It is no secret that our country is divided as ever. In this YouTube video “Why Americans Can’t Debate Politics Anymore“, Nolan Higdon and Mickey Huff join The Chris Hedges Report to discuss their new book, Let’s Agree to Disagree: A Critical Thinking Guide to Communication, Conflict Management. and Critical Media Literacy.
Previously, I blogged about ‘How Social Media Divides US“. This book goes further into why we are so divided as a country. Our mainstream media is deeply “siloed”. We should at least talk to each other and listen to the other points of view.
In an age defined by divisive discourse and disinformation, democracy hangs in the balance. Let’s Agree to Disagree seeks to reverse these trends by fostering constructive dialogue through critical thinking and critical media literacy. This transformative text introduces readers to useful theories, powerful case studies, and easily adoptable strategies for becoming sharper critical thinkers, more effective communicators, and critically media literate citizens.
Nolan Higdon is a lecturer at Merrill College and the Education Department at University of California, Santa Cruz. Higdon’s areas of concentration include digital culture, news media history, and critical media literacy. Higdon is a founding member of the Critical Media Literacy Conference of the Americas. He sits on the boards of the Action Coalition for Media Education (ACME) and Northwest Alliance For Alternative Media And Education. His most recent publications include The Anatomy of Fake News: A Critical News Literacy Education (2020) and The Podcaster’s Dilemma: Decolonizing Podcasters in the Era of Surveillance Capitalism (2021). He is a longtime contributor to Project Censored’s annual book, Censored. In addition, he has been a contributor to Truthout and Counter-Punch; and a source of expertise for numerous news outlets including The New York Times, CNBC, and San Francisco Chronicle.
Mickey Huff is the director of Project Censored and president of the nonprofit Media Freedom Foundation. To date, he has co-edited 13 editions of the Project’s yearbook, including most recently Project Censored’s State of the Free Press 2022, with Andy Lee Roth. He is also co-author, with Nolan Higdon, of United States of Distraction: Media Manipulation in Post-Truth America (and what we can do about it) (2019). Huff received the Beverly Kees Educator Award as part of the 2019 James Madison Freedom of Information Awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, Northern California. He is professor of social science, history, and journalism at Diablo Valley College, where he co-chairs the history program and is chair of the Journalism Department. Huff is executive producer and host of The Project Censored Show, a weekly syndicated public affairs program that airs across the U.S. on Pacifica Radio. Learn more at projectcensored.org.