of difficulty being able to say in one sentence here's exactly. So be a little cautious on that front. Two try to go to credible sources and a couple sources, right. So, going to journalists in particular, folks who are trained in their craft, look a little bit at their background, and ideally a couple different sources as well, right? So I think it's nice to try to go like across kind of the spectrum, you know, publications that might be a little bit more left leaning, a little bit more right leaning and a bit centrist On the same topic. You will find that you'll pick up kind of bits of information that give you a different perspective on how to understand an issue.
Speaker 2:Third be really skeptical of first reports. We have a joke in my world First reports are always wrong. I wouldn't say always. First reports are always wrong. I wouldn't say always, but they usually are wrong. So if some sort of spectacular event happens and folks immediately report out ah, this number are dead, this thing happened, et cetera, et cetera, pause, they probably don't know all of that at that moment in time. So you want to take in that information, but with a degree of skepticism, and then you want to go and read the article that's written 12 hours later, two days later, the analysis that's written. That's actually going to help us understand, okay, what really occurred here. I think those are some of the kind of tips and tricks that might be a little bit useful to folks.
Speaker 1:Mara, I remember so vividly. I had seen a report when we were out in the middle of the Indian Ocean, I think it was at the time, and I said, oh my gosh, I ran into you, we were getting coffee and I said it looks like a hospital has been bombed and you went hmm, we'll see. And I thought, well, what do you mean? We'll see. It was just reported on by every major news network. Well, what do you mean? We'll see. It was just reported on by every major news network. And then, within 24 to 48 hours, suddenly we all began to realize that that it a second until a little bit more information comes out.
Speaker 1:But that speaks to this issue that we have, which is the reactionary and crisis level strategy of modern news networks. They know right, If it bleeds, it leads. If there's a crisis, you can get people's attention until that crisis begins to not feel like a crisis anymore, and then you're going to have to find a new one. So that's very dangerous for us in this world of communication and multimedia, when the only way to get people's attention is with a crisis.
Speaker 2:And I look forward to you all fixing that in the future, because it really it's a real challenge, right? And in fact, studies of disinformation show that, even if after you find out it wasn't true, it's already lit a little bit of groundwork in your brain, and that can be profoundly dangerous. Mara, could you talk to us about how a government might release information, the cadence of information, how they select certain information and why Absolutely so? A government might release information? Because they want to make folks aware of something happening and, in particular, they want to try to push back on potential disinformation that they think might be occurring. So let me offer you a spectacular example.
Speaker 2:You might remember in about the winter of 2021, 2022, there was suddenly a bunch of information being pushed out from the US government, and this had come from the intelligence community and said Russia is planning this massive invasion of Ukraine. Russia plans to mobilize 100,000 troops and roll right across Ukraine. This was a pretty extraordinary example. While we had seen kind of discrete releases of intelligence information, this was a pretty sustained effort over a period of months, you know, really culminating in Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. And the effort was made by the US government to release and declassify a bunch of sensitive information, sensitive intelligence that was showing the Russian plans. The thinking there was to ideally make the world and the American public, of course aware. This is what Russia's planning to do.
Speaker 2:Help the Russians understand hey, we're watching, we see what you're trying to do. It's a bad idea. You shouldn't do it. Help motivate the Ukrainian public and government, and the Europeans as well, to try to be vigilant about this and finally to stave off Russian attempts at disinformation, because what had happened is about seven or so years before. In 2014, the Russians also invaded part of Ukraine, but what they did that time is they operated under the radar. They didn't wear uniforms, it wasn't clear who exactly was invading, why they were doing it. The nickname was that these little green men were suddenly crawling across Ukraine's border and, frankly, folks spent months and months trying to understand what exactly was going on. So this was taking the exact opposite approach. Frankly, it was helped by the fact that the US intelligence community had Russia's playbook and they were then trying to advertise it, so folks knew exactly what was going to happen, when and why.
