Category: The Conversation – USA

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Ivis García, Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning, Texas A&M University

The devastating flash floods that swept through Texas Hill Country in July 2025 highlight a troubling reality: Despite years of warnings and recent improvements in flood planning, Texas communities remain dangerously vulnerable to flood damage.

The tragedy wasn’t caused just by heavy rainfall. It was made worse by a lack of money for early warning systems, by drainage systems and emergency communication networks that haven’t been updated to handle more intense storms or growing populations, and by the many older buildings in harm’s way.

A 2024 state report estimated the cost of flood mitigation and management projects needed statewide at US$54.5 billion. But in Texas, most of that work is left to local governments.

We study disaster planning at Texas A&M University and see several ways the state and Texas communities can improve safety for everyone.

Progress since Hurricane Harvey

Since Hurricane Harvey devastated the Houston area in 2017, Texas has made strides in flood planning.

The state in 2024 created its first comprehensive flood plan, which identifies flood risks statewide and recommends projects to reduce them. The state now requires all local governments to adopt and enforce flood plain regulations that meet federal standards, enabling residents to purchase federal flood insurance.

The plan represented a major shift for a state government that historically left flood planning to local communities.

However, it also revealed widespread risks in Texas: Approximately 5 million Texans live or work in flood-prone areas, and an estimated 1.5 million homes and other structures are in flood plains.

Flood risks are intensifying as Texas experiences more extreme rainfall. State climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon and colleagues at Texas A&M University found that extreme one-day precipitation has increased by 5% to 15% in Texas since the late 20th century, and another 10% increase is expected by 2036.

Rural communities lack resources

The biggest problem for small towns and rural communities isn’t just weak regulations. Many of them can’t afford to hire specialized staff for technical work such as hazard assessment and regulatory enforcement.

While the state provides planning frameworks, implementation and enforcement remain local responsibilities.

Budget limitations can mean one emergency manager serves as fire marshal, building inspector, engineer and flood plain administrator for hundreds of square miles.

These officials must still meet federal standards and develop detailed disaster plans. But cash-strapped communities often lack the funding to implement solutions.

What they need is practical hazard mitigation plans. Those include specific evacuation routes for each neighborhood, identifying which buildings house vulnerable populations, such as older adults, and steps local officials can implement immediately during emergencies. It also means aligning of other local planning documents, such as comprehensive plans or land use plans. Access to flood gauge data, weather monitoring and social vulnerability mapping is also important for determining when to close roads or activate emergency shelters.

That work takes time, expertise and funding.

The challenge of older buildings

Creating safer communities also requires investment to address challenges with both new development and vulnerable existing structures.

For new construction, many communities require buildings to be built above flood level. The state could help small communities in this area by funding new local code enforcement jobs, similar to the way it provided training and guidance to local officials after Hurricane Harvey. However, that might not be possible in the Texas Legislature today.

The bigger challenge is older buildings. According to federal requirements, unless a structure floods or gets “substantially damaged” – meaning damage exceeds 50% of its value – there’s no requirement to make it safer.

Research shows that retrofitting homes by improving drainage to avoid future flood damage and [voluntary buyout programs can be effective]. Buyout programs allow families to sell their homes at market rate and relocate to higher ground when the programs are properly designed and funded.

Harris County’s buyout program after Hurricane Harvey acquired nearly 200 flood-damaged homes in the Houston area for a total of $20 million. That helped families escape repeated flooding. The homes were demolished, and the land became permanent open space. By preventing future development, the land can take on floodwater in the future without economic harm.

Many counties can’t afford buyout programs, though. A statewide voluntary buyout program could help them by prioritizing the most vulnerable properties. But to have a wide reach, such a voluntary program would need dedicated funding in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Beyond voluntary buyouts, the state could expand programs that help property owners retrofit existing houses and other buildings, such as elevating structures, installing flood vents that allow water to flow through, or using flood-resistant materials. Tax incentives and low-interest loans could make these improvements more affordable while respecting property owners’ right to choose to participate or not.

Texas currently offers limited retrofit assistance through the General Land Office’s disaster recovery programs. But it lacks a comprehensive retrofit program with dedicated funding that would help homeowners prepare before the disaster strikes.

Where communities are taking important steps

Some innovative approaches are emerging in Texas cities and counties.

Liberty and Comanche counties have partnered with Texas A&M University’s Texas Target Communities program to create comprehensive plans that help their communities grow but in safer ways. Research shows that when communities integrate land use planning, hazard mitigation, emergency response and economic development plans, they can better ensure that new development avoids high-risk areas and that existing vulnerable areas are targeted for improvement projects.

Houston, despite lacking traditional zoning, has implemented strict flood plain regulations that require new construction to be elevated above flood levels and prohibit development in the most dangerous flood-risk areas. By maintaining a top rating in FEMA’s Community Rating System, the city helps residents qualify for discounts on flood insurance.

The tragedy in Hill Country is a reminder that many Texas communities face flood risks yet lack the funding and technical capacity to implement comprehensive flood risk reduction on their own without state support. As extreme weather becomes more common, the question is whether communities will be able to protect themselves without more help.

Shannon Van Zandt is affiliated with Texas Housers, a non-profit advocating for affordable housing for low-income Texans.

Ivis García and Jaimie Hicks Masterson do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Many Texas communities are dangerously unprepared for floods − lack of funding plays a big role – https://theconversation.com/many-texas-communities-are-dangerously-unprepared-for-floods-lack-of-funding-plays-a-big-role-261090

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Rebecca McClain, Ph.D. Student in Astronomy, The Ohio State University

If you happen to find yourself in the Southern Hemisphere with binoculars and a good view of the night sky on a dark and clear summer night, you might just be able to spot the Sculptor galaxy. And if your eyes were prisms that could separate light into the thousands of colors making it up, then congratulations: After hours of staring, you could have recreated the newest image of one of the nearest neighbors to our Milky Way galaxy.

This is not just another stunningly gorgeous picture of a nearby galaxy. Because it reveals the type of light coming from each location in the galaxy, this image of the Sculptor galaxy is a treasure trove of information that astronomers around the world cannot wait to pick apart.

As an astronomy Ph.D. student at Ohio State University, I (Rebecca) am one of the lucky people who gets to stare at this image for hours every day, alongside my adviser (Adam), discovering meaning behind the beauty everyone can appreciate.

Creating the image

The Sculptor galaxy lies 11 million light-years from the Milky Way. This may sound unfathomably far, but it actually makes Sculptor one of the closest galaxies to Earth.

For this reason, Sculptor has been the primary target for many observations. In 2022, an international team of scientists observed Sculptor with the Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer, MUSE, on the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile, and publicly released the data this June.

Most astronomical observations obtain either an image of a single color of light – for example, red or blue – or a spectrum, which splits the light coming from the whole galaxy into many different colors.

MUSE, conveniently, does both, producing a spectrum at every location it observes. One observation creates thousands of images in thousands of colors, each tracing the critical components that make up the galaxy: stars, dust and gas.

