On a First Name Basis
A show dedicated to telling the human side of the stories surrounding the research at Boise State University.
On a First Name Basis
Beth Ramsey: The Jedi Archives Hold a Lesson for Our Digital Age
Beth Ramsey's journey from newspaper graphic artist to high school teacher to academic librarian didn't happen by accident. Her diverse career path perfectly positioned her to tackle one of today's most pressing issues: the unchecked spread of misinformation in our digital landscape.
What makes us so susceptible to false information? Ramsey explains how our ancient cognitive processes—designed for quick decision-making in simpler times—struggle with the overwhelming flow of digital content. Our tendency toward confirmation bias (readily accepting what aligns with existing beliefs) and motivated reasoning (finding flaws only in opposing viewpoints) leaves us vulnerable to manipulation, especially when content triggers strong emotional responses.
Through a Department of Homeland Security-funded project aimed at preventing domestic terrorism through media literacy, Ramsey trained undergraduate students to become "truth influencers" in their communities. Her approach avoids confrontation in favor of curiosity: "You're not going to change minds directly—you're helping people change their own minds" by creating space for self-reflection through thoughtful questions and genuine dialogue.
The science comparison is apt—just as scientific understanding evolves with new evidence, our approach to information should remain flexible and humble. Ramsey teaches practical skills anyone can use: slow down when encountering emotionally charged content; practice "lateral reading" by investigating sources in multiple tabs; recognize that even authoritative-looking charts and citations require verification; and deliberately break out of social media echo chambers.
Want to become more misinformation-resistant? Start with Wikipedia as a launching point (not a destination), use quotation marks in search engines to narrow results, and approach conversations as collaborative problem-solving rather than debates to win. As Ramsey puts it: "We're sowing seeds for people to grow themselves." Ready to cultivate a healthier information diet? May the facts be with you.
Welcome to On a First Name Basis, a podcast where we dive into the stories behind Boise State scholars. I'm Dr Chris Saunders, but please just call me Chris. I'm a faculty member here at Boise State and I'm excited to share with you some of the amazing stories of my colleagues, their journeys, the challenges they've overcome and the connections they're building right here in our communities. Supported by the Boise State Division of Research and Economic Development, this podcast is all about getting to know the people and their work. Join me as we explore the human side of the innovative blue-turf thinking happening at Boise State. Let's get to know each other more on a first-name basis. On today's episode, we have Associate Professor Elizabeth Ramsey from the Library at Boise State University. Welcome to the show, beth.
Beth:Hi, glad to be here.
Chris:So not all of our listeners would know this, because you probably haven't been on a Zoom call with Beth, but, as most of us learned during the pandemic, zoom backgrounds can tell you a lot about the person. And I remember the first time that I was on a Zoom call with Beth and her Zoom background is the Jedi Archives, which, as a Star Wars fan, instantly caught my attention. And it wasn't until I saw her give a presentation on her work that I realized that it was there for a purpose and that the Jedi Archives not just because she works in a library right, it is a part of her scholarly pursuits and her research that we're going to talk about today. So my first question to Beth so is it just a prop or are you really a Star Wars fan?
Beth:Well, the first movie came out when I was in high school, so this love is decades long in the making. I just saw Ahsoka. Oh, so excited. I'm going to go back and look at it again, because it's such a different experience now from in the theater. When you're sitting at home, you get distracted, and so I'm like, okay, we're going to look at this again real soon. Yeah.
Chris:I think it's an interesting time to be a Star Wars fan, both new fans and longtime fans, because there's so much content out there and it gets really divisive and I know when we've talked previously. Right, we talked about the new versus the old and you fell in love with the original. So did you see episode four in theaters?
Beth:Oh yes, oh yes. And the lines, the long, long lines, as it was discovered and people fell in love with it. And yeah, I just remember that scene where Luke is I think he's still on Tatooine and he's just looking out at the purple sky. And the John Williams soundtrack swell, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, and he's off on his adventures. John Williams' soundtrack swells Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do and he's off on his adventures. And yeah, just the newness of all the technology, all the special effects and the characters. I didn't care if they spoke in stilted, unnatural ways, I didn't care, I just was thrilled by it all. And Leah, you know Princess Leah there as a forceful, powerful woman.
Chris:And you talk about that discovery right, Because this movie gets released and it didn't have social media to pump it up right. Did people have any idea? Like, what was that like? Did people have any idea? Like, what was that like? Was it until people started watching it and then word got out of you've got to go to the theater and watch this thing, or was there?
Chris:a lot of hype prior.
