Murmuration’s Chief Marketing and Operating Officer, Michael Slaby, sat down with William J. Barber II, President & Senior Lecturer of Repairers of the Breach and Founding Director of the Yale Center for Public Theology and Public Policy for The Exchange, our interview series featuring influential thought leaders, organizers, advocates, and others who are shaping the future of civic life.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Michael Slaby: Welcome and thank you for taking some time to speak with us today. To start us off, could you introduce yourself and explain how Repairers of the Breach came to be?

Bishop William J. Barber, II: We founded Repairs of the Breach, a national organization that trains moral leaders and builds social justice movements, in 2015 after eight years of mobilizing in North Carolina and building a model of state-based mobilizing. We said there needed to be a form of movement that learned from the First and Second Reconstructions in this country. A Third Reconstruction needed to be deeply state-based; rooted in our deepest moral, constitutional, and religious values; not left or right, not conservative or liberal, not Republican or Democratic, but focused on the issues. Out of that need, Moral Monday happened, one of the most successful historic gatherings, where, for over two years, people went into the state house every Monday and challenged extremism. We founded Repairers of the Breach to be a teaching organization to train people in “moral fusion organizing”, what we call moral analysis, moral articulation, moral agenda building, and moral action, and to do it from the state up. We developed 14 guidelines for moral fusion organizing and started training across the country.

What we were calling for was a national moral revival, saying something is off that we can’t get people to move past partisanship to focus on things like healthcare, for example. Repairers of the Breach says, you can’t address these interlocking injustices—systemic racism, systemic poverty, ecological devastation, denial of healthcare, the war economy, and the false moral narrative of religious nationalism—without an intersectional moral fusion movement. And it must be from the bottom up–moral leaders, impacted people, and activists. We are an organization that’s not trying to build loyalty to Repairers of the Breach. We’re trying to build loyalty to our deepest moral and religious values. That’s what Repairs of the Breach is about, building that moral commitment.

Michael Slaby: The term “repairs of the breach” comes from Isaiah 58:12 in the Bible, a story about people who restore a community after destruction. The idea that our public civic life is founded on moral commitments to each other is something that often sounds religious or spiritual and is often led by people of faith, but Repairers of the Breach is a moral movement, not a religious one. What is it about faith that continues to act as a catalyst for justice and progress in civic life, especially given the declining participation in traditional religious institutions?

Bishop William J. Barber, II: The greater the pain, the greater the people recognize there’s a sickness. For instance, if you think that Trump is the issue—one person—that is a weak analysis. Part of what’s happening is that authoritarians and neo-fascist movements have been allowed to rise because the door has been left open for them to come in. We didn’t close the door by fixing the issues in America, like poverty, for instance. So what happens is they go to places and say to people, “We love you,” but really it’s not love; it’s a form of spiritual religious malpractice when they try to use religion as a tool of hurt and harm, and not for addressing the issues people are facing.

In my class at Yale, I bring in a Bible that has every passage about how to treat strangers and the vulnerable. I say to the students, do not address public theology where morality becomes a tack on. What is it that you stand for, no matter who’s in office? What is it that you stand for, no matter what party is leading? When Jesus did his first sermon, he said, “I’ve come to bring good news to the poor, those who’ve been made poor by economic policy. Every nation will be judged by, “When I was hungry, did you feed me? When I was naked, did you clothe me?” There has to be a movement that uses its voice to say to the nation, “This is sin,” but also gives a vision for the future. What you have to do is give people a vision. Prophetic imagination must precede prophetic moral implementation.

Michael Slaby: I think that to get past the grievance and the shared pain and diagnosis, and into the world of solution, we need to talk about the necessity for using moral clarity as a way to co-organize with “a world full of allies” who might not always share the same priorities. Can you talk a little about your “moral fusion” organizing model and why you believe it’s essential to build power at the local and state levels rather than at the national level to achieve lasting change?

Bishop William J. Barber, II: What we often hear is “elect me because of what I’m against.” And for us, the question is, “What are you for?” That doesn’t mean you ignore the grievance. You simply don’t allow the grievance to have the last word. Because if you do that, then you end up giving power to those who are creating the pain, because you’re refusing to organize those people who are being hurt. The people who are being hurt and the impacted, connected with moral advocates, are more than those who are doing the hurt. For instance, there’s not a state in this country where poor and low-wage people don’t represent between 36%-42% of the electorate. And there’s not a state in this country where if you mobilize 20% of those poor and low-wage people, whose number one reason for not voting is nobody talks to us, you won’t see new political possibilities.

In conversations across the country, I have realized authoritarianism is deeply afraid of three things. It is afraid of truth-telling movements because telling the truth is the most powerful first thing you can do in a season of lies. The second thing authoritarians fear is people and movements that believe there’s something greater than the authoritarian. They freak out about that! The last thing they fear is movements that start from the bottom. So when a movement decides we’re gonna go after the root, and we’re gonna organize the pain, we recognize that the only way is to organize from the bottom. Dr. King said in his 1965 “Our God Is Marching On!” speech at the Alabama State Capitol, following the Selma-to-Montgomery march, that the greatest fear of the greedy oligarchy in this nation is for the masses of Negroes and the masses of poor whites and others to come together and form a voting bloc that can fundamentally shift the economic architecture of the nation. So if we are all black in the dark, we need to be smart enough to unite for the light. And that’s what we have to do right now, build a movement that this country cannot do without.

Michael Slaby: In February, Repairers of the Breach organized a “Moral March from Wilson to Raleigh” and a “Mass People’s Assembly” to draw attention to opposition to the new congressional map passed by the North Carolina General Assembly, which Repairers of the Breach say unfairly redrew the 1st Congressional District, taking away the voting power of Black, Latino, and poor and low-wage people. How does this effort fit into the broader history of justice marches in the South, and why is it essential to bring people together to create highly visible moments of collective power today?

Bishop William J. Barber, II: President Trump called North Carolina and told the MAGA state legislature, I want the First Congressional District. It’s a district created by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, predominantly minority Black. So we went and had meetings. At the first meeting, we had about 500 people show up, and they didn’t say, let’s go after Trump or let’s go after Johnson. They said let’s connect. Let’s show that when you attack voting rights, you’re also attacking healthcare. That people don’t just want this district for benign reasons. They want the district because they want the power to continue to inflict pain.

So, Repairers of the Breach organized a Wilson to Raleigh march this past February. The people said, let’s do it right now, in the middle of winter. We walked 51 miles in four days. When we started that morning, there were 278 people. By the time we got to Raleigh, it was thousands. And they didn’t just come for the rally, or to voice their opposition to Trump—I don’t think anybody mentioned his name at the rally. What we were talking about is what we love, what we embrace.

Michael Slaby: That leads me into my next question. What is giving you hope for the future right now?

Bishop William J. Barber, II: This past Sunday, I was in Little Rock, Arkansas, for a justice revival event, and the place was packed. It’s Black, it’s White, it’s Brown. And it’s not just people who came to hear me speak. It was people saying, “Let’s organize! How can we build an agenda?” When I talk to young folk or when I’m teaching my classes, I always share Jürgen Moltmann’s “Theology of Hope,” and I’ll paraphrase him here. He says that whenever people of deep moral conviction see something that is wrong and decide that they can no longer accept it and they put their hands to the work of changing it, that’s where hope begins. Love, truth, and justice have a power that has won before, and that is greater than extremism and authoritarianism. But you have to be willing to do the work to cause that movement to rise.

Michael Slaby: That invitation to love and be in community and not to focus on the grievance feels so refreshing right now. People keep talking about how the world feels like it’s on fire, and that feels like water.

