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
Matthew Krayton's Political Campaign Revolution: Pioneering Digital Media and Navigating Ethical Challenges
Join us as we uncover the compelling journey of Matthew Krayton, founder and principal of Publitics, who transformed from an aspiring social studies teacher into a key figure in political strategy. Learn how the 2008 financial crisis served as a catalyst for Matthew's career shift and discover the significant role digital media has played in reshaping campaigns, particularly during the 2012 election cycle. Matthew sheds light on his pioneering use of social media platforms like Facebook, offering insights into how early adoption and understanding of digital tools can drive successful political strategies.
Matthew shares his experiences navigating the tumultuous landscape of political campaigns and public affairs, particularly in today's polarized environment. He emphasizes the importance of aligning with clients who share core values, while also managing partisanship to foster bipartisan collaboration. The conversation extends to the ethical considerations of digital media, highlighting issues like AI, deep fakes, and misinformation. Matthew discusses strategies for effective communication that resonate with audiences, ensuring that messaging aligns with both client values and the evolving landscape of online platforms.
Addressing the challenges posed by disinformation and media influence on voter enthusiasm, Matthew argues for the critical role of media literacy education. He explores the impact of media narratives on public perception, critiquing the focus on "horse race" journalism and its effect on voter turnout. Matthew's insights underscore the necessity of informed and engaged participation in the democratic process. As we conclude, we invite listeners to explore the dynamic opportunities in digital media and political communication, encouraging a focus on creativity and strategic thinking to thrive in an ever-changing landscape.
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.
Speaker 2:This is Annika Jackson, one of the hosts of Mediascape Insights from Digital Changemakers, here with a true digital changemaker right before the election is when we're recording this. So I know, Matthew Creighton, you must be slammed. So I appreciate you coming here giving us some of your time.
Speaker 3:Thank you for having me and yes, I think we're a little busy these days, but can't complain.
Speaker 2:Yeah, You're the founder and principal of Publitics and your whole career has been in policy and advocacy. When did you realize that that was something you were really interested in or intrigued by?
Speaker 3:Sure, that's a really good question. So I like to say that I have sort of a quintessentially millennial story, right? So you know, went to college to become a social studies teacher, and so I did history and political sciences my undergrad, did education for a master's degree and then in 2008, you know, we had this little thing called the financial crisis you know, and a lot of teaching jobs got wiped out.
Speaker 3:So by the time I had graduated from grad school in 2011,. You know, the prospects were pretty slim at that point, but I was lucky enough during that time, during my undergrad, to get exposure to the political science coursework, which was very helpful, and I had always had an interest in politics. I just didn't think about politics as a career until much later. And then, during grad school, I had a fantastic opportunity to work for Public Opinion Polling Institute at the university I was at. You know people measure public opinion on various issues and various public figures and the mechanics of polling. I was like, oh, this is really interesting, I like this, I like this a lot. It sort of hits at a variety of different human behavior, political theory you know political behavior, so it's really fascinating stuff. So by the time I got out of school, you know I had one or two jobs right after grad school. One of them they had layoffs like 10 months after I was hired. So I was like you know what? I'm just gonna go ahead and try something else and work on campaigns. So I was very fortunate to have had two campaigns that hired me that year, and you know, my strategy with that which is kind of insane looking back at this point was, you know I'm young.
Speaker 3:Digital media was becoming more of a thing on campaigns at that point, so this was right around 2012. And Facebook was becoming a much more prominent tool in electoral politics. Twitter wasn't quite a thing yet. It was getting there, but it wasn't what it was and is today as X. So I thought you know what I'm young and what are they going to trust me to do? I'll tell them that I'll do their social media for them. So they thought you know what I'm young and what are they going to trust me to do? I'll tell them that I'll do their social media for them. So they bought it and I've been going ever since. So that's the sort of long winded version of how I got into the political sphere and then just did tons of campaigns from that point forward.
