have nowhere near the ca >> we take youre live now to th floor of the house. gaveling back in. not starting legislative work today until 4:00 eastern time. debating nine bills today, including one dealing with security clearances at the homeland security department. on the other side of the capitol, the senate out today, coming back in tomorrow. the speaker: the house will be in order. the prayer will be offered by our chaplain, father conroy. chaplain conroy: let us pray. god of the universe, we give you thanks for gives urs -- forgiving us another day. bless the members of this assembly as they set upon the work of these hours, of these dales. help them to make wise decisions in a good manner, and to carry their responsibilities steadily with high hopes for a better few you -- future for our great nation.

deepen their faith, widen their sympathies, heighten their aspirations and give them the strength to do what ought to be done for this country. during this time of transition in the speaker's office, may all members renew their hope of a productive, dynamic -- productive dynamic within the house and with your grace be willing to reset relationships both within and between party conferences. may your blessing, o god, be with them and with us all this day and every day to come and may all we do be done for your greater honor and glory, amen. the speaker: the chair has examined the journal of the last day's proceedings and announces to the house his approval thereof. pursuant to clause 1 of rule 1 the journal stands approved. the pledge of allegiance will be led by the gentlewoman from north carolina, ms. foxx. ms. foxx: please join in the

pledge to our wonderful flag. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the speaker: the chair lays before the house a communication. the clerk: the honorable the speaker, house of representatives, dear speaker ryan. i write to inform that you i have notified ohio governor john kasich of my resignation from the u.s. house of representatives effective 11:59 p.m., october 31, 2015. at this hour, my heart is full with gratitude. i wish to thank the people of ohio's eighth district for giving me the opportunity to serve, my staff for being lynch pins of that service, and my colleagues for honoring me with their trust by electing me their speaker. together we banned earmarks, cut spending by more than $2

trillion, made the first entitlement reforms in nearly two decades, and made it possible for kids in washington, d.c.'s, toughest neighborhoods to go to great schools. put another way, we did the right things for the right reasons and good things happened. it has been an honor to serve. signed, sincerely, john a. boehner. the speaker: under clause 5 h -- 5-d of rule 20rks the chair announces to the house that in light of the resignation from the gentleman from ohio, mr. boehner, the whole number of the house is 434. the chair will now entertain requests for one-minute speeches. for what purpose does the gentlewoman from florida seek recognition? ms. ros-lehtinen: mr. speaker, i request unanimous consent to dreals the house for one minute and -- address the house for one minute and revise and extend my remarks. the speaker:, -- the speaker: without objection, the gentlelady is recognized. ms. ros-lehtinen: thank you so much and welcome, speaker ryan.

mr. speaker, today i rise to lend my support for the miami walk to end alzheimer's. and i urge my fellow south floridians to come out to museum park in downtown miami this saturday, november 7, to help advance alzheimer's support, care and research in our community and indeed across our great nation. alzheimer's is a growing problem in florida with over half a million seniors impacted. and it's not just patients who suffer. family members and caregivers too often bear the brunt of this tragic and emotionally draining disease. i know this personally, having lost my mother to complications from alzheimer's on january 28 of 2011. so please consider taking a few hours out of your weekend to benefit alzheimer's awareness and research for south florida's elderly and the families who support and love them. thank you, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady yields back the balance of her time. for what purpose does the gentlelady from north carolina seek recognition?

ms. foxx: i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentlelady is recognized for one minute. ms. foxx: thank you, mr. speaker. next week this nation will celebrate veterans day, where we rightly pay tribute to the members of our military, past and present, and honor them with the respect and gratitude they deserve. liberty is bought and paid for by the incomprehensible generosity of these pate rots. we also honor -- patriots. we also honor the commitment and sacrifices of our military families by celebrating military family month in november. through deployment, separations and moves across the country and overseas, these families inspire us as they endure the extended absence of their loved ones with grace, strength and devotion. america is the land of the free because we are the home of the brave. i thank our veterans for seeing the value of freedom and rising to america's defense with unveiling strength.