Bishop William J. Barber, II: You know, since we did the “Love Forward Mass People’s Assembly Moral March Mobilization,” we’ve been getting calls from all over from people wanting us to come to help them. And when that happens, Repairers of the Breach doesn’t say, “Barber is the one; let him come in and lead.” Dr. King didn’t believe in that kind of leadership. What we need is to give people the tools to build from the state up. Transformation happened from Raleigh, Greensboro, Montgomery, Jackson, and up. It doesn’t happen from D.C., right?

Every week, I go back and listen to the agenda of the 1963 March on Washington because popular history acted as though all that happened there was Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. But there was an agenda–an agenda that’s yet to be realized. That’s why I say we haven’t finished the second Reconstruction. Each Reconstruction was killed or murdered or maligned, but it’s still there. The possibilities are there.

I’d like to leave you with one last thing. During COVID, when so many had lost so much, one family in our movement lost 12 members. I said, “Lord, why these people? I’m not more special than them. Why is it that they’re dying?” And one night it came to me that that’s always the wrong question. Why are you still here? Why are you still alive? Nobody can answer that question. The question that you must answer is, what are you still here for? And it dawned on me that if COVID didn’t teach us anything else, it showed those of us who are yet living that the only way we honor those we lost is to remember that breath is too precious to waste on lies, injustice, hate, meanness, and inequality. And if I have breath–whether it’s six seconds, six minutes, six hours, six days, six weeks, or 60 years–I should commit myself to using my breath to breathe the life of love and justice and mercy into the world. Don’t worry about why you’re here. You’ll never be able to answer that question. But as long as you are here, there’s work to do. And that’s what you set yourself to do with every breath you take.

About William J. Barber II
Bishop William J. Barber II is a Professor in the Practice of Public Theology and Public Policy and Founding Director of the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale Divinity School. He serves as President and Senior Lecturer of Repairers of the Breach and Bishop with The Fellowship of Affirming Ministries.

About Michael Slaby
Michael Slaby is a leader in how values, systems, strategy, and technology drive movements and organizations. At Murmuration, he leads marketing, fundraising, network engagement, and culture. Before joining Murmuration, he was a senior strategist and head of community at Harmony Labs where he worked on accelerating media reform and transformation. He founded and was head of mission of Timshel, a social impact technology company, and was a fellow at the Shorenstein Center at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Michael helped lead the Obama for America campaign as chief integration and innovation officer in 2012 where he oversaw all technology and analytics and as deputy digital director and chief technology officer in 2008.

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Murmuration is a nonprofit working to transform America into a nation where everyone can thrive. We organize a network of community-focused partners and equip them with the insights, tools, and services they need to help communities build and activate power more effectively. murmuration.org

Murmuration’s Chief Research Officer, Sarah Stamper, sat down with political scientist Hahrie Han for The Exchange, our interview series featuring influential thought leaders, organizers, advocates, and others who are shaping the future of civic life.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Sarah Stamper: Thank you so much for making the time to talk with us about everything that’s been going on in your research, your lab, and winning the MacArthur Fellowship.

I want to start by talking about your newest book, “Undivided,” which centers on Crossroads, a large evangelical church in Cincinnati, as a primary case study. In the book, you followed a predominantly white evangelical megachurch in Cincinnati as it launched a program called Undivided to confront structural racism within its congregation and the broader community.

The book centers on the journeys of several church members as they confront difficult conversations about race and shift their perspectives over time. In Crossroads’ transformation, how much of the momentum came from explicitly theological commitments, and how much from relational organizing strategies that might translate beyond a faith-based setting?

Hahrie Han: I think a lot of people assume the program had the effects it did because the participants all believed in God, which is a faith commitment that animates people to action in a unique way. But, I think what actually mattered was that it was a group of people who had a visceral experience of the value of collective life. They had been part of this really vibrant church community ahead of confronting the issues they grappled with in the program. These are people who knew in their bones already that what we can do when we act together with others is more powerful than what we can do when we act alone. I always tell my students, once you’ve learned that lesson, once you have an experience like that in your life, you can never un-have it.

Sarah Stamper: Murmuration’s data shows that as third spaces vanish, belonging, community, and civic participation decline. In that context, and the context of faith communities, how should we think about the scalability and durability of relational organizing?

Hahrie Han: I 100% agree with the findings that you’re describing. With the loss of intermediary organizations, we’ve lost many of the natural social networks that knit our social fabric together. That was one of the things that the church, Crossroads, in my book offered: a culture of relational interaction.

They had lots of different sayings in the church, but one of the more common sayings was “we do life together.” It means that if you’re a part of this church, it’s not just that you show up for an hour on Sunday. No. Instead, it’s “we do life together,” which means that we want you to come and use our lobby as a co-working space, and there’s always free coffee, and there’s always babysitting that’s available so that parents can come and participate in events. They really want to provide a wraparound community to the people who are part of their church.

It’s a great question about the scalability of those kinds of social networks. And in fact, that was part of what made me really interested in studying these megachurches. If you’re getting 50,000 people together in person every Sunday, there’s something powerful going on. I wanted to understand how they draw all these people together. It’s true that it’s hard to scale the kind of dense relational networks that we talk about in relational organizing, but we have a ton of evidence that you can. It happens across megachurches every week, and there’s no inherent reason that I’ve seen that says that can only happen in a church environment.

96% of the budget of these megachurches comes from individual donations and most megachurches are growing. People are committing real resources to these places, which tells me that people are hungry for opportunities to be part of relational communities. When they find it, then those communities have a natural scalability to them.

Now, one thing that’s really different about churches relative to a lot of relational organizing that happens in more issue-based civic and political spaces is that churches have a natural organizational unit to them. If I’m part of a church, then I might tithe, I might sign up as a member, or as a congregant. There are different ways in which there’s an organization, and that organization has a governing board, it has a leader, all the things that go into self-governing associations. It has a structure to it. Often it has a physical space, but not always.

In contrast, a lot of times, the kind of relational organizing that we’re doing, going door to door around issues, is trying to pick people off one by one from their natural social environments. That’s what is really hard to scale. Yet, we have decades and decades of data that tell us there are other ways we can do it. When you organize through structures, school boards, churches, gun clubs, hobby organizations, YMCAs, libraries, where there’s a natural base, then it’s a lot faster to scale.

Sarah Stamper: In many civic contexts, success is defined by what’s easiest to count—clicks, contacts, turnout, short-term engagement metrics. What are the dangers of measuring only what’s easy rather than what actually builds power? Are there indicators you think better capture whether civic capacity is genuinely growing or eroding over time?

Hahrie Han: I hope that one lesson people take away from my work is this idea that it’s not just that we get people involved that matters, it’s how we get them involved that really matters.

I’ve spent my career studying the micro foundations of collective action. The key finding that comes out across all these different kinds of studies that I’ve done–from political campaigns to community organizing to issue-based work to church-based work to whatever–is that how you engage people affects what we’re able to accomplish together. I totally understand why we count clicks and likes and actions and things like that because those are observable behaviors that give us a sense of what’s happening. But if that’s the only thing we count, then we’re only getting a partial sense of the picture for the reasons that we already talked about. So what does it mean to measure not just what people do, but also whether they’re building the kind of capacity that we need?

I always think about it at the micro, meso, and macro levels. At the micro level, we want to understand whether or not people are not only taking action, but also developing those kinds of strategic, agentic capacities. We have to rely on some survey data to be able to capture some of the more effective orientations that we know underlie that kind of capacity. But then we also want to look at the meso level, which is about building collective vehicles or structures through which people can take action. You could have individuals who have all the affective and behavioral orientations that we need to take civic action. But if they’re doing it alone, it’s ultimately not going to build the kind of collective capacity that we need. We have to measure organizations at the meso level and then finally institutional change at the macro level.