Speaker 1:And what you're talking about gets back to this idea of how policy, and even defense policy, is controlled in many ways by politicians. Politicians need to marshal support amongst their constituents, and then there's this ongoing battle between the Republicans and the Democrats, which speaks to a larger conversation that you mentioned earlier about binary thinking, this whole issue of like it's 100% right or 100% wrong, and how there's such a fallacy, because there's almost nothing in the world that I can think of as binary. It's all pretty sophisticated, but what about this uncomfortable, unholy tie and partnership between defense, which has real ramifications, and politics and politicians, who need to tell stories in order to marshal the support that they want to be able to do what they want? Can you talk about that very tricky, uncomfortable relationship between warfare and politics?
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. This is an issue that was written about in my field a couple hundred years ago by this famous kind of defense theorist named Karl von Clausewitz. Effectively, what he says is politics matters a lot for defense issues. And he's saying it matters a lot because if you ignore politics, you've just got wanton violence. But actually, what you need to recognize is there are tools in the toolkit of statecraft, diplomacy, use of force and using the military, sanctions, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 2:Right, you can imagine all of these things, and they've got to have a bigger political purpose. Right, you've got to have a reason for doing these things. Is it because you are trying to protect your population and you think the best way to do it is to overthrow a government? Is it because you're trying to protect your population and the best way you think you should do that is by helping strengthen another country's military? I can give you a bunch of answers, but the bottom line is there is this inextricable link between politics and policy and how one thinks about using a military and use of force. And if it's helpful to have a framework, there's this idea that this defense theorist I mentioned comes up with, which is that there are three key actors when we're trying to understand these issues. There's the government, the military and the public, and there are going to be tensions and relations between and among these three actors. When you're trying to understand what's happening in, say, international security, you want to look at what's going on between and among those three different worlds.
Speaker 1:We'd love to switch gears and talk about journalism for a second. We went to Vietnam at the beginning of our semester, at sea. Oh, how fun. Yes, it was amazing, and it really was also a paradigm shift for us in many ways as Americans who had never been there. We arrived and we realized that what we'd always called the Vietnam War of course they don't call it the Vietnam War, they call it the War of American Aggression and we went to some amazing museums where they had incredible photojournalism on display and what we really realized is the power that media, multimedia storytelling and journalism can have in terms of what we were talking about a second ago, how it can influence the public, to influence the politicians, to then influence the war and that circle that goes around. So can you talk about journalism and the importance and or the danger of journalism in conflict areas, which, again, I think is a pretty multidimensional issue? It's not like, oh, it's good or it's bad, but could you talk about the role of journalism in war?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. It's so incredibly important. When you have thoughtful, rigorous, bright journalists reporting on a conflict, what you learn is gold, frankly. Right, they're going to be out, they're going to be amidst the people, amidst the government. They're going to be having different conversations, frankly, than folks from a government are going to be having. There are probably there are rules of engagement. The ways they're going to be able to get around are also going to look very different as well.
Speaker 2:So I can't say enough about how useful really good kind of war correspondence can be and they help put a frame on all of these disparate things that are happening Right, on all of these disparate things that are happening right. And they can us this framework by telling the story and saying here's how to connect these pieces of information in a way that can make sense to you, right, or who can help you understand. Hey, here are the three big issues going on in this conflict and that can always be tremendously helpful. There's inevitably going to be a tension between government and a journalist. I'm assuming we're talking about democracies here. Obviously, if you're sitting in Russia and you're trying to be a journalist, things are not going to turn out well, to put it lightly. But let's talk about a democracy that believes in free, fair, transparent journalism and the tension will be trying to shape how the journalist understands what's occurring, why the government is doing X, y, z, for example, while also trying to keep certain information secure, right. And so there will be examples where an enterprising, bright journalist is going to learn something incredibly classified and when that happens assuming this person's from a credible outlet there will be some sort of conversation with that person, probably their editor and the government.
Speaker 2:Okay, so what are the implications if this information does get published? I mean, look, frankly, it is up to the publication If they want to put out there the thing they've learned. They largely can do that. However, it may be that the implications would be pretty profound. So let me just give you a hypothetical example. If a really smart, enterprising journalist were able to find out about a profound vulnerability, for example in US security, and they want to publish this, you can imagine the government is going to say, hey, please don't do that, because if this gets out, your publication is available to anyone, they're going to learn about it, there could be attacks, et cetera. And then that journalist, of course, is going to have to think through the pros and cons. How important is it for the public to know this? How important is it to preclude the potential implications of it?
