Welcome to Dispatch #24! Let’s explore some critical media literacy resources for the modern age, the conditions we are up against, a successful hip-hop news project out of Senegal, an anti-capitalist artist in Los Angeles, and as always, plenty of ways to get involved yourself. Let’s get into it!
🔔 By the way – the Conscious Citizens turns 1 year old next month! Time has really flown and this project is growing fast! We’re so grateful to have you all with us. Thanks to your help spreading word combined with the support from our paid members (who are providing the legs for this project to move forward), we have some exciting new things coming soon to take this project to the next level! So please help us drum up some hype and tell a friend to sign up, follow our Instagram & YouTube, or even better, invest in us!
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Easy Actions to Take
Why: Israel has once again struck Nasser Hospital in Gaza, and this time double-striked it on live TV while targeting hospital workers and journalists. Misleading coverage, like BBC’s, is what whitewashes these clear war crimes. Organized by Unmute Humanity
Why: BBC’s coverage of the genocide in Gaza has long been problematic and biased and now it is clear who is behind that. Robbie Gibb has used his position on the BBC Editorial Board to whitewash Israel’s crimes which is unacceptable for anyone in that sort of media position. Organized by Newscord
Why: The US has sent warships to Venezuela in an attempt to intimidate the country, and youth in Venezuela are training for potential war. Intervention of any form by a foreign country in the affairs of another is wrong, especially the US given its long history of neocolonialism in the region. Organized by World Beyond War
📆 Mark Your Calendar | Join a webinar by Lifeline for Gaza about how to pressure UN representatives to pass UN Resolution UN RES.377(V)
Why: The UN Resolution 377 is a potentially historic vote by the General Assembly that would supersede the authority of the Security Council and mandate the delivery of aid to Gaza with protection from UN troops. Join this webinar to learn how to pressure your UN representatives, and their countries, to hold the line for Gaza.
Little (Movement) Wins
Why It Matters: Reports in the West will focus on the violence of the protests, but these began when the people realized lawmakers were receiving a $3000 monthly housing stipend (a huge amount in Indonesia). Combined with rising inflation & massive unemployment, the people are angry to be left behind while the ruling class are comfortable.
Why It Matters: A coalition of over 40 international organizations are setting sail to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza in the largest flotilla so far. This is a historic demonstration of international solidarity as the people choose to act when their governments will not.
Why It Matters: Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico’s current President, currently sits at over 75% approval rate (a historic high). Her party, the Morena Party, is relatively new and was formed as a third-party when the Leftist & Progressive wings of the Mexican Democratic party broke off. This separation, and a willingness to put faith into truly people-powered third parties, is what led to Mexico’s current success & should inform leftist movements elsewhere about electoral strategy.
The Hip-Hop Newsroom in Senegal
Activist History
Rap has played an important role in Senegalese politics for a long time. In their 2014 book, The Arts of Citizenship in African Cities, authors Mamadou Diouf and Rosalind Fredericks describe how rap has been used as a political tool and a means of youth mobilization since the 1980s because of its ability to connect with people normally outside the realm of politics.
In 2011, a coalition of journalists and rappers in Senegal founded the “Y’en a Marre” (Fed Up) movement, which organized widespread protests against then-president Abdoulaye Wade’s proposed amendments to the constitution and played an integral role in Wade’s eventual defeat and ousting from power. Journal Rappé, a political hip hop news show, was created by two Senegalese rappers, Makhtar "Xuman" Fall and Keyti, as a way to continue to momentum generated by the Y’en a Marre movement. The idea was simple - make news reporting more entertaining and engaging by combining it with hip-hop. Rapping in French and Wolof, the pair directly address some of the most pressing issues in the country like post-colonialism, environmental issues, African development, religion, COVID-19, and even homosexuality.
Journal Rappé has all the appearance of a news show, but done differently. They create news broadcasts, political debates, and even on-the-ground exposés - all on top of a hip hop beat. Their videos have garnered over 22 million views and have inspired similar projects across Africa. By packaging important political discourse in an entertaining and fresh way, the pair were able to reach younger audiences, engage more people into the political process, and break through the hold of Senegal’s mainstream media. They’re still going today! You can view their videos on their Youtube channel here, and you can learn more about their story in the links below.
📗 Learn More
- Actipedia Article about Journal Rappé
- Where News Meets Beats by Lisa Goldapple for Atlas of the Future
Pseudo-Events
The Conscious Citizens Dictionary
Pseudo-events are events produced with the sole purpose of generating media attention and publicity. These events lack real news value but still become the subject of media coverage, typically in order to distract from or control a narrative.
The term pseudo-event was coined by American scholar Daniel J. Boorstin in The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America, who argued that media attention incentivizes public figures to stage artificial events that become significant once covered by media. Boorstin described pseudo-events as the opposite of propaganda, although both forms of communication have similar consequences and result in public misinformation. Whereas propaganda slants facts to keep the public from learning the truth, pseudo-events provide the public with artificial facts that people perceive as real.