Sarah Stamper: If our metrics and incentives shape behavior, they also shape the ecosystem itself. If you were designing civic infrastructure for the next 20 years and not the next election cycle, what would you prioritize?

Hahrie Han: There’s a famous political scientist who wrote in the mid-20th century, Albert Hirschman, who has this terrific book called “Exit, Voice, and Loyalty” that I’ve been thinking about a lot recently. The idea behind it is that market-based organizations operate on the logic of exit. So if I don’t like your “product,” then I leave. If I don’t like Cheerios, I go buy Chex. If I don’t like Heinz Ketchup, I go by Hunts. I can go to the store and can pick different products based on what I like.

But the logic of civic and political organizations, he argues, should operate on this logic of voice, which means that if I don’t like the product—which could be a candidate, a policy, or a position—then instead of exiting, instead of just leaving like we might with a different type of “product,” I should fight and try to exercise voice within the organization to get the organization to change. That distinction between exit and voice as the dominating logic behind what differentiates market-based organizations and civic organizations is a foundational insight.

The next question is, what does it take to build voice-based organizations? In the 21st century, people are so accustomed to thinking about network-based activity and thinking that you can’t please everybody. We should instead be thinking about the mechanisms of loyalty, which is what the third part of his argument is— that we need to generate people’s willingness and commitment to exercising voice when they disagree and build organizations in which disagreement is allowed.

If I were redesigning a civic architecture that would work for what we need in our moment, whether it’s online or offline, digital or not, I would be thinking about the measures of self-governing, voice-based organizations to ensure we have a supply of civic opportunity that matches what we know we need to build the civic capacity that we want.

Sarah Stamper: Your lab’s civic opportunity mapping shows stark disparities in where people can find meaningful participation. What surprised you most about that data? And what should funders and practitioners be doing differently in response?

Hahrie Han: One of the things I was most surprised by is that in about 80% of counties in America, the top providers of civic opportunity are still social and fraternal organizations and faith-based institutions. Social-fraternal organizations include sororities, fraternities, Elks, Masons, Rotary Clubs, ethnic clubs, hometown associations, hobby groups, and so on. Along with faith-based institutions, they are the top providers of civic opportunity. They’re the ones who invite people into civic life most often.

What that tells me is that the places where people are gathering to come together are really still the same kind of places that they’ve always gathered and tried to come together. Those kinds of organizations still matter for building the kind of civic fabric that we need, for tilling the soil in the ways to make civic life work.

We’ve also been delighted to see the way funders and other organizations have built on these insights–about where the civic deserts are and what providers of civic opportunity look like–to try to make investments to renew civic architecture in certain places. For example, we’ve done a lot of work with an organization called the Trust for Civic Life, which is really a consortium of funders that have come together to try to invest in a set of pilot counties to see if they can reinvigorate civic life by building civic opportunity.

Sarah Stamper: Murmuration’s research shows that despite the challenges many Americans face, hope has held steady across the country. Even amid financial strain, rising stress, and widespread burnout, hope has held steady—an often overlooked but powerful sign of community resilience.

I would love for you to talk about examples or ways that you think movements can actually sustain hope without denying the loss or the failure or the risks that we’re experiencing. How are you thinking about hope in this moment?

Hahrie Han: I love the Maimonides quote that says, “hope is belief in the plausibility of the possible, not only the necessity of the probable.” I feel the most hopeless when I look at data and it says, probabilistically speaking, that we’re heading in this direction or that direction or somewhere negative. Hope requires a leap of faith that we can do things that are unexpected. Anyone who’s been part of a really vibrant community knows that it’s true that we can do unexpected things if we invest in each other.

I feel most hopeful when I am in a relationship or in dialogue with everyday Americans just living their lives, trying to do work, and trying to build their community. I feel most hopeless when I spend all my time with policymakers or funders in DC.

When I first started as an organizer, before I was a scholar, one of my mentors told me, “people are people are people,” and you have to always remember that. I still feel like that’s true, that when I’m on the ground with people, I’m reminded that we might disagree, we might have different politics, we might have all these different things that seem to divide us, but then in the end, people are people are people. Once you recognize that, then it’s hard not to feel hopeful.

Sarah Stamper: People are people are people—but you’re a person who just won a MacArthur Fellowship! Congratulations. That fellowship is often framed as both recognition for past work, but also freedom to reset or expand your research agenda. Can you give us a glimpse of what might come next and what this unlocks for you?

Hahrie Han: It’s such an enormous privilege and gift, not to mention a total shock to receive the fellowship. It was completely unexpected. It’s not like I had been planning for it, so I’ve had to spend a few months thinking about what makes the most sense.

I don’t know that I’ve totally landed on it, but—not unrelated to everything that we just talked about—I have a sense that the underlying paradigm that most people have about how public life works is somewhat broken. We’re at a moment where we need a different paradigm that helps us understand how we can rebuild the very foundations of what public and civic life can be in America. I would love to be able to develop a project that can help move us towards that alternate paradigm.

Right now, too many people experience public life as a spectacle that they’re only invited to consume every two to four years, maybe. When they’re invited to consume it, they don’t really like the choices that are before them. So a lot of people are responding with a kind of fight or flight response that is not unreasonable, given the way in which they feel disempowered from the system. There are glimmers where people are rebuilding a different kind of paradigm that is grounded in practice that recognizes people as architects of their own future. I would love to be able to do some kind of work that helps us bring that paradigm to life.

Sarah Stamper: We’ll stay tuned for that. I’m very excited to have the opportunity to speak with you and to see where your work goes next. And as always, thank you so much for being in community with us and for being in this conversation.

About Hahrie Han
Hahrie Han is the Inaugural Director of the SNF Agora Institute, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Professor of Political Science, and Faculty Director of the P3 Research Lab at Johns Hopkins University. She is an award-winning author of five books and numerous scholarly articles. Her latest book (Knopf 2024), about faith and race in America with a focus on evangelical megachurches, was named to the New York Times list of 100 Notable Books of the Year in 2024, and the New Yorker’s list of Recommended Books for 2024. She has also written for scholarly and public outlets ranging from the New York Times and the Washington Post to the American Political Science Review, Nature Human Behavior, and the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). She is a 2025 recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship (so-called “genius grants”), is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, was named a 2022 Social Innovation Thought Leader of the Year by the World Economic Forum’s Schwab Foundation, and delivered the Tanner Lectures at Harvard University in 2024.

About Sarah Stamper
Sarah Stamper has been a neuroscientist for over 15 years, specializing in the quantitative analysis of behavior and systems. At Murmuration, Sarah leads a team of data and scientific experts building cutting-edge data and insights that empower partners to better understand, engage, and mobilize their communities. She also authors State of Us, a series that explores what America is feeling, thinking, and moving toward together, for Murmuration’s Substack. Before joining Murmuration, she led product and data science at Helm, a civic technology company. She also previously led research at the Art & Science Group, providing valuable data and insights to K-12 institutions, higher education, and nonprofit organizations, shaping their approaches to community engagement and strategic planning.

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Murmuration is a nonprofit working to transform America into a nation where everyone can thrive. We organize a network of community-focused partners and equip them with the insights, tools, and services they need to help communities build and activate power more effectively. murmuration.org

Our Chief Research Officer, Sarah Stamper, sat down with Rachel Janfaza of The Up and Up for The Exchange, our interview series featuring influential thought leaders, organizers, advocates, and others who are shaping the future of civic life.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Sarah Stamper: Welcome, Rachel. To kick us off, can you share a bit about your work at The Up and Up?

