AISNSW Creating Cohesive Communities Podcast

Transcript

SNIPPET:

Sometimes, you know, during those times of uncertainty and anxiety, people sort of look for answers and look for simple solutions to really complex problems, and that's where conspiracy theories really come into play.

JULIA:

Welcome to the AISNSW Creating Cohesive Communities Podcast series developed by the Association of Independent Schools NSW.

My name is Julia Gyomber, and today we are joined by special guest Ramy, Project Coordinator from All Together Now.

Ramy’s Community cohesion journey started in the legal field before moving to youth and community work.

In 2016, Ramy commenced work for All Together now and was part of the founding team that developed a unique and innovative training package specifically for those working with youth to effectively engage and support young people at risk of embracing far right extremism or being recruited by far-right groups.

A one-of-a-kind in Australia, this training program continues today with the addition of other groundbreaking and relevant training programs such as the Agent C program.

The Agent C program was co-designed with young people for young people and addresses online hate as well as far right extremist conspiracy theories and misinformation, a notable and increasing trend during the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns.

Ramy continues to actively participate and contribute towards the growing body of research, training and community awareness raising on far-right extremism with universities, academics, colleagues and community organisations.

Before we begin, we would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands and airways in which we are meeting and broadcasting today as we share our learning, we also pay respect to elders both past and present, as it is their knowledge and experiences that holds the key to the success of our future generations.

Welcome Ramy!

RAMY:

Hi Julia. Thanks for having me on the podcast today. Nice to be here.

JULIA:

So wonderful that you can be part of this. Thank you so much. Ramy, can you tell our audience more about what a conspiracy theory is and why there has been a sharp increase in recent years, particularly with social media feeds and across social media platforms?

RAMY:

Thanks for that question. So yeah, look, a a conspiracy theory is basically, as the name sort of suggests, a theory or a hypothesis about some sort of conspiracy taking place between two or more actors and usually with some sort of harmful or malicious intent. You can sort of think of it as this belief that an event or a situation is being secretly manipulated behind the scenes by some sort of powerful or shadowy actors and, as I mentioned, usually with some sort of negative or malicious intent.

And usually, from looking at different conspiracy theories, they tend to have a few things in common. So usually there's some sort of alleged secret plot. There's a group of conspirators, and then there's evidence that seems to support the conspiracy theory and I use that term, evidence, sort of loosely because a lot of conspiracy theories rely on sort of unverifiable evidence, and that's one of the issues with some conspiracy theories.

And I guess the other thing about conspiracy theories, is that they sort of divide the world and look at the world in this sort of binary way in terms of just good or bad. This sort of black and white approach to seeing the world, and they often sort of scapegoat people and groups.

And having said that, I think it's important to acknowledge that there are, in fact, real conspiracies out there and so many times and so often we see incidences of government cover ups, government corruption, things like that happening. So this is not to say that there isn't real conspiracies out there. What we're concerned with is being able to sort of verify evidence to support a particular theory. So that's kind of a little bit about what a conspiracy theory is.

But why we've sort of seen a a big increase and interest in conspiracy theories, especially online and on social media it's a really complex situation. There's so many factors at play as to why we've seen this sharp increase, you know, young people and people in general spending more and more time online. So, getting exposure to the online world and finding that sort of stuff online. I think, as well, as the sort of the varying socio political and economic factors that people find themselves in today has led to a lot of uncertainty and a lot of anxiety. Sometimes, you know, during those times of uncertainty and anxiety, people sort of look for answers and look for simple solutions to really complex problems, and that's where conspiracy theories really come into play. They sort of give you a simplified version of what's going on around in the world around you and this sort of black and white simplified version of events and situations, when in reality there are a lot more complex and, you know. We saw, you know, the COVID pandemic, people in lockdown, people feeling really isolated, really anxious., are really worried about the situation and so naturally we saw an explosion of conspiracy theories.

I think another reason as well is you know a lot of stuff's been happening over the last few years, and I think a lot of people feel let down by the system, by governments and that sort of thing. And again, people sort of look for answers to some of these things. And yeah, I think conspiracy theories are an easy thing to kind of latch on to during a really difficult time.