Beth:There wasn't, there just wasn't that promotional machine so much you might have seen some advertisements on TV, but you were even limited on the amount of TV you were probably watching. There were maybe two channels or so. The amount of TV you were probably watching, there were maybe two channels or so. So and then as it got popular and the line started forming, then there was news. You know news stories about look, look at the explosion of what's been going on here and reviews and yeah, so it was a different kind of explosion than it is today, for sure Interesting.
Chris:And since we're not just talking about Star Wars idly although I could talk about Star Wars for a really long time there is a purpose to this, because Star Wars kind of follows you on your journey, your arc up until this point and what I found is right you have clear memories of what point in your life you're at when you watch that first movie. Do the other kind of movies have also? Are those touchstones? Can you think about, oh, when an episode one came out and that was such a big deal. Do you? Can you kind of benchmark that I I for when that was, that was early on in college and I remember that was my first experience with Long Lines and the hype and this big deal, because I wasn't born when that original episode came right, so this was my generation's like first opportunity to jump into that. Do you still have those benchmarks now of as the series has grown?
Beth:Yeah, and I try to withhold judgment. I know some folks were disappointed at the fourth one that was released.
Chris:They just, yeah, we couldn't get over Jar Jar Binks the elephant in the room or the gungan in the room is the case, maybe Jar Jar Binks divisive character, I think everyone would have been happy if he ended up being the Sith Lord in disguise of character. I think everyone would have been happy if he ended up being the Sith Lord in disguise. So I know, beyond Star Wars, I'll do another controversial question to you. So, because you've told me you're a fan of sci-fi, so Star Wars or Star Trek?
Beth:Well, my dad used to watch Star Trek and sometimes I would sneak out of bed and catch glimpses of it and I was enthralled. But some of it was a little frightening. I didn't quite get it. So I went back to it later and I love it, just for the over the top hamminess of Kirk and I love Spock and that feeling versus thinking and why humans need both, and yeah, Well, and I think I mean Star Trek has enjoyed its own kind of renaissance right of new movies, new timelines, new, a lot more TV shows, kind of in its own little pardon the pun, its own little universe here.
Chris:But it's very interesting and I have friends that I'm both.
Beth:Me too.
Chris:They're different. They speak to different audiences, they bring different things to the table. Picard if you haven't watched Picard, you should. It was amazing, it was for my, it was for next generation generation kind of kind of folks, um, so we'll, we'll get, we'll get back to star war. We'll, we'll, we'll bring star wars for a full circle here, um, but so we mentioned so you work in the library. Some would call you a librarian, um, but you haven't always been a librarian. So we talk right, this arch, this journey. So where was your Tatooine starting point? Where did you look across the and where did you start and where have you been and how have you gotten to this point?
Beth:My first career was as a graphic artist in newspapers and I just kind of fell into that as a job I was doing while I got my degree in journalism and I just stayed with it after I got that degree. But as it went on I could see computers kind of taking over a lot of the tasks that I enjoyed doing and I thought well, and I was intimidated by computers at the time. So I was like what's next? And looked around and thought maybe I'll take on a new language. And I've always been intrigued by Asian culture. Maybe there's something there.
Beth:I was living in Portland at the time, so there was a larger Asian population there. So I started a Japanese class at a local community college and within a year I was living in Japan and teaching English in a local high school. And within a year I was living in Japan and teaching English in a local high school. And it was great. It was a government-sponsored program, so I got a pretty soft landing compared to folks that just go on their own. And once that three-year contract was over, I went back and did a couple years in a language school and thought about settling there.
Beth:But things were going on in my family that made me think I better get back here, and so took those skills and became an English language teacher for quite a while, but eventually realized I'm going to have to live out of the trunk of my car because there's just not much full-time work there, um, but eventually realized I'm going to have to live out of the trunk of my car because there's just not not much full-time work there. So I wanted something stable, full-time, um, probably stay in academia, because I I've always been a school girl. I love yeah, love learning, love school. And so I got my master's in library science.
Beth:And here I am and so I got my master's in library science, and here I am,
Chris:so journalism to Japan teaching English. And then you came back and you're still teaching English, english as a second language course, yeah, okay. And then what level did you teach? Was this high school, was this college classes? When you first came back?
Beth:It was mostly adults. Yeah, a lot of students that wanted to attend American universities and needed to pass these exams to get in, so it was helping them prepare to become for university systems in America, as well as to prepare for the tests.
Chris:And so that was kind of, then, your introduction to, I guess, the academic atmosphere of being on a college campus. What drew you then to the library?
