Dr. Ralph Ford, chancellor of Penn State Behrend, talks with Dr. David Kahl, Jr., professor of communication, about the language and strategy that advances neoliberalism and “post-truth” communications. Originally recorded July 26, 2022.
Dr. Ralph Ford, chancellor of Penn State Behrend, talks with Dr. David Kahl, Jr., professor of communication, about the language and strategy that advances neoliberalism and “post-truth” communications. Originally recorded July 26, 2022.
Hi, I'm Dr. Ralph Ford, Chancellor of Penn State Behrend and you are listening to Behrend Talks. My guest today is Dr. David Kahl, Professor of Communication and Chair of our communication program here at Penn State Behrend, which is housed in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences. So welcome to the show. David.
Dr. David Kahl, Jr.:Thank you very much. I'm happy to be here.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Well, we I'm just going to run through your bio, and then we'll get to the questions. You hold a Ph.D. in communication from North Dakota State University (where it's really cold), a graduate college teaching certificate, also from North Dakota State, and a bachelor's degree in economics from Concordia. You are the author of more than 40 journal articles and book publications and may have given nearly 100 conference presentations. You're editor of the journal"Communication Teacher", a peer-reviewed publication. And you co-edited a 2021 book called"Pedagogies of Post Truth". And we want to talk about post truth today and what that means. And you are also recently promoted to full professor, I believe, as well. So congratulations on that.
Dr. David Kahl, Jr.:That's right. Thank you very much. It's definitely exciting and an honor.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Well, great set of achievements and well deserved. So tell us how did you end up here at Penn State Behrend, and what was your path here?
Dr. David Kahl, Jr.:Yes. So my background coming from Minnesota, I finished my Ph.D. at North Dakota State. And one thing about the Ph.D. program at North Dakota State, it was definitely a very rigorous program very much focused on the connections between research and teaching. And so we had a very heavy publication requirement as graduate students. We were challenged to publish a lot in high level peer reviewed journals. We also were prepared very well for the classroom. So we had a really strong pedagogical background. So when I looked for a position, I wanted it to be something that emulated that. I wanted a position in a university that valued research, in which research was a priority. In addition, an institution that valued teaching. And when I interviewed at Penn State Behrend, when I looked at the job announcement, all of those types of things, I realized very quickly that this was a type of place that really balanced teaching and research. And I really think research benefits teaching and vice versa. And so it's been a very great, really excellent fit for me since 2009. When I when I came here.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Wow. And you know, it's, we really are a unique place. And I think that it's not always well understood until you're here. And you had that experience in graduate school of North Dakota State. So do you keep the number of courses? Were you required to do that as a Ph.D. student?
Dr. David Kahl, Jr.:graduate students, we had an extensive teacher training program. So it was really, really excellent. And we started teaching upper level classes and a number of different things. So we were the instructor of record for a number of courses. So really got a lot of pedagogical experience firsthand as a graduate student.
Dr. Ralph Ford:So did you have the same advisor? I'm just curious. Throughout your master's and Ph.D. program?
Dr. David Kahl, Jr.:was a really a great experience and a great honor actually. My doctoral advisor, who I'm still very close with, left for another university during the part of my program sort of right before my dissertation. And so I moved over to a different advisor. But it was a, you know, great experience. And it was nice having experience with different faculty as well,
Dr. Ralph Ford:Well it worked out. And that's not always an easy transition. But you also, when you were an undergraduate, you studied economics. And economists are some of my favorite people to talk to. So interesting in a different way of looking at the world. So what did you learn in in economics?
Dr. David Kahl, Jr.:I was really drawn to economics for a number of reasons. I was really interested in the economy. I was interested in economic theory, I was interested in sort of how the economic world works, micro economics, macro economics, those types of things. Also kind of an aside or a funny story. Both of my parents are educators. And so I think I was drawn to something different, maybe then than they were, although later realizing that I was really adept at the teaching aspect as well. But anyway, I was really interested in that. And so I studied it and I went to a small liberal arts college, which really put emphasis on a holistic picture of education. So I definitely studied economics and a minor in business, but I also studied a lot of different courses, you know, cross campus. Which I was really able to tie in, including communication, which I later moved into in my graduate studies. But it was a really great experience and something that I draw on now, in my research in communication.
Dr. Ralph Ford:So when did you figure out that you wanted to be a teacher?