i thank our military families for standing with our service members, supporting that great bravery, and sharing in the sacrifice. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady yields back the balance of her time. for what purpose does the gentleman from south carolina eek recognition? without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. wilson: mr. speaker, congratulations to america's new speaker of the house, paul davis ryan. i have been grateful to serve with the speaker for a number of years and know he's a proven conservative. i know his positive commitment to the people of the first district of wisconsin and every corner of our nation as he visited while campaigning in 2012. i look forward to speaker ryan's conservative leadership cited in the national journal daily as, quote, a chief democratic villain in washington. he was also condemned, quote, as a budget slashing feend, end of quote. despite these attacks, his service will be meaningful

conservative change for the american people, limiting government and expanding freedom. congress has a positive leader as we work to promote a strong national defense of peace through strength. the economists identified the speaker as a dogmatic conservative with faith in supply side reform for growth boosting. in conclusion, god bless our troops and the president by his action should never forget september 11 and the global war on terrorism. our sympathy and prayers for the people of russia, upon the deaths of 224 persons onboard the metro jet charter flight in egypt. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. for what purpose does the gentleman from minnesota seek recognition? without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. >> mr. speaker, i rise today to recognize linda shimmeleski of st. cloud for receiving a 2015 nurse of the year award from the minnesota march of dimes.

mr. emmer: linda, who is the vice president and chief nursing officer at st. cloud hospital was named a recipient of the leadership award. she has effectively overseen the hospital's nursing department and ensures that her patients receive quality care, making her fully deserving of this award. this is not the first time that linda has been recognized for exemplary work. in 2014 she was honored by the women's health leadership trust , again, for her leadership in the health care field. nursing is a noble profession. we have all been cared for by a nurse, so we all know they go to great lengths for their patients. without caring individuals like linda, our health care system would suffer. so it is an honor to recognize her and all nurses for their service. linda, thank you for your hard work and dedication to our community. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time.

the chair lays before the house a communication. the clerk: the honorable the speaker, house of representatives, sir. pursuant to the permission granted in clause 2-h of rule 2 of the rules of the u.s. house of representatives, i have the honor to transmit a sealed nfl -- envelope received from the white house on october 30, 2015, at 3:12 p.m. and said to contain a message from the president whereby he notifies the congress of his intention to terminate the designation of ber unedy as a beneficiary sub-saharan african country under the african growth and opportunity act. signed, sincerely, karen l. haas. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will read the message. the clerk: to the congress of the united states. in accordance with section 506-a-3-b of the african growth and opportunity act as amended, a-3 -b, .s.c., 2466-a,

showing my intent. i am taking this step because i have determined that the government of burundi has not established or is not taking continual progress toward establishing the rule of law and political plural itch -- pluralism as required by the agoa eligibility requirements outlined in section 104 of the agoa 19 u.s.c. 3703. in particular, the continuing crackdown on opposition members has -- which has included assassinations, extra judicial killings, arbitrary arrests and torture, have worsened significantly during the election campaign that returned the president to power earlier this year. in addition, the government of burundi has blocked opposing parties from holding organizational meetings and campaigning throughout the electoral process. police and armed militias,

which -- with links to the ruling party have intimidated the popition -- the opposition, contributing to nearly 200,000 refugees fleeing crit since april, 2015. accordingly, i intend to terminate the designation of burundi as a beneficiary sub-saharan african country under agoa as of january 1, 2016. signed, barack obama, the white house, october 30, 2015. the speaker pro tempore: referred to the committee on ways and means and ordered printed. pursuant to clause 4 of rule 1, the following enrolled bills were signed by speaker pro tempore messer on monday, ovember 2, 2015. he clerk: h.r. 623, h.r. 1314. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to clause 12-a of rule 1rk the chair declares the house in recess until approximately 4:00 p.m. today.