Beth:Well, I've always had this, you know, in that traditional sense of liberal education, of being so interested in so many different things, and it seemed like that a librarian was the catch-all where I could bring a lot of those interests together. And it's interesting because my previous jobs have worked in librarianship too. I've done some outreach and done graphic design for promotional pieces here in the library and I think about advertising and public relations in relation to promoting library work generally. And the ESL work definitely helps because it helps me make my instruction more accessible generally, to think beyond the traditional idea of, you know, a middle class student that just graduated from high school and had parents that were university graduates, and so I think that experience as an ESL teacher helps me think about the wide variety of learners we have at the university.
Chris:So kind of viewing how to approach learning from that different lens that each of the learners and I think about this in my classes that I teach of that I was taught in a certain way, from a certain perspective, but that doesn't mean that all my students are going to approach it from the same perspective. I did, and that's a very challenging thing.
Chris:So having those other skills, even, just you know, teaching someone who's approaching content from that. This is not their, their native tongue, right that? This is that their brains have to have to process that in a much different, in a much different way. So do you keep up on your Japanese skills?
Beth:Oh it's. It's kind of buried under other languages that I've learned and maybe use a little more. I did a little traveling and went to France and tried to get the French language out of my drawer and was like, oh hi, I pulled the Japanese out so it's back there in the dark recesses of my mind but a lot of it is gone. I tend to watch a lot of TikTok. I watch some Japanese language teachers there try to refresh it, but I'm back to that point where I can kind of understand what people are saying but it takes me a long time to figure out how to respond. All the little translational things have to happen in my brain. It's not automatic anymore.
Chris:So, how many languages do you speak?
Beth:Well, how many reasonably or at one time or another. Spanish and Japanese are probably the prime ones, but I adore French, and so I've studied that a little bit too.
Chris:And as I'm sitting here thinking about we've talked about already a whole variety of things which to me is kind of appropriate for a librarian, right Of that idea of why the library? Because you can kind of study anything and everything, right, kind of all the subjects are your purview, which has got to be kind of fun. Right Of being at the center at that. And so let's kind of then segue into your research, your recent research, and it's important that full disclaimer. So it wasn't until I had my first teaching position on a college campus that I came to the realization that so librarians on college campuses are professors. They hold the rank of assistant professor, associate professor, full professor, the same ranks that we see with tenure track faculty. Librarians are tenure track faculty. Right, you have tenure, yes.
Beth:Yes, I do. Yeah, but every library is different.
Chris:Okay, so it's not-.
Beth:It's not the same. They're not guaranteed tenure track. They might be a weird little hybrid or they might be staff.
Chris:Interesting. They're not guaranteed tenure track. They might be a weird little hybrid or they might be staff. Well, all the campuses that I've worked on they hold faculty rank and tenure, and I hadn't really thought about that. My definition of a librarian was shaped by my experiences as a child in elementary school and the librarian that worked at the elementary school or the public library librarian, and I didn't really think about librarians doing research or scholarly activity right, they were the helpful people this is how my son would describe, right, the people that helped me find the books that I need.
Chris:And I think that, while that's a limiting thing, it is also a part of what good librarians do is they know how to access information, how to find information, good information that will help you, not lead you astray.
Chris:Thousands of years of the kind of the original keepers of knowledge of. You know these repositories of nods, the Library of Alexandria, for example, kind of that one of the first historians may correct me here one of the first and largest collections of information across the world, all in one place, which then is problematic if that place gets destroyed. And it's all in one place. But you know so kind of these original scholars when we talk about scholarly activity. Librarians have been at that for a long time, so it makes sense that librarians would continue to do that work, to not just help you find the book that you need, but to go beyond that. So to loop back in that Star Wars. We said that you use that Star Wars as an analogy, as a catch, right, the Jedi Archive isn't just there because you're a Star Wars fan and you're a librarian. So give us that connection, so bring us from the Jedi Archives to what your current scholarly activity looks like to what your current scholarly activity looks like.
Beth:Well, I'll give you the example that I use from Star Wars, where Obi-Wan Kenobi goes to the Jedi archives looking for information on the planet Kamino and he finds nothing. And the archivist is like well, we hold the entirety of knowledge in the galaxy, so if it's not there, it must not exist. Well, later on we find out that it was deliberately deleted. So I use that to make the point that even in galaxies far, far away, disinformation is a problem.
Beth:So that's my research
Chris:and that brings us to your research is the research of disinformation, and I think that, as we dive into that, a key distinction we want to make is disinformation versus misinformation, and I think a lot of us, casually, will use those words interchangeably and for a lot of things. That's fine to do so, but in this case it's important to make a distinction, and I think we can hold the Star Wars analogy right. It wasn't an accident that that information was removed and it's also important. It was the mind of a child, right that figured out that. Well, it's still there, whether or not it's in the archive or not. But so explain to those listening what is the in your research, what is the difference between disinformation and misinformation?