It may look like only one picture, but this image of Sculptor is actually over 100 individual observations and 8 million individual spectra, painstakingly stitched together to reveal millions of stars all in one cohesive galaxy.

Scientific significance

The light associated with the stars in Sculptor is colored white, and gas made up of charged particles is colored red. The largest concentration of both is found in the spiral arms. At the very center of the galaxy is a nuclear starburst: a region of extreme star formation that is blowing material out of the galaxy.

There is even information in the absence of light. Dust obscures light emitted from behind it, creating a shadow effect called dust lanes. Tracing these dust lanes reveals the cold, dense material that exists between stars. Scientists believe this dark material is the fuel that will form the next generation of stars.

There is a lot to look at in this image, but the subject of my work and what I find most interesting is the gas illuminated in red. In these star-forming regions, young and massive stars excite the gas around them, which then glows with a specific color to reveal the chemical makeup and physical conditions of the gas.

This image represents one of the first times that astronomers have obtained images of thousands of star-forming regions at this impressive level of detail. A component of our team’s research uses the data from MUSE to understand how these regions are structured and how they interact with the surrounding galaxy.

By meticulously piecing all of this information together, astronomers can use this image to learn more about the formation and evolution of stars across the universe.

Rebecca McClain receives funding from the National Science Foundation.

Adam Leroy receives funding from NASA/Space Telescope Science Institute that supports research related to the survey of NGC 253 discussed in this article.

– ref. Sculptor galaxy image provides brilliant details that will help astronomers study how stars form – https://theconversation.com/sculptor-galaxy-image-provides-brilliant-details-that-will-help-astronomers-study-how-stars-form-259754

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Raven Garvey, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Michigan

Our first meeting was a bit awkward. One of us is an archaeologist who studies how past peoples interacted with their environments. Two of us are geophysicists who investigate interactions between solar activity and Earth’s magnetic field.

When we first got together, we wondered whether our unconventional project, linking space weather and human behavior, could actually bridge such a vast disciplinary divide. Now, two years on, we believe the payoffs – personal, professional and scientific – were well worth the initial discomfort.

Our collaboration, which culminated in a recent paper in the journal Science Advances, began with a single question: What happened to life on Earth when the planet’s magnetic field nearly collapsed roughly 41,000 years ago?

Weirdness when Earth’s magnetic shield falters

This near-collapse is known as the Laschamps Excursion, a brief but extreme geomagnetic event named for the volcanic fields in France where it was first identified. At the time of the Laschamps Excursion, near the end of the Pleistocene epoch, Earth’s magnetic poles didn’t reverse as they do every few hundred thousand years. Instead, they wandered, erratically and rapidly, over thousands of miles. At the same time, the strength of the magnetic field dropped to less than 10% of its modern day intensity.

So, instead of behaving like a stable bar magnet – a dipole – as it usually does, the Earth’s magnetic field fractured into multiple weak poles across the planet. As a result, the protective force field scientists call the magnetosphere became distorted and leaky.

The magnetosphere normally deflects much of the solar wind and harmful ultraviolet radiation that would otherwise reach Earth’s surface.

So, during the Laschamps Excursion when the magnetosphere broke down, our models suggest a number of near-Earth effects. While there is still work to be done to precisely characterize these effects, we do know they included auroras – normally seen only in skies near the poles as the Northern Lights or Southern Lights – wandering toward the equator, and significantly higher-than-present-day doses of harmful solar radiation.

The skies 41,000 years ago may have been both spectacular and threatening. When we realized this, we two geophysicists wanted to know whether this could have affected people living at the time.

The archaeologist’s answer was absolutely.

Human responses to ancient space weather

For people on the ground at that time, auroras may have been the most immediate and striking effect, perhaps inspiring awe, fear, ritual behavior or something else entirely. But the archaeological record is notoriously limited in its ability to capture these kinds of cognitive or emotional responses.

Researchers are on firmer ground when it comes to the physiological impacts of increased UV radiation. With the weakened magnetic field, more harmful radiation would have reached Earth’s surface, elevating risk of sunburn, eye damage, birth defects, and other health issues.

In response, people may have adopted practical measures: spending more time in caves, producing tailored clothing for better coverage, or applying mineral pigment “sunscreen” made of ochre to their skin. As we describe in our recent paper, the frequency of these behaviors indeed appears to have increased across parts of Europe, where effects of the Laschamps Excursion were pronounced and prolonged.

At this time, both Neanderthals and members of our species, Homo sapiens, were living in Europe, though their geographic distributions likely overlapped only in certain regions. The archaeological record suggests that different populations exhibited distinct approaches to environmental challenges, with some groups perhaps more reliant on shelter or material culture for protection.

Importantly, we’re not suggesting that space weather alone caused an increase in these behaviors or, certainly, that the Laschamps caused Neanderthals to go extinct, which is one misinterpretation of our research. But it could have been a contributing factor – an invisible but powerful force that influenced innovation and adaptability.

Cross-discipline collaboration

Collaborating across such a disciplinary gap was, at first, daunting. But it turned out to be deeply rewarding.

Archaeologists are used to reconstructing now-invisible phenomena like climate. We can’t measure past temperatures or precipitation directly, but they’ve left traces for us to interpret if we know where and how to look.

But even archaeologists who’ve spent years studying the effects of climate on past behaviors and technologies may not have considered the effects of the geomagnetic field and space weather. These effects, too, are invisible, powerful and best understood through indirect evidence and modeling. Archaeologists can treat space weather as a vital component of Earth’s environmental history and future forecasting.

Likewise, geophysicists, who typically work with large datasets, models and simulations, may not always engage with some of the stakes of space weather. Archaeology adds a human dimension to the science. It reminds us that the effects of space weather don’t stop at the ionosphere. They can ripple down into the lived experiences of people on the ground, influencing how they adapt, create and survive.

The Laschamps Excursion wasn’t a fluke or a one-off. Similar disruptions of Earth’s magnetic field have happened before and will happen again. Understanding how ancient humans responded can provide insight into how future events might affect our world – and perhaps even help us prepare.

Our unconventional collaboration has shown us how much we can learn, how our perspective changes, when we cross disciplinary boundaries. Space may be vast, but it connects us all. And sometimes, building a bridge between Earth and space starts with the smallest things, such as ochre, or a coat, or even sunscreen.

Agnit Mukhopadhyay has received funding from NASA Science Mission Directorate and the University of Michigan Rackham Graduate School.

Raven Garvey and Sanja Panovska do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Weird space weather seems to have influenced human behavior on Earth 41,000 years ago – our unusual scientific collaboration explores how – https://theconversation.com/weird-space-weather-seems-to-have-influenced-human-behavior-on-earth-41-000-years-ago-our-unusual-scientific-collaboration-explores-how-257216

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Daniel Tichenor, Professor of Political Science, University of Oregon

Nativism, the idea that government must guard native-born Americans from various threats posed by immigrants, has a long history in the United States.