that's the same day as the buckeye state's presidential primary. it will fill the eighth district seat which c.q. writes is safe republican located in southwestern ohio. and president obama signed a two-year budget agreement into law today, then headed to new jersey for a number of events. we'll be taking you live to newark as he announces an $8 million program to help former convicts with education and resettlement. that's scheduled to take place at 4:20 eastern time. about two hours away from now. you can watch it live on c-span2. and live this evening, a hearing of the house veterans affairs committee with subpoenaed witnesses on the alleged misuse of v.a. relocation programs and incentives. >> all persons having business before the honorable the supreme court of the united states are admonished to draw near and give their attention. >> this week on c-span's landmark cases, we'll discuss the historic supreme court case

of schenck vs. the united states. in 1917 the united states entered world war i, patriotism was high, and some forms of criticism of the government for federal offense -- were a federal offense. charles schenck handed out and mailed leaflets against the draft. >> this is the flyer that was produced by charles schenck in 1917. 15,000 copies this were produced and the point was to encourage men who were liable for the draft not to register -- reblingster. >> the lank wang -- register. >> the language in this flyer is fiery. it con flates the draft as slavery. >> he was arrested, tried and found guilty under the recently enacted espionage act. schenck then appealed and the case went directly to the supreme court. find out how the court ruled. weighing the issues of clear and present danger and freedom of speech. r guests include an attorney

and a proffers of history at yale university -- professor of history at yale university. that's coming up on the next land mark cases. live tonight at 9:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span3 and c-span radio. for background on each case while you watch, order your copy of the land mark cases companion book. it's available for $8.95 plus shipping. at c-span.org/landmarkcases. >> next, a look at how social media's affecting politics today. and its effects on campaign 2016. we'll hear from mitt romney's 2008 campaign director of new media, the polling director for harvard's institute of politics, and an author who writes about the internet. the boston globe's political he editor is the moderator and the speakers take questions from students in the audience at the harvard kennedy school in cambridge, massachusetts. this is about an hour and 10 minutes.

moderator: here tonight is our panel, is social media ruining politics? the lead for the panel will be shira who is an i.o.p. institute of politics fellow from 2014 and we're delighted to have you back. she is a political editor at the "boston globe" where she coordinates the newspaper's coverage of the new hampshire primary and the 2016 presidential race. she also works on the global's weekly section on politics, capital, which publishes friday in print and throughout the week online. previously she has served as the politics editor for "roll call" and she's -- you can see her on many different cable news stations. on the weekends and otherwise. she uses social media to enhance and promote work across all these platforms, so i guess she has a bias in this

particular conversation. shira: why don't we go through and give two minutes of our brounled. nick: i write about technology and culture. i've written a few books. the one most recently called "the glass cage," about auto mation and how it's taking over our jobs and souls sometimes. before that, a book called the shallows which looked at how the internet and being constantly connected is influencing the way we think.

and many years ago i was an editor at the harvard business are you -- review. mindy: hi. i'm mindy. i got my start in politics bout 12 years ago. and fell into new media by ccident. people said, here, do this job in addition to your regular work on capitol hill. and that led me to run digital media programs for presidential campaigns, for the republican national committee, to open a consulting firm where i worked with many different candidates and advocacy groups in that area. and then ultimately to a job at twitter as one of their first d.c. staffer's leading partnerships for politics and advocacy. social media has been a big part of my life in politics, even before it was really considered social media.