So yeah, it's a combination of a lot of things I think as well why people have really brought into conspiracy theories recently as well is that they do contain kernels of truths. And so that that that's how they can be effective is that they have kernels of truth, along with a lot of other problematic stuff and people sort of buy into that so.

JULIA:

Thank you for highlighting all the complexities there and, also how accessible it has been for many people over recent years, as you've highlighted and one of the things that I just wanted to ask about in regards to that, you know, I'm treading on this because it kind of makes everyone feel a little bit uneasy, is that notion about fake news, which was that really infamous term that was used during that Trump presidential reign. Can you tell us what is it and are there differences between fake news and disinformation?

RAMY:

Yeah, sure. So you know you're spot on there. That fake news that term is really being thrown around quite a lot in the last few years and really sort of came to prominence during Trump's presidential campaign and then his time in power.

But yeah, I mean, fake news is nothing new and. And you know, if you wanted a definition of fake news, you can basically think of it as, you know, false information or propaganda that gets published under the guise of being authentic news or being factual or being objective. So that that's what fake news is, and it's nothing new.

It's been around for a very, very long time and it's been so prominent throughout all of history. The main thing that's changed now is due to self-publishing and social media, is that fake news has become a lot more prominent and a lot easier to share and anyone can sort of make fake news. And so that's why we've seen an explosion of fake news.

I guess as well, you know, in our program and in Agent C, the way we look at fake news, what we take a pretty broad approach to that term. And so, I like to think of they can use as a bit of an umbrella term and sitting under that umbrella term are these other categories of fake news. So, you know, for example, in our program. We when we talk about fake news, we include, for example, things like satire and parody. We look at, you know, sponsored content. We look at propaganda and politically biased content. We look at things like clickbait, conspiracy theories, pseudoscience. So, they're all you can kind of think of them as different categories of fake news.

You can also think of fake news as a bit of a spectrum. So, all those different categories of fake news I just mentioned, some are obviously less harmful and less problematic than others. So, for example, satire and parody. That's the type of fake news. But you know, it's not. It's not something that's problematic or it's not something that's intended to cause harm. So, if we think it's fake news as being a bit of a spectrum, you know, on one end of the spectrum you have things like satire and parody or, you know, an error in reporting where a journalist has made a mistake. And then on the other side of that spectrum. You have more problematic types of fake news like conspiracy theories or pseudoscience or propaganda, and yeah.

You asked about, you know, the distinction between fake news and disinformation, I think probably a more useful way of thinking of that distinction is the distinction between disinformation and misinformation. And so those two words might sound the same, and they often get used interchangeably, but they actually mean quite different things.

So, misinformation is any sort of false information which gets shared for any reason, including accidentally. We've all been guilty of that. Maybe you saw something on your social media feed, a headline, and you shared the news story, and you didn't know and, later it turns out, you know, it had some misinformation, or it was fake. You had no intention of trying to mislead people. You just shared an article without doing the research turned out to be false. That is an example of misinformation.

Well, the flip side of that is disinformation. So, disinformation is any false information, which gets shared knowingly. So, there's an intent to share that information. There's an intent to actually mislead people there, and that's disinformation. So yeah, when people knowingly share the information, knowing that it's false and they share it. Anyway, and in fact the information has been written or designed to intentionally mislead people. So that's the distinction we like to make, yeah.

JULIA:

I think that's really important to clarify that, especially because they are used interchangeably. That notion around intent and that has a profound impact. And so in regards to that, what kind of impact do you think conspiratorial thinking has on communities as well as the well-being of young people?

RAMY:

Yeah, really good question. You know, it's funny that they are you when you ask about conspiratorial thinking, cause I do, I do believe that that there is perhaps sort of healthy and almost necessary level of conspiratorial thinking. What I mean by that, it's part of having a critical mindset. You know, having a sort of a a level of skepticism and questioning and suspicion, especially towards power and institutions and those and that sort of thing. There's a healthy level of skepticism and questioning.