Dr. David Kahl, Jr.:Right. So I finished my degree. And I worked for a short time in banking, I worked in in financial advising for a period of time. And I just always, in the back of my mind, had the idea that I was still interested in teaching. My parents, I grew up hearing about pedagogical strategies. My dad was an elementary principal, my mom was an English teacher. Both of them were authors, both of them, my mom wrote curriculum for the for the state of Minnesota. They did a myriad of things. And I was always in that educational realm. And so I realized, you know, I wanted to teach, I wanted to be in that area, I was really interested in communication as well. Those were courses I took as an undergraduate, and really interested in the meaning of messages. That's what communication is broadly as a discipline. So I thought that there was a way that I could marry economics, and the study of communication. And there happened to be this really, really excellent Ph.D. masters and then Ph.D. program at North Dakota State. And it really worked out quite well. For me, it was a nice, really a smooth transition into graduate studies in that area.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Well, you are now the chair of our communication program here at Behrend. And it's programmed with a lot of great history. It's been here quite some time. Many graduates have gone on to do wonderful things. There's a lot you can do in the communication program. So why don't we take some time and talk about what are you trying to achieve in the communication program? What are the opportunities? And I'll sell this, why should somebody study communication, it's so so darn important.
Dr. David Kahl, Jr.:Communication is so important. And it's foundational to what we do as people right as as people living in a civilization, there's a mantra, one cannot not communicate, you know, to use the double negative, but it's it's a well known mantra. Our students, the beauty of a communication degree is that you can do a myriad of things with it. Some people go into more traditional types of communication fields, like radio, TV, newspaper, and we have all of those facilities on campus, all of those are students do a lot of that that type of work. Other students go into other types of fields as well. They go into business type of employment, that go into event planning, they go into social media, they go into digital journalism, there's so many different opportunities that a communication degree can provide. And so we really want to give our students an applied experience so that they learn theory, they learn content, they learn a lot of things inherent in a communication degree, but also that get that applied experience so that they can go to employers and have really beneficial experiences that can be applied to to the workforce.
Dr. Ralph Ford:So you've made the statement, and I've heard you say it, you want our students to be deep generalists, what do you mean by that?
Dr. David Kahl, Jr.:Yes, a deep generalist is is someone who has a breadth of knowledge. So that's, that's the generalist part we want our students to have a breadth of knowledge across the discipline of communication. So what that means in our program, we are really fortunate in the fact that we are able to offer comm courses, which are those are generated from the College of Communication. These are courses that are in mass communication. So it's anything dealing with TV, radio, journalism, digital media, anything that affects a mass audience. We also offer C.A.S. courses which are communication arts and sciences, courses. Those are the ones that are in the speech communication realm. So we teach, and those are often the courses that I teach. And those are courses that relate to interpersonal communication, small group communication, public speaking, business and professional communication, corporate communication. So our students get a general perspective all across the discipline. And then at the same time, we realize that employers want areas of specialty as well. So we want to give them that and that's the deep portion, right? So we have the generalist portion we have the deep generalist portion. So what we asked students to do in our major is work through two areas of specialty, if you will, or to concentration. So we have three of them that they can
choose from:Communication Studies, which is a sort of a corporate communication type track. There's a strategic communication area and a journalism/for immediate production track, and so students take courses and pretty soon, quickly in the program early in the program, they decide which things really appeal to them. And then what that allows them to do is go to an employer and say not only do I have a breadth of knowledge in the discipline of communication, but I also have depth and I have specific knowledge in two specific areas. And that's really beneficial to them and to their work in their careers.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Well, as you you and I have discussed a lot. By the way over lunch, Bruno's, we tend to run into each other quite a bit. You know, we've got this philosophy of the open laboratory here at Behrend. Which really means we want our students working on projects, if we can connect it to the outside world. So what's that look like in in your major in communication?
Dr. David Kahl, Jr.:Yes. So we first of all, give students a lot of applied experiences in our major so they can, they can work in the TV studio, they can write for the Behrend Becon, they can work for BBC Radio, and have their own radio shows, and all of these kinds of things. So it's very applied experience there. In addition, the vast majority of our students engage in internships towards the end of their time here at at Penn State Behrend. And so we have an internship coordinator. And we set them up with interns with internships in the community, or beyond that some students may be from other states, we've had students work in California. We've had students work in a myriad of places, and they are paired with ... sometimes their internships that they choose, sometimes our coordinator helps them to choose an internship that really fits well with what they want to do in their career. And they apply their knowledge, you know. That's what we want them to do. They apply their coursework that they've taken here. And at Penn State Behrend, they apply it to their internship, they gain a breadth of experience in their internship and they can apply it
Dr. Ralph Ford:You know, the thing about the the internships, and you've seen this is, you see a student go out, and they don't have as much confidence there. But they come back, and boy, it changes, right? You can see the change after a summer. And like you say, they have to go live in California. We got it. We're Penn State University, you know, we're known all over the place. So that really makes a difference. And you can see it can't you?