back when many of up were in middle school. john: my name is john. i'm the director of polling here at the institute of olitics. i have a company called social

sphere which is head quartered down the street. we use social media to identify and empower and ask for more from our clients' most passionate constituents. oftentimes using social media. shira: let's give a warm welcome to our panelists. [applause] i'm going to kick it off when with i think the most burning question on all of our minds in terms of social media. donald trump, good, bad, or as he might say, huge with social media? which one? nick: i think he's a good case study in what works on social media. in politics. as elsewhere. in the tv age, politicians, candidates kind of wanted to present themselves as these stable images. they wanted to have a could he heernt image outs there -- coherent image out there so

they intend to repeat the same thing over and over again. the image may have been completely artificial or partially artificial, but nefrlts, that was your goal. that doesn't seem to be the goal with social media. because what you want to do is grab people's attention when they face this swirl of information coming through social media. and it turns out trump is very good at doing. that at blasting out these messages that, you know, love him or hate him, suddenly make you stop and say, i can't believe he said that. and that seems to work and keep the focus on him. through social media. and then that kind of escalates up through the rest of the media. so he sets -- he's often setting the agenda through these messages he's shooting out on twitter or whatever. and then the rest of the media covers it. and it's a very different dynamic, i think, than we've seen before. shira: would he be the frontrunner today if it were not for twitter? mindy: i think huge.

social media demand as certain authenticity. that's the best way to use the platform. that's one of trump's greatest strengths. and he's playing into it perfectly -- perfectly. when i go back to 2011, when i first started that twitter, and a lot of my job was actually helping to train candidates across the board, what are best practices for twitter, how can you best use the platform? it is authenticity. show behind the scenes, give them -- make them feel like they are the most important stakeholders in the campaign. your twitter audience. and also instant response. and what we see, i mean, even today, when kevin mccarthy dropped out of the race for speaker, trump's there with a response within minutes. and it's not -- you can tell it's not -- it might be carefully scripted but if it is, he was able to do that quite quickly. so i think huge. whether he'd be the frontrunner without twitter, quite possibly. because he was already a tv celebrity.

and tv knows he gets great ratings. so they've been really quick to want to feature him. in fact, i think that what's contributing to his decline in the polls, there are a few things. one of those is he was hypercovered for so many weeks and there's only so long that's sustainable and media's really pulled back on it. shira: good, bad or huge, john? and what do you think his lasting effect, donald trump's lasting effect in terms of his use of social media, on this election cycle will be? john: i think it's all of the above based on kind of from where you sit. because he's innovative. in meement, i have an example, of something that -- the first time i've ever seen a candidate create short 15-second little mini ads on instagram, so good because i think he's shown the power of what somebody can do and engage people. whether he's engaging people in terms of moving the country forward, making america great again, as compared to insults, to be determined, right? certainly i think he could be

far more kind of positive in terms of his tone and capturing this moment to engauge voters in a civil discussion, so i think that's bad. but certainly it's huge because i'm not sure he would be, you know, we would be discussing him today if it weren't for his use of twitter and instagram. shira: so this is an example, john, pulled from instagram. can we let it roll? >> having trouble sleeping at night? too much energy? eed some low energy? think the norm ought to be jeb for all -- jeb for all your sleeping needs. [laughter] john: it's good because i never would have thought of a 15-second spot. bad because if i were advising a campaign, i would use that time to say, give me your ideas, right? on term terms what have we need to move the country forward, rather than just going negative against bush. shira: do you have a reaction to it? mindy: political tactics too. it's a reordering and a shift

of how you run a campaign. because typically when i've been on campaigns, the discussion is, whether when to go negative and what is that right moment? and there hasn't been that kind of calibration -- they recognize that you don't wait and some criticisms of mitt romney back in 2012 and other candidates, quite often when they lose is they waited too long. he's not waiting at all. and -- shira: anything you want to add? nick: i think that's right. if you look at jeb bush and hillary clinton, they're still kind of playing by the old rules and are nervous about going negative and saying anything that's going to blow newspaper a tv controversy, you know, be accused of having made a gaffe. trump lives on making gaffes. things that would have been defined as gaffes in any election previously, for him, just seems to, you know, put more fuel in his tank. shira: well said. so, as reporters, we cover campaigns, we monitor the role of television quite a bit.

