About the Guest:
About the Guest:
Annie Wu is a journalist, activist, social media strategist and politics + pop culture junkie. She is currently the news editor of Feminist and Shit You Should Care About. She just completed her work as the Social Media Producer for John Fetterman’s successful campaign for U.S. Senate and previously worked for a non-profit, Gen-Z For Change and PA Stands Up. Annie has recently been featured in a number of publications including NBCNews and MSN.com. As a proud adopted Asian-American, her work focuses on equality, mental health, intersectionality and education.
Episode Transcript:
Leah Dajches: Iran sentences 15,000 protestors to death as a hard lesson for all rebels. That was the report in a now deleted infographic posted to Instagram on November 12th. The original post received more than 315,000 likes. Public figures ranging from Justin Trudeau to Viola Davis reposted it along with thousands of others. At first, this seemed like citizen journalism at its finest. People using social media to share vital information about a human rights crisis. The problem, the information wasn't true, or at least it wasn't wholly true. At least five protestors have officially been sentenced to death, and there have been terrible atrocities carried out against protestors in the past few months. But the 15,000 number is false and likely came from reports that somewhere between 14,000 and 16,000 people are currently imprisoned in Iran because of protest activity.This is a great example of both the power and the peril of social media's role in the dissemination of news. The immediacy that makes it so valuable is counterbalanced by its accuracy, which as we've just covered, can be hit or miss. Nonetheless, social media has a profound ability to direct which stories and issues get our attention and which get ignored.
Matt Jordan: How can a single infographic generate engagement from everyone from movie stars to heads of state? What are the implications for traditional media outlets and traditional news consumers? How can we utilize social media's benefits, its ability to break, frame news and set the agenda in the news cycle, while shielding ourselves from its flaws in order to be engaged citizens? Here to talk with us about the promise and perils of social media is Annie Wu, a journalist, activist and social media strategist. She just completed her work as the social media producer for John Fetterman's successful campaign for US Senate. She previously worked for Gen Z For Change, and PA Stands Up. Annie has recently been featured in publications such as NBC News and MSN.com. As a proud adopted Asian American, her work focuses on equality, mental health, intersectionality and education. Annie Wu, welcome to News Over Noise.
Annie Wu: Thanks for having me.
Matt Jordan: As a social media strategist or somebody with that particular skillset, what do you see as the relationship between social media and the news? Or how do you deal with that border between the two different things?
Annie Wu: Yeah, so I think it's an ever evolving medium with social media. There's all these different platforms, they're constantly getting updates. There's also the leadership and things like that, that we're seeing right now with Twitter that shifts the dynamics on the platforms, as well as I think more people are starting to use social media platforms. And as more people use it, I think there's an increase in power there and then an increase in responsibility and things that you have to think about. Whereas in 2016 when social media was really happening because of specific candidates, there's things like oversight that maybe didn't have to be thought about with Twitter, things like that before, with misinformation when it comes to things like voting. But in 2012, which is Obama's, he started using social media but not in the same way as we see it today. And so I think it's ever evolving. I think what's really interesting is with news, more people are getting their information from non-traditional outlets, and that's why we've seen with the New York Times and Washington Post and these major publications have so many people dedicated to just these platforms. So I think it's ever evolving, it's growing. But also with all of that, we need to continue to make sure that as news gets intertwined, it's actual news and it's actual facts.
Leah Dajches: When we think about social media, there can be something of a generational divide. What kinds of trends have you noticed in engagement across different platforms?
Annie Wu: The newest big one I would say is TikTok. And when that first started, it had been Musical.ly and then it changed into TikTok. And it was largely thought to be young adolescents and teenagers just doing dances on these apps and being goofy and silly. But I think we're seeing now that it's much more than that and there's a much larger demographic of Millennials and even Gen X or older people on these apps. And so I think with that, we're seeing a change in content. We're seeing an expansion in how they're being utilized. Now there's an extension of the time that you can make a video, so you can really explain things in a little bit more depth, but still have that shortened type of concept that really grabs people's attention. And so I think there's trends that happen. Facebook is a lot of parents and even older generations, but I think it would be a little simplistic to say that, "Oh, you should only target youth on TikTok," or, "Oh, you should only target older people on Facebook," because I know a lot of young people use Facebook Marketplace. So there's different ways that each platform I think is used by different generations.