Today, the Trump administration is citing the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, a restrictive measure written by nativist members of Congress decades ago when fears of communism were rampant, to sharply restrict the rights of noncitizens.

Under this law, also known as the McCarran-Walter Act, federal agencies have arrested and detained noncitizens associated with pro-Palestinian protests, reintroduced immigrant registration requirements, and imposed a new travel ban that affects 19 nations.

Since the 1950s, Congress has removed some of this sprawling federal law’s most discriminatory features, such as racist national origins quotas. But other key provisions remain on the books. Now they are the primary legal basis for some of President Donald Trump’s most controversial immigration crackdowns.

Foreign policy trumps free speech

In March 2025, the White House invoked the McCarran-Walter Act to justify arresting and deporting Mahmoud Khalil, a legal permanent resident who had participated in pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University. Officials pointed to Section 237(a)(4)(C) of the law, which states that any “alien whose presence or activities in the United States the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States is deportable.”

This has been tried only once before. In 1995, the Clinton administration unsuccessfully sought to use the provision to deport a former Mexican official, Mario Ruiz Massieu, to face charges in his homeland for extortion and obstructing a murder investigation. Ruiz Massieu was later indicted in the U.S. on money laundering charges and died by suicide shortly before his arraignment.

The Trump administration cited the same provision to justify detaining Tufts University doctoral student Rumeysa Ozturk in March. Ozturk came under government scrutiny because she co-authored an op-ed in the Tufts student newspaper criticizing the university’s position on the Israel-Gaza war.

Surveillance footage of a terrified Ozturk being arrested by masked Immigration Customs and Enforcement agents on a street in Somerville, Massachusetts, drew criticism from government officials and civil liberties advocates. In response, Secretary of State Marco Rubio alleged that Ozturk had harmed U.S. interests by supporting “movements that are involved in doing things like vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings, creating a ruckus.”

Khalil and Ozturk both were released after weeks in detention, pending final resolution of their cases. Their lawyers argue that their clients’ treatment violates free speech protections and that the defendants were punished for expressing their political beliefs.

Monitoring noncitizens

The McCarran-Walter Act also authorizes intrusive registration and tracking requirements for noncitizens who remain in the U.S. for 30 days or longer.

On Jan. 20, 2025, Trump issued an executive order directing the Department of Homeland Security to enforce an “alien registration requirement.” The agency issued a final rule in April requiring all noncitizens over the age of 14 to register and be fingerprinted. Parents or guardians must register noncitizen children under age 14. The rule also requires adult noncitizens to carry “evidence of registration” at all times.

Such policies aren’t new. Noncitizen registration was codified in the Alien Registration Act of 1940, on the eve of U.S. entry into World War II. The law was designed to regulate the foreign-born population and encourage eligible noncitizens to join the U.S. armed forces. Its requirements were written into the McCarran-Walter Act.

After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Bush administration created the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, which targeted noncitizen males age 16 or older from 25 Muslim-majority countries. It required registrants to submit biometric information, check in regularly with immigration authorities and use specific ports of entry for travel.

The Obama administration suspended this system in 2011 and permanently dismantled it in 2016.

Today, Trump administration officials say they are simply enforcing long-standing legal authority. A federal judge agreed, ruling on April 10 that the Homeland Security Department could require noncitizens to register and carry documentation.

Travel bans redux

On June 2, Trump announced a new travel ban on foreign nationals from 12 countries, mostly in Africa and the Middle East. The ban draws its authority from the McCarran-Walter Act. Two days later, Trump claimed the same legal discretion to exclude Harvard University’s international students from the U.S.

During his first term, Trump invoked these sections of the law to justify a travel ban on seven predominantly Muslim countries. The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately upheld this action in 2018 by a 5-4 vote in Trump v. Hawaii. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts stated that the travel ban was well within broad powers over immigration granted to the president under the McCarran-Walter Act. He added that the court had “no view on the soundness of the policy.”

Trump’s new ban is more carefully crafted than earlier versions and more likely to withstand legal challenges. But his efforts to use the McCarren-Walter Act to ban international students from attending Harvard University face stiff legal headwinds.

On May 22, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem notified Harvard officials that the agency was revoking the school’s certification to participate in the Student and Exchange Visitor Program, which grants visas to international students to come to the U.S. In a June 4 proclamation, the White House claimed that foreign students at Harvard had behaved in ways that threatened U.S. national security.

A federal judge in Boston quickly blocked the revocation, holding that it violated core constitutional free speech rights. “The government’s misplaced efforts to control a reputable academic institution and squelch diverse viewpoints seemingly because they are, in some instances, opposed to this administration’s own views, threaten these rights,” wrote Judge Allison D. Burroughs.

The latest step came on July 9, when the Trump administration subpoenaed Harvard for information on its foreign students, including their disciplinary records and involvement in campus protests.

Broad power over noncitizens

Ironically, congressional sponsors of the McCarran-Walter Act were at odds with the White House when the law was enacted in 1952. They overrode a veto by President Harry S. Truman, who thought the law’s nativist ideas were unfitting for a nation of immigrants and global defender of democracy.

However, the expansive executive powers created by this law have endured largely unaltered over time, through waves of immigration reform.

Now they are a boon to the Trump administration’s ambitious immigration crackdown. It’s a telling reminder that repressive old laws can come back to life – even when they don’t reflect the current views of many Americans.

Daniel Tichenor does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. A law from the era of Red Scares is supercharging Trump administration’s power over immigrants and noncitizens – https://theconversation.com/a-law-from-the-era-of-red-scares-is-supercharging-trump-administrations-power-over-immigrants-and-noncitizens-255307

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Matthew J. Mayhew, Professor of Higher Education, The Ohio State University

In spring 2024, pro-Palestinian student encampments that began at Columbia and Harvard spread to university campuses throughout the U.S. as Israel invaded Gaza in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, surprise attack. At least 100 campuses had encampments for at least a few days during this period.

While some campuses erupted in violence, others remained peaceful and didn’t experience the open conflict that led to congressional hearings, university presidents losing their jobs and repercussions that are continuing to be felt today.

What made the difference?

In spring 2024, Ohio State University’s College Impact Laboratory, where we all work, surveyed universities to learn more about whether their campuses experienced protests, what happened and how they handled them. Part of our goal was to understand how spiritual leaders played a role, if any, in managing the protests. We’ve been analyzing the data ever since. The results from those who responded point to several lessons universities could learn from to avoid violence in future protests.

Campuses are a critical arena for activism

Campus protests have long been a defining feature of social and political change in the U.S. From the civil rights movements of the 1950s and 1960s to the student-led climate strikes of recent years, higher education institutions have served as a critical space for activism.

Often, these protests reflect broader societal tensions, and how universities respond has played a significant role in shaping their outcomes.