how much money a candidate is spending on tv, usually shows how strong their campaign is, how much money they're bringing in. so for years and years, decades, we've thought of television as the dominant force of media in campaigns. is that still the case and for how long and when will social media or digital media ompletely overtake that? nick: i think this year, the 2016 campaign, is really the first, when we're seeing social media at a mature level. begin to shape the campaign, so, you know, twathe i think was -- 2008 was called the facebook campaign because obama organized people on facebook, younger people mainly, and got a lot of contributions. but it didn't shape the political discourse and the kind of dynamics of the campaign. i think this is the first year we're seeing how campaigns change when social media does often drive the discussion. so that doesn't mean tv's going away or radio's going away. the press is going away. it does mean that often all

those other media are following what's going on social media. so even if a person isn't following the campaign through twitter or something, what they're seeing through tv and other media may be very heavily influenced by what's going on in social media. mindy: there's a mistake often made by campaigns and then also by many of those who cover the campaigns that where the most money goes means that's the most important aspect. and most of the money goes to tv because it's the most expensive. digital advertising is increasing in its share of the budget but also in cost as demand rises. but tv still incredibly expensive. there's reports about the money that superpacs are spending on television because there's so much competition. i think it f that will still tend to dominate the nartific. i don't think, you know, maybe -- the narrative.

i don't think, you know, maybe by next year there will be more coverage of online advertising in the same way there is television. but it's also -- tv is a more regulated market. there's more disclosure whereof people are buying -- of where people are buying. the internet land escape is geling and there's more demand side buying, i'm getting into the wopwonky terms where people are buying through one platform. but it's still the wild, wild west a bit in terms of tracking who's buying where. and because of that it's much easier for reporters to be able to write that tv story than to write that social media story. john: i think the one thing to add to that is that video and television is still, you know, a primary way to tell a story, a compelling story. but i think it's been 10 years since we saw the dramatic change from television to other kinds of advertising. patrick who got elected governor in 2016, now a decade ago, went -- 2006, now a decade

ago, went from first place to third place without a single tv ad. he held onto that lead with tv but he had his two consult abilities create a beautiful 30-second spot that went out to his list of email addresses, said, i don't have enough money to put this on tv, can you send his to friends and family? went from third place to first place against two people who were far better known and had more money in their accounts. the tools are there. it's for the campaigns, the canned dade -- canned -- the candidates to empower them. shira: you nexted 2008 as the facebook election. 2012 walz the twitter election. 2016, what's that going to be? john: a lot of folks think it could be the snapchat election. what snapchat is doing in terms of further democrat advertising the role of media.

in terms of not having to wait for the 24-hour news cycle on cable but to see it from the perspective of their friends. we see that, you know, 1/3 or so from our surveys, here at harvard, 1/3 or so of voters are active, engaging with snapchat. and when you look at the demographics of snapchat versus twitter, versus instagram, they're quite different, so it will be interesting to see the way these campaigns kind of identifies which channel they ant to invoke. mindy: one of our goals at twitter was we wanted it to be the twitter election. that's sfpblgt i'm sure snapchat is sitting there saying, we'd love that to be the story for 2016. and it could be. but i don't think that tells the whole story. i think it sounds sexier, but the more accurate is that it's finally the mobile election.

of people engaging with the campaigns via mobile. nick: i think that's right. i think it's all of social media now. but i do think snap -- calling it the snapchat election makes sense at least messer toically. what we see with trump and others is that a good strategy is kind of to model your personality on the way snapchat works and to kind of burst into people's consciousness, you know, at regular intervals. but not say anything so deep or complicated that it requires people to actually pay attention. if you model yourself on snapchat that might be a pretty good media strategy this year. shira: that's good news for rabid paul, i guess. [laughter] -- for rand paul, i guess. [laughter] how many people in the audience have their own twitter accounts? facebook accounts? snapchat accounts? don't be shy. interesting. so, nick, you've special idsed