I think, the conspiratorial mindset becomes problematic when you're engaging in sort of baseless conspiracy theories or things that you know are not verifiable and, you know, I think conspiracy theories that maybe target certain groups or certain types of people; they're the sort of problematic conspiracy theories we're referring to. And obviously, when someone starts engaging with those types of conspiracy theories. There’s the possibilities for conflict between different groups. You know, you have conspiracy theories at Target, for example, the Jewish community, the Muslim community, the LGBTQ community, those types of conspiracy theories definitely have the potential to sort of create disharmony in the community.

Also beliefs in some in some conspiracy theories can definitely impact young people's relationships, their mental and physical health, even their finances. You know, for example, if someone believes wind farms cause cancer, they might go out and spend a lot of money on bogus health cures, right? It could definitely have a a range of implications.

It can, and it can definitely lead to a lot of negative thinking for some people, especially for, you know, young people with particular vulnerabilities, you know, conspiracy, conspiratorial thinking can definitely have an impact on their mental health and well-being, I think.

As well for me and another issue with, you know, baseless conspiracies or you know that, that, that problematic conspiratorial thinking is that right now, it's really overwhelming to be a young person and I think young people are facing, they're facing so many challenges. They're facing so many obstacles. There's so many critical events and things happening around them, and they're facing so many problems in the modern world, and I think this is where conspiracy theories play a little bit of a role, is they almost hijack and co-opt young people's sense of dissatisfaction with the system, and they channeled it into. Into a more dangerous place rather than in a constructive way. It almost takes away from young people's agency to confront the issues that they actually need to confront and sort of takes that energy in the wrong direction, if that makes sense.

JULIA:

Absolutely. Yeah, Ramy, thank you. That was really quite in depth and quite detailed and really does cover all the aspects and angles about the impact of that conspiratorial. Thinking for young people.

You mentioned just before, Agent C, so I just wanted to find out a little bit more there. Why did you and the team at All Together Now see the need to create the Agent C program, especially since it is targeted specifically for young people? So, let's unpack that a bit. A bit more about. Yeah, and the need.

RAMY:

I mean the we really developed the Agent C program in response to. Do what was happening during COVID, no. So you know, during the pandemic we saw a lot of fire, right? Individuals and groups targeting young people there or online during the pandemic with all sorts of problematic, problematic narratives not necessarily related to COVID, but just other stuff.

And you know at ATM, we've been watching far right groups and individuals for nearly a decade now, and what we know about the fire right is that they are extremely opportunistic. So, they will use any situation to their advantage and COVID is no different and we really saw far right groups during the pandemic capitalizing on the situation and capitalising on that space in an attempt to target and recruit young people. So, the combination of young people being in lockdown and spending more and more time online with this renewed push by the far right to target and into its young people is basically why we developed Agent C in response to that.

And you know, we also kind of stole that and the impression we got from talking to teachers in schools is that they felt quite unsupported and almost to be helpless trying to address this issue with their students. So, there was really a need there.

JULIA:

And it just seems like there's a wealth of experience and knowledge, as you said, 10 years of following the themes and behaviours emerging with the far right.

In terms of the program, there is a component of critical thinking skills. So, just wanted you to sort of talk a bit about that, if that's possible? How are they the antidote to navigating conspiracy theories and the fake news and this disinformation?

RAMY:

Yeah, look, really good question. And then you know goes back to it a little bit about what I was talking about earlier about that conspiratorial mindset. It really does link a bit to critical thinking, and so, you know to critical thinking.

Critical thinking is basically just the kind of thinking where you as an individual, you question, you analyze, you interpret, you evaluate. And you make a judgment about what you read, what you hear, what you consume, what you say, or what you write. And you know, if you have good critical thinking, it's about making sort of reliable judgments based on reliable information.

It's not to say that someone who applies critical thinking is being negative or focusing on folds. It just means being able to clarify your thinking so that you can break down a problem or a piece of information, interpret it, and then use that interpretation to arrive at an informed decision or judgment. And we really try and build that that critical mindset with young people during this program.

If you have that sort of critical mindset, you as a young person, you're in a better position to navigate the wealth of information that's out there. Whatever you're consuming, whether it's conspiracy theories. Whether it's the Evening News on television or whatever it is. If you have that critical lens, you're going to be in a better position to sort of make a judgment and evaluation about whatever you're coming across, whether it's from the mainstream media or. Or from, you know, an influencer on social media.