Historically, protests have been most likely to escalate when students feel unheard. In contrast, institutions that adopt proactive strategies, such as facilitating conversations or including students in decision-making, often experience better outcomes.

Snapshot of the pro-Palestinian protests

As our survey data shows, the pro-Palestinian protests illustrate this dynamic.

To gather data, the College Impact Laboratory sent questionnaires to administrators at the 329 universities that participate in our Interfaith Spiritual, Religious and Secular Campus Climate Index, also known as the INSPIRES Index, as well as hundreds of colleges and universities in our recruitment database.

In all, 35 schools responded to our 23-question survey. Of those, we found that most protests were led by students, half lasted less than a week, and the vast majority were nonviolent. Fifteen did not have protests, while the rest did. While the number of institutions that participated in this survey is relatively small, it does give us key insights into what schools were thinking.

Half of the campuses with protests reported law enforcement involvement – either campus police or city officers – with 20% experiencing physical altercations between protesters and police. Other disruptive actions such as academic interruptions, vandalism, physical violence and doxxing were reported with varying frequencies.

Protests at campuses that participated in our survey peaked during April and May 2024, with 70% of them experiencing demonstrations in these months.

Here are three takeaways from the survey, suggesting steps universities can take before and during future protests to avoid escalation:

1. Involve students in guidelines for engagement – early

At every surveyed institution that reported protests, students were at the forefront of organizing and leading these efforts.

Yet, despite this clear student leadership, about one-third of institutions said they didn’t consult with students to establish guidelines for engagement. Those that did invited representatives from student organizations or student government officers into the policymaking process to determine what protocols would be followed to manage protests and keep them peaceful.

On campuses where administrators didn’t engage with student leaders, tensions tended to escalate, and protests disrupted the institutions for weeks, often after police were called in or curfews were imposed.

While many of the protests lasted only one to seven days, we found that institutions that opened lines of communication early between administration and student protest leaders were more likely to deescalate tensions quickly. In contrast, campuses where administrators did not engage early on saw protests lasting weeks or involving greater disruptions.

Also, institutions that engaged early with student leaders were less likely to face stronger demands, such as calls for administrators to be fired, divestment from Israeli companies or calls to defund the campus police.

Our survey results suggest it’s important for administrators to engage with students early to establish clear guidelines to make it less likely future protests spiral into violence.

2. Communicate openly, often and before protests

Discussion of difficult topics, such as the conflict between Israel and Palestinians, shouldn’t wait until protests break out to begin. We found that every school in our survey that proactively supported dialogue between Jews and Muslims – before the war broke out – didn’t see violence result from the protests.

Dialogue isn’t just a strategy for preventing protests from spiraling out of control; it is fundamental to intergroup learning in higher education. These events create safe spaces for students − whether Arab, Jewish, Palestinian or members of different ethnic or religious groups − to engage with classmates with different points of view.

But even once protests begin, dialogue can help. When institutions engaged in dialogue, during or as a result of a protest, the protests were less likely to involve violence. At half of the campuses that participated in our survey and experienced protests, protests were ended peacefully through dialogue.

Brown, for example, modeled the power of institutional listening in its response to its April 2024 encampment. Rather than escalating tensions, university leaders engaged directly with student activists, resulting in a peaceful resolution and a commitment to bring the students’ divestment proposal to a formal vote in October. It ultimately failed to pass the board of directors.

3. Involve relevant groups in decision-making

Most administrators in our survey, as they considered how to engage with protesters, reached out to relevant student groups such as those that focus on Jewish and Muslim students to better understand their perspectives.

However, only 28% consulted a religious or spiritual life office staff member on campus.

Religious or spiritual life staff are present on both private and public campuses and may include university-employed multifaith chaplains, interfaith coordinators or directors of spiritual life. Unlike student-led religious groups, these professionals often serve as liaisons to the religious and nonreligious communities represented on campus.

The focus of such roles on serving students from all worldviews positions them as key resources for deescalation through community outreach, support and two-way communication. Additionally, these professionals have valuable expertise in religious pluralism and community relationships. This experience helps them to advise administrators on policy and potential courses of action in times of tension.

Consulting with university staff with a focus on religion or spiritual life makes particular sense given the nature of the protests and how religion is intertwined, but our data suggests they may be underutilized more broadly for their expertise in navigating tensions related to competing worldviews.

Proactive engagement with these leaders not only helps campuses navigate an immediate crisis but demonstrates a commitment to inclusivity and respect for different groups’ perspectives.

Leading by example

Put another way, our research suggests institutions can avoid the negative outcomes of protests by embodying the traits commonly associated with universities, such as showing mutual respect, fostering democratic debate and engaging in critical thinking even on divisive issues. Engaging from a mindset of goodwill with student leaders shows administrators value student voices and are willing to work collaboratively toward solutions.

But when campuses ignore peaceful protests or refuse to engage with student leaders, they risk turning manageable situations into prolonged crises.

At a time when divisions run deep, we believe campuses that lead by example by embracing dialogue and engaging student activists before, during and after protests take place are not only likely to see less violence, but are likely to help heal America’s great divides.

Matthew J. Mayhew receives grant funding for various research projects from the National Science Foundation, the ECMC Foundation, the Templeton Religion Trust, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, and Pew Charitable Trusts. Currently, Dr. Mayhew leads the College Impact Laboratory at The Ohio State University. He is the Principal Investigator for the INSPIRES Index project and is the current editor of the Digest of Recent Research.

Renee L. Bowling works for the College Impact Lab at The Ohio State University that produces the INSPIRES Index and serves as Chair of NASPA’s Spirituality and Religion in Higher Education Knowledge Community.

Hind Haddad does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. How universities can keep protests from turning violent: 3 lessons from the 2024 pro-Palestinian encampments – https://theconversation.com/how-universities-can-keep-protests-from-turning-violent-3-lessons-from-the-2024-pro-palestinian-encampments-252278

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Andrew J. Hoffman, Holcim (US) Professor of Sustainable Enterprise, Ross School of Business, School for Environment & Sustainability, University of Michigan

Programs to help students discern their vocation or calling are gaining prominence in higher education.

According to a 2019 Bates/Gallup poll, 80% of college graduates want a sense of purpose from their work. In addition, a 2023 survey found that 50% of Generation Z and millennial employees in the U.K. and U.S. have resigned from a job because the values of the company did not align with their own.

These sentiments are also found in today’s business school students, as Gen Z is demanding that course content reflect the changes in society, from diversity and inclusion to sustainability and poverty. According to the Financial Times, “there may never have been a more demanding cohort.”

And yet, business schools have been slower than other schools to respond, leading to calls ranging from transforming business education to demolishing it.

What are business schools creating?

Historically, studies have shown that business school applicants have scored higher than their peers on the “dark triad” traits of narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism. These traits can manifest themselves in a tendency toward cunning, scheming and, at times, unscrupulous behavior.

Over the course of their degree program, other studies have found that business school environments can amplify those preexisting tendencies while enhancing a concern for what others think of them.

