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mcarcasson.bsky.social
Professor of Communication Studies at Colorado State University. I direct the CSU Center for Public Deliberation (www.cpd.colostate.edu), which is a nonpartisan organization focused on improving the quality of public discussion and local problem-solving.
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local journalism matters.

submitted 20 hours ago • 0 comments

Listening to Cornell West and Robert George start off the UCCS Conference on Civic Discourse in Colorado Springs.

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

Somehow haven't heard "No news is bad news." I'll have to remember that.

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

Been reading more lately about how new tech platforms & apps are developed to flip the script from the typical "outrage industrial complex" workings of most social media & actually work to bring people together and incentivize quality engagement. This essay provides a nice summary of those efforts.

submitted 14 days ago • 0 comments

I keep on playing with the word choices, and added a new bullet this morning, but getting pretty close to locking these in for my book.

submitted 20 days ago • 0 comments

As I work on my book, I wrote up a bit of my intellectual history, thinking about the academic disciplines and practitioner specialties I've bounced around for the last 20 years. Part of this was also thinking about the most influential books during that journey.

submitted 21 days ago • 2 comments

Seems like he could have just had AI write the books really quickly to cover up the mistake.

submitted 24 days ago • 1 comment

Reminds me of the Paul Harvey and his “and now for the rest of the story” bits. www.forbes.com/sites/jeremy...

submitted 29 days ago • 0 comments

Pretty sure my favorite warning in pharmaceutical commericials is "do not take if allergic."

submitted 34 days ago • 0 comments

The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 created the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. I reread it today; nothing in the law allows a president to defund PBS and NPR. In fact, Congress specifically sought to insulate public media from political pressure.

submitted 41 days ago • 401 comments

Citizens’ assemblies have earned a significant new seal of approval. The UK's top political podcast „The Rest is Politics“ stands out as a running indictment of electoral representation as a system of government, implicitly at least. www.linkedin.com/pulse/citize... #CitizensAssembly

submitted 45 days ago • 0 comments

Great webinar about the civic assembly the CPD is assisting with here in Fort Collins. I'm not very involved -- I'm on sabbatical -- but my colleagues Katie Knobloch & Sabrina Slagowski-Tipton have been killing it working w American Public Trust & Healthy Democracy www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxc3...

submitted 49 days ago • 0 comments

Fellow authors, I love you, and I know it feels like we don’t have a choice, but B&N and Am*zon both scheduled sales this week to preempt Independent Bookstore Day, a hugely vital source of income for indie bookstores. Please don’t promote their sales; please promote your local indie this week.

submitted 50 days ago • 62 comments

Really enjoyed my conversation with Michael on his podcast. The conversation focused on something I've been developing for awhile, important both to college campuses and our communities: making some distinctions between the terms debate, dialogue, and deliberation www.buzzsprout.com/2311101/epis...

submitted 63 days ago • 1 comment

Interesting to think about how much classified ads and local businesses subsidized so much (small d) democratic capacity until the internet took all that money away.

submitted 67 days ago • 0 comments

Such important work from More in Common. So many focus on what divides us (and so many people profit from it, unfortunately), a key part of our work has to be to focus more on where we agree and how do we lean on those areas to take on the harder work of where we disagree.

submitted 73 days ago • 0 comments

Enjoying @leedrutman.bsky.social talk as part of the CSU Democracy Summit. Important ideas about rebuilding our democracy. Focused on the case for proportional representation and fusion voting as key reforms.

submitted 98 days ago • 1 comment

Don't think I ever shared this video here. Connects my initial training in argumentation to my current work on deliberation to help us talk about values with more nuance. Newish material, so thoughts very welcome as I refine. www.youtube.com/watch?v=za7M...

submitted 119 days ago • 0 comments

Always liked Steve Johnson's Where Good Ideas Come From, particularly to help me think about the value of collaboration and how to tap into human creatiivity. Just realized there is a RSA Animate video of his Ted Talk about the book. www.youtube.com/watch?v=NugR...

submitted 138 days ago • 0 comments

When you have a good sense of the research on how to make high quality tough decisions on complex problems, and you compare that to how our national politics functions, the gap somehow keeps growing and growing. At some point might it hit bottom?

submitted 175 days ago • 1 comment

Very nice short piece by my friend @willfriedman.bsky.social, identifying some of the "shoots of democratic revival" he is seeing that we all need to nurture.

submitted 177 days ago • 0 comments

Don't know if I've ever hated a software "update" more than the new Outlook. Less functional and much slower.

submitted 183 days ago • 0 comments

Was hoping to be there, but watching the stream of Repairing the Breach event with Governor Polis and many others from Denver right now. More information here: www.emanueldenver.org/event/repair...

submitted 191 days ago • 0 comments

In case you are worried about political conversations this Thankgiving, have your Adele ready.

submitted 197 days ago • 0 comments

NCDD’s developing starter pack with dialogue and deliberation orgs and practitioners. go.bsky.app/KTHW9WR

submitted 204 days ago • 0 comments

For those new to my work, this essay is the best summary right now of what I focus on. publicagenda.org/wp-content/u...

submitted 206 days ago • 1 comment

A couple useful starter packs if you are working on democratic innovation or the deliberative wave.

submitted 206 days ago • 0 comments