Speaker 2:And you've also been a professor twice so tell us about that. What were you teaching? Were you on the politics and policy side, the social, digital side?
Speaker 3:university. So we had had a pre-law major or like a collection of majors that kind of qualified as pre-law but they wanted to formalize it, create a better structure around introducing students to what it's like to actually practice law. So I think so I had an opportunity to help with the full-time faculty, help build out that program, interface with alumni who were interested in supporting that program and then ended up teaching a freshman seminar, which again was was very much geared toward the legal profession and introducing students to sitting professionals in the field, alumni who were working in the legal field. So so that was the first go around and that was very sort of career focused type work. And then I had an opportunity later on. We were talking before we started recording.
Speaker 3:You're saying you know the genesis of this podcast was sort of a speaker series. So I had a similar experience with the social media program at Centenary University, which started out as speakers within the business department and it turned into thanks to sort of really smart, innovative people at Centenary turned into a full program and so I had the opportunity to teach the capstone course for seniors, undergrad seniors, which was social media strategy. So that focused on a bunch of different things like nuts and bolts of using social media. You know the nuts and bolts of actual strategy work, so like kind of understanding differences between you know, strategy and tactics, and then also you know thinking through some of the ethical implications of social media these days, which is, you know strategy and tactics and then also you know thinking through some of the ethical implications of social media these days, which is, you know, obviously a hot topic in the political sphere.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's funny because what you're talking about sounds exactly like what we try to do in this program is teach every aspect of the digital experience, whether that is buying analytics right understanding ad tech, more tech, understanding different streaming platforms, or where you want to place your content, how you direct the content, and then thinking about all the privacy considerations, the ethical considerations, particularly with everything we're seeing now with AI, deep fakes, right? So much propaganda and how do you weave through and make sure that you, as a person or as a brand, or as a brand or representing a company, keep that balance of making sure that everything you put out truly is ethical, that it's authentic, that it reaches the right person and that you're not spreading misinformation?
Speaker 3:oh 100. Yeah, it's a minefield out out there. Yeah, I mean that's. That was one of my favorite parts. Parts of that class, I think was was thinking through the ethical implications and also kind of trying to get under the hood as much as possible of how these platforms actually work and how the algorithms work and you know how those things can be abused and this is really actually more of a personal interest that I think I brought into the classroom but, like, how those things can be used for, you know, malicious purposes, you know disinformation, you know campaigns and kind of you know, ginning up anger among voters, you know. So it really was an interesting, interesting class and you know I was lucky enough to know well, I guess lucky or not lucky enough to you know we really got to talk about what happened post 2016 in depth, because that was sort of like the I wouldn't say a huge turning point in how we at least I was thinking about social media in context of campaigns.
Speaker 2:And that leads us to today. I mean, you've had your company. What was the decision process to decide that you were ready to take that helm about 12 years ago and start your own company?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I guess it was a combination of a little bit of entrepreneurial spirit, a little bit of, you know, useful ignorance of the realities and starting a business. So, you know, I've been very lucky over the years that this has continued to grow. We have a fantastic team. You know, I had this interest in politics, interest in communication and strategy, and then I felt that I wanted to work for myself essentially. Now again, I'm not sure that that's a great, you know, message to send to people. I think you probably should have a little bit more in terms of decision making process than I had. But, like I said, you know, fresh out of grad school had no idea what I was doing, so it was sort of just like the let's throw something at the wall and see if it sticks. And it did, thankfully. But that was the idea and I don't know, I guess it was just sort of this desire.