Dr. David Kahl, Jr.:You really can. And they're accountable to their internship coordinators, or the business or the corporation or whomever it is they work for. And they're accountable. And they learn that, that accountability is so important. And so they're very dedicated to their internships, and they grow a lot through them. And a lot of them have resulted in careers afterwards in that very organization.
Dr. Ralph Ford:You know, you're in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, and clearly our school that maintains our liberal arts tradition, here on campus. And you're preparing students to be engaged citizens of the world. Why is that so important today?
Dr. David Kahl, Jr.:Yeah, I think that phrase is so important being engaged citizens of the world. And that's something that a university education broadly should prepare students for. And I think the School of Humanities and Social Sciences specifically does that when students take courses in communication or in history or in education or in philosophy, or whatever course it will be whatever area of study that courses in the gain a breadth of knowledge, you know, we don't want I think any university doesn't want a student to just choose a major and just sort of silo themselves into and sort of pigeonhole themselves into one specific thing. Of course, they're majoring in something, of course, they're getting a specific degree, but we want them to be well rounded people who can really interact in society. And that's what courses like that allow you to do. And you begin as you get older, too, I think you see connections between, you know, when I'm doing research, when I'm reading about something, I often wonder, okay, so what is our economic situation today? How did people think about that in the past? And that's where history comes in. Or, you know, how did people argue for this? Or how did people think about this in the past, and that's where philosophy comes in, or communication or other disciplines. And so when you can draw on so many areas of knowledge. I think you just become a more well-rounded person, a person who can really engage in society and really understand why we do the things we do. And maybe how we can make changes based on those things as well.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Well, in your very name of the school humanities, you know, we are humans. And it's about the human experience. And young people may take that for granted. But the very fact that we can communicate with each other with the complexity that we have, sets us apart from other species, I don't mean to give you a lecture, but it's, it's really significant to understand that. And ultimately, we go out and we work with other people and no matter what it is, so learning all of those things, applying them makes a huge deal, difference.
Dr. David Kahl, Jr.:Absolutely, absolutely. That's some of the work that I do to, you know, in my area of communication is understanding how do we better make people engaged citizens of the world. And that's ultimately what we're trying to do.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Well lets switch to this. You know, some of the techniques you use in the classroom, I think you're very attentive to this idea of the power dynamic in a classroom. So tell us what that means. You know, what do you think about that? And how do you address it in your teaching?
Dr. David Kahl, Jr.:Yeah, I'll give a brief overview. And this kind of leads into some of my research and my research informs my teaching in a lot of ways. So my philosophy, my research is in the area of critical communication pedagogy. And the father of that, if you will, is someone named Paulo Freire, who developed critical pedagogy. Critical pedagogy is the idea that there's power present in our society. There's power present in the classroom. The instructor, the teacher, the professor holds power. And students are often in a traditional mode of education, at least seen as kind of passive vessels who are just supposed to sit there and just receive this, this knowledge. And he calls it the banking concept of education. Very much like you go into a bank and you make a deposit, you give the teller your money, or whatever. We deposit knowledge in students heads, and they just kind of are supposed to regurgitate it, memorize it on a test. And just they ultimately, forget it. That's not effective pedagogy. Not that we don't lecture sometimes. Not that we shouldn't present students with information. But we want them to dialogue about that information. We want to give them learning opportunities by which they can get together with each other, they can dissect ideas, they can critique ideas, they can become better informed about ideas when they have an opportunity to dialogue. And so it's a dialogic interaction between an among students and with the professor with the faculty member, creates a much more dynamic and ultimately fosters learning, cognitive learning more effectively. And affective learning, which is the desire to learn, rather than just kind of sitting passively, these being sort of passive vessels in the classroom. We want them to be active learners and active participants in their education.
Dr. Ralph Ford:And it's hard to do. But once they start asking you questions, then you probably know you're on the right track and challenging maybe what you've said.