in how the internet -- specialized in how the internet changes our behavior. on facebook i think we all have friends who pick and choose what they post. based on their own political beliefs. we all have that uncle. by only reading what we choose and having that option, is it possible many people are kind of hard wiring their brains to only believe certain things? what are the long term effects of this? nick: unfortunately i do think, and this isn't something new with the internet or social media, but i think what we're see something a continuation of the story of the polarization of politics in the country. where people -- the hope for the internet was, you put all this information out there, make it easily available, and people will go out and sample all sorts of different opinions and look for thoughts that contradict their own. what we're seeing, what really happens, is people go out and gather information that confirms their existing biases, their existing political bleefls. and what we know from the -- beliefs. and what we know from the psychological studies is the

more information you can gacter that supports your pre--- gather that supports your pre-existing beliefs, the more extreme those beliefs tend to get, so i think, as i said, it didn't start with the internet or social media but i think it's probably going to be -- end up being more of a polarizing force than what we originally believed or hoped which is that it would encourage people to expose themselves to a wide range of viewpoints. shira: so, this strikes me as probably not necessarily the most productive thing for let's say constructive political discourse, right? would you agree or disagree with that? mindy: i generally agree. but i think to the eaven whether it's forcing polarization in a way we didn't see before, it's complex and it really depends because it's quite true that people can much more easily siphon themselves off and only go after information that reinforces their own bias but on the other

hand, wherein the past you were limited distribute people who influenced you were just in your geographic region, now the people those are connected to are across geography and time and space so you're more likely to be exposed to, you know, and people are also moving and they're more mobile, you're more likely to be exposed to a diversity of views and opinions. and i actually -- that's what's driving the unpredictability of the electorate. we had better tools for measuring and understanding. but where you used to, if you ran a political campaign, could you base your strategy around geographic targeting because people in geographic areas are more likely to behave similarly. social media has absolutely disrupted that. now, it also, in certain, you know, platforms, especially twitter, it allows people to post unanimously. and it does really help forester this kind of knee jerk reaction and consuming things in instant bites, not necessarily looking at the context.

and in that instant reaction, and people being very quick to respond emotionally without being thoughtful, i don't think that's constructive for discourse. john: i had a couple of points. one, i think there's a different psychology to why an individual gets on twitter versus facebook, versus some of these other chance. part one. but the thing that i most focused on in terms of the millennial generation, i'm not sure that their opinions are so polarized when they become of voting age for the first time. in other words, those who are on twitter are trying to understand the way in which the world operates. they're choosing to share things about themselves that they care about. oftentimes it's related to kind of their life as a student or their dreams or what they share. in other words, they are laying seeds every single day, millions of them, saying the things that they care about. not the right wing or left wing, but things they care about. which is an opportunity for candidates and elected

officials and members of government from both sides of the aisle to engage with them, to dig a little bit deeper. noo and to say, tell me about your perspective, you know, kind of on this issue. and they don't. so i think the challenge isn't necessarily going to -- from the citizen's point of view. the challenge is from kind of those who hold the power to not engage. and there are a handful of examples. cory booker from new jersey does it as well as anybody in any industry around the world. but unfortunately better than i do, there's examples of probably few and far between. shira: as part of your research you work with students a lot. obviously. and you pull millennials frequent -- poll millennials frequently. can you show us, i think you have some slides to show us and negative examples of social media engagement with this gem graphic and others? john: yeah. the very first thing, let me give you the one little bit of background. the reason that this poll

started back in 2000 was a couple of young folks who were part of the i.o.p., trevor and erin, who were concerned about this disconnect between service and voting. they saw that all their friends on this campus and campuses and high schools around the country seemed very interested in giving back through service, but they didn't see the connection to voting. the students thought, wouldn't it be easier and fast father they'd served as well as voted? so the idea is, what we've learned is young people are not apathetic. they're trying to engage. we have a good and a bad example up here of that. one of which was from senator booker from new jersey, as i mentioned, engaging with a citizen about their point of view related to gun control legislation. it's behind me. we can see -- shira: it's up front too. john: so a constituent of new jersey said, what is commonsense gun legislation? democrats discuss it like it's self-evident. what good gun control is.