Matt Jordan: So, when you're thinking about, say, wanting to launch a certain idea as a social media director for a campaign, do you think of what you're doing as hacking the news cycle? Or are you trying to add to it, shift it? Are you thinking about how journalists are going to respond to the frames you set? Or are you just trying to get beyond those, the journalists, when you're doing it?
Annie Wu: I think it's a little bit of both. I think just traditional comms, you can really say, "This is the story or this is the issue, or this is what we want to be talking about. So here's the story we're giving you." But there's also the ability to reach people in a way that traditional media might not be pick up on and have a whole article about or something like that. It might be a little sound bite or a little clip that you just want to highlight. And then you have the ability to shift it into the narrative of this could be a whole story.
Leah Dajches: One of the larger topics that we've mentioned a lot in our podcast is this idea that people are avoiding the news. And particularly younger audiences and consumers are avoiding the news. And one of the reasons we know that people tend to avoid the news is that it can be too hard to understand. But there's this casualness to social media that you wouldn't find necessarily in traditional news outlets. For example, on the night of the Pennsylvania Senate debate, Fetterman's Instagram account featured a post that said, "Remember the Oz rule? If he's on TV, he's lying. Expect Dr. Oz to spew loads of BS tonight." And in this situation, BS it translates in a way that traditional political rhetoric might not. How much of a role do you think this kind of plain language, for a lack of better terms, plays in driving engagement in news and I guess even in democracy?
Annie Wu: Yeah, I think when it comes to messaging and the use of social media, with people, they want authenticity, and I think people want that in general. And so it just makes sense that now when we're getting so much interaction and engagement and learning on social media, we want it to feel authentic and to feel real. And a lot of times that isn't having really curated talking points. There's something that, it looks like it went through a bunch of drafts that has been really crafted into this message. They want to hear someone speaking how they would normally speak.
Matt Jordan: So that as we know, politicians focus group things and they then try to set the agenda of journalists, "Here's what we'd like you to be talking about." Is that the role that you saw yourself with when the person you guys were campaigning against would try to set the agenda? Would you use humor and things to push back and reframe what they were trying to do?
Annie Wu: Yeah, I think so many of the things about our campaign that were not expected, but were helpful for us were that a lot of the digs were self-inflicted by our opponent. The crudités video, we did not put that out. His team filmed it and thought it looked good and pressed post and sent it out to the world. So I think then it's utilizing that and saying, "Does this make sense for our people for the state?"
Leah Dajches: It seems a little bit what I've seen in Fetterman's social media accounts and what you're talking about is there's this thread of humor that kind of comes into play when you're creating content. And I think in that, it's more funny, it feels lighter than a traditional attack ad might. So in some ways it seems like humor might be a valuable tool in restoring some of the civility that's been lost in recent years.
Annie Wu: Yeah, I think humor and having fun and being able to show that is helpful. We don't want doom and gloom all the time. I think it's also knowing when there's a time to joke and when there's a time not to joke and making sure that that's clear, but understanding that you don't have to be dirty when you're attacking someone, You know, crudités is just a really good example that it's not attacking his beliefs. It's not attacking anything in a really offensive or any type of way like that, which is why I think it resonated so hard with people is because most people go grocery shopping and most people have a cart or have a basket. And most people are not just grabbing broccoli and speaking the way he was speaking and things like that and know that in Pennsylvania you can't get tequila at the grocery store. And so it was a really easy… he just doesn't get it. And that was so much of our defining the opponent was like, "He's not one of us. He's out of touch. He's out of state. He doesn't get it. And he doesn't get you. He doesn't get your needs and what the people of the state need.” And so doing that in a way that doesn't feel dirty or nasty, I think people like that because they don't want to feel dirty or nasty. And I think we saw that from the opposition when they did get dirty and nasty. It didn't sit well, with especially the people of the state that were like, "We've had family members that have had health emergencies or had complications that they were able to recover from and why are you mocking that? Or why are you doing these things that aren't telling you anything about who your opponent is or anything in a substantial way that talks about being a senator and serving? They're just you showing your character in a really bad way." And I don't think people don't like seeing that meanness. And so if you're able to define someone in a way that's not nasty but still gets the point across as they aren't the right candidate, it can be a really powerful tool.