Speaker 3:Again, in the first couple of jobs that I had actually so that there were two I had always had this like struggle personally with watching certain things or processes play out in a way that I felt was like super inefficient and kind of frustrating to me. So and like I felt like I had no recourse, for you know writing those things or making suggestions. Oftentimes you make suggestions, and I think this is the case in larger organizations. Sometimes it's like, well, we don't do it that way, right, like we're, this is too much work, we don't really want to change it, and that was very frustrating to me. So, again, not grounded in any kind of rational thought, I was like you know what? I think I can go out and do this myself, so I did.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's the best reason, I think, and the best. It gives you more power because you're solving something that a lot of people are thinking about or don't realize they need to solve, perhaps, and you're doing it before they see the need, so that you have something truly valuable that you're bringing to the table 100%.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely so. Yeah, I mean I think that, yeah, what are some of the best teachers in life and in career are these sort of moments where you see what not to do, which I think is very helpful.
Speaker 3:But you have to be open to learning about it rather than, I think, getting frustrated by it and then just leaving with that, because it's okay to be frustrated we all get frustrated with different things but I think, you know, that was sort of a formative experience of like, okay, I'm frustrated by this, why am I frustrated by it? And then what can I learn from this? Going forward, and then often then there is a lesson in. There may not be a big lesson, but usually there's something, some nugget of wisdom in. So it's like kind of channeling frustration into a space where you can actually learn something and make some progress.
Speaker 2:Wonderful. So what does your day-to-day look like? What aspects when somebody comes to you? Are you working on campaigns still? Are you working with foundations, government entities?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's never a dull moment, I'll put it that way. Yeah, so it's a lot of variety, actually, that's another thing, just from a career perspective. That I really like is that no, two days are really the same for us. We work on a variety of projects now. So we still do a ton of campaigns and have transitioned from and we still do what I would call for the benefit of the audience, like candidate campaigns, where we're working directly with the candidates, and then we're also doing an increasing amount I would say this is the bulk of our political work at this point is sort of outside advocacy, so like super PACs, other organizations that support or oppose candidates or support or oppose particular policy agendas or policy proposals, as it were.
Speaker 3:So we do both of those things still and then have since transitioned into doing a lot of corporate communication, public affairs, a lot of what I would call political adjacent work, so things that are not inherently political but have political elements to it. So, for example, if we're talking about, like social responsibility, corporate social responsibility I know you know some of those terms have fallen out of favor recently, but those things are fundamentally, I think, political adjacent, where you're trying to navigate the highly polarized, if not calcified, electorate, and by electorate I mean consumer base too. Right, because, like a lot of you know the consumer basings country. They vote and pay attention to some degree to politics. So, and have you know opinions on things. So you know anything from that to directly you know understanding how you know policy differences impact business outcomes one way or the other to doing like crisis management. So we do a ton of crisis management work for various corporations and entities and then government work as well. So we do a decent amount of government work.
Speaker 3:So back during the worst days in the pandemic, we had the opportunity to do a lot of public health communication which was sort of near and dear to my heart because you know, you got to see the I mean talk about very real world impact of, you know, convincing people to try to, you know, stay healthy and stay out of the way of that horrible virus. So that was a very rewarding experience too. So it really runs the gamut. So, like in terms of a day-to-day for me, I straddle both worlds between the management of the firm, but also I'm still very intimately involved with the actual servicing of the accounts as well. So it's definitely a nice variety and yeah, it just keeps me on my toes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, how much, because this is not an area that I'm involved in in my career. So I'm involved in in my career. So I'm really interested to hear when it comes to public affairs and policy organizations such as yours you work in public affairs, pr strategy, consultancy, digital Do you have to be nonpartisan? Is it more that you only work with people who hold your same values? Do you have a choice in that? Or, you know, do you kind of did when you started do you have to take whatever science came in the door?
Speaker 3:That's a really good question. So the answer is it depends. So, on the political side, if you're working on campaigns, typically you choose one side or the other. It's very hard to work with people who fundamentally do not share any of your values and you and just from the perspective of where we are politically in this country today, the two and there are certain exceptions, but the two parties have never been further apart on fundamental issues of even democracy right and whether or not elections matter. I won't get too far into that. So we have been very lucky in that we've only worked with candidates that, by and large, their values or approach or framework of values that they can apply.