Speaker 1:So many questions I want to ask you related to misinformation, disinformation, some of the big media sources from BBC, fox News, cnn, al Jazeera that move and they have agendas that are both very upfront and some that are hidden and then a bit more murky.
Speaker 1:The role that money plays in all of this. Because, of course, if in this role of journalism, if people they're not getting eyeballs, they're not getting ads and subscribers, and if that happens, the publication dies, which continues to feed this wheel of crisis and really only reporting on crisis and the echo chambers that their audiences may exist in. So you're well aware of some of the media organizations that I just mentioned. Could you just reflect a little bit for people who are trying to find their way, maybe as early news watchers, maybe people who are moving from one culture to another within our country right, we have a very multidimensional country culturally but or maybe they're moving internationally. We have students coming in from all over the world and they have different points of view. These are such complicated questions but from a defense standpoint, how can we approach this? How can we see through the veil of what these media and news organizations are telling us?
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And just to add to kind of the litany you outlined, you also have an issue where a whole bunch of local papers have folded right Because the money just wasn't there.
Speaker 2:And when we, you know, if you look at kind of your hometown and you see that the paper is now a lot thinner, there are much fewer journalists on staff, et cetera, they're just not going to be able to report on the things that matter in the same way.
Speaker 2:You know, very first job that I had after college was looking at the Middle East and it involved every single morning reading all of the press about the Middle East that came from the US, europe and the Middle East, and it was this kind of incredible learning experience for a 22-year-old because the exact same event right had occurred and I was now reading a whole bunch of publications that were seeing that event from different perspectives and there was kind of real utility in that. So, frankly, my recommendation to folks is you know, if you're just going to be looking at US publications, that's totally fine, but make sure you get some variety there right Washington Post, new York Times, cnn, wall Street Journal, fox try to go across and you'll be able to start to pick up some differences and, in particular, if there's one topic that really strikes your fancy, take a moment and read about that one topic from a couple of different perspectives, because you'll start to, I think, appreciate it and build kind of a depth that will show you what's kind of singing and what's not really singing there.
Speaker 1:I have two, maybe three more questions I'd love to ask you, and the first one is this when we were on the ship, you introduced us to this principle that I jokingly started to call war, would you rather? And when you're being faced with two impossible situations, and they're both bad, what do you do and that's the role that you have been in for so long to try to figure out, in these impossible situations, of this high stakes game, the highest stakes game of, would you rather, how do you approach that? Could you explain that philosophy?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and you are the one who smartly named it as such so effectively. When you are a policymaker looking at national security issues or foreign policy issues, what I have at least found is rarely do you get to choose between butterflies and unicorns, right, and instead you usually are choosing between awful, really super duper bad and catastrophic. And there are pros and cons of all of those. So what I learned as a young policymaker is to try to communicate what those options really were, right, the which would you rather. So you've got two options, let's say, and they're usually again in the awful versus really catastrophic kind of categories, and you want to try to understand those options and the pros and cons of those options, because if they're real options there will be pros and cons.
Speaker 2:Right, one might absolutely achieve what you are trying to do you are absolutely a more secure country after but at a major cost, maybe a cost in terms of human toll, maybe a cost in terms of resources. But you really want to try to kind of interrogate and understand what those options look like. So if you are interested in these issues and you're reading about, say, what's happening in Europe right now with Russia's war on Ukraine, that's hit about two and a half years. What you might want to do is think about so what are the options there? And, frankly, for the United States, which has been a strong supporter of Ukraine and Ukraine's military, what are the different options out there? What are the pros and cons? Because it can be a little bit too easy, I find, for us to say don't do that right, that's a bad idea. It can be a lot harder for us to say do this, pursue this approach, pursue this policy option.