Leah Dajches: If you’re just joining us, this is News Over Noise. I'm Leah Dajches.
Matt Jordan: And I'm Matt Jordan.
Leah Dajches: We're talking with journalist, activist and social media strategist Annie Wu about the power of social media to drive the agenda when it comes to news and political issues. You know, we often see that certain moments in pop culture or celebrities can drive the news cycle. And it seemed like for a campaign to be successful, you need to be at the head of that curve when a news cycle or a pop culture moment takes the wave. And that's something I noticed you did a lot with Fetterman's campaign. You took these cultural moments and you used them to your advantage. So for instance, when Taylor Swift's Midnights album was released, there were multiple TikToks and tweets from the campaign that played directly to the trends on social media connecting back to Swift's album, like the “Anti-Hero” trend on TikTok. By creating connections between Fetterman's campaign and these pop culture trends, it felt like you were able to stay relevant. And I think that's important to keep younger audiences engaged. Can you speak a little more about this? How were you able to track and stay on top of the news cycles and particularly those social media trends?
Annie Wu: So I'm perpetually online, like chronically unhealthily. And I think one of the reasons why I was brought on was that I have experience in social media in the political space, but maybe not in the traditional political space. Again, these different platforms have different nuances. They have different humor. They have different things that will help the algorithm and different ways in which people talk about things, different formats that you could have a joke that lands differently on different apps. And so I think having myself but also a bunch of other people on not only our digital team, but our comms team, our research team, our leadership team that were online, you know, not that they knew every single piece of celebrity drama that was happening or something like that, but that were in the know there and they were understanding of what was going on so that when someone brought forth an idea, it wasn't just like this question mark or why would we do that? It was understanding that no, you look at these cultural moments and we can utilize them because that's how the algorithms work. That's how the conversation works. That's how these different platforms are able to pump out your content and get on the eyes that you can see as well as if you're talking the language of the people on these apps, they're probably more likely to engage and look into it further.
Matt Jordan: As somebody who's just self-described yourself as online constantly, there are recent Pew reports on this to suggest that about 60% of our student-age folks, young, Gen Z folks are getting their news online. So just as an old person who's been banned from TikTok by my daughter, what type of news are they getting there? And you're saying different platforms have different language. What's the news look like on TikTok?
Annie Wu: I think the thing about TikTok is that it feels really, really authentic. People just open up their phone, particularly young people, they open up their phone, they say what they're feeling or they say what they're thinking or they say what they're believing and they post it. And there are transitions and all the crazy things there, but I think it's really genuine. And I think with news and information, a lot of young people are just talking about what they care about, what they see in the news, what they're hearing about. And it's pretty easy. It's not the same way as people have to have a subscription or they have to go out and get a paper or they have to have cable or they have to have the certain streaming. You can just get on and get certain information. And you could be an organizer in a small area and be talking about something you're doing and it has the potential to go on eyes around the world and at pretty much no cost. And so, I think that that is such a resource and such a power. And so people are trying to utilize it to get out information about things that are happening, whether it be political or really serious, but also just things that are happening as young people or different things like that.
Leah Dajches: And speaking more towards having or suggesting younger generations using social media to their advantage, to share information, to use it as a free platform to help with some of the topics or social issues they're passionate about, the thing that I keep thinking of is unfortunately that we know young adults are one of the less politically engaged demographics. And it often stems from these ideas that political involvement rarely has tangible results or this idea that your vote doesn't make a difference. And I'm wondering what you would say to anyone, but especially to young people who believe that their participation in democracy doesn't make a difference.
Annie Wu: I get why young people have such a reason to be cynical or to feel hopeless, but I think that they have the most at stake and they have the most reason to also care, because it's their future, it's the future of their rights, it's the type of planet they're going to live on. It's the future for their potential families if they choose to have them. And so I think the thing with what we're seeing happening in the midterms, we're seeing that A, it does make a difference, and B, there's the ability to then continue to push for change. It's not necessarily electoral, but we need to have good people in office to continue to get there. And so yes, continue to put pressure on elected officials for the causes you care about, continue to speak out about the issues or the things that you believe in. But also we need to have people there that when they hear that, they do do something about it. And so continuing to do the electoral, civic engagement of trying to get people in office that align with our values and our views and what we want in the world, but then continuing to engage outside of that and put pressure. And I think we see that with these different movements are just also like, I think, student debt and so many of the young people that have been speaking up about this consistently and the administration is doing something about it. And is it everything that everyone wants? No, but you still have the power to push. But if you're going to have someone in office that wouldn't even think twice about what message you're trying to send, then that's not helpful either. And so I think it's not an either/or, that's what I would say to young people, it's unfortunately a both. And I get that that's tiring and exhausting, but if we don't do it, then what's the alternative?