so senator booker actually went through four or five tweets talking about his perspective on what his definition of good gun control legislation is, right. then you can see 82 tweets, 147 favorites, thousands of people engage on a positive policy remark that thank wouldn't have happened otherwise. it's just a moment, but now there's a connection there. there's a connection between the senator and more information we can find as well. that's one example. and there's another example of doing it the opposite way. which is what the trump campaign tends to do. they tend to engauge with folks but rather than engaging on positive remarks, they tend to engage on negative things. you can see to your point that here's partisanship there. he's tweeting something very negative regarding the interview style of cuomo interview on tv, so trump is engaging in citizens but not in a a dialogue.

more in visitryal. nick: got a lot more retweets. john: he did. shira: i think it was the all capps. what's it did it. speaking of examples. i was wondering if you two wouldn't mind sharing a really effective way you've seen a presidential campaign use social media to reach voters. maybe allegation a really ineffective way if you have one on your mind. mindy: i think one of the less effective, and don't mean to pick on him, but there was a moment a few months back, and i don't remember what the exact issues was, but jeb bush and hillary clinton campaigns got into something. i don't think -- it seems like the reasons might have been behind that to say, oh, we're embracing the new media and where political discourse happens and this is where, you know, political engagement happens and jeb rising up and debating hillary, they were

maybe trying to -- she was already the presumptive nominee and he's stepping into that role. this is several months back, even before trump's rise. i think they both ended up looking really childish. i've as one of the things seen. the comment that people needed to work harder and she jumped on it. nick: i think sanders has been pretty effective in reaching his audience and expanding his audience through his posts on facebook, for instance, where he builds them around tectual statements that -- textual statements that seem to have a certain degree of heft and allow him to rise above the fray. i think, you know, the problem we're talking about what's effective and not is we can go with john's definition which is what helps political discourse. but that might not actually be what's politically efficacious.

so i think when trump, you now, does -- posts kind of offensive orrable rousing kind of tweets, it's actually been very effective for him. you can certainly argue that it's not raising political discourse. in any way. but that seems to be what works on social media, where, you know, we have to remember that the political stream of information is just one stream among all sorts of streams, social streams and stuff, that people are looking at. and you really have to do something to stand out and to grab people's attention and to make them say, oh, i better stop and look at this. and so in some ways, you know, it might be the worst strategy to try to elevate discourse if you're getting rewarded for just kind of grabbing people's attention by saying, striking or even outrageous things.

mindy: assuming that everyone on the stage somehow believes in getting more people engaged in politics and politicals discourse, even myself. shira: we talked about how these mediums and social media can be effective for candidates but what is the most effective medium for productive political discourse? can you take a single media? mindy:, no i don't think -- i don't think tuck pick a single media. i think what's so fascinate something that campaigns are -- fascinating is that campaigns are playing on so many different fields, so we're talking about social media here but you also have many candidates who are hosting on medium and turning to medium to state their case. people know what that is. a publishing platform. where they can have kind of more longer form conversations. the fiorina campaign has done that quite well, for example when she was maybe going to get shut out of the second debate. they turned to that platform. i think the jury's out about which is most effective. i think what many of the

candidates are choosing to do which i would endorse is, they don't want to be spread too thin because you may not be effective everywhere, but understanding there's a fractured media landscape. if you want to get as many people engaged as possible, certainly persuade and get your message out to all of your to win, nts you need you're not going to be able to depend on a single platform. shira: in some of the work you've done with students, have you seen one medium more than the others where students appear to have a more or millennials have a more productive political conversation? john: i think -- we recently held a town meeting of 57 or so students across a couple dozen colleges and we're asking these kinds of questions. to them it's whatever the candidates choose to engage, i'll find it. it's not like you need to find me only on facebook or twitter.