And, I just want to emphasize something about how the program and our role with the program is that our job is not to teach young people what to think, what to believe or what to read. Our job is to give them the skills, the critical thinking skills for them to arrive at conclusions themselves, which is a much better position trying to tell them, “hey, this is what you need to believe.” I think that that's the best approach to empowering young people in this in this space, you know, telling young people that they need to think a particular way or believe a particular thing is definitely not the right approach. We want to put them in a position where they can arrive at those positions themselves and then they're gonna genuinely believe it rather than sort of just, you know, saying they believe something just to yeah.

JULIA:

What a powerful skill set to actually facilitate in in that process. And you know, you've touched upon that critical thinking skill set. Are there any other kinds of skills that students and also educators will take away from being part of this amazing program? What sort of practical strategies does the program provide to enhance those skill sets as well?

RAMY:

Yeah. Great. I'll. I'll talk about educators a little bit later. Agent C is more specifically for young people, ages 14 to 21. It's a series of workshops, as you already know. And yeah, we do cover quite a lot of things.

So, as mentioned, we do look at sort of critical thinking skills. We also spend quite a lot of time on media literacy and equipping young people with media literacy skills.

And then we also take the time to focus on sort of racial and intersectional literacy as well. And yeah, giving young people that sort of holistic understanding and how all those things kind of link together so yeah.

JULIA:

So you kind of were talking about how the program’s delivered. So, it's multi sessional with teachers and students. Did you want to just sort of clarify how that all works? Yeah, that would be amazing, yeah.

RAMY: The program consists of three workshops. They run from about an hour to an hour and a half each. The workshops are delivered by two facilitators delivered to young people. It's a completely free program funded by Multicultural NSW. So, you know any school or service can get in touch with us and say hey, “I'd like to arrange these workshops for my school or for my, you know, my year nines or my year 10s.” And then we come.

We deliver the workshops usually online. And usually over 3 consecutive weeks the workshops are all really interactive with lots of activity-based learning and so there's really two main ways that a young person can participate in the program. They can sign themselves up to one of the public sessions, or, as I mentioned, their school or service can reach out to us and request to host a set of the workshops, which is completely free and at no cost to the school or service at all. So yeah, they're the two ways that young people can get involved.

JULIA:

Really quite accessible and amazing that it's been supported by state government bodies as well. You mentioned that you kind of wanted to speak about the educator side of things. So, there's obviously something else going on there. So, before you get into that, do you have any advice or any effective strategies for educators who are dealing with young people who are engaging with conspiratorial thinking?

RAMY:

Any advice? I would say encourage as much critical thinking as possible. You know, as an educator or a parent or whoever you are, I think be open minded and engage with conversation. Don't shut it down. Don't be scared to have the conversations. I think silence is worse and sort of creates more damage and distance between educators and young people. So, I think always keeping the lines of communication open is really important.

I think staying curious as well, it's really important and encourage your students to stay curious. Don't shut off that first to sort of question and find out more. ‘Cause I think tat that's a really important trait to have, you know. And I said this already, but do your best to get them to arrive at conclusions themselves. And I think that that's really important.

JULIA:

So beautifully put, thank you. So do you want to just say a little bit about the program for educators?

RAMY:

So, we we've been, at ATN, quietly working on a new training slash resource for teachers. We've been developing it over the last few months. It's now ready to be rolled out and we've been building on our work from Agent C sort of looking at online aids and fake news and conspiracy theories and that sort of thing. So yeah, this is a new training resource not for young people, but for educators and teachers. And you know, it's really great.

It gives educators the skills and knowledge to be able to identify and respond to young people engaging with hateful, fake news and conspiracy theories. It includes a lot of classroom resources and practical strategies for educators. So yeah, if this is something you've been struggling with in the classroom, then please reach out. And yeah, how we can have a chat about this.

JULIA:

And we will reference where people can get to All Together Now and in contact. That would be amazing and just very quickly, is that also a are there any costs involved in regards to participating?