Speaker 3:Now do we agree on every single point of policy that certain folks forget? No, I mean, that's never going to be the case. People have strong opinions about stuff, and that happens. But on the public affairs side, though, you will see a little bit more in terms of, like, bipartisan firms. So you'll have, like Republicans, democrats, working at the same firm for different clients. Oftentimes, you know you'll see, you know sometimes there is a bit of a tilt one way or the other. So, like, even in that space, what sort of clients are you going to take on versus not take on. You know, and I think a lot of firms have some limits or a rubric for how they decide who to work with and some work with whoever. So for us we decided to work with one side on the political stuff initially, and then a lot of that sort of filtered in to our other work as well. So again, we've been very fortunate to work with organizations, leaders, elected officials who share the values and we can help advance those priorities.
Speaker 2:Yeah, since you got your start in the early days really of the internet becoming what it is today, I'd love to hear a little bit about the changes you've seen. I think, about things that I've seen in the news lately, that open AI is not allowing misinformation to get out through people putting in prompts and try to utilize that to create material. The Integral Ad Science Media Measurement Company has tried to help create guardrails so that publishers can block content that advertisers don't deem. You know they don't want their ads placed next to content that doesn't meet their values, particularly for meta and soon to be on TikTok. So there are things that people are doing. We do see, of course, things tagged with misinformation. I want to know what you think of those. Are they doing enough? I want to know what you think of those. Are they doing enough? How do you help curate content for your clients to make sure that it is accurate, that it's getting to the right people at the right time, and you know where do we go from here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, those are really good questions. So I think, from where we started to where we are now. So where I started was again, like Facebook was becoming more of a tool and it was kind of the Wild West right, you could do anything that you wanted on Facebook and you know I'm really going to date myself here but you could get organic reach on Facebook for campaigns, right. So, like those were the heady, you know good old days where you could, you know, build up an audience on a fan page at that point and get a decent amount of reach. Since then, since 2016,.
Speaker 3:Obviously, we had all the issues with disinformation campaigns by foreign governments, the Russian government in particular. We had this issue with Cambridge Analytica. I think that created all sorts of. I actually have some opinions on whether or not they were particularly effective. I think to some extent it was, I guess, for the benefit of the audience. I can say.
Speaker 3:The issue with Cambridge Analytica was they were presenting to clients this idea that they were able to take a huge data set of essentially psychographic data and then figure out how particular personality types would respond to specific content, making it more effective than the targeting that we would normally have done which is based on, like, the voter file and that a bunch of different consumer information. So basically you create like a persona of the type of voter that you're trying to reach, very similar to, you know, consumer voice facing marketing, b2b stuff. But you kind of create this persona and then you figure out how to micro target them in a way that moves them from one opinion to another or one candidate to another. So the psychographic stuff was interesting because their pitch was like well, we could do this better, because if we know that you're conscientious or something, you'll respond to this set of messaging or these sets of issues. I have not seen actually any good peer-reviewed evidence that any of that actually works. Like there are better indicators of political leaning and political opinion or formation of political opinions than psychographic stuff. So I thought that was a little overblown. The bigger issue in that situation was the data privacy problem, where they were able to get access to these huge data sets that were really intended for academic research, not for exploitation in the political sphere. So that was the big issue there for me, not that it worked particularly well, because I think the jury is way out on that, and again, we've had ways to micro, target people and understand and model what voters think, even from a predictive sense. You know, and that's getting a little bit better. You know model, you know what voters are going to respond to.