Speaker 1:Here at our university, our School of Communication was founded by Walter Annenberg, and he has a quote that I love every human advancement or reversal can be understood through communication, and we believe that communication is the most powerful, potentially the most dangerous force on earth. It's communication and information that leads to intelligence, or lack thereof, that then helps people decide. I'm going to push this button and inflict warfare in whatever that looks like. So that idea of communication and how important it is, and the very first chapter of your book I just love the title of it. Why should we care? Why should we care? We talk about, within communication, how important it is to.
Speaker 1:When you're speaking to your audience, whoever they might be, that the first and most important thing that you have to do, and it's getting more and more difficult in this oversaturated world of media to get someone's attention and then get people to care. You've been a communicator your entire life and your entire career. You have to design, think through, analyze, foreign policy, but then you have to communicate that to the people who ultimately, will make the decision. You have to be the president, so to speak, when you're going through that process. How do you get your audience to care?
Speaker 2:Well, I will say that you are in a communication school, so I'm assuming everyone there is already convinced about how important it is. I will tell you in my world. So I teach at an international relations school, and the top thing I tell my students is the best quality you can develop is actually being a clear communicator, orally and in written form. There's a lot of smart people in this world, but the ones with the secret sauce are the ones who know how to convey information right, and so that means you got to know your audience right. So what's the knowledge base of the audience member? How do they take in information? Is it that they just want a little bit? Is it that they want to read a bunch? Is it that they need to know? Here's what I'm going to tell you. I'm going to tell it to you, and then here's what I told you. Right? You really got to know that audience. Well, you have to know your information inside and out, and then you have to be incredibly responsive to that conversation.
Speaker 2:I mean, one of the things I often tell students is I've had a number of experiences in my field where I think I'm going to have a really long time to brief, say, the Secretary of Defense about a huge issue, and the next thing you know you got maybe three minutes right and so you've got to learn how to scale the information that you're conveying so effectively. Why should we care? I mean, frankly, I'll start off any briefing with here's why you're conveying so effectively. Why should we care? I mean, frankly, I'll start off any briefing with here's why you're here today. Right, because folks want to understand they could be doing a number of other things, including maybe even taking a well-deserved nap. Let them know why they're here, why I'm telling them this information and what the expectations are for them at that moment in time. And then you try to help them understand the issue, the pros and the cons, and then try to wrap it up and make sure that they have time to be able to ask all sorts of questions.
Speaker 1:Mara, it's been so fantastic being with you today and just seeing your face again. We talk on the phone, but we haven't been together in person since we were in London drinking tea. Indeed, that was such a treat it was such a treat.
Speaker 2:I mean we closed the place down.
Speaker 1:It was so good. Here's my very last question, and it could have to do with strategy and warfare, or it could have to do with life. What's one piece of advice that you have for people who are listening to this podcast, who are back in school, whether they're undergrads in their 20s or whether they're in graduate school and potentially pivoting in their life? What's one piece of advice that you have for those students as they think about what's coming for them?
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. It actually references something I said earlier, which is be open to serendipity. Right, you might think you have a plan, but other things are going to pick your curiosity, other things are going to emerge and you should listen to those things. Right, you should listen to those rumbles in your belly that emerge. Say, be comfortable focusing on the questions, not just the answers. Right, especially for students. You are right now in an academic environment and even if your professors are looking at you sternly and saying, but what's the answer to X or what's the answer to Y, you right now aren't responsible for those answers. You're responsible for thinking through the questions, going forward. What you will find, especially with the onslaught of information, the best thing you can do is figure out what's the right question to answer. That's going to be much more important in some ways, frankly, than actually focusing on the answer and focusing on the response, making sure that you've got that strategic, thoughtful level. Question.
Speaker 1:Mara, you're amazing. Thank you so much for sharing your insight, taking the time to do this for us and for all of our students and anybody who might be listening. You're a bright, shining light of thoughtfulness and warmth and care, and that's the thing that I always take away from our interactions is how much you care. You care about the people that are around you, you care about the issues and we care about you right back. So thank you very, very much, mara.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, my friend. It was a real treat.
Speaker 1:Thanks everybody for joining us today on Mediascape and we will see you next time. To learn more about the Master of Science in Digital Media Management program, visit us on the web at dmmuscedu.
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