Dr. David Kahl, Jr.:Absolutely. I mean, as an instructor, you have to be willing, of course, you're a subject matter expert. But that doesn't mean you aren't willing to. And you have to be willing to learn from your students as well. And so I think that's the really the type of classroom dynamic that you really want to foster.
Dr. Ralph Ford:So, David, what adjustments do you make to encourage students in your classroom who come from underrepresented backgrounds, who may not have traditionally even interacted in the ways we just talked about?
Dr. David Kahl, Jr.:That's a big portion of what critical communication pedagogy is, as well, it's the critical aspect is really understanding power. The communication aspect is understanding the meaning of messages and how to communicate them, well, then the pedagogy aspect is effective teaching the art of teaching. So in that vein, what I try to do is to the best of my ability, and and help my students to do this, as well understand that not everybody has the same background. Everybody comes from a different place, we're not a homogeneous institution, and thankfully. So I don't think we want that. That would be pretty boring, it would be a boring place, and it would play to be a place that lacks creativity and innovation and all of those things. And so we have to be very attuned to our students, their backgrounds, where they come from. We're talking about different genders, ethnicities, income levels, sexual orientations, all of these things. And we have to allow them to find their voice in the classroom. And so a lot of that comes from, like I said, this dialogic interaction giving students the opportunity to share their perspective to share their backgrounds, to share where they are coming from, because they experience things differently. You know, a lot of people assume that we experienced an issue the same way and we don't, we just don't. And all of our backgrounds are beneficial to us. But we have to give everyone a chance to share our experiences that everyone learns from that
Dr. Ralph Ford:They have to have a voice and it is absolutely critical. And can be a part of forming what you talked about in your classroom.
Dr. David Kahl, Jr.:Absolutely, absolutely. And that's how knowledge is constructed. You know, if you look at research on research, in other words, research teams who are homogeneous versus heterogeneous, more creativity, more innovation comes from heterogeneous groups. And so it's the same thing, and students learn from each other. Or when they're able to share.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Well, let's switch to the past few years. We've gone through the COVID pandemic. It's July 2022. It's not over yet, but the world is far more normal. We've had more normal experiences this last semester, we will this fall semester most likely. All of that being said, what changed in terms of how you communicate with students in the pandemic?
Dr. David Kahl, Jr.:Yeah, the pandemic certainly presented a lot of difficulties. And at the same time, it challenged us pedagogically to grow as, as teachers, as instructors, as professors. We had to determine very quickly, how are we going to reach our students at a time when we we're on Zoom and meeting, you know, synchronously, but not face to face. And so the medium change. That's something we talk about a lot in my public speaking class, we communicate through a variety of mediums. And so what's important, I think, during that time, and even now, when we're using more technology than maybe we were pre-pandemic, is trying to use those different mediums effectively. And how do you engage students in dialogue and in other ways, when you're in a electronic environment? And it certainly can be done. And that's something that I learned, and I had to gain instruction and read about. But but it's something that I think that helps us today. Sometimes, when you're presented with a challenge, not that Covid was anything we wanted to go through, certainly. But when you're presented with a challenge, sometimes you are forced, I guess, to come up with innovative ways to adapt.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Yes, and good things tend to come out of adversity, whether you like it or not. So tell us if you look at your classroom today, or the one for this upcoming fall semester, how's it different than it was three years ago?
Dr. David Kahl, Jr.:Yeah, I mean, there's, there's certainly a lot of similarities. I know my students certainly enjoy being back face-to-face. That was something students really missed that we learned. I do think, though, that I'm employing more technology. I'm employing more ways to interact with students, virtually. I'm finding that there are ways that I can connect with students, if I can't meet a student on campus a certain time maybe their schedule didn't work out, it used to be that we had to put that off. Now I can schedule a Zoom meeting with them, or I can do something like that. Sometimes we found that public speeches can be delivered via zoom or via other technologies that can be uploaded. So there's a lot of different things that can be done. And I think students recognize too, that they become more adept with some of these technologies. And again, technology is a tool. And as long as you have to figure out if this is something that can be used in a way to benefit students pedagogically or not.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Let's talk about... we're going to switch to your research. You study something called neo-liberalism. Tell us what that is.