RAMY:

That one is a is a paid training. We don't have funding for that at the moment. So unlike Agent C, which is free for schools and services that is paid.

JULIA:

No worries. Thank you.

RAMY:

Yeah, no worries.

JULIA:

Yeah, going back to Agent C for a moment and just really thinking because it seems like it's just been so incredibly impactful and powerful for everyone involved. Do you have any inspirational one of those aha moments that you might have? Variants from student participation in the Agent C program.

RAMY: Yeah. Look, there's there, there is a class that. I remember we had a school reach out and request that we can't do Agent C. I think it was with their year nines or year 10s and you know this particular class they were having issues with a small group of boys in the class who were, you know, making. All sorts of inappropriate comments and engaging with a with a range of problematic narratives and content online and yeah, so they reached out to us.

We came and ran the first workshop and you know the first 10-15 minutes of the workshops that that group was, you know, just really resistive wasn't really taking anything on board. We were talking about and yeah, just kind of having a bit of a laugh at the whole, the whole thing and yeah, well, you know, as we sort of continued through. The first half of that workshop, and then we had our, our, our little break in between and then you know we came back and finished the second-half of that first workshop.

You know, I wasn't sure how much it was really going down with those students, but then the teacher sort of reached out to us at the end of that first session and he was like, you know, you're not gonna believe it that you know that same group of young boys that, you know, we've been having issues with that came up talk to us in the break and, you know, was saying, oh, well, you know. We didn't know about all this and. We didn't realize that there was all these different types of fake news and propaganda and you know, politically biased content and that they really sort of got something out of it. So yeah it was it was great to sort of hear that because, you know, I was thinking, God, you know, they're not really taking any of this on board. Sometimes you don't know the impact of the program till later, so yeah, it's moments like that, that are that are really awesome.

JULIA:

And you know that feedback very profound and how? The there was that turn around to open up that conversation and the very important conversations as well, very powerful.

Ramy, before we wrap things up, is there anything you would like to share that we haven't covered?

RAMY:

Ohh no, I was gonna talk about the our, you know, the educators, the training for educators are.

Speaker

Oh yes, yeah.

RAMY: But yeah, look, I've already brought that up. So yeah, I think that's good. Like, you know, just a message of hope to support to schools is, you know, don't be scared. It's all good, you know. Be sort of courageous in this space and yeah, just keep having those conversations and. And contact us.

JULIA:

Beautiful. And finally, what one thing would you like to see schools do in this space? I think, yeah.

RAMY:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

JULIA:

I think it's. There I think there we've got it.

RAMY:

Look, like I said, stay active, you know, be courageous. Keep having those conversations like. Yeah, you know, I mean, this is such a complex and difficult area. There's no there's no silver bullet. There's no, there's no, like magic solution. It's always gonna be something that we're working at and. You know what, it's good to have these conversation and it's good. It's good to stay curious and question things. And you know like. Even as adults or, you know, as teenagers or whatever it is. I think it's. You know you can you can use that. You can use this the this skeptical mindset in a positive way. If it's if it's channeled in the right way.

JULIA:

100% oh, my goodness. Ramy, thank you for amplifying the hope and continuing the conversation. It’s so important. So, thank you so much for sharing your important work. And thank you and thank you. It's been absolutely amazing and it really is much needed work.

RAMY:

Yeah, my pleasure. Thank thank you for having me. Today really appreciate it.

JULIA: Thank you. And you know, thanks to All Together Now as well, we really keep, we really do look forward to keeping up the conversation as you said. I think that's really important. Further details about Agent C and All Together Now will be provided in the description of this episode. And we hope that this has supported your community cohesion journey.

And just remember that the AIS NSW Community Cohesion team are available to all independent schools to help strengthen that community cohesion, respect and sense of belonging in your school community. Just remember that schools are able to access a range of professional learning and support services at no cost.

You just need to go to our website for further information.

Thanks so much. Everyone take care and we look forward to connecting again soon.

Thank you for listening to this episode. For further information on the AIS NSW Community Cohesion Podcast series and project or any of our guests, please see our show notes.