Let’s Agree to Disagree

Nolan Higdon is a lecturer at Merrill College and the Education Department at University of California, Santa Cruz. Higdon's areas of concentration include digital culture, news media history, and critical media literacy. Higdon is a founding member of the Critical Media Literacy Conference of the Americas. He sits on the boards of the Action Coalition for Media Education (ACME) and Northwest Alliance For Alternative Media And Education. His most recent publications include The Anatomy of Fake News: A Critical News Literacy Education (2020) and The Podcaster's Dilemma: Decolonizing Podcasters in the Era of Surveillance Capitalism (2021). He is a longtime contributor to Project Censored's annual book, Censored. In addition, he has been a contributor to Truthout and Counter-Punch; and a source of expertise for numerous news outlets including The New York Times, CNBC, and San Francisco Chronicle.Mickey Huff is the director of Project Censored and president of the nonprofit Media Freedom Foundation. To date, he has co-edited 13 editions of the Project’s yearbook, including most recently Project Censored’s State of the Free Press 2022, with Andy Lee Roth. He is also co-author, with Nolan Higdon, of United States of Distraction: Media Manipulation in Post-Truth America (and what we can do about it) (2019). Huff received the Beverly Kees Educator Award as part of the 2019 James Madison Freedom of Information Awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, Northern California. He is professor of social science, history, and journalism at Diablo Valley College, where he co-chairs the history program and is chair of the Journalism Department. Huff is executive producer and host of The Project Censored Show, a weekly syndicated public affairs program that airs across the U.S. on Pacifica Radio. Learn more at projectcensored.org.

"I did not think we, as a society, could agree to disagree, which makes this book incredibly powerful - and incredibly needed in our divisive times. Higdon and Huff have provided both depth and breadth to multiple areas of our mediated world and in so doing have presented readers with a cogent and incredibly valuable text that will enable readers to learn about the mass media, themselves, and concrete ways to make change."Allison Butler, Senior Lecturer & Director of Undergraduate Advising, Director Media Literacy Certificate Program, Department of Communication, University of Massachusetts, Amherst"In the age of new and powerful tools of communication, democracy has become more fragile and vulnerable to attacks by right-wing forces. What is clear is that the tools of communication, culture, literacy and critical thinking are more crucial than ever in creating both informed citizens and maintaining a substantive democracy. Let’s Agree to Disagree is a brilliant and informative guide and analysis to the most defining features of what it means to create critically literate citizens, to enable how they might communicate constructively with each other, and what it means connect an informed public to critically engaged actions. Higdon and Huff provide a brilliant, crucial analysis of the dangers that democracy now faces; they provide an invaluable analysis of what it means to understand and engage the role of communication in fighting against the forces of civic illiteracy, and the role that citizens can play in engaging, understanding, and assessing how to think, engage, and act through an informed lens of critical thinking. Let’s Agree to Disagree is both a primer and an invaluable resource on misinformation, critical thinking, a disregard for the truth, and what is necessary to address the new and powerful forms of communication that now shape politics, power and mass consciousness. This is a book that should be read by anyone is believes that matters of literacy, truth, rationality, and civic courage are essential to fighting for a radical democracy."Henry Giroux, McMaster University Professor for Scholarship in the Public Interest, Paulo Freire Distinguished Scholar in Critical Pedagogy, at McMaster University "Let’s Agree to Disagree provides a comprehensive analysis of the challenges, failures, and successes of communication and critical thinking for justice and democracy. Nolan Higdon and Mickey Huff have written an essential book for all educators because dialogue and critical reflection are the heart of progressive education. The better we learn to listen, question, and respond with compassion, empathy, and respect, the more likely we will build genuine relationships of caring and critical inquiry where authentic learning occurs and social justice thrives." Jeff Share, Ph.D., University of California, Los AngelesThe Real News:https://therealnews.com/polarizing-and-isolating-americans-is-good-business-for-media-monopoliesFull Measure News:https://fullmeasure.news/news/shows/agree-to-disagree

• Introduction: Why Should We Agree to Disagree?Part I Communication1. Create Constructive Dialogue 2. Reflect on Communication Practices and CensorshipPart IICritical Thinking 3. Inquire: Be A Critical Thinker 4. Test Theory and Spot IdeologyPart IIICritical Media Literacy5. Investigate and Evaluate Mass Media6. Critiquing Content: "Fake News" and Ethical Journalism7. Assess and Analyze Digital Media Use and AbusePart IVLead by Example: Democracy is Not a Spectator Sport8. Conclusion