Speaker 3:But at the end of the day, that had a reverberating effect across the board, which which then, you know, to your earlier point, forced a lot of these platforms to try to figure out where the guardrails are on this disinformation, because a lot of them are walled gardens, right, like so Facebook, for example, the ecosystem is pretty walled off from everything else. So you have, like, these Facebook groups, for example, like. So if you're a campaign and you're trying to figure out, like, how to communicate with people, yes, you can run all the ads you want on Facebook every day, but and you can even bring this down to the local level right, the very, very local level, in fact, where I think it's even more potent at times. And these Facebook groups are extraordinarily influential because there's a lot of engagement in there. Anger obviously juices the algorithm, so you start seeing stuff that you know tends to make people more angry and you can't infiltrate that right Like, unless you're in that group personally. There's nothing you can do to get in there.
Speaker 3:So there are definitely issues with how they've approached limiting, you know, disinformation campaigns, I think broadly across the board. If I told you right now that I have the answer to that like what we should do, I don't think we do actually, because I think it's it's an unfortunate and almost unavoidable side effect of having algorithmically driven news feeds at the end of the day, because the news feeds are always going to service content that is at least on the political side, content that generally makes you angry, that taps into these activating emotions anger, humor, surprise, like all of those things are activating. It's never going to, almost never going to spread stuff that makes you happy content, comfortable, like all the so like that's the issue. And you know to make people angry these days, you need to have some pretty outrageous stuff on there. So it's again like we saw. You know to make people angry these days, you need to have some pretty outrageous stuff on there. So it's again like we saw. You know the spread of this rumor that you know certain Asian American communities, like there are issues with pets going missing in Ohio, right, Like it's absolutely crazy nonsense but it spreads because it's like on its face, right, on its face. It's like well, I would not like if someone you know kidnapped my pet. That makes me kind of angry, right, but there's no way to evaluate that claim if you're seeing it on Facebook.
Speaker 3:So I think it's admirable that the platforms have done something. It's just the question of is that the way to go, and how do we potentially legislate to create a set of shared rules across the board? Then again, I don't think we'll ever get there, because the sort of debate on the left and right has been like we need to regulate social media platforms, but for completely different reasons. So on the left, it's we need to curb disinformation. On the right, it's well, these platforms are shutting down free speech and yeah, you know that again, that's, I think, a completeness understanding of how you know the first amendment works in this country.
Speaker 3:But that's the direction that they've chosen to go with with their arguments. So I don't think we'll ever get that. So I think media literacy actually goes goes a long way to helping people evaluate what they see. So like I'm a huge proponent of. In every public school in america, you there should be media literacy and social media literacy courses where you can critically evaluate information, understand your own emotional response to stuff. So I mean, I know I'm talking a lot here, but it's fascinating.
Speaker 2:I've never thought about that. But just in the same way that people say there needs to be financial literacy taught in the schools, which is not, and then people end up in bad situations, which is not, and then people end up in bad situations, yeah, there's a whole series of courses that will help people in life if we start at an early age and help with their understanding and be able to have conversations and dialogue instead of just butting heads. When you mentioned some misinformation that is spread around a lot in Springfield and different places about the pets and all of that, I'm interested and I don't know if you have the answer to this, but I'd love to see do you have any research or have you seen anything that shows that you can move the needle? If somebody is dead set on one opinion or the other because the person that they inherently believe in or want to be president or whatever local leader, because it comes from them, they're just going to immediately believe it without doing any research.
Speaker 3:So you can move the needle, I think, but it's in different ways that I think we think about moving the needle right. So I think there are a couple of things. So, number one, in terms of the raw number of truly persuadable voters in this country, it's almost infinitesimally small, but also also hugely consequential too because, like I mean so, if we look at the presidential race that's happening right now, it, since it began, has not moved much at all. Like, if you look at the polling, it has been so consistent and so stuck. And, again, like I think it's hard to fully appreciate how much has happened in this election cycle, more so than any election cycle in the past, with maybe the you know 2020 coming in a close second, because you know the pandemic and you know all of the sort of seismic events. But I think, at the end of the day, like, if you look at this race, you had essentially, like a debate performance that certain you know folks thought for by President Biden, that folks thought was was, you know, disastrous, and the race didn't move Right. Like it moved three points. Maybe you know you had two assassination attempts on Trump and it didn't move the needle at all Like you would have expected previously that there would have been sort of like this rallying effect that didn't move at all. You know, president Biden decided not to seek re-election Race didn't move all that much, right?