Rachel Janfaza: When I started The Up and Up, it was just a newsletter, but it’s grown to be a research and media organization focused on Gen Z. We do regular listening sessions with young people across the country and have a community of Gen Zers that we tap into for insights. We also do qualitative reality check surveys with our Gen Z community. This group has grown organically through conversations, interviews, listening sessions, and then their broader networks. We always ask our community members to share the opportunities with their classmates, their friends, their family, cousins, siblings, and anyone they think would want to share their point of view. There’s a lot of hard data we are told about Gen Z. We see headlines every single day about their politics, the way that they’re thinking about work and education. At The Up and Up, we try to go a level deeper than just the hard data and find real personal stories that humanize the numbers in the headlines.

Sarah Stamper: Given you’re a member of Gen Z and work to uncover their stories, what do you think is most understood about Gen Z, and what has been oversimplified or misconstrued in the media and the public discourse?

Rachel Janfaza: The biggest misconception that I’ve sought to push back on is this idea that all of Gen Z thinks, acts, and votes the same. Gen Z is not monolithic. In fact, there are varied experiences within the Gen Z demographic. This is a wide range of young people across the country from different backgrounds. This is the most diverse generation in American history. And depending on how old you are within the generation of Gen Z, when you were born, you grew up in a very different context.

Last year, I started to write about the theory of the two Gen Zs, the idea that our generation was split down the middle by the COVID-19 pandemic, and also by the different technologies that we’ve grown up with. We see this evolving every single day with AI and the way that it’s changing so rapidly. I’m on the oldest cusp of Gen Z, born in 1997. My childhood, my K-12 education, and even my college and early career experience are so different than someone who is either in middle school or high school today. So I really look at that framework as a way to try to understand where different parts of Gen Z are coming from, depending on these shared experiences that we’ve had while growing up.

Sarah Stamper: You brought up AI, which is so top of mind and prominent in the news right now. We’re finding in our own data at Murmuration that young people have real concerns about what AI means for the future, that they are more likely to say that AI is “very bad” and much more likely to say that it’ll have a negative impact on the world. What are you finding when you talk with Gen Z and young people about AI?

Rachel Janfaza: There’s also been research from Gallup and the Walton Family Foundation showing that AI makes Gen Z anxious, and that’s something I’ve been thinking a lot about, too. In my research and conversations with Gen Z, there’s a range of perspectives and opinions on AI, and how it’s changing things, but the truth is, no matter who you are, no matter how old you are, AI is changing your life in one way or another. Being the first generation to grow up with that is really daunting.

I think Gen Z is expected to usher in new technological changes and a technological revolution, and has always been at the forefront of that. And to a certain degree, Gen Z is leading AI, but it’s also disrupting their adolescent experience, their workforce development, their education, the way they think about their relationships, and their own identity. This is also a generation that has a strange relationship with technology because they rely on it so heavily during COVID, and it has also disrupted their life in so many ways when looking at just social media alone.

Now, to add AI on top of that is scary for some, but it is also seen as a massive opportunity for others. When I ask about AI in our listening sessions, depending on the point that someone is at in their education or their career, we hear a range of responses. But for the most part, for college students or those who haven’t yet entered the workforce, and high schoolers even younger than that, they’re constantly being told that this tool exists but there’s a whole sort of wild west of rules, or lack thereof, of when they’re allowed to use it, and whether or not they will be judged for using it. And yet they’re also being told that it’s going to change everything, so if they don’t know how to use it, they’re going to be left behind. That creates a really complicated dynamic where young people are both being taught that they should know how to use this, but also they could be punished for trying.

The strongest concern I hear is about work and about feeling like they’re not really being set up for the changing work environment. There are a lot of students who fear that the college education that they’re spending so much money on and work so hard to get, that degree will be outdated the moment they get it, if it’s not rooted in AI. I think there’s also a conversation being had about education and human skills that will never be replaced by AI. No one knows really what it’s going to look like even a year from now, let alone five, 10 years from now. I think it’s warranted for there to be a lot of anxiety and a lot of concern, but also at the same time, a feeling of excitement that there’s a lot of good that comes from AI, too.

Our research also shows that young people are using it for navigating relationships or how they feel about themselves, whether that be through AI therapy or conversations they’re having with chatbots. Sometimes it might seem a little bit strange to have a relationship with a chatbot in that way. And there’s been some horrible stories about tragedies that have occurred because young people are relying on this technology to fill the void that a human should be filling. But I think there’s also some positives that can come from that, and more access to mental health resources and support that should and can be explored as well.

Sarah Stamper: One of the themes that we see in Murmuration research is how differently Gen Z thinks about and defines belonging. It’s much less about institutions. It’s more about identity, peer network, and digital or third spaces. How are they talking to you about belonging, community, and purpose?

Rachel Janfaza: This is something I’ve been asking a lot about recently, and it gets at a root problem that a lot of young people in our community have identified, which is the fact that it’s hard for them to find a place where they feel they belong. I think that’s the root of many of the crises that we see within Gen Z, whether it’s the loneliness epidemic or Gen Z’s compassion recession.

Gen Z tells me that when they feel they do belong, it’s in third spaces—a space that’s not school or work or home but somewhere else where they feel that they have community. I did a project over the summer focused on identity, and the most salient part of people’s identity for Gen Z and Gen Alpha was often rooted in religion or familial backgrounds. I think that’s because that’s where they feel they belong, and that’s where they drive their identity from. Young people also get this from fandoms, sororities, fraternities, sports teams, theater clubs, and online communities–but the big one is religious or spiritual groups. They want to be part of something bigger than themselves, and in a world that is moving at the speed of light, whether it’s the way AI is changing so quickly or the rapid speed of internet culture, I think it’s hard to feel like you belong anywhere for more than just a second, let alone a long period of time. It’s really the relationships and the camaraderie that come from those third places that I think are what is driving young people to them.

Sarah Stamper: Murmuration research consistently finds that almost everyone agrees that no political party fully represents them these days. You’ve highlighted the record-high share of Americans and young people identifying as political independents. In light of this, what do you think organizers should be thinking about in terms of how to engage with young people? And if a political party is a very weak hook, what’s a stronger entry point? Should they be thinking about issues or local problems, relational trust, or something else?

Rachel Janfaza: Young people are so frustrated with both parties. But it’s actually an opportunity for new leaders and organizers to reach them because they just want to feel heard. Part of why Gen Z has disaffected from both traditional parties is that they don’t feel like either party is listening to them.

We’ve seen the mistake that politicians have made in thinking that just by showing up on social media or on some new media platform and going on a podcast is like this magic fix that’s going to suddenly get Gen Z to want to engage with them or to vote for them. But young people can tell when someone is just trying to get someone to vote for them and read right through it. They grew up online, so they have a very high bar of what it means to be authentic. They’re also craving leaders who are actually blending that online engagement with in-person ideas, strategies, and tactics.

I think a lot of young people have felt gaslit by both parties, and that leaders don’t address the actual root cause of the problem. They just kind of sugarcoat it or pretend it doesn’t exist, or will say that something that a young person can very clearly see is happening or feels in their own everyday life, whether it be something like the cost of living or the way that their community is being discriminated against. They can see these things happening in their day-to-day lives, and then they hear leaders and elected officials pretend like that doesn’t exist or it’s not happening, which is frustrating and alienating.

Organizers can circumvent that by addressing young people’s lived experiences head-on by acknowledging the problems they face and offering solutions that are rooted in local issues. We are seeing young people talk very passionately about their local politics and about issues that are present in their day-to-day community. At a time when the national political conversation is so divisive and unrelenting, rooting themselves in the local allows young people to feel more agency and a pathway to be involved because the macro-national level can feel overwhelming and like it doesn’t apply to the individual. But things that are happening in individual communities without a doubt make a difference in their day-to-day lives.