And these tendencies stick after graduation. One study examined 9,900 U.S. publicly listed firms and separated the sample by those run by managers who went to business school and those whose managers did not. While they found no discernible difference in sales or profits between the two samples, they found that labor wages were cut 6% over five years at companies run by managers who went to business school, while managers with no business degree shared profits with their workers. The study concludes that this is the result “of practices and values acquired in business education.”

But there are signs that this may be changing.

Questioning value

Today, many are questioning the value of the MBA.

Those who have decided it is worth the high cost either complain of its lack of rigor, relevance and critical thinking or use it merely for access to networks for salary enhancement, treating classroom learning as less important than attending recruiting events and social activities.

Layered onto this uncertain state of affairs, generative artificial intelligence is fundamentally altering the education landscape, threatening future career prospects and short-circuiting the student’s education by doing their research and writing for them.

This is concerning because of the outsized role that business leaders play in today’s society: allocating capital, developing and deploying new technologies and influencing political and social debates.

At times, this role is a positive one, but not always. Distrust follows that uncertainty.

Only 16% of Americans had a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in corporations, while 51% of Americans between 18 and 29 hold a dim view of capitalism.

Facing this reality, business educators are beginning to reexamine how to nurture business leaders who view business not only as a means to making money but also as a vehicle in service to society.

Proponents such as Harry Lewis, former dean of Harvard College; Derek Bok, former president of Harvard University; Harold Shapiro, former president of Princeton University; and Anthony Kronman, former dean of the Yale Law School, describe this effort as a return to the original focus of a college education.

Not ethics, but character formation

Business schools have often included ethics courses in their curriculum, often with limited success. What some schools are experimenting with is character formation.

As part of this experimentation is the development of a coherent moral culture that lies within the course curriculum but also within the cocurricular programming, cultural events, seminars and independent studies that shape students’ worldviews; the selection, socialization, training and reward systems for students, staff and faculty; and other aspects that shape students’ formation.

Stanford’s Bill Damon, one of the leading scholars on helping students develop a sense of purpose in life, describes a revised role for faculty in this effort, one of creating the fertile conditions for students to find meaning and purpose on their own.

I use this approach in my course on vocation discernment in business, shifting from a more traditional academic style to one that is more developmental.

This is relational teaching that artificial intelligence cannot do. It involves bringing the whole person into the education process, inspiring hearts as much as engaging heads to form competent leaders who possess character, judgment and wisdom.

It allows an examination of both the how and the why of business, challenging students to consider what kind of business leader they aspire to be and what kind of legacy they wish to establish.

It would mark a return to the original focus of early business schools, which, as Rakesh Khurana, a professor of sociology at Harvard, calls out in his book “From Higher Aims to Hired Hands: The Social Transformation of American Business Schools and the Unfulfilled Promise of Management as a Profession,” was to train managers in the same vocational way we train doctors “to seek the higher aims of commerce in service to society.”

Reshaping business education

The good news is that there are emerging exemplars that are seeking to create this kind of curriculum through centers such as Notre Dame University’s Institute for Social Concerns and Bates College’s Center for Purposeful Work and courses such as Stanford University’s Designing Your Life and the University of Michigan’s Management as a Calling.

These are but a few examples of a growing movement. So, the building blocks are there to draw from. The student demand is waiting to be met. All that is needed is for more business schools to respond.

Andrew J. Hoffman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Rethinking the MBA: Character as the educational foundation for future business leaders – https://theconversation.com/rethinking-the-mba-character-as-the-educational-foundation-for-future-business-leaders-259223

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Simon F. Haeder, Associate Professor of Public Health, Texas A&M University

The big tax and spending package President Donald Trump signed into law on July 4, 2025, will cut government spending on health care by more than US$1 trillion over the next decade.

Because the final version of the legislation moved swiftly through the Senate and the House, estimates regarding the number of people likely to lose their health insurance coverage were incomplete when Congress approved it by razor-thin margins. Nearly 12 million Americans could lose their health insurance coverage by 2034 due to this legislation, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

However, the number of people losing their insurance by 2034 could be even higher, totaling more than 17 million. That’s largely because it’s likely that at least 5 million Americans who currently have Affordable Care Act marketplace health insurance will lose their coverage once subsidies that help fund those policies expire at the end of 2025. And very few Republicans have said they support renewing the subsidies.

In addition, regulations the Trump administration introduced earlier in the year will further increase the number of people losing their ACA marketplace coverage.

As a public health professor, I see these changes, which will be phased in over several years, as the first step in a reversal of the expansion of access to health care that began with the ACA’s passage in 2010. About 25.3 million Americans lacked insurance in 2023, down sharply from 46.5 million when President Barack Obama signed the ACA into law. All told, the changes in the works could eliminate three-quarters of the progress the U.S. has made in reducing the number of uninsured Americans following the Affordable Care Act.

Millions will lose their Medicaid coverage

The biggest number of people becoming uninsured will be Americans enrolled in Medicaid, which currently covers more than 78 million people.

An estimated 5 million will eventually lose Medicaid coverage due to new work requirements that will go into effect nationally by 2027.

Work requirements target people eligible for Medicaid through the Affordable Care Act’s expansion. They tend to have slightly higher incomes than other people enrolled in the program.

Medicaid applicants who are between 19 and 64 years old will need to certify they are working at least 80 hours a month or spending that much time engaged in comparable activities, such as community service.

When these rules have been introduced to other safety net programs, most people lost their benefits due to administrative hassles, not because they weren’t logging enough hours on the job. Experts like me expect to see that occur with Medicaid too.

Other increases in the paperwork required to enroll in and remain enrolled in Medicaid will render more than 2 million more people uninsured, the CBO estimates.

And an additional 1.4 million would lose coverage because they may not meet new citizenship or immigration requirements.

In total, these changes to Medicaid would lead to more than 8 million people becoming uninsured by 2034.

Many of those who aren’t kicked out of Medicaid would also face new copayments of up to US$35 for appointments and procedures – making them less likely to seek care, even if they still have health insurance.

The new policies also make it harder for states to pay for Medicaid, which is run by the federal government and the states. They do so by limiting the taxes states charge medical providers, which are used to fund the states’ share of Medicaid funding. With less funding, some states may try to reduce enrollment or cut benefits, such as home-based health care, in the future.

Losing Medicaid coverage may leave millions of low-income Americans without insurance coverage, with no affordable alternatives for health care. Historically, the people who are most likely to lose their benefits are low-income people of color or immigrants who do not speak English well.

ACA marketplace policies may cost far more

The new law will also make it harder for the more than 24 million Americans who currently get health insurance through Affordable Care Act marketplace plans to remain insured.

For one, it will be much harder for Americans to purchase insurance coverage and qualify for subsidies for 2026.

These changes come on the heels of regulations from the Trump administration that the Congressional Budget Office estimates will lead to almost 1 million people losing their coverage through the ACA marketplace. This includes reducing spending on outreach and enrollment.