Speaker 3:So I think we're right back to baseline, which is we're talking about maybe 70,000 votes across a couple of states that could decide this whole thing. And that's not to say that all 70,000 of those votes are the persuadable voters. Rather, I think yes, you can persuade certain people who are on the fence about certain issues or certain candidates. There are a small number of voters who are through independence in this country, so you can move the needle one direction or the other and disinformation can have an impact in that way. In my view, where it has a bigger impact is voter enthusiasm. So it's not just a game of who you get to vote for you, it's do you actually get them out to vote, and if you are angry, you are very likely to vote. So the stuff that you see again with the Springfield Ohio story, that evokes a sense of anger in people and that is hugely motivating to the point where you're going to get some extra turnout based on that Just like, for example, when Roe v Wade was struck down we saw in 2020, the composition of the electorate in 2020 was much more.
Speaker 3:It was skewed, much more female and much more college educated than any electorate in the midterm, because it bucked a trend right, like you would expect in the midterm that particular midterm for the party that had the White House to have been wiped out, and that was not the case. So, again, things are motivating and push people to the polls. So it's almost as much of a case of what the composition of the electorate looks like as it is. Can you persuade specific people to switch their opinion on something and I'm not saying that there aren't those situations Like I think at this point, a lot of it's baked in in this particular election cycle because you have a lot of Republicans who have decided they're not going to vote for Donald Trump anymore no-transcript social media campaign in the last presidential election and it was.
Speaker 2:It didn't ask people to vote one way or the other, it was just little 15-second spots on social that were shared by a lot of different groups that just said your vote matters, your vote counts, get to the polls. And what we saw is that it did help. People who were on social media maybe saw their friend post it go. Oh yeah, I do count where they might have felt more disenfranchised until that moment. So it is really important for people to understand and if they start early, like you said, and really understand what they're looking at, how to have an informed opinion, how to speak to people, not just to cut them off on social media or stop being friends with somebody because they don't vote the same way, I think that's something that we need to get back to.
Speaker 2:I wanted to ask we see in the media, of course there's a spectrum of liberal to you know, republican, right wing, whatever you want to call and then there are very few that are in the middle and I feel like we didn't see the needle move as much with the electorate, but the media hype right around oh, biden didn't do well, so now Trump is going to win. Oh, trump got assassinated. You know there were attempts on his life, so that means he's going to win. Oh no, now Biden's stepping down. So now BP Harris is going to be up, but yet the needle hasn't moved. So how much of that is just to get more eyeballs on TV sets and create more of a sense of distrust and conflict in the country?
Speaker 3:I would say and this might be a bit of a hot take but I would say that the horse race coverage in our politics is probably one of the most harmful things that we do in this country, Like the who's up, who's down. What does this poll say? What does that poll say? Because the problem with that is it completely strips away the substance of what a race should be about, right? So people are thinking about the conflict as opposed to the substance of the race, and so there is an element where it does affect a little bit of the vote, where it can be demoralizing. For example, if the media narrative is you're going to lose, you're going to lose, you're going to lose, you're going to lose, you're going to lose, Now that may not be the objective truth, but if you're hearing it over and over again, like the prevailing wisdom is that a particular candidate is especially weak and they're not going to win, you're not going to have that enthusiasm. You know, I mean, nobody wants to be on that losing team. And so you, just you stay home, you're demoralized, you don't want to vote. So I think that's. That's a huge piece of it, you know. I think the other issue that we see is that you know you have coverage of polling that I think isn't given enough context for people to fully understand what a poll does and what it doesn't do. And I would even go so far as, like I'm not sure Noli as a public right, Like as the main story in the presidential campaign who is winning and who is losing, or how much the polls moved. I mean, it's interesting for me because I work in this field and, you know, very clung into it and I'm just kind of a political junkie. But for your average voter and that's not meant any other way than, like, for people who have better things to pay, right, exactly 100, like there, there are a thousand things that we can be paying attention to on any given day. And, like politics is not the best for certain people, right, it's not the thing that they want to pay attention to, so, so if you're just hearing like who's up, who's down all the time, it's like, well, how do I get a measure on on the race? Like, what does that actually tell me about the race? So I think that that's an issue.