Dr. David Kahl, Jr.:Neo-liberalism is, this is where I talked about how I was able or how I desire to marry the study of communication with economics. Neo-liberalism is an economic philosophy. So the first thing I want to point out is when we say neo, when we say liberalism, sometimes we think of political philosophies, we think of liberal versus conservative. And that's not what we're talking about here. Neo-liberalism. We're talking about the liberalisation of markets, of economic markets. So we're talking about the complete, or at least the move to completely deregulate markets. This is ... we always lived in a capitalist system, or at least in the most recent history. What changed in about the 1970s is, we sort of moved from capitalism to sort of a form of hyper capitalism. And that's what neo-liberalism is, at its core is hyper capitalism. It's the idea that we now live in a state where we are in competition with each other in so many different ways. So everything that we do, is defined by the market. It's defined by consumerism, and what happens in this, and it's also defined by an idea of extreme individualism. And that's what this system inculcates. There's nothing wrong with competition. You know, you think about my son is in a basketball camp right now at Penn State Behrend. He's competing in basketball, you know, we compete in a lot of different ways. But what neo-liberalism does, this hyper capitalist state, is it creates a situation in which we compete against each other to an extreme extent. So I'll give you an example. It used to be up until the mid 1970s. It was an economic law basically that as productivity rows in corporations. So as as employees innovated as they contributed to productivity as profits rose, wages rose at the same time. Okay, so they were rewarded for their work basically, across the board. It was a, it was basically considered an economic law. What happened at the dawn of the neo-liberal era is companies started to realize, we don't have to pay them for that, we can require that people work 60, 70, 80 hours a week, we can force that productivity. And we don't have to pay them because they are disposable in some ways. And if they don't want to do it, we can get somebody else who will. And so that's what's contributed to this really huge wealth gap in our country, where an extreme amount of a small amount of people control an extreme amount of wealth. We have a lot of people who are in extreme poverty, Noam Chomsky has a book called "Profit Over People". And I think that really describes it well, that profit is more important than the social contract that used to exist between corporations, governments and other things, and people
Dr. Ralph Ford:In the last few years, is that are you seeing any reversal? I mean, clearly, there's a much greater awareness now of the wealth gap, and the effects of that. And I think the pandemic has changed the labor market. Now, this may be temporary. There's just a lot going on. It's even changed everyone's attitude over the last several years. So I'm asking you to prognosticate a little bit. Look at the future. What do you see?
Dr. David Kahl, Jr.:Yeah, well, I hope that what we're seeing now, will will continue. What we're seeing is people during the pandemic have realized that I don't have to work for meager wages. I am worth more than that, you know. I have self
Dr. Ralph Ford:I think you've got to change some things worth that's greater than that. Those are things that have happened, wages have certainly increased in a lot of lot of ways. I hope that something that will continue, it's difficult to say, you know, it's difficult to say. I might, my hope is that it will continue. Power has a way of overcoming some of those things. Unfortunately, power works in covert and overt ways. Oftentimes surreptitiously to kind of work around the system, to enact, to maintain and exert itself. So it's difficult to say. systematically. We'd spent hours upon hours on this. And I realize there are a lot of different viewpoints. But I'll give you one quick observation when I lived in the Czech Republic, I just noticed that they didn't have to tip their waiters and waitresses. So when I talk to people, it's a no, you know, unlike America. We pay people a decent wage. And while the the overall wage structure there might have been different, and you could argue lower, I thought it actually had a different kind of living standard than you might have anticipated by just looking at that number. Now, I'm not arguing for one way or another, but I'm saying it is what you value. And if you think you'd have to change some of those ultimate things that we're just not going to say, well, because you're in this type of job, it has such a low value, we're never going to pay more than that.
Dr. David Kahl, Jr.:Exactly, exactly. And that's just it. Yet it's valuing all kinds of employment, you know, everyone has worth everyone has value. And that's really a lot of what this is about. Henry Giroux writes about this. And he calls it the "politics of disposability" as if some people because of their job, or whatever it is that they're almost disposable. And that's a really deleterious situation. And that's something that we want to work against.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Let's talk about this area of post truth that you study. And I think this comes into the discussion as well when we hear about things like fake news and the like. So what's the study of post truth?