What’s more, increased subsidies in place since 2021 are set to expire at the end of the year. Given Republican opposition, it seems unlikely that those subsidies will be extended.

Not extending the subsidies alone could mean premiums will increase by more than 75% in 2026. Once premiums get that unaffordable, an additional 4.2 million Americans could lose coverage, the Congressional Budget Office estimates.

With more political uncertainty and reduced enrollment, more private insurers may also withdraw from the ACA market. Large insurance companies such as Aetna, Cigna and UnitedHealth have already raised concerns about the ACA market’s viability.

Should they exit, there would be fewer choices and higher premiums for people getting their insurance this way. It could also mean that some counties could have no ACA plans offered at all.

Ramifications for the uninsured and rural hospitals

When people lose their health insurance, they inevitably end up in worse health and their medical debts can mount. Because medical treatments usually work better when diagnoses are made early, people who end up uninsured may die sooner than if they’d still had coverage.

Having to struggle to pay the kinds of high medical bills people without insurance face takes a physical, mental and financial toll, not just on people who become uninsured but also their families and friends. It also harms medical providers that don’t get reimbursed for their care.

Public health scholars like me have no doubt that many hospitals and other health care providers will have to make tough choices. Some will close. Others will offer fewer services and fire health care workers. Emergency room wait times will increase for everyone, not just people who lose their health insurance due to changes in Trump’s tax and spending package.

Rural hospitals, which were already facing a funding crisis, will experience some of the most acute financial pressure. By one estimate, more than 300 hospitals are at risk of closing.

Children’s hospitals and hospitals located in low-income urban areas also disproportionately rely on Medicaid and will struggle to keep their doors open.

Republicans tried to protect rural hospitals by designating $50 billion in the legislative package for them over 10 years. But this funding comes nowhere near the $155 billion in losses KFF expects those health care providers to incur due to Medicaid cuts. Also, the funding comes with a number of restrictions that could further limit its effectiveness.

What’s next

Some Republicans, including Sens. Mike Crapo and Ron Johnson, have already indicated that more health care policy changes could be coming in another large legislative package.

They could include some of the harsher provisions that were left out of the final version of the legislation Congress approved. Republicans may, for example, try to roll back the ACA’s Medicaid expansion.

Moving forward, spending on Medicare, the insurance program that primarily covers Americans 65 and older, could decline too. Without any further action, the CBO says that the law could trigger an estimated $500 billion in mandatory Medicare cuts from 2026 to 2034 because of the trillions of dollars in new federal debt the law creates.

Trump has repeatedly promised not to cut Medicare or Medicaid. And yet, it’s possible that the Trump administration will issue executive orders that further reduce what the federal government spends on health care – and roll back the coverage gains the Affordable Care Act brought about.

Portions of this article first appeared in a related piece published on June 13, 2025.

Simon F. Haeder has previously received funding from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Pennsylvania Insurance Department, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for unrelated projects.

– ref. How 17M Americans enrolled in Medicaid and ACA plans could lose their health insurance by 2034 – https://theconversation.com/how-17m-americans-enrolled-in-medicaid-and-aca-plans-could-lose-their-health-insurance-by-2034-260664

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Brian P. McCullough, Associate Professor of Sport Management, University of Michigan

When the FIFA World Cup hits North America in June 2026, 48 teams and millions of soccer fans will be traveling to and from venues spread across the United States, Canada and Mexico.

It’s a dramatic expansion – 16 more teams will be playing than in recent years, with a jump from 64 to 104 matches. The tournament is projected to bring in over US$10 billion in revenue. But the expansion will also mean a lot more travel and other activities that contribute to climate change.

The environmental impacts of giant sporting events like the World Cup create a complex paradox for an industry grappling with its future in a warming world.

A sustainability conundrum

Sports are undeniably experiencing the effects of climate change. Rising global temperatures are putting athletes’ health at risk during summer heat waves and shortening winter sports seasons. Many of the 2026 World Cup venues often see heat waves in June and early July, when the tournament is scheduled.

There is a divide over how sports should respond.

Some athletes are speaking out for more sustainable choices and have called on lawmakers to take steps to limit climate-warming emissions. At the same time, the sport industry is growing and facing a constant push to increase revenue. The NCAA is also considering expanding its March Madness basketball tournaments from 68 teams currently to as many as 76.

Estimates for the 2026 World Cup show what large tournament expansions can mean for the climate. A report from Scientists for Global Responsibility estimates that the expanded World Cup could generate over 9 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, nearly double the average of the past four World Cups.

This massive increase – and the increase that would come if the NCAA basketball tournaments also expand – would primarily be driven by air travel as fans and players fly among event cities that are thousands of miles apart.

A lot of money is at stake, but so is the climate

Sports are big business, and adding more matches to events like the World Cup and NCAA tournaments will likely lead to larger media rights contracts and greater gate receipts from more fans attending the events, boosting revenues. These are powerful financial incentives.

In the NCAA’s case, there is another reason to consider a larger tournament: The House v. NCAA settlement opened the door for college athletic departments to share revenue with athletes, which will significantly increase costs for many college programs. More teams would mean more television revenue and, crucially, more revenue to be distributed to member NCAA institutions and their athletic conferences.

When climate promises become greenwashing

The inherent conflict between maximizing profit through growth and minimizing environmental footprint presents a dilemma for sports.

Several sport organizations have promised to reduce their impact on the climate, including signing up for initiatives like the United Nations Sports for Climate Action Framework.

However, as sports tournaments and exhibition games expand, it can become increasingly hard for sports organizations to meet their climate commitments. In some cases, groups making sustainability commitments have been accused of greenwashing, suggesting the goals are more about public relations than making genuine, measurable changes.

For example, FIFA’s early claims that it would hold a “fully carbon-neutral” World Cup in Qatar in 2022 were challenged by a group of European countries that accused soccer’s world governing body of underestimating emissions. The Swiss Fairness Commission, which monitors fairness in advertising, considered the complaints and determined that FIFA’s claims could not be substantiated.

Aviation is often the biggest driver of emissions. A study that colleagues and I conducted on the NCAA men’s basketball tournament found about 80% of its emissions were connected to travel. And that was after the NCAA began using the pod system, which is designed to keep teams closer to home for the first and second rounds.

Finding practical solutions

Some academics, observing the rising emissions trend, have called for radical solutions like the end of commercialized sports or drastically limiting who can attend sporting events, with a focus on fans from the region.

These solutions are frankly not practical, in my view, nor do they align with other positive developments. The growing popularity of women’s sports shows the challenge in limiting sports events – more games expands participation but adds to the industry’s overall footprint.

Further compounding the challenges of reducing environmental impact is the amount of fan travel, which is outside the direct control of the sports organization or event organizers.