Speaker 3:But but again, the conflict drives viewership right, like we saw from 2016 through the end of donald trump's first term cable ratings were through the roof. They were through the roof and some of that is like anxiety watching right, like people are like what's going to happen next, I don't know it's like, and some of that is just like the, I guess, awe of all of the shattering of these political norms that we had in this country. You know, previously and I don't say that in necessarily a biased way I think objectively you could say that like I was actually talking to someone about this the other day, Like when Mitt Romney made that comment you know I've got binders full of women right Like that became. Obviously he didn't mean it that way Like it was a stumble, right, but and not particularly elegant. You know the way that he delivered that line. But the bottom line is like that was a huge problem for him in that race, like saying things like that, or the story about, you know, strapping his dog to the roof in his car in the uh at a road trip, right, and those things ended up being kind of disqualifying for him. But that's quaint compared to what we ended up with. And so you just have these like shattering of norms that I think you know, people kind of unglue themselves from the TV set.
Speaker 3:So I think we're seeing now a little bit of, a little bit of fatigue perhaps I mean, who knows what will happen in the cable radio but I think that definitely factors into the motivation of how these things are covered. Number one, Number two you know it makes it a little bit more bite-sized because, again, if you're trying to get into the intricacies of like how do you make housing more affordable in this country, for example, like it's a policy area, that's a very hard conversation to have because it's an extraordinarily nuanced and in-depth thing. In fact there is no easy solution to any of the problems that we face in this country, but it's presented as such, which makes it a little bit harder to communicate through. So it's definitely an interesting thing. And then there's sort of the choices of how the media decides to cover certain issues.
Speaker 3:So I won't name names on this, but I had a conversation with a reporter several months ago, back when President Biden was still in the race, and the premise of their inquiry was you know, there's all this economic development going on in Philadelphia, Like all this investment, will President Biden get credit? And I'm like, why would you frame the article Like, why would you frame the piece that way. Oh well, you know how it is. I'm like I actually don't know how it is. Like what I know is the things that you reference are direct results of funding from the IRA, the IIJA, Like so all of these different pieces of legislation that were passed by this administration, but your impulses to cover it is like this stuff kind of fell out of the sky.
Speaker 3:Will someone get credit for it? I'm like I don't understand that. Like I do not understand that. So I mean that's part of the job, though, too is like you've got to. You have to push back against some of those assertions too. I mean, work the reps a little bit. I mean that's part of our job. But at the end of the day, I think that the impulse to frame things in that way is not helpful generally speaking, because I mean you could say like there's genuinely something like actually objectively is happening in Philadelphia, and here's the effect of that, rather than like these things just sort of happened and like you know who's getting credit for it.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah. There's so much more we could go down there. I have a whole lot.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm sure we do have a lot of students in the program who are either active military or former veterans in housing who work with the elderly, who work in politics, handling social media for local politicians or Congress in their specific states, and then, of course, we have people in entertainment and all the other things. What are the things that people should think about? First and foremost? Because they're all getting degrees in digital media management, they all are creating capstone projects that kind of, like you, they could end up being their own companies their own businesses if they have the passion to decide to take that next step, or they could use what they're learning for the you know, the Congress member they work for or the other housing institution they work for, or whatever the case may be. So what are some things they really need to think through when it comes to navigating the political and brand and social media digital landscape?