Matt Jordan: There is a piece in The Atlantic where you describe the state of democracy in the US as frustrating. And I'm wondering what role you think that business as usual journalism or the way that our mainstream news orgs cover things has contributed to that sense of frustration.
Annie Wu: I think that there's a lot of change happening in journalism, it's just nothing's going to be overnight. And I think so much of young people's frustration or just in general, sometimes what's being talked about isn't what people are caring the most about or maybe it's not in the way that they're caring about it. So one thing specifically for youth turnout and youth issues, are you talking to youth? Are you talking to the people most being impacted? Are you talking to the people doing the work in these spaces? Or are you writing it from this perspective of, "This is how I view youth turnout."
Matt Jordan: So one of the things you're talking about that strikes me as we've talked about news avoidance on this thing is that there's something about it that's not connecting with younger people, and you're saying that online, younger people are drawn to authenticity, that they want people telling things from the perspective of somebody sharing news, sharing whatever it is. Is there something that you think that journalists could do better if they want to be perceived as being authentic?
Annie Wu: I think that sometimes an issue that, in my opinion, I think as someone who's progressive, as someone who studied journalism, and there's actually academic papers on it, but in journalism, a lot of times people, because of ideologies and because of science and facts and different things, it tends to seem to lean a certain way. And I think with that, there's sometimes you want to be aware of your bias, right? Especially as a journalist, and when you're writing. And you want to be presenting things in an unbiased manner, but when you're aware of certain biases that you might have, you sometimes tend to overcorrect because you don't want to be accused so bad of being biased that way. And I think that sometimes there is a bit of overcorrection in headlines or how things are worded or things like that, that don't necessarily convey actual severity in fear that it's going to be perceived as bias in another way. And I think something around that was different coverage that I think has gotten better. But of January 6th and a lot of people, it was an insurrection, it was a coup, but people not wanting to use certain terminology or certain language, which did dilute the severity of the story that they were telling and shifted how accurate and I would say, the pieces could be. And so I think that that is something in politics and in the journalism field that I see a lot in the sense of people, I can't speak for them, but that I read things and I'm like, "Are they trying to make sure that people don't call them whatever? Or is this genuinely how they wanted to present it?" And I think that as the partisan issues, which shouldn't necessarily be partisan, become more just crazy in the sense of facts and science and stuff that it shouldn't make you partisan. And if I say something like, "I support democracy." That shouldn't say that I'm leaning a certain way. And right now in the political climate, it does. But I think then that impacts journalism because you don't want to be perceived in a way, because journalists are supposed to be unbiased.
Matt Jordan: So it comes across as seeming inauthentic, the reporting because it's framed in such a careful way.
Annie Wu: Yeah, I think it's just you can tell when people are trying to be really careful and sometimes the carefulness of that is that what you really want to say or it just seems like it's not right.
Matt Jordan: I was at a academic talk the other day as I'm wont to do, and it was a talk about trolling. And at the very end of it, because it was about the ambivalent use and kind of the double-edged sword of social media, the Fetterman campaign came up. And a bunch of us who were talking about it kind of resisted that, we were like... So, I was wondering if you could help us think with what's the difference between trolling and use of humor or ironic reframing or something like that?
Annie Wu: Yeah, when I think of trolling, I think of the people that are under every single post and just constantly there, maybe not really adding anything and just there to be an annoyance in a sense, as well as just be a hater. And I think that there's a bit of a difference, and there is trolling to an extent of some of the clap backy or just jokes from the campaign, but also that people do a politics in general. But I think there's a difference between trolling in a way that's just like you're there to be there and to be annoying and not going away, and you're being there to add something else to the conversation or to point something out or to make a joke about something specific. And that I don't think is necessarily synonymous. Again, I think there is trolling to an extent, but at the same time, I don't think making jokes or pointing things out necessarily is always continuous, because I think there are people who are, or bots or things like that, that are trolls, that are just there not really adding any input, not really presenting any information, and they're just there to be a hater and to be an annoyance and to be an extra notification that you have to click to make it go away. And so I think there could be a little bit of a difference, but it's an interesting thought.
