Fall 2021 Colloquia

Tuesday, November 2, 2021

Clumsy approaches to science communication and decision-making in local climate and energy debates

Named “the Robin Hood of public relations” by The National Journal and one of the “100 most influential P.R. people” by PR Week, David Fenton has worked for decades at the crossroads of activism and communication. His background spans from Rolling Stone magazine to producing the iconic No Nukes concerts, as well as a career in photojournalism. In this session, Fenton offers an in-depth account of his most influential and successful campaigns, detailing the creative processes, strategic rationales, and communication design principles that shaped each effort. Through sharing his experiences, Fenton will illustrate how effective media and message design can drive large-scale social and political impact.

David Fenton, Chairman of Fenton Communications

Tuesday, November 9, 2021

Bridging the Gaps Between Us: Explaining When and Why PoC Share Political Views

ABSTRACT: People of color (PoC) will soon become a demographic majority in the U.S., but this overlooks major differences in how various PoC are treated by American society and the political priorities they hold. We build a theory that explains when and why some PoC express more unified political views. Despite variation in their social positions, people of color share common sources of marginalization. For example, although Asian Americans are stereotyped as a model minority and Latinos as low-status, both are deemed perpetual foreigners. We claim that shared marginalization sparks solidarity between PoC, which strengthens their support for policies that do not implicate their ingroup, thus forging interminority unity. Using survey data, Study 1 (N=2,400) shows that Asian adults report weaker solidarity with PoC than do Latinos, plus less support for policies that accommodate unauthorized immigrants, which implicate Latinos. Studies 2 and 3 randomly assign Asian (N=641) and Latino (N=624) adults to read about a racial outgroup marginalized as foreign (vs. control article). This heightens solidarity with PoC, which then boosts Asian support for flexible policies toward undocumented immigrants (which implicate Latinos) and Latino support for generous policies toward high-skill immigrants (which implicate Asians). We discuss how our results clarify the opportunities and limits of political unity among PoC.

Efrén Pérez, Professor of Political Science and Psychology at UCLA