Dr. David Kahl, Jr.:Yeah, post truth is definitely a problematic situation. It's not new. That's the interesting thing. A lot of people think of it being kind of a new phenomenon. Actually, if you look at the first newspaper in the United States, around the year 1690, it was basically shut down for fabricating or sensationalizing stories to sell newspapers. You know, so it's certainly not a new phenomenon. But what is new, is there are so many ways in which to disseminate news or to disseminate post truth. And this goes back to power as well. It's those who disseminate or propagate fake news or post truth messages, are those who either want to gain power or maintain power or are afraid of losing it in some way. So we have so many different ways of disseminating post truth messages with the internet, with social media, with all of those outlets. And the problem is psychologically people read these things and they believe it and they internalize it. And there's kind of two reasons for this. And I was I'll talk briefly about this. But post truth is the idea that we privilege belief over facts. So when you internalize these beliefs, your beliefs become almost sacrosanct. And you do not want to give up those beliefs, despite the evidence that you may hear from from experts. And so one of the reasons ... there's a great book called "The Death of Expertise". And oftentimes, people today don't trust experts. Right now.
Dr. Ralph Ford:There's an assault on expertise all the time, there's an assault on and there's some valid reasons as to why by the way. But, go ahead.
Dr. David Kahl, Jr.:Sure, and experts can be wrong, but they are wrong less than you are, if you will, you know, and that's the thing that people have to remember. And the other reason for it is group identity. And it's something we study in communication. We associate ourselves with groups. And it could be a political group, it could be any kind of group, it could be a special interest group, we associate ourselves with groups. And this is evolutionary. The problem is, that then we learn what those groups believe. We internalize what those groups believe. And then we don't want to do anything to distance ourselves or alienate ourselves from those groups. So we're willing to then disseminate and believe ideas that are completely fabricated that are completely false, simply because our group believes them.
Dr. Ralph Ford:And by the way, I'm not arguing at all against the expertise. In fact, my point is, I think a lot of people don't really even understand when they're listening to experts in the limitations of press what they're saying. And that gets less than the conversation and they take a small slice, and, of course, then go down a path. So but let me ask you this, how do we bring it back? How do we, how do we undo this increasing amount of post truth and fake news that we see? Is there any way to put the genie back in the bottle?
Dr. David Kahl, Jr.:It's very difficult. There's actually a ranking of countries that do a really good job of this, of how to how they teach students to recognize post truth. And as you can imagine, Finland is always... they're always at the top of many lists in K through 12 education, and they're way up there. What we need to do is a couple of things. One is learn to examine sources. We have to take the time to examine. When I teach public speaking, and when I teach persuasive speaking, we have to have sources that are credible, that are objective, that are verifiable, that are accurate. If you don't, you can present information that is completely false, it's fabricated, it's disinformation, and your audience is going to deem you to be untrustworthy. So we have to learn to examine sources. We have to take the time, you can't just read something on Facebook or on Twitter, and just say, "Oh, yes, that's the that's the truth. I'm just gonna believe that". And the other thing is, we have to learn to respond, or at least recognize the fact that these are messages created with an intent to maintain power. So why we have to, after we've identified them, we have to, we have to have discussions with people and dialog with people who may believe things that are untrue, and talk to them and present evidence. And we have to understand the degree to which we can persuade as well, there's a lot that goes into this, some audiences are very defensive. And that's, that's a problem. Some audiences are compliant, meaning they'll just believe you, they'll go along with what you say. But they'll just kind of do it for a short time. We want audiences to have a critical response where they're really willing to judge the strengths and weaknesses of your message. So dialogue discussion will get us a long way. But we can't ultimately convince everyone, unfortunately.
Dr. Ralph Ford:And I think these are the things we have to teach our students and, you know, you hit on this point, News travels fast. And you see this happen all the time, somebody reports something, and then you even see credible news sources, just simply taking their story and repeating it. And this seems to me to be a particularly difficult problem without seasoned reporters sometimes having the time and the resources. Why I mean, they're under a lot of pressure. They're trying to get the scoop, their financial, you know, model of their business is changing. But boy, the way bad stories get out there, it's amazing to me.
Dr. David Kahl, Jr.:Absolutely. And some of it is done intentionally. And some of it's some of it is more of a form of misinformation where it's sent out so fast, that it's just things that are misunderstood. It's almost like playing a game of telephone, where the message starts out on one end, by the time it gets down the line, it's something else or it's misunderstood. And so we kind of have to be really attuned to the credibility of these messages and understand that not everything you hear is truthful.
Dr. Ralph Ford:And I think understanding how to challenge them. Because a lot of the people who propagate these, they really become very good at not answering the question. You can see this quite often now. And it's become an art form.