Many fans will follow their teams long distances, especially for mega-events like the World Cup or the NCAA tournament. During the men’s World Cup in Russia in 2018, more than 840,000 fans traveled from other countries. The top countries by number of fans, after Russia, were China, the U.S., Mexico and Argentina.

There is an argument that distributed sporting events like March Madness or the World Cup can be better in some ways for local environments because they don’t overwhelm a single city. However, merely spreading the impact does not necessarily reduce it, particularly when considering the effects on climate change.

How fans can cut their environmental footprint

Sport organizations and event planners can take steps to be more sustainable and also encourage more sustainable choices among fans. Fans can reduce their environmental impact in a variety of ways. For example:

• Avoid taking airplanes for shorter distances, such as between FIFA venues in Philadelphia, New York and Boston, and carpool or take Amtrak instead. Planes can be more efficient for long distances, but air travel is still a major contributing factor to emissions.

• While in a host city, use mass transit or rent electric vehicles or bicycles for local travel.

• Consider sustainable accommodations, such as short-term rentals that might have a smaller environmental footprint than a hotel. Or stay at a certified green hotel that makes an effort to be more efficient in its use of water and energy.

• Engage in sustainable pregame and postgame activities, such as choosing local, sustainable food options, and minimize waste.

• You can also pay to offset carbon emissions for attending different sporting events, much like concertgoers do when they attend musical festivals. While critics question offsets’ true environmental benefit, they do represent people’s growing awareness of their environmental footprint.

Through all these options, it’s clear that sports face a significant challenge in addressing their environmental impacts and encouraging fans to be more sustainable, while simultaneously trying to meet ambitious business and environmental targets.

In my view, a sustainable path forward will require strategic, yet genuine, commitment by the sports industry and its fans, and a willingness to prioritize long-term planetary health alongside economic gains – balancing the sport and sustainability.

Brian P. McCullough does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. When big sports events like FIFA World Cup expand, their climate footprint expands too – https://theconversation.com/when-big-sports-events-like-fifa-world-cup-expand-their-climate-footprint-expands-too-259437

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Michael J. Socolow, Professor of Communication and Journalism, University of Maine

It was a surrender widely foreseen. For months, rumors abounded that Paramount would eventually settle the seemingly frivolous lawsuit brought by President Donald Trump concerning editorial decisions in the production of a CBS interview with Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris in 2024.

On July 2, 2025, those rumors proved true: The settlement between Paramount and Trump’s legal team resulted in CBS’s parent company agreeing to pay $16 million to the future Donald Trump Library – the $16 million included Trump’s legal fees – in exchange for ending the lawsuit. Despite the opinion of many media law scholars and practicing attorneys who considered the lawsuit meritless, Shari Redstone, the largest shareholder of Paramount, yielded to Trump.

Redstone had been trying to sell Paramount to Skydance Media since July 2024, but the transaction was delayed by issues involving government approval.

Specifically, when the Trump administration assumed power in January 2025, the new Federal Communications Commission had no legal obligation to facilitate, without scrutiny, the transfer of the CBS network’s broadcast licenses for its owned-and-operated TV stations to new ownership.

The FCC, under newly installed Republican Chairman Brendan Carr, was fully aware of the issues in the legal conflict between Trump and CBS at the time Paramount needed FCC approval for the license transfers. Without a settlement, the Paramount-Skydance deal remained in jeopardy.

Until it wasn’t.

At that point, Paramount joined Disney in implicitly apologizing for journalism produced by their TV news divisions.

Earlier in 2025, Disney had settled a different Trump lawsuit with ABC News in exchange for a $15 million donation to the future Trump Library. That lawsuit involved a dispute over the wording of the actions for which Trump was found liable in a civil lawsuit brought by E. Jean Carroll.

It’s not certain what the ABC and CBS settlements portend, but many are predicting they will produce a “chilling effect” within the network news divisions. Such an outcome would arise from fear of new litigation, and it would install a form of internal self-censorship that would influence network journalists when deciding whether the pursuit of investigative stories involving the Trump administration would be worth the risk.

Trump has apparently succeeded where earlier presidents failed.

Presidential pressure

From Jimmy Carter trying to get CBS anchor Walter Cronkite to stop ending his evening newscasts with the number of days American hostages were being held in Iran to Richard Nixon’s administration threatening the broadcast licenses of The Washington Post’s TV stations to weaken Watergate reporting, previous presidents sought to apply editorial pressure on broadcast journalists.

But in the cases of Carter and Nixon, it didn’t work. The broadcast networks’ focus on both Watergate and the Iran hostage crisis remained unrelenting.

Nor were Nixon and Carter the first presidents seeking to influence, and possibly control, network news.

President Lyndon Johnson, who owned local TV and radio stations in Austin, Texas, regularly complained to his old friend, CBS President Frank Stanton, about what he perceived as biased TV coverage. Johnson was so furious with the CBS and NBC reporting from Vietnam, he once argued that their newscasts seemed “controlled by the Vietcong.”

Yet none of these earlier presidents won millions from the corporations that aired ethical news reporting in the public interest.

Before Trump, these conflicts mostly occurred backstage and informally, allowing the broadcasters to sidestep the damage to their credibility should any surrender to White House administrations be made public. In a “Reporter’s Notebook” on the CBS Evening News the night of the Trump settlement, anchor John Dickerson summarized the new dilemma succinctly: “Can you hold power to account when you’ve paid it millions? Can an audience trust you when it thinks you’ve traded away that trust?”

“The audience will decide that,” Dickerson continued, concluding: “Our job is to show up to honor what we witness on behalf of the people we witness it for.”

Holding power to account

There’s an adage in TV news: “You’re only as good as your last show.”

Soon, SkyDance Media will assume control over the Paramount properties, and the new CBS will be on the airwaves.

When the licenses for KCBS in Los Angeles, WCBS in New York and the other CBS-owned-and-operated stations are transferred, we’ll learn the long-term legacy of corporate capitulation. But for now, it remains too early to judge tomorrow’s newscasts.

As a scholar of broadcast journalism and a former broadcast journalist, I recommend evaluating programs like “60 Minutes” and the “CBS Evening News” on the record they will compile over the next three years – and the record they compiled over the past 50. The same goes for “ABC World News Tonight” and other ABC News programs.

A major complicating factor for the Paramount-Skydance deal was the fact that “60 Minutes” has, over the past six months, broken major scoops embarrassing to the Trump administration, which led to additional scrutiny by its corporate ownership. Judged by its reporting in the first half of 2025, “60 Minutes” has upheld its record of critical and independent reporting in the public interest.

If audience members want to see ethical, independent and professional broadcast journalism that holds power to account, then it’s the audience’s responsibility to tune it in. The only way to learn the consequences of these settlements is by watching future programming rather than dismissing it beforehand.

The journalists working at ABC News and CBS News understand the legacy of their organizations, and they are also aware of how their owners have cast suspicion on the news divisions’ professionalism and credibility. As Dickerson asserted, they plan to “show up” regardless of the stain, and I’d bet they’re more motivated to redeem their reputations than we expect.