the lesson that -- what they were telling us was that, just find something you're comfortable with and use it. they wanted the canned kates to use it -- the candidates to use it. that's what, you know, what trump, we know, you know, that's trump. and we know when sanders tweets something, that's usually sanders. but that's what students were looking for and young people. they just wanted for the candidates to use it the way in which they do. and not just another version of a stale press release that they could serve off of any other kind of wire service. shira: this is a question i personally find very interesting in terms of social media usage. do different genders use social media differently? mindy: the data shows that both on twitter and facebook there's often a slight tilt to women. using those. there's certainly different demographic groups that heavily skew or overindex on twitter,

for example. and then there's platforms like pin terrorist. you know, which isn't used necessarily -- pinterest. which isn't seen as a powerful political tool but candidates have used it. it's heavily skewed to female. so that's quite interesting. linkedin, for example, which some campaigns, they will use this. it's not so much a gender -- gender difference but there's an age gap. it's the only one that really overindexes for those who are above 29 years old. john: we ask this question every semester and our information is available online. you're right. pinterest is for women. also for conservatives and southerners on pinterest. we see a fairly decent divide among african-americans on twitter but now it's closing. it looks more representative of america. but -- so there are some differences based on kind of what platform. but again, everybody can be found if they want to be found.

i still believe people are raising their hands, wanting to be engaged. i will say, though, some of the work that we're doing with face boorks you can see that some people tend to like comments more, other people tend to post more. so facebook is now opening up their data feed so they can learn more about what folks are doing. there will be more information around -- and political intensity i think coming from that data set in the coming months. data on we have any gender divides between posts and likes? john: we should stay tuned for that. shira: interesting. you've done a lot of work in terms of historical context, of how new technology changes the way we think about politics. i remember the lesson about the nixon-kennedy debate. thanks debate where people thought if they listened on the radio that nixon won. if they watched it on tv, john kennedy is so handsome that he

won the debate. it was the symbol of the movement of politics toward maybe a more superphysical way. are we again going through one of those transitions right now? and would you say it's a transition to becoming more superphysical politics or is this part of historical progression? john: i think it's part of a historical progression. nick: i think you can trace it out after the last 100 years. i'd argue that that we're seeing this year, as i mentioned, i think this is the first year that social media is popular enough and mature enough to really influence the campaign, is probably the third big media shift in elections and campaigning. first came radio, which hit its point of maturity in the 1924 race, i think, where coolage won re-election. and radio was very interesting. because suddenly candidates didn't have bodies and they just spoke with their voice and they weren't speaking at big fairgrounds but they were -- they came into people's houses

through these radios. and suddenly you had to have this kind of intimate conversation with voters. and a lot of candidates couldn't make that transition. we had people like franklin roosevelt with his fireside chats who were ideally suited to it. in 1960 we had the introduction really of tv as the main force, main media force, and it was perfectly encapsulated in the debate between kennedy and nixon where nixon was totally oblivious to the fact that he was sweating and looked horrible on tv. i think he thought he had won. and obviously didn't. and i think tv -- in one sense it gave candidates their bodies back. you were in front of everybody. but it turned them into these two dimensional images, put a lot more emphasis on being very conservative in how you presented yourself, being very nervous about causing any kind of big controversy. and now i think this is the third big change. and it's not that radio or tv

or print have gone away. but social media's the new thing in the mix and i think in some ways it no longer emphasizes the image of a candidate, it puts much more manufacture sizz on personality. and you want a personality that does grab attention on social media and you want to be somebody who says something new all the time rather than saying something -- repeating the same thing over and over again. that works on tv where you've kind -- where you kind of have voters' attention captured. you don't