Beth:So a lot of researchers distinguish it by intent, that there is deliberate intent behind disinformation. It's often for power or for money or just to cause mischief. Or for money or just to cause mischief. And while misinformation is more on the lines of your grandma forwarding this picture she saw on Facebook that showed that dinosaurs are still alive on earth, and she had no bad intent, she was just surprised and interested in that and so thought she would share it. So that's misinformation. But some researchers are saying we cannot always be sure of the intent behind it, so they tend to choose one or the other. So the recent article that I wrote, I chose misinformation just because yeah.
Chris:So you chose misinformation as a label for something as the label for all information that's verifiably inaccurate. Oh, okay, so, and for you that's regardless of intent, you're just going to. We're going to call it all misinformation, and so I'd imagine, then, the strategies that we'll talk about kind of apply to both, that you can apply the same tools independent of the intent.
Beth:Yes, okay, yes.
Chris:And again, I think that's a good distinction, right, because when I think about it, do you have to handle them differently? Do I handle misinformation differently than disinformation differently? Do I handle misinformation differently than disinformation? Could Obi-Wan have solved the problem in the same way whether it had been accidentally deleted or purposefully deleted? And I think you can make the argument he solves the problem right Like he goes there anyway. The intent matters. In the story arc of ooh, it's more malicious, right, this was hidden on purpose, but you can still combat it in the same ways. Would you agree with that?
Beth:Yes, I tend to use the disinformation, malicious intent as a motivator, just because disinformation is such a source of division in our society right now is such a source of division in our society right now, and so in my efforts, my teaching and even in the article that I'm getting published, I talk about the importance of people understanding our innate biases, in the hope that that can help them. See, oh, we're all subject to this and there are some systems and some organizations and some people that are trying to take advantage of our vulnerabilities. So let's come together and do something about it. Or I should try and be better and help my friends be better in interacting with information online. That's my dream. With information online, that's my dream.
Beth:And basically, our cognitive processes are not able to deal with the internet, the speed and the amount of information we're presented with. We've got systems of thinking that helped us survive for millennia but are working against us now. I mean, we think we process information pretty quickly, we categorize it quickly so that we can make decisions quickly, and that's a mistake with online information. It can lead to confirmation bias because we're like, oh okay, that confirms something I already thought Good, it's good to go, move on Next thing, or motivated reasoning oh that conflicts with what I believe, so I'm going to find out how it's wrong, rather than thinking, oh that conflicts with what I believe. Could something I believe be wrong, we're motivated to find out. Oh, that's got to be right, and you can find stuff to confirm any kind of thing that you believe these days. And so that can lead to extremism, which is a component of my work too Right, and so recently, Homeland Security funded this project right.
Chris:And its intent was to combat disinformation and then its ties to extremism. So can you explain, kind of, what was the call for research from Homeland Security? What was the pitch that your group made, because it wasn't just you it was a group of folks and kind of what did that process look like?
Beth:Well, the grant project is actually to prevent domestic terrorism.
Chris:Interesting. So, in terms of using disinformation as a way to recruit, develop kind of tap into Incite violence.
Beth:Yeah, so that was the angle that I got in on and this was the leader of the project is a political scientist, so of course he's naturally and he's always his research interests are in violence and political terrorism and those kinds of things.
Beth:And we are working with folks in the GIM Lab Gaming and Interactive Media. So we proposed to develop a game that could be deployed with the help of the Wasmuth Center at the Anne Frank Memorial, and the game is devoted to talking about the misinformation and the propaganda that was in use during World War II and then at the end of this game that they go and play, they're offered the opportunity to get in touch with my disinfo squad if they're interested in learning more about disinformation in the current age and tactics to kind of be better about avoiding that. So my disinfo squad was a group of undergrads and trained them up in the most recent ideas about how to counteract disinformation and then deployed them out as social media influencers and educators and that project just ended this summer. But I'm continuing that work and kind of getting out to the community and talking about the project and things we can do. So things we can do so that's interesting.
Chris:So things we can do. So how, at an organized level? How do you combat disinformation? So you trained up these undergrads, so what do they do? I mean you can't force people from not posting, right. The country has talked a lot about that, of what you can and cannot do, and we have First Amendment rights and what can you say, what not. So how do you? How, in a structured way, did you approach combating disinformation?
Beth:Well, communication theory was also a part of it, because that's essential when you're approaching folks that have beliefs that are based on non-scientific information and often those people are related to us in some way socially, and so that can be problematic and you don't want to slap somebody with the truth because that's going to make tend to make folks dig in their heels.