I don’t think reporters, editors and producers plan to let Donald Trump become their editor-in-chief over the next three years. But we’ll only know by watching.

Michael Socolow’s father, Sanford Socolow, worked for CBS News from 1956 to 1988.

– ref. ABC’s and CBS’s settlements with Trump are a dangerous step toward the commander in chief becoming the editor-in-chief – https://theconversation.com/abcs-and-cbss-settlements-with-trump-are-a-dangerous-step-toward-the-commander-in-chief-becoming-the-editor-in-chief-261006

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Aarushi Bhandari, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Davidson College

In 2001, social theorist bell hooks warned about the dangers of a loveless zeitgeist. In “All About Love: New Visions,” she lamented “the lack of an ongoing public discussion … about the practice of love in our culture and in our lives.”

Back then, the internet was at a crossroads. The dot-com crash had bankrupted many early internet companies, and people wondered if the technology was long for this world.

The doubts were unfounded. In only a few decades, the internet has merged with our bodies as smartphones and mined our personalities via algorithms that know us more intimately than some of our closest friends. It has even constructed a secondary social world.

Yet as the internet has become more integrated in our daily lives, few would describe it as a place of love, compassion and cooperation. Study after study describe how social media platforms promote alienation and disconnection – in part because many algorithms reward behaviors like trolling, cyberbullying and outrage.

Is the internet’s place in human history cemented as a harbinger of despair? Or is there still hope for an internet that supports collective flourishing?

Algorithms and alienation

I explore these questions in my new book, “Attention and Alienation.”

In it, I explain how social media companies’ profits depend on users investing their time, creativity and emotions. Whether it’s spending hours filming content for TikTok or a few minutes crafting a thoughtful Reddit comment, participating on these platforms takes work. And it can be exhausting.

Even passive engagement – like scrolling through feeds and “lurking” in forums – consumes time. It might feel like free entertainment – until people recognize they are the product, with their data being harvested and their emotions being manipulated.

Blogger, journalist and science fiction writer Cory Doctorow coined the term “enshittification” to describe how experiences on online platforms gradually deteriorate as companies increasingly exploit users’ data and tweak their algorithms to maximize profits.

For these reasons, much of people’s time spent online involves dealing with toxic interactions or mindlessly doomscrolling, immersed in dopamine-driven feedback loops.

This cycle is neither an accident nor a novel insight. Hate and mental illness fester in this culture because love and healing seem to be incompatible with profits.

Care hiding in plain sight

In his 2009 book “Envisioning Real Utopias,” the late sociologist Erik Olin Wright discusses places in the world that prioritize cooperation, care and egalitarianism.

Wright mainly focused on offline systems like worker-owned cooperatives. But one of his examples lived on the internet: Wikipedia. He argued that Wikipedia demonstrates the ethos “from each according to ability, to each according to need” – a utopian ideal popularized by Karl Marx.

Wikipedia still thrives as a nonprofit, volunteer-ran bureaucracy. The website is a form of media that is deeply social, in the literal sense: People voluntarily curate and share knowledge, collectively and democratically, for free. Unlike social media, the rewards are only collective.

There are no visible likes, comments or rage emojis for participants to hoard and chase. Nobody loses and everyone wins, including the vast majority of people who use Wikipedia without contributing work or money to keep it operational.

Building a new digital world

Wikipedia is evidence of care, cooperation and love hiding in plain sight.

In recent years, there have been more efforts to create nonprofit apps and websites that are committed to protecting user data. Popular examples include Signal, a free and open source instant messaging service, and Proton Mail, an encrypted email service.

These are all laudable developments. But how can the internet actively promote collective flourishing?

In “Viral Justice: How We Grow the World We Want,” sociologist Ruha Benjamin points to a way forward. She tells the story of Black TikTok creators who led a successful cultural labor strike in 2021. Many viral TikTok dances had originally been created by Black artists, whose accounts, they claimed, were suppressed by a biased algorithm that favored white influencers.

TikTok responded to the viral #BlackTikTokStrike movement by formally apologizing and making commitments to better represent and compensate the work of Black creators. These creators demonstrated how social media engagement is work – and that workers have the power to demand equitable conditions and fair pay.

This landmark strike showed how anyone who uses social media companies that profit off the work, emotions and personal data of their users – whether it’s TikTok, X, Facebook, Instagram or Reddit – can become organized.

Meanwhile, there are organizations devoted to designing an internet that promotes collective flourishing. Sociologist Firuzeh Shokooh Valle provides examples of worker-owned technology cooperatives in her 2023 book, “In Defense of Solidarity and Pleasure: Feminist Technopolitics in the Global South.” She highlights the Sulá Batsú co-op in Costa Rica, which promotes policies that seek to break the stranglehold that negativity and exploitation have over internet culture.

“Digital spaces are increasingly powered by hate and discrimination,” the group writes, adding that it hopes to create an online world where “women and people of diverse sexualities and genders are able to access and enjoy a free and open internet to exercise agency and autonomy, build collective power, strengthen movements, and transform power relations.”

In Los Angeles, there’s Chani, Inc., a technology company that describes itself as “proudly” not funded by venture capitalists. The Chani app blends mindfulness practices and astrology with the goal of simply helping people. The app is not designed for compulsive user engagement, the company never sells user data, and there are no comments sections.

No comments

What would social media look like if Wikipedia were the norm instead of an exception?

To me, a big problem in internet culture is the way people’s humanity is obscured. People are free to speak their minds in text-based public discussion forums, but the words aren’t always attached to someone’s identity. Real people hide behind the anonymity of user names. It isn’t true human interaction.

In “Attention and Alienation,” I argue that the ability to meet and interact with others online as fully realized, three-dimensional human beings would go a long way toward creating a more empathetic, cooperative internet.

When I was 8 years old, my parents lived abroad for work. Sometimes we talked on the phone. Often I would cry late into the night, praying for the ability to “see them through the phone.” It felt like a miraculous possibility – like magic.

I told this story to my students in a moment of shared vulnerability. This was in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, so the class was taking place over videoconferencing. In these online classes, one person talked at a time. Others listened.

It wasn’t perfect, but I think a better internet would promote this form of discussion – people getting together from across the world to share the fullness of their humanity.

Efforts like Clubhouse have tapped into this vision by creating voice-based discussion forums. The company, however, has been criticized for predatory data privacy policies.

What if the next iteration of public social media platforms could build on Clubhouse? What if they brought people together and showcased not just their voices, but also live video feeds of their faces without harvesting their data or promoting conflict and outrage?

Raised eyebrows. Grins. Frowns. They’re what make humans distinct from increasingly sophisticated large language models and artificial intelligence chatbots like ChatGPT.

After all, is anything you can’t say while looking at another human being in the eye worth saying in the first place?

Aarushi Bhandari does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Is there any hope for the internet? – https://theconversation.com/is-there-any-hope-for-the-internet-259251