How to Reconstruct the Truth in the Digital Age
Connecting the Dots
In the digital age of politics, it feels harder than ever to find the objective truth. And in some cases, it's ever harder to simply agree on a shared truth with someone with different political views than you. Increasingly, it often feels like we can’t even discuss an issue effectively because people are not even operating from the same set of facts. Nowadays, what is objectively true seems to matter less than what feels the most true - that is, whatever affirms your already held beliefs. And there’s a word for this: post-truth, which describes the condition where objective facts matter less than emotions in politics. After Brexit and Donald Trump’s 1st presidential victory, Oxford Dictionaries made “post-truth” their word of year for 2016, and nine years later it still feels just as relevant (if not more so).
The world of post-truth is a dangerous and tricky one because post-truth is not about lies, it’s about the prioritization of emotional truth over objective truth. In the old world of traditional top-down media, the goal was to limit information accessible to the people. In the New Media age–where all of the information of the world is at our fingertips–the new goal of those in power is to put together a combination of partial truths that can create the image of the world you (and your followers) want. This has some big implications because as Timothy Snyder, historian of Totalitarianism, points out, “post-truth is pre-fascism…when we give up on truth, we concede power to those with the wealth and charisma to create spectacle in its place.” This is a great video explaining the basic premise of post-truth (and a humorous example at the end to reminds us to be skeptical of even our favorite creators).
That said, we are now fundamentally facing a moment where we have to re-evaluate how we decide what is true. The one advantage of the Old Media world was a system of checks & balances and journalistic ethics (whether or not those ethics were followed is another question). When you read something in the paper or watched it in the evening news, it came with the assurance that editors, lawyers, and fact-checkers had reviewed what is in front of you. Bias definitely still existed but the information itself at least went through some sort of review.
Today, the game is different. More and more people get the majority of their news from social media, and it comes with some distinct problems.
- Social media algorithms filter us into political echo chambers to feed us the content that will either delight or enrage us.
- Journalists and media institutions are now incentivized to post inflammatory “clickbait” articles to generate more income through online ads.
- The line between journalism and content creation and influencer has blurred, while political groups, or foreign countries, secretly fund our favorite creators to spread their messaging.
Combine all that with our natural habit to find the information we already agree with, called confirmation bias, and it’s no wonder why objective truth feels so illusive.
So who do we trust, and where do we find the truth? While the digital age has allowed the free flow of information, that also means we must be much more vigilant on an individual level. Part of the issue is that technology has evolved faster than our cognitive tools. Media literacy is more important than ever, but we are operating on an old system and as a result overall media literacy is at an all time low. To help get started: we have created a collection of some of the most relevant media literacy tips for this modern age, and we’d encourage everyone to take a look and share it widely!
Uplift the Conscious Citizens
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“Nobody is going to pour truth into your brain. It’s something you have to find out for yourself.”
–Noam Chomsky
Conscious Creatives: Ernesto Yerena Montejano
Ernesto Yerena Montejano is a Mexican-American artist and activist based in California. Growing up near the US-Mexico border between a small US city and a large Mexican one, he developed an early interest in border politics and using his voice to support immigrant and indigenous rights. Raised in a family that valued the arts, he developed the creative and critical thinking skills he needed to preserve his cultural heritage despite media control and historical erasure. His work explores Chicano identity conflicts, expressing both personal frustrations with oppression and solidarity with his community's struggle for dignity. Through bold and colorful imagery, Ernesto portrays cultural icons, revolutionaries, and ordinary citizens fighting for a better world.
In 2008, he founded "Hecho Con Ganas" ("made with motivation/desire") to address the lack of authentic representation of the Latino community in graphic design by creating thought-provoking art that generates within working-class communities. HCG collaborates with artists who deliver meaningful messages (rather than merely decorative work), uses his funds to give back to communities, and is dedicated to publishing art that is "for the people by the people.”
➡️ Visit Ernesto’s Site | Shop Ernesto’s Work
Resources & Tools
Please share these links with anyone that might find them helpful:
- 🖥 U.S. Retirement Savings Lost & Found | An online database by the U.S. Department of Labor to help workers recover lost or forgotten retirement savings from past jobs with information on how to obtain those funds, so more workers can get their hard-earned benefits. Share this with your US friends and family approaching retirement!
- 🖥 One Look | A reverse dictionary (describe what you mean, find the word) to help you find definitions, related words, quotes, names, lyrics, and more.
- 🧐 ToS;DR | A terms of service summarizer to help you clearly understand what data and privacy information you will allow companies to take from you before you accept the terms.
- 🧐 Bad News | A free online game to help you learn how disinformation is weaponized, by letting you weaponize it yourself.
- 📓 The Protest Playbook | A practical and tactical guide to help organizers and protesters strategically win real and meaningful change, not just headlines.
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Till next time, do what you can. Care for yourself and the people around you. Believe that the world can be better than it is now. Never give up. And remember, you're not alone. We always have each other.
Onward to the World We Deserve,
Elisa & Ray
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