Sarah Stamper: A cornerstone of the Gen Z experience is growing up in a world where every major event is captured, it’s shared, it’s remixed, and it’s sometimes distorted online. How does this shape younger people’s interpretation of reality and their trust in institutions?

Rachel Janfaza: I’ve written a lot about the two Gen Zs and the fact that Gen Z 1.0 was kind of leading the forefront of these movements for social justice, whether it be climate strikes, the March for Our Lives, or protests for racial justice during the summer of 2020. There are a lot of similarities right now to 2020. I also wrote about Gen Z 2.0, which retracted from that. There wasn’t much activism during the Biden years. Being MAGA was more counterculture. There was a shift to the right amongst Gen Z. Now we’re seeing that young people are starting to protest again by leading massive school walkouts against this administration and against the actions that ICE is taking in communities across the country. The thing to note about Gen Z’s relationship to all of this is that it’s very fluid. They don’t see one political party as being better than the other. They see both as problematic, and they’re willing to speak out against both. They’re willing to share when they disagree with what elected officials and leaders are doing.

The protests that are happening now in response to some of the actions of this administration or that ICE is taking aren’t something that Democrats should celebrate. I think that Democrats have a lot of work to do to earn young voters’ support in November. And the fact that there’s frustration doesn’t necessarily mean that that frustration will work in their favor.

But what it does indicate is that young people are going to speak out and stand up for what they believe in. And especially when that’s happening in their local community or when they feel such close proximity to it because they watch it on their social media feeds, and they’re paying attention and they’re going to do something about it, no matter what party is in charge.

Sarah Stamper: We are coming up on America’s 250th birthday at a moment where pride and belonging are fragile. It’s especially true for young people who associate America with instability and unmet promise. What kinds of concrete changes would move the needle for this generation?

Rachel Janfaza: The number one issue that young people face, and we’ve been hearing this for years, is the cost of living and the fact that their life feels so unaffordable. I think that’s part of why we’re seeing young people flip-flop back and forth between political parties and not want to be a part of either political party because they don’t feel that either party has their best interests in mind when it comes to the cost of living. If elected officials can help with solutions, with lowering costs, or at least address the fact that they understand that young people are feeling this way, I do think that could move the needle. In certain states, actions are being taken to make education more affordable or to make sure that there are more pathways to education or a good-paying job. A lot of this happens on the local level, and it makes a big difference in young people’s lives.

Sarah Stamper: In this conversation, we have talked about any number of pressures that people are under—cost of living and the economy, feeling politically unmoored, and feeling lonely or in search of third spaces. While these things directly impact Gen Z, they are also shared pressures and experiences for people of many different generations. Where should we start to build cooperation between generations and foster more cross-generational understanding?

Rachel Janfaza: It’s all about mentorship. A lot of generational fractures could be healed by younger people having an ally in an older person, and vice versa, an older person feeling that they have a companion who’s a bit younger than them, who can help them through the challenges they’re facing. This can be mutually beneficial, and I think that there’s so much wisdom that young people can gain from older generations who have been through this before.

If you’re thinking about the economic headwinds that Gen Z is up against, having a millennial mentor who can talk about what it was like to be in the 2008 recession and to graduate during that time and find a job, or lost a job, or faced the housing crisis that ensued—all of that is so relevant to someone in Gen Z right now. Similarly, with all the global conflicts we experience today, talking to someone older who experienced Vietnam and hearing about what that was like, there’s so much that can be learned.

When it comes to belonging and the crisis of loneliness, it’s not isolated to Gen Z. I think all of us feel it when we live in virtual realities. Having a mentorship relationship can allow people to feel like they belong and that they have a point and purpose, and purpose is something that we all crave.

When it comes to work, if AI is changing the workforce, none of us knows how to handle that. I think it’s really important that more of the managers and CEOs, and people in positions of leadership, can help their Gen Z employees understand where they can add the most value. At the same time, I think that Gen Z can and should be willing to ask their managers, CEOs, and mentors for guidance, for help, and for advice about where they can add the most value. Mentorship is a great way to foster that intergenerational dialogue and companionship.

Sarah Stamper: Murmuration research shows that hope is surprisingly persistent in communities and in particular, Gen Z is holding on to that hope. What gives you hope for the future right now?

Rachel Janfaza: We similarly hear that young people are feeling hopeful despite listing a range of concerns that they have. A lot of it comes from the community and from each other. I recently asked, “What in the country right now gives you hope?” in a reality check we did, and one of the answers was, “Americans. I believe Americans are brave and fundamentally good people, even if there’s a faction among us that is lost and angry.” I think people see hope when Americans come together. We also heard a lot about unity. Young people give other young people hope. People also said the midterms give them hope. And there’s religion.

What gives me hope is in our listening sessions, when we have two people with very diametrically opposed views who are willing to have a back-and-forth dialogue, and they don’t have to come to some agreement. We’re not singing Kumbaya, that’s not really the point of what we do. The point is to show that there are varying viewpoints and that you can still have a productive conversation, and it doesn’t have to lead to chaos, division, and hatred, and that there can be respect even for people who have different viewpoints. That’s what gives me hope.

Sarah Stamper: It was a pleasure to talk with you more about your work and how you’ve championed elevating the voices of Gen Z and increasingly Gen Alpha. I really appreciate you taking the time to speak with us.

About Rachel Janfaza
Rachel Janfaza is the founder of The Up and Up, a research, media, and strategy firm focused on Gen Z. Her written work has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, Vox, The Free Press, Glamour, POLITICO Magazine, Vogue, Teen Vogue, Elle, Cosmo, and Bustle. And her on-air analysis has been featured on CNN, MSNBC/MSNOW, CBS, C-SPAN, NY-1, and WNYC Public Radio. She is also a contributor to The Bulwark.

About Sarah Stamper
Sarah Stamper has been a neuroscientist for over 15 years, specializing in the quantitative analysis of behavior and systems. At Murmuration, Sarah leads a team of data and scientific experts building cutting-edge data and insights that empower partners to better understand, engage, and mobilize their communities. She also authors State of Us, a series that explores what America is feeling, thinking, and moving toward together, for Murmuration’s Substack. Before joining Murmuration, she led product and data science at Helm, a civic technology company. She also previously led research at the Art & Science Group, providing valuable data and insights to K-12 institutions, higher education, and nonprofit organizations, shaping their approaches to community engagement and strategic planning.

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Murmuration is a nonprofit working to transform America into a nation where everyone can thrive. We organize a network of community-focused partners and equip them with the insights, tools, and services they need to help communities build and activate power more effectively. murmuration.org

Today, the second installment of The Exchange, our new interview series with influential thought leaders, organizers, advocates, and others who are shaping the future of civic life, features Jason Llorenz, Executive Director, and Linh Nguyen, Chief Strategy & Programs Officer at Rise United and co-founder of CreatorCon LIVE, of Rise United in conversation with Murmuration’s Chief Marketing and Operating Officer, Michael Slaby. Rise United is a networking and training hub for content creators who engage their peers in national, statewide, and local issues.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Michael Slaby: Welcome, Linh and Jason. To kick us off, can you share a bit about your work at Rise United?

Jason Llorenz: My work at Rise United is driven by the idea that talent is everywhere and the ability for young people to engage in civic life is not equally distributed. The creator economy can act as a connecting tissue that gives people bridges into thinking about civic life, values and leadership, and we’re building Rise United into a place where the creator generator can do just that. Rise United‘s programs build around the idea that there is an entire generation of untapped talent and opportunity and voices that need connection. Our programs offer supportive opportunities for creators to come into community with each other, to be led by their peers, build their skills, and to form and solidify civic identity. We think leadership starts with who you are. When we build our creator cohorts we’re looking for folks who are go-hards for their community. Folks who are already talking about their values, they already care, they’re building an audience and all they need, what they’re really craving is connection to others so that they’re not alone, they’re craving opportunities to build and get better. And they’re looking for a table that says, “You belong here.” That doesn’t exist today.