Speaker 3:Yeah, the one piece of advice I think I would give to my students every year is first strip away all of the platforms, the tools, the nuts and bolts. Just put it all aside for a minute and get yourself really comfortable with understanding strategy, understanding problems, understanding how to develop processes that make sense in terms of communication, and then you can layer in the tools, you can layer in the nuts and bolts because at the end of the day like the really interesting part of teaching that class for me was that from the oftentimes from the beginning of the semester to the end of the semester, things would change. I mean, like the algorithms would change, the prioritization of certain content would change on those platforms. So if we were just teaching to say like well, here's how you operate facebook, or here are the things that were like I don't again, I'm dating myself. There was that like whole facebook pivot to video. You remember? Do you remember that whole thing back in the end? So, like a whole bunch of media companies like ran toward and they're like we're gonna do short form video, we're doing this pivot. And then facebook like a few few months later, no, we're not gonna do that anymore.
Speaker 3:And then a whole bunch of media platforms went out of business, or like, well, and that's what I've said. Like the tools are always going to change, right. And like there's nothing that you can do, like Facebook and all of these different social media platforms, they're not here for you, right? Like they're not thinking, oh, what is you know, john Q consultant thinking about? And let's build out. I mean, again, there, I think there is some consideration of that, but by and large, it's like what they're seeing in their data sets, that that drive engagement, that drive profits, all of those things. So like, forget about them, like what should be, and think about what is and then build out from there.
Speaker 3:So I would say, like the biggest thing is focus on really understanding strategy, the nuts and bolts of, like messaging. It always starts with message and then, you know, forget the platforms, be platform agnostic. Does this message resonate with the audience that you want? Is it interesting? Does it capture attention? Yeah, if you can figure out those three things, then you can start layering in all the other pieces. I mean that was sort of again, my philosophy with it is like, if you can take courses in other things too, I would do that. You know, like game theory. I would take courses in statistical analysis, really drill down into these other things that you can apply to almost every situation, almost every platform, every piece of content.
Speaker 3:You take an art class, take a theater class, like understand creativity, like really get into a headspace where you can create things that are interesting, that are surprising, that bring humor to a situation and like I'm not saying that you don't get that in.
Speaker 3:You know your standard business classes or your standard communications classes or even political science classes, but like I think and that's one thing that I never did is sort of step out of the box that you know I did the history, political science was pretty straightforward degree, you know program. But I would say that, like some of the most creative things that we've come up with or that we've worked through have come from like just sort of different places, right. So like I would say, like really try to foster that sense of creativity and find the thing that makes you engage with that, with that side of your brain. So I would say, like those are the big things, strategy and then creativity, and like find ways to foster that through your you know personal life, through what you read, through what you engage in. I found that to be extraordinarily helpful.
Speaker 2:Fantastic. That's such great advice and I want to thank you so much, Matt Creighton, for being on the show. What is the best way for people to reach out to you if they want to learn more about your services, or perhaps if you have internships, or I have a student who wants to work in a political realm and they maybe want to talk through their idea.
Speaker 3:Sure, absolutely. You can find me on LinkedIn. That's probably my most active platform. It's funny as a practitioner, I don't engage as much on social media as I probably should, but it's like hard to take your own medicine, I think. But yeah, LinkedIn is good. You can find, I think, my email address on there. So if anyone wants to reach out and has any questions or wants to talk through what a career might look like in this space or kind of talk through the nuts and bolts of what it's like to start a business as a completely naive 24-year-old, then I'm happy to do that. So that's where you can find me.
Speaker 2:Okay, thank you so much again for being here. I thank you to everybody who's watching or listening to this episode. I will be back, or my co-host, joseph Battaglia, will be back again next week with another amazing guest to share some information about careers in the world of digital and how to be digital changemakers with you.
Speaker 1:To learn more about the Master of Science in Digital Media Management program, visit us on the web at dmmuscedu.
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