Beth:If you want to talk to somebody about the things they believe that seem to be based on inaccurate information, it's best to ask questions and to approach people with a genuine sense of wonder and curiosity Well, how did you come to think that? Or what is the basis of that? Or what do you think about this? To engage in uncovering the humanity underlying the belief is really important, because some research is saying that when folks have the opportunity to discuss why they believe what they believe, that gives open a little wedge, shines a little light on that belief, and then maybe ultimately they can question that and they can start change their own mind. It's important not to think you're going to go out and change minds. You are just helping people change their own minds. That choice right, that self-direction.
Chris:So you know, social media influencer really that word influence right Of you're not changing them. You are creating opportunity for them to change themselves. That intrinsic ability to do that. So did your disinfo squad, did your undergraduate. Did they meet with success? Did they I'm not going to say change minds? Did they help some people to change their mind? Was there evidence in the project that they were successful?
Beth:We think so by the interactions we had with some of our social media posts and the comments we got in the programming that we had, we saw evidence of those light bulb moments oh, I didn't know that really. Or through the questions that people asked us and I told my students this is not something where you're going to see automatic, oh, change the world. I said we're sowing seeds for people to grow themselves. That's what we're doing. We're basically not going to positively see the effects. We can just keep sowing the seeds and setting an example ourselves to help people slow down, be kind, maybe develop some intellectual humility. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe develop some intellectual humility.
Chris:You know, maybe I was wrong, and the way you describe it is very. I'm sure that there's some people that are more cynical. I'm. I can be cynical to, we all can.
Chris:It's an easy day and age to be cynical about things, right, but you, you talk about this in a way that is hopeful and it is positive, which I think is really contrary to a lot of what we hear and exposed to, and I think that it's important to hear that positivity and hope, but also realistic.
Chris:Right Of that, you told your students you're not going to have all these people saying, oh, you changed my life, right, you're planting seeds For me.
Chris:I think of it as when I teach my students they may not come to appreciate chemistry right now, you might be grumpy because you have to study for an exam, but my hope is that little ripples in a pond and that somewhere along the way something clicks and they pass on this knowledge to somebody else, and so I would imagine you plant these seeds and the seeds that grow. Not all of them will. That's why you sow a lot of seeds and not all of them are going to bloom, but that some of those will also become like is is the hope that you it just in the way that disinformation, misinformation is propagated, that we propagate these tools and kindness right Of that, almost to pay it forward, kind of thing of that. If you teach someone to do this, that maybe they'll then also get their direct social contacts to rethink. There Is that kind of part of the you can't talk to everybody, but you talk to some people and they talk to some more people and then more people are talking to each other.
Beth:And I've even seen it exemplified. Some students in a University Foundations class were discussing immigration, which can be pretty contentious, but I saw a student just sit there and talk with a peer, just ask questions Really. Well, what did you think about that article? We read when they said something different, and just gently. You know this Socratic method of asking question after question and not in a kind of attorney kind of fashion, more in a I want to understand you.
Chris:And was this a student? That was part of your disinfo squad.
Beth:No, this was the very beginnings of this idea of I want to do some more work on disinformation and I taught a university foundations class and used this kind of I want to do some more work on disinformation and I taught a university foundations class and used this kind of standard checklist when they were doing their own research and immediately saw evidence that that little checklist was not sufficient, that their biases were so strong that I needed some other kind of learning opportunities for them to be able to find resources that got beyond those biases, that really addressed the issues in a factual manner rather than emotional manner in this conversation.
Chris:this is, this is a. This is a tough one because before the internet, before this information, golden age, right the sources that we relied on were more curated than they are now. And and in terms of you know, when I was doing a research project when early, early school, you know it was the school library, with the help of the librarian, and those book collections were more curated. But also the internet was the Britannic encyclopedia at home if you were lucky to have one or had a friend and you could borrow that. And those were written. I mean, they have their disadvantages you can't update them, no-transcript.
Chris:You go to the fiction section if you want make-believe. But now you search for sources of something right. So, say, someone like grandma sends you something interesting, a picture, like, ooh, is that true? And now you pop into your favorite search engine, right, you don't go to the library and ask the librarian hey, my grandma sent me this. And you do a Google search and right there, now there's already biases, because your browser knows some things about you, about what you are tending to look for, and it's gonna find things. Again, there's a whole I've got friends in the tech industry that talk about how do you get your search on the top, and it's not because it's going to be the most helpful thing to you, it's because they want you to click, click that link. And so we have all these sources and there's no fiction and nonfiction sense section on the internet.