Linh Nguyen: We’ve learned that the highest level of influence is peer to peer. We’re not going to need someone in the White House telling us what to do, what to believe, how to act. Oftentimes, it is our most trusted inner circle of people we know and we intimately know. But that peer-to-peer lateral influence is something that I feel is so deeply misunderstood within this creator ecosystem.

Through Rise United, we’ve been building place-based fellowship models where the hope is that no, we’re not gonna parachute and tell y’all how to vote or what to say to your audience, or here’s your one-page memo about how to talk about immigration and education. Our hope and our purpose is to reverse the playbook a little bit.

We’re looking upstream at creators and those becoming creators. We’re looking for people with community trust — local “go hards” for their city or town who might lead niche communities organically but they haven’t quite launched themselves as an influencer or a creator. For Rise United Education Fund, investing early in untapped leaders with an audience who care about what’s happening where they live will be a huge and unique contribution to civic life.

Developing their civic and political identity through our program is our big bet on the future of American civic participation

Michael Slaby: Obviously, we’re in a very heavy moment for America. A few weeks ago, Renee Good was killed by an ICE agent in Minnesota. Sense-making and finding a shared reality feel difficult, or sometimes it feels impossible. Can you talk about how storytelling and creators help us build trust and can help us find the shared reality that we are craving to help us build community?
N.B. This interview was recorded prior to the murder of Alex Pretti on January 24, 2026.

Jason Llorenz: We are in a barrage right now against our senses, against our values, our belief in what is real, and even the idea of what should happen when we know something is real.

There are the sense makers like Brian Baez who do very well researched pieces that are trying to connect this attack on ourselves to a framework that says, yes, there is a legal and a policy in a kind of democratically grounded way of thinking about this. I see him as an example of someone who tries to connect cultural resonance with a very well-researched, grounded approach to thinking about these things.

I think of people like the Korean Vegan, who is doing some of the most powerful storytelling from her personal experiences while making beautiful food in front of you, translating her personal anger. There’s a visceralness to that beautiful storytelling around food and the connection between that sense-making and civic life. Think about how we all get stories or we come to things. We either see them, we smell them, we feel them, we think them, but we only have a certain number of senses on social media. We are competing for nanoseconds of attention as people are scrolling. The beauty of the connection powerfully invites us into an experience that is so palpably raw for her. It makes her content creative and undeniably irresistible.

She’s just one example—the beauty of the creator environment is you’ve got people who are experimenting in a thousand ways about how to draw us into conversation and bring us into something that maybe we would not have stuck around for. Maybe it’s about voting, maybe about power, maybe about beauty, maybe about relationships, maybe about money. There is an immense and unique opportunity in this culture to bring us into new ideas, new ways of being, and new types of power.

Linh Nguyen: After the 2024 election cycle, we did a wellness check on our creator networks and got very visceral feedback that a lot of people felt paralyzed, alone, and unsure how to make sense of what had happened in Minnesota. They just witnessed, and likely participated in, their first presidential election and saw Trump win again. Many doubted whether they should continue their work. But at Rise United, we believe that sharing information can help make sense and the way that information starts to move people to really show up is incredibly important. We’re trying to carve out an experimental lab that pushes young people to think differently and challenge probably everything that they have understood in this moment to have them unlearn it, and then walk their thousands of followers through that process too.

Jason Llorenz: Today, we have a thousand ways to bring people into civic life versus the idea of working with an established creator with a million followers. We’re trying to support creators that are new and diverse in cracking the algorithm. Right now, it’s all about creativity, trust, and authenticity in breaking through.

Michael Slaby: I’m curious about your recruiting process. How do you find creators and how do you invite people into the Rise United network?

Jason Llorenz: We’re looking for creators with a smaller, growing audience. It’s usually folks with under a hundred thousand followers, at that early early stage, but who show in their own content or their grid that they care about their community, that they’re talking about their values or they’re building a community. Our vetting process is to bring them in to ask them to create a one-minute video that talks about what you care about or what your community deserves. Ultimately, our vision is that in the years ahead, we are able to support creators across the United States who are working together and are linked in both a local and national network that can have immense narrative power.

Linh Nguyen: These early-stage creators demonstrate a baseline potential. They’re already talking about their city, their campus, or other communities they belong to, not necessarily talking about civics or politics. A lot of bigger, well-established creator institutions will not place their bet on these people. But Rise United shows up to support these early-stage creators before they scale up and gain traction, well before they hit their viral moments.

Michael Slaby: Can you share a bit more about creators you’ve worked with that stand out to you?

Linh Nguyen: Last year, we hand-selected a phenomenal group of creators in Virginia primarily to participate in a Rise United fellowship cohort. They’re black and brown young creators folks. Some were fourth-year students at the University of Virginia, so they’re balancing graduation along with trying to figure out their next career moves, and some were creators who lived in more rural parts of Virginia and quite literally can’t make their way across the state.

One of the creators at the outset questioned if she was even a good fit for our program and didn’t quite see herself as a creator. She wanted to talk about voting in Virginia and who was going to be on the ballot. She was a runner and her content was framed as, “Come running with me. I’m going to run 20 miles to the polls to go vote and you all are coming along.” And she ended up being a rising star.

Jason Llorenz: There was another young man in that cohort who stands out to me for his responsibility. He applied to be in the fellowship and before he did, he zeroed out his social media channels purposefully because he wanted to start from zero. He had hundreds of thousands of followers, but he scrubbed everything to get a fresh start with us.

One of his most powerful videos said, “Come vote with me as a Latino Republican.” He knew the power that he had amongst his peers who might have voted for Trump or whatever and turned it into a conversation about where we are right now. It was a powerful invitation to say, “What are we doing?”

Michael Slaby: We often feel a pressure for constant speed and velocity in storytelling, media, and culture-making. So much of social media and communications is oriented towards scale. I’m curious about the ways small creators can focus on efficacy and the depth of context that comes from slowing down and from telling deeper stories that are a source of relationship and trust building with their audiences rather than the chase for speed.

Jason Llorenz: It’s interesting that if you look at where consumer brands are going, they’re so far ahead of those of us who are thinking about civic life and building political power. Consumer brands know exactly what we’re talking about: emerging creators are the future. Political and civic engagement work seems continuously stuck in a late cycle of last-minute investment that is the exact opposite of the type of relationships creators build over time.

If we want a different outcome in 2028, we need to make an investment of time and relationship-building today. But it seems like so much of the way that we come to building people power shows up way too late. And it’s cost us dearly.

Michael Slaby: What’s giving you guys hope for the future right now?

Linh Nguyen: What gives me a lot of optimism is that creators are dang good at asking better questions. “How do I grow as a human being doing this with you guys? If you want me to talk about these issues, how does this help me? How does it help my family? How does it help my people?” They are much more sophisticated. It’s probably the best signal I’ve seen in a pretty long time.

Jason Llorenz: What gives me hope is the fact that if you look at history, it’s the darkest times that lead to our biggest leaps forward. The repression of the 1940s and 50s leads to the 60s and in a kind of movement forward. Every leap forward comes after huge losses. And things that feel very dark and very painful, and we are in that moment today. At least that’s the way it feels to me. So I try to hold onto the idea that 10 and 20 years from now, we will have wanted to be a part of building what comes next and the belief that yes, we have lost a lot of ground. And from that will come a resurgence led by young people who say, “No, we want something better. We demand something better from our society, our government, and ourselves.”