Leah Dajches: It almost sounds like it's a little bit of trolling with intention, trolling with what you perceive a good intention or with some ethical values versus trolling just to be mean.
Annie Wu: Yeah, and I think there's mean, and there's also just unnecessary. There's a lot of trolling that's just, it's there, but again, what is it doing or what's it trying to do? And at least, if you're making a joke or if you're... There's a purpose of why it's there. Whereas there are definitely trolls on the internet, and I'm not just talking from the campaign perspective, but just in general, there are trolls on the internet that are just there to be there. And it's just like, "Okay."
Leah Dajches: You mentioned briefly this idea of accuracy when you're looking at news online, and I'm wondering, as someone who is a social media strategist, part of your job is sharing information. What do you look for when you're vetting the reliability of the content you see on social media?
Annie Wu: I think it depends on the severity of the content. I think that there's so many pop culture updates of who's engaged and who's whatever that broken up, that at the end of the day, it's not the end of the world, but there are many issues and many things that are being talked about and topics that do really need to be handled with intention and things like allegations or different hot topic issues that people are discussing. You want to make sure that you're sharing accurate information or accurate resources. And so I think when it does come to that, it's doing the research on your own. Don't make assumptions off of just one thing you see and perceive it as fact. Also, understand who the source is that you're getting it from. Are you getting it from, I follow Washington Post TikTok guy, Dave, he's great, and he's from a major publication, so his stuff I'm sure is vetted to have to be posted and things like that. Whereas if it's a teenager in her bedroom, how much research did she do before making this like… these are the resources to best help X, Y, Z or whatever? Context is everything and really doing that, but also doing the work yourself. So I think there's some personal responsibility when it comes to that of saying, "Okay, well, if I'm going to be sharing information or if I'm going to be retweeting or whatever, it might be, I'm doing that thinking that this is true.
Matt Jordan: Well, ending with the idea of more responsible consumption seems always like a good one. So Annie, I'd like to thank you once again for being with us today.
Annie Wu: Yeah, thank you guys so much for having me. This is fun.
Leah Dajches: So that was it. We had a great conversation with Annie Wu, there was a lot that we covered. Matt, what was your main takeaway from today?
Matt Jordan: Well, it's really good. As somebody who is often academic about these things or who isn't as online all the time, it's really interesting to hear somebody who is so intentional about her social media use and her social media thinking, and that really for us to understand the importance of social media and in relation to our news cycle and it's relation to our democracy, we really need to be talking to people like Annie who live in those spaces and who use those tools to see how we could help them to do what we've always wanted the fourth estate to do, which is to inform citizens.
Leah Dajches: Yeah, absolutely. I think talking with Annie really helped me to understand that we should embrace social media. Social media is going to be around, it's a powerful tool. But for all of us who are using social media and we are online, don't forget to do the research when you see a news story come through your feed. We can't just take everything at surface value, but also we shouldn't discount it when we're thinking about political and civic engagement. That's it for this episode of News Over Noise. Our guest was Annie Wu, a journalist, activist, and social media strategist. To learn more and to hear an extended version of this interview with additional content, download the podcast at wherever you subscribe to podcasts or at newsovernoise.org. I'm Leah Dajches.
Matt Jordan: And I'm Matt Jordan.
Leah Dajches: Until next time. Stay well and well informed.
Matt Jordan: News Over Noise is produced by the Penn State, Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications and WPSU. This program has been funded by the Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost at Penn State and is part of the Penn State News Literacy Initiative.
[END OF TRANSCRIPT]
Episode Credits:
Producer: Lindsey Whissel Fenton
Audio Engineers: Mickey Klein, Scott Gros, Clint Yoder
News Over Noise is a co-production of WPSU and Penn State’s Bellisario College of Communications. This program has been funded by the office of the Executive Vice President and Provost at Penn State and is part of the Penn State News Literacy Initiative.