Chris:There's there's no label. There's some places where we've tried to make labels of this is untrue and people take some issues with that. But how? So, if we want to combat disinformation, how do we find good sources without it being this like you need a master's or a PhD in library sciences to figure out what all these sources? I myself, I run into the same issue of are these legitimate sources?
Beth:Yeah, and this is a toughie because it takes some fact-checking and that takes some time, and we interact with online information so superficially we scroll and swipe and don't think very long about what we're interacting with. So this is maybe the hard part of the thing I'm trying to do is to help people be more intentional, slow down a little bit, do what researchers are calling lateral reading, where, if you see a site and you're interested in it, open up some other tabs and start looking at the publisher, the authors, their associations, their funding, so that you get a sense of the network of information that this resource comes from, because it's rarely black and white. It's not true or false. The really good purveyors of disinformation are using kernels of truth and presenting the information in ways that we maybe think are authoritative, like charts, graphs, citations. Those are not necessarily indicators of credibility. You've got to double check where those charts and graphs are coming from. Are they portrayed accurately, because there's a lot of shenanigans with, yeah, charts and graphs, the citations. Are they self citing? Are they citing other people from their organization?
Beth:We teach this lateral reading. All students at Boise State are required in their freshman or sophomore year to take a little library micro course and we teach lateral reading and are discovering a dearth of critical thinking that I'm hoping that we can support and develop a little more. Support and develop a little more. We use a source that is presenting information on renewable energy but in fact is from an organization that is funded in part by Exxon and other big oil organizations and is described as a front for the fossil fuel industry.
Beth:Some students read that and think that's an indicator of credibility because they're associated with an industry. So we have to. For those responses we have to say if you don't understand the meaning of this, please do some lateral reading, some fact checking. What does it mean to be a front for an industry? So we are learning so much by we hand grade these and there are thousands of them. So I think we're having a little impact locally on people's ability to deal with disinformation just by teaching that fact checking and that Wikipedia is your friend and those instances. I use it when I'm at the front desk.
Chris:So so that that that's a great resource of like. So, if you want a good source, so I and I've had this conversation with people right, well, wikipedia it's online, it's, so it's open. Anyone can edit it. Surely it's not a credible source, but you're saying it is a credible source. Can you like? Why Wikipedia? I have some thoughts. Yeah, well, I'll see if you confirm my biases.
Beth:Yeah, as a starting point it is not your ending point, but as a starting point, because they are. It is edited, it is curated both by technology and by human editors, and those are important pieces for professional information organizations, and you will almost always get an indicator at the top of the page whether there is some problem with the information and how it's presented, and you will also see citations on the bottom and you will also see citations on the bottom. So when I'm sitting at the front desk and have a student coming who's trying to investigate some astronomer and a discovery they made, I'm going to put the astronomer's name in quotation marks because that forces it to search for those words in that exact order. Works on Google. Works on databases.
Chris:Yeah, I was going to say does that work in pretty much any search engine.
Chris:So quotation marks, and then that forces it to
Beth:Around a phrase, okay, and then it or a name,
Chris:see your librarian can teach you many, many things
Beth:.
Beth:And then I follow it by Wikipedia and it takes me to the Wikipedia page on an organization and gives me the rundown. Yeah, or you can look at SourceWatch or InfluenceWatch. There are a number of media watch fact-checking sites that can help you out Locally. On the NBC network we see oh, there's a fact-checking Verify. They do it almost every time. So if you want something a little more local, that's a place to go. Okay, Okay.
Chris:Yeah, no, and that's so, in thinking about this right, the specifying the phrase and where you want to go on your search engine, you're kind of, you are circumventing all of those algorithmic things that are designed to feed into you and your own browser history. Right, so that you don to feed into you and your own browser history. Right, so you don't feed into your own biases. That's really a simple thing that we could all do. Right, like who likes sifting through a million different searches and trying to like this is not what I search for. Why is this on on the top of it of quotation marks around the phrase and then Wikipedia, and that will at least start you there.
Chris:Good to know. I had a colleague at another institution that did something with Wikipedia with his students of science disinformation and he said, as a part of the project, they changed something in an entry in Wikipedia, so they edited something and they made it wrong and they saw how long it took and it was surprisingly short turnaround before someone checked it and was like no, and recheck it. So you almost have trolls out. Trolling the trolls right, of people that really make this their maybe not life's work, but they have a passion for correcting mistake and checking that yeah.
Beth:And that's. I think that's something that a lot of researchers are kind of focused on is this platform governance? How can we make information providers responsible for the harmful information that they're providing? And it is a real dicey proposition because you get, as you mentioned at the beginning, you get into First Amendment rights, and that's a tremendous responsibility to decide who gets to say what where. So that's why I would rather give people the tools to use for themselves so they can navigate whatever murk that they're out there in.