Michael Slaby: And the work that you are doing at Rise Together is part of how we get ready. Thank you for taking the time for this conversation today and for all the work you're doing.

About Jason Llorenz
Jason is passionate about leadership and how technology is changing life, business and generations new paths to civic identity. Jason is co-founder and executive director of Rise United, a creator-powered civic and cultural organization that invests early in emerging storytellers as a long-term pipeline for civic leadership, narrative power, and community trust. Jason grew up in Red Hook, Brooklyn. He holds a BA from Cazenovia College and JD from SUNY Buffalo Law School. When not working, he finds inspiration in his two little girls and peace in the dances and musical heritage of Cuba and the Caribbean.

About Linh Nguyen
Linh Nguyen is a community organizer and creative producer, serving as Chief Strategy & Programs Officer at Rise United and co-founder of CreatorCon LIVE, a conference reimagining how creators, companies, and brands come together at the intersection of policy, culture, and tech. With over a decade of experience, she builds creator-led campaigns that shift narrative and power, spanning presidential races, barrier-breaking campaigns in Texas, and national initiatives with Live Nation Urban, Ben & Jerry’s, and AARP. Linh lives in Texas with her family and her 4-year-old daughter (her endless source of inspiration).

About Michael Slaby
Michael Slaby is a leader in how values, systems, strategy, and technology drive movements and organizations. At Murmuration, he leads marketing, fundraising, network engagement, and culture. Before joining Murmuration, he was a senior strategist and head of community at Harmony Labs where he worked on accelerating media reform and transformation. He founded and was head of mission of Timshel, a social impact technology company, and was a fellow at the Shorenstein Center at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Michael helped lead the Obama for America campaign as chief integration and innovation officer in 2012 where he oversaw all technology and analytics and as deputy digital director and chief technology officer in 2008.

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Murmuration is a nonprofit working to transform America into a nation where everyone can thrive. We organize a network of community-focused partners and equip them with the insights, tools, and services they need to help communities build and activate power more effectively. murmuration.org

Today, we’re launching The Exchange, a new interview series with influential thought leaders, organizers, advocates, and others who are shaping the future of civic life. It’s a front-row seat to the people pushing boundaries, challenging norms, and reimagining what meaningful civic participation looks like in America today.

We’re kicking it off with Eli Pariser, Co-Founder and Co-Director of New_ Public, a community and experimentation hub for digital public spaces, and former Executive Director of MoveOn.org, where he helped pioneer the practice of online citizen engagement, in conversation with Murmuration’s Chief Marketing and Operating Officer, Michael Slaby.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Michael Slaby: I’m excited to sit down and talk through all things digital community with you today. To start: you’re a Co-Founder and Co-Director of New_ Public, a community and experimentation hub for digital public space. Can you tell us what you’re building there?

Eli Pariser: New_ Public is a non-profit incubator for digital public spaces. We believe that just like in physical communities, where businesses are great but you still need community centers and libraries and sidewalks that are built for the public, the same is true in digital life. Even if Facebook were run by the very wisest, best person, the structure of being a venture-backed, massive company results in there being some functions that companies like Facebook are not going to take on. At New_ Public, we think through building digital conversation as our North Star. We’ve gotten really interested in local use cases because it’s a place where we hear from people all the time that there are just huge needs that are not met. And for me, that’s very important because if you’ve been around civic tech stuff long enough, you’ve seen a million worthy things come along that nobody actually used.

We’re very focused on local because it’s a place where, actually, in the same way that nobody goes to a library to be part of civic democracy—they go to a library to get a book, get Wi-Fi, or get help with SNAP—there are some first-order needs that people have that are not being met in these spaces. So, we’re piloting a community-first, mission-first local information platform, and we’re trying it out in five towns. People in these towns are super excited, and it’s been great for us to just hear their energy and support.

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Michael Slaby: I know so much of the work you’ve done at New_ Public is oriented around taking learnings from healthy physical spaces and adapting them for healthy digital spaces, and thinking through what that means for civic life, community, and healthy democratic culture. Do you have any thoughts about the intersection between physical spaces and information?

Eli Pariser: A lot of our work right now at New_ Public is specifically around geographically local digital public spaces, and we’re fascinated by them because this has become one of the biggest changes in how Americans communicate that is almost completely under the radar. We’ve talked a lot about newspapers going away. What has happened in their place, for better and for worse, is that people are defaulting over to Facebook groups, or to WhatsApp channels, or to email lists, or Nextdoor sometimes, and that’s become the way that a majority of Americans, according to Pew, now get information about their towns and understand what’s going on.

I often think of Benedict Anderson, the sociologist who talked about nations as kind of imagined communities: you’re never in touch with all the other people in your nation. You don’t get to see it. We learn to imagine what our community is like through media. And so these local groups become filters, lenses, funhouses, mirrors that people use to understand what’s going on around them. That has huge implications for how people feel—how safe they feel, how comfortable they feel, how much trust they put in their neighbors, and how much they’re willing to hang out in third spaces with other people.

In the late 20th century, the way that would work is you would turn on your local TV channel, or you would read your local newspaper, and you would hear about what’s going on. That was one lens that people used to help understand what people here are like. Do I need to be afraid when I’m walking down the street? Are people gonna rip me off? Or, are they pretty good? And there were some biases built in there, and sometimes those were biases toward crime. I saw some of that in Murmuration’s recent collaborative post with Deep South Today on the weight local news carries in the Deep South.

But back then, newspapers had these big biases toward reporting on good things that people were doing in the community. Here’s the local teenager who’s going all the way to the Intel Science Fair. And then you switch that whole system out for these local groups, and you get this very different picture, which largely right now is a more chaotic, somewhat darker picture. When you talk to people about how they imagine their neighbors, how do they imagine their community after being in Nextdoor? Half the people out there think people are getting ready to steal stuff from their home or kill them, and the world is scary.

Michael Slaby: You mentioned that if you’ve been in the civic tech space for a while, you’ve seen experiments. Do you see places where building healthy digital spaces is working, even at a small scale?

Eli Pariser: If you imagine kind of the scatterplot of all of the Facebook groups that do local things, there’s a lot of difference between them, and there are some that are organized pretty well and serve their purpose pretty well, and there are some that don’t. The biggest indicator of which ones are working pretty well and which ones aren’t is if there’s a person at the center of them, what we call a steward, that’s not just a moderator. They are the caretaker or convener for the community. And we have some new research coming out that shows this empirically.

Michael Slaby: I think so much of our experience of venture-driven, mass-scale tools is that none of them stay healthy. Even the ones that started as vibrant, almost as soon as they start trying to make money, they start to degrade. The genuine civic value, social value, and public good value start to diminish because of the pressure that the only business models these folks have figured out that work at venture-scale return are essentially an outrage engine.

Eli Pariser: I’m sure you’ve looked at Corey Doctorow’s new book, Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It. I think he makes a very compelling argument there, which is essentially the way venture startups work is that you use venture money, venture investment, sometimes billions of dollars to get users, and during that period, it’s great.

Michael Slaby: When it’s subsidized, it’s great. As long as that subsidy was good-seeking rather than return-seeking, that might work out, but eventually it changes.

Eli Pariser: Right. So at some point, the growth curve levels off, and then you have this business that’s losing money, and then you have to make it make a lot of money to pay the investors back, and you do that by just jerking the customers around and squeezing every bit of value you can out of it. That’s “enshittification”. So, this is part of why we think there has to be another model of how we’re building these spaces, because that is inevitable.