Dr. David Kahl, Jr.:Yes. Very much so, very much so. Politicians, others have gotten very adept at moving around a question so they make you believe they've answered it, but they really haven't.
Dr. Ralph Ford:I'd like to have one other subject that I think is just so appropriate for this. And that's the idea of free speech. We hear about it all the time. And it's really interesting to watch there as well. Because as you watch to polarize sides, whether you call it left, right, I say, up, down, it doesn't really matter. The more they diverge, the more they seem to actually violate the principles of free speech and be willing not to follow what I consider to be liberal traditions in the United States. I'm gonna ask for, for a whole lot of political discourse on this, David, but you know, how do we teach our students the principles of free speech? Is this something we should be doing on a college campus?
Dr. David Kahl, Jr.:Yeah, I mean, free speech is very important. And having discourse between and among students, between and among professors, bringing speakers to campus who have different ideologies, different viewpoints is very important. I think we have to understand that this all revolves around the idea of civility. And so we have to be civil communicators. We have to... we actually in the communication department have a competition called the civil tongue speaking competition. We do it every semester. And we delve into difficult ideas such as this, we give students a contemporary, timely topic, something that doesn't have a clear answer that may have different sides to a different political bent, or whatever. And we asked them to debate it and do it in a civil way. And then we, we have a judging panel, people come to view this. And so those are the kinds of things that we want to instill in our majors, in our students here at Behrend, and certainly in the communication major.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Well, I love this civil tongue competition that you have. And you have to invite me. And I, you know, sometimes when we talk about civility, there are those who will say, you're using civility, to limit my speech. And I think that can be done. But I also think it's very important to understand this concept of you may have to listen to the most repugnant, horrible thing. That doesn't mean you have to stand around and listen to it. It doesn't mean that you have to agree with it. It means you can you can walk away, but you don't have to necessarily fight over it. You know, you're getting into an uncivil situation.
Dr. David Kahl, Jr.:Yeah, and that's certainly true. I mean, we have the ability to react to speech that is ugly, that is marginalizing that is subjugating. And that's, again, what a lot of my work is about. And it's that kind of speech is not okay, you know. That there is there is a limit, there's a limit to what speech can do or should do. There's a limit to what people can say. And it's, it can be a fine line. But for me, it's when speech marginalizes or is hegemonic. When it's subjugates people, that's when it's when it's problematic, right.
Dr. Ralph Ford:And there are limits. And you know, we could spend a tremendous amount of time about the legal definitions and the like. And you're right there, those are not the things that we want to encourage. But I think we do really want to make our students get into these situations where they have to debate with others. And, you know, I won't go on too much longer. But what I've heard from students over the years, is that they don't even talk to the other side, sometimes politically, because they don't want to have that discussion. And that I do find dangerous. We ought to be able to talk about politics, we should be able to talk about gun control, abortion, whatever. We may have very differing beliefs. But we need to have those discussions.
Dr. David Kahl, Jr.:We need those discussions. And honestly, that's why, in a lot of ways, we have so much divisiveness politically now because people don't talk to each other, or they just yell at each other. You know, and you don't have discussions. And I'll use the word again,civil discussions with each other. It doesn't even mean you'll come away agreeing with the other side, but at least you understand why they believe what they do. And that's what we really want to do. That's a critical response. That's what a critical listener will do.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Well, we've come to the end of our time. Is there anything else you would like to add?
Dr. David Kahl, Jr.:I just really appreciate being here today. This was a lot of fun. I enjoy this podcast. I listen to it a lot myself. I think it's really great. I going back to our earlier discussions about why I came to Penn State Behrend and why I really enjoy being here. It's the idea that it's a place where teaching and research is valued. And I think I talked to parents, oftentimes of prospective students that may be on campus and maybe in the community. And what I always tell them and it's something you wrote once. That we are Northwest Pennsylvania's research institution. You know, I thought that's such an excellent way to put it. Because our faculty are not only great educators, but a lot of them engage in research that expands and extends what it is that we teach. And so students here really get a really excellent experience and can even engage in research themselves. And so that's why I think, Penn State Behrend is such a great place and it's been a very good fit for me and I'm very happy to be here.
Dr. Ralph Ford:So well said it's been a pleasure to have this conversation. My guest today has been Dr. David Kahl, professor of communication and chair of our communication program here at Penn State Behrend. Thank you.