Chris:And I think that that's an important thing and I think that that's most people trust themselves to some to some degree or want to trust themselves.
Chris:It is sometimes easier to trust others, right, but be careful. Who who you trust and what? What do you? What do you trust? It's kind of like you know. So I'm going to go buy something on Amazon and it's from some company that I've never heard of and for the most part, you know. What do we all do? We go look at the reviews and if there's only one review and it's five star, for me that's instant. Like yeah, I don't know about that, right. But if there's a lot of reviews and there's the kind of averages out to something positive, even if there's some negative ones in there, to me I feel like that's a more accurate depiction of what it is that I'm doing. But if everything is really good or everything is really bad, I kind of question where is that kind of the same, that same thing.
Beth:Most of us engage in some fact checking whenever we're going to make a major purchase of some kind, something that means a lot to us, yeah.
Chris:So when we slow down right Rarely of like, okay, I'm going to go spend $1,000 on something, I'm not the kind of person who's like, oh yep, the first thing I look at that's the one I buy, right? So that even applies here. Slow down, right, If we can just slow down. Even if it sounds too good to be true right, there's truth in that phrase. It might be too good to be true, or too, if it, it confirms what you deeply stop, pause and kind of does this sound legitimate and do your research?
Beth:or if it incites, some strong emotion because a lot of information is geared up to incite uh, fear and anger. Those are two of the strongest emotions we are capable of, and they can interfere with our logic, for sure.
Chris:Guilt too right. Like some people ask for money for things, right. They cue into this if you don't do this, you're a bad person, right? And they turn it into a black and white thing of either you do this wonderful thing and you're good, or you don't do it and you're bad. A good example is every time I go, like to Petco or somewhere right, Like do you?
Chris:want to help homeless pets and the question itself, right, has boxed into a corner of like. Of course I would like to help, like, do you right? Like I always feel like such a jerk if I say no and it's like it's not that I don't feel like such a jerk if I say no and it's like it's not that I don't it's. You know, I donated last term or I or I support it in another way. But it forces us into black and white good versus evil, dark side of the force, light side of the force, right. But can we appreciate Ahsoka is the gray Jedi right Of that, that you can exist, that there is nuance there and that there's problematic thinking on both sides of whether you're talking about particularly polarizing issues, scientifically or politically right. It's really tempting to always go to the political spectrum of extremes on both sides, which your research right, homeland security right, extremisms on both sides is dangerous if you don't see the nuance of that in between.
Beth:Absolutely, and in these times when things are changing rapidly and seemingly constantly, it's natural to want an answer that you can rely on. But that's rarely possible, and it certainly isn't possible with science, because science is all about learning more. So this is what we know now, and that can be really frustrating for some people who want clear, cut answers. Oh, absolutely.
Chris:The pandemic taught us a lot of lessons most of them uncomfortable lessons and I remember sitting there as a scientist and I had a lot of friends who asked me about the science and one answer I always had was I am not the scientist of everything and this is I can tell you what I think.
Chris:But I'm not an expert in COVID Very few people are. I can tell you what I think based on my knowledge of science, but I had to be really careful with you know kind of, but also communicating of my trust in the scientific process and I had conversations with people saying this is the first time during kind of the information age I think, that we had this. The scientific process was really on display of what science was all about and it was, I think, in contrast and conflict with what other people thought it was, and they wanted all the scientists to say all the same answer and be confident in that answer. And people were really bothered when the answers changed and I remember talking to people about that, and students as well, of saying this is how science like working as intended. This is not a someone screwed up, this is science regulating itself of with this current information. This is what we think and then going oh, we have new information and we were wrong. And science is.
Chris:I talk about science like it has feelings, but science's ability or desire to correct itself, and I think that that's a really important point that if science one or the right one, but pay attention to consensus of things, I think that's important, because you know who and how many and how loudly. Are people right? Are they using those tactics to frighten you or anger you as opposed to well, this is the science, this is what we understand, and it may change right and I, and I think again, it's the scientific process.
Chris:We don't like to theme it. It can be, it can feel and look messy sometimes because it's not neat tidy answers and there are confidence intervals and statistics and all of these things that most people don't have to encounter all the time. And so the scientist, for them, it's their language and and and I, the record right. Although there's really not a record on the show, I think that a lot of scientists I hope that the scientific community learned that we need to be better communicators of what we do and that the expectation of I tell you a thing, you trust that thing that doesn't cut it, and that we need to engage in dialogue that is accessible and meaningful and teach others what we do, and that this is the process and the answers change because our understanding changes and we would love it if we came to the right answer the first time, but that just you know.