And yet, we’re seeing things like Wikipedia that are self-sustaining, we’re seeing things in the media world that are self-sustaining. Can we build things in the platform space as the cost of building a platform gets a lot cheaper, that can sustain themselves but not be subject to that venture pressure to yield a 100x outcome?

I want to go back to your question of if there are good places. Because I would say in some ways, it’s a question of scale. I think there are a lot of people who have pretty good experiences at a super hyper-local level with a neighborhood WhatsApp, with an email list, or whatever. And especially if it’s well-moderated, well-stewarded, that can be pretty good. You get to a little bit of a bigger scale, it gets a little harder, and I think we’re used to this question of, can you have a billion people or 100 million people co-occupy the same space? I don’t know the answer to that. I think maybe not. Maybe that’s okay that the answer is no.

I think that makes things a lot simpler, because what is the universal, culturally relevant algorithm? That’s a hard question. Is there one? Or is it not a problem that you can solve at a scale of 8 billion people and however many millions of different community levels? But you can solve it at a local community level, and so that’s kind of part of why New_ Public focused there.

One of the reasons that I get excited about local information and local spaces is, at the end of the day, it’s a way to feel a sense of agency. A long time ago, when I ran MoveOn and was very focused on getting people involved in national things. I’m proud of lots of stuff that we did then, and it was exciting to figure out how to get people to do stuff on the internet that actually had an impact in politics. But I look at that sometimes, and I feel like focusing on federal politics is a way to feel powerless a lot of the time because there’s less agency.

Michael Slaby: You’re describing this experience of pushing people toward national agency. But in a moment, that was a very different information landscape wise back in the early 2000s, and a really different digital landscape than where we live now. When I talk about the digital organizing we did in 2008 on the first Obama campaign, I often have to remind people that Twitter was like eight months old. It was teeny tiny.

Eli Pariser: In local places, you can move stuff a lot of the time. You can have an idea and make it happen. And it’s not like it’s always that easy, but it’s a hell of a lot easier than me as a citizen trying to persuade Joe Manchin in West Virginia, who’s not even my senator, of something that turns out to be pivotal to the thing I care about federally.

Michael Slaby: I live in a village with 2,000 adults. If you want to get something relatively significant done in this village, you can move things in a really good, genuine, collective way. Not even in a sort of Machiavellian, how hard can we push way—but in a really good, beautiful way. My wife is a village trustee here, and she helped steward this large-scale comprehensive planning process over the last year and a half. More than a thousand people participated in it, which is an incredible percentage of the village. Half of the adults participated in this process. It’s so rich and so representative and so beautiful, and it’s only a thousand people. And that is inspiring because it feels like real agency.

Eli Pariser: It is real agency. And it’s collective agency. And that’s the most important thing. One of the fundamental drivers of behavior across the political spectrum right now is just feeling like things are out of control and wanting someone to take control.

Michael Slaby: You recently wrote a piece on LinkedIn highlighting the next wave of AI products that are poised to usher in a new era of hyper-personalized, hyper-addicting media. I mentioned earlier in our conversation about the pressure of discerning reality and that it really is about how synthetic content and bots play into our understanding of self and story and our capacity for creativity and all these other things. In your piece, you used a couple of phrases that I was really curious about. One was the “unholy merger” between Netflix’s capacity to algorithmically define content and the outrage engine.

Eli Pariser: I think there’s something very specific about calling it unholy because I think there’s a really important moral component to it. What I mean by that is that we often talk about misinformation and disinformation, and we often get lost in the distinction between right and wrong and trust and false.

Michael Slaby: And calling it unholy is calling it bad. Morally bad. I think that’s actually a really important distinction: that we’re talking about a choice, we’re talking about what we want to be good and true in society as being under pressure.

I’ve talked a lot about how, in the early days of social media, we never clearly defined what we wanted these platforms to do for our civic life. We just assumed they were going to be good for us. We had this cyber utopian naivety, and some people warned us, including you, that we were headed down some dangerous paths if we as a society weren’t more explicit about the roles of these tools in civic life. And, what does good mean in the context of these tools and in these spaces? I don’t know that we have done enough to articulate that yet.

Eli Pariser: I have lots of thoughts on that. This isn’t my religious tradition, but the new Pope is deeply engaged in this set of questions, too. He named himself Pope Leo because he saw AI as similar to the Industrial Revolution under the last Pope Leo, so I think there really is this moral tenor to it that we have to be thinking about. For me, that goes to what is holy, what is great about being a human being? And then how do we serve full humans with the digital environments that we have?

That sounds very “tisk tisk” and no fun. But I think having fun and being entertained and vegging out or whatever are joyous. Just watching crappy TV serves some really important needs, too. What I worry about is that we have this kind of vicious combination of the incentives of capitalism to keep people engaged in things that can persuade them or sell them things and hyper-persuasive, hyper-engaging, hyper-entertaining technology. That seems like a recipe for not good things. And again, it comes back to this question of how do we build? But I think it absolutely is what will happen as long as we have the kind of top-level incentives that we have.

I think about this a lot with regard to chatbots. What we’ve seen so far is that they’re fed a bunch of language into some neural networks. You can talk to it and have it predict what the right response would be. But it really is not optimized for becoming your best friend.

Michael Slaby: It’s choosing the most likely response, not the right response.

Eli Pariser: 100 percent. If you were to say, okay, now let’s optimize ChatGPT for deep emotional connection, where it has some persistent memory of you, and it’s going, “Hey, Michael, how was your day? That seemed like a long day. How are you doing?”, it will start to provide—and drug analogies are always dangerous, but Maia Szalavitz who writes a lot about drug stuff had this great essay in her book Unbroken Brain where she was trying to explain what heroin feels like and she said heroin feels like is being loved—if you have technologies that can give that feeling that is an very strong pull.

And we’re not even there yet, but we’re going there, right? And once you have that relationship with someone, then we know already that these technologies can be incredibly persuasive and hold people’s attention and sell them stuff. That all exists already.

Michael Slaby: Thank you for taking the time to be part of the Exchange and sharing your wisdom and thoughts. These kinds of intersections are really generative. The ways in which people are interconnected and derive value from being in relationships are increasingly important to how we can be useful in the world. So I appreciate you being willing to share here.

Eli Pariser: Thank you so much for having me.

About Eli Pariser
Eli Pariser is Co-Founder and Co-Director of New_ Public, a community and experimentation hub for digital public spaces. He’s been an author, activist, and entrepreneur focused on how to make technology and media serve democracy. In 2004, at 23, he became Executive Director of MoveOn.org, where he helped pioneer the practice of online citizen engagement. In 2006, he co-founded Avaaz, now the world’s largest citizen’s organization. His bestselling 2011 book The Filter Bubble introduced the term to the lexicon. And Upworthy, the media startup he co-founded in 2012, reached hundreds of millions of visitors with civically important content. Now his work is focused on bringing together community entrepreneurs, researchers, engineers, and designers to envision, architect and scale digital public spaces.

About Michael Slaby
Michael Slaby is a leader in how values, systems, strategy, and technology drive movements and organizations. At Murmuration, he leads marketing, fundraising, network engagement, and culture. Before joining Murmuration, he was a senior strategist and head of community at Harmony Labs where he worked on accelerating media reform and transformation. He founded and was head of mission of Timshel, a social impact technology company, and was a fellow at the Shorenstein Center at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Michael helped lead the Obama for America campaign as chief integration and innovation officer in 2012 where he oversaw all technology and analytics and as deputy digital director and chief technology officer in 2008.

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Murmuration is a nonprofit working to transform America into a nation where everyone can thrive. We organize a network of community-focused partners and equip them with the insights, tools, and services they need to help communities build and activate power more effectively. murmuration.org