Chris:The moment someone comes up with an answer, the expectation is that all the other scientists are going to try to figure out if you're wrong or not. Yes, and that's great, right, we're all fact checking each other so that one person doesn't get to say this is truth and this is fact. Yes, yes, exactly so the the after, so the after effects of this project. So so one did the department of Defense kind of get the information they were looking for in this. Are they looking for more work? So how did that wrap up? And then, where is it going now? And how is that work perpetuating?
Beth:they've gotten an extension because game development takes a long time, longer than the year we were allotted. So my part, my squad has moved on. Some have graduated and stuff, but I'm continuing that work by speaking wherever folks want me to come and speak. I taught the advanced placement classes, all of them at Timberline High, so seven classes there. That was great. I really loved interacting with them. Gave me hope. I've also presented to professional organizations I'm available for anybody that wants to discuss this project some remedies for what they're seeing or their ideas for what we could do differently, because I'm always open to that.
Chris:And that is a wonderful kind of sentiment of and I know you and I have talked about this previously of the power of local community, right, that you don't need to solve all the world's problems, but if local communities can talk to each other about things that are of local importance to all of us, even if they're confrontational, if we can have those curious conversations about, well, why do you feel that way? Or where are you getting this information? And here's where I'm getting my information, and where might both of our information be not the best place? Let's go solve problems together, right?
Beth:I know I'm so glad you said that because I heard this greatest phrase go into these conversations not feeling like you need to win an argument, but you're working to solve a problem. You're solving something together by asking somebody about beliefs that you don't understand or you think maybe be based on lies.
Chris:And that's so important, so challenging. Though None of what we talk about is easy, because it forces us also to give, to give up something, and that's hard to do and to be like I might be wrong or I might have been misled by something. That's hard right, the ego, right Our brain. Psychologically, our brain wants to protect our infallible, perfect nature of I know everything. This feels good, so it must be right. But solving problems feels good too, I would argue. It's more challenging. But when you get to that point, what a much better feeling versus. I won this argument by tearing down the other side. You might short-term triumphant, but long-term, I would argue, not as satisfying right.
Chris:And challenging things oftentimes are more satisfying if it takes a lot more motivation to do this right. I tell my students the things that challenge you to learn, the things you struggled with, but then once you learn, those are the things that will stick with you for a really long time. The things that came easy to you and quickly probably won't stick with you in the same way. So maybe we can all make the goal of combating disinformation and misinformation, questioning those sources, doing that little bit of extra work, slowing down, which I think you can apply to so many things right Want to eat less.
Chris:Slow down. I'm guilty of that. I can eat a meal in five minutes and onto my next class and they're like. Did I remember to taste the food?
Chris:Taste the information right, is it save it right, so right, chew it slowly.
Chris:Hmm that has a little off flavor. Maybe this is past its expiration point, maybe there's something in here that I don't want. So pay attention to your information. Diet, there you go. Nutritional we don't want fast food Right, tastes good in the moment, satisfies us in the moment. Five minutes later, it's a crash and we're looking for the next snack. It's a crash and we're looking for the next snack. So I guess let's. Some people might still be wondering again what do I personally do? And so we've talked about so slow down okay.
Chris:So, especially if it elicits an emotional response, slow down. You would advocate start at Wikipedia, not as the end point, but as a roughly reliable starting point that links you to other reliable sources, and that things that might be problematic are already flagged for you. And in general, wikipedia does not have an agenda. It's kind of a here's the information, do with it what you will. What else? Anything else from your research, from your experience with students, the community, that you think are manageable and make a lasting difference?
Beth:Try to break out of your little echo chambers that are easily created on social media and elsewhere to explore other ideas, because we're social animals and we are much more inclined to believe the same things that people we respect and like and want to be liked by. We'll believe the same things rather than what an expert says Absolutely so. So, yeah, even even question within your own social circles that say this is true, be a questioner.
Chris:Yeah, so be curious whether you're questioning is the dark side of the force really the best use of my power, or did the Jedis have it all figured out or recognize that it's probably somewhere in the middle and that there are shades of gray and nuance in all things? Well, thank you very much, beth, for your time. I appreciate having you here. I hope that everyone listening found something of value and at least you questioned something today that maybe you normally didn't question.
Beth:It's been great to talk with you, Chris. May the facts be with you.
Chris:If you'd like to learn more about any of the topics discussed on today's show, please visit boisestateedu slash research. I want to give a special thanks to Albertson's Library on the campus of Boise State for the recording space. The theme music for this show was composed and engineered by Boise State graduates Alan Scriven and Taylor Ross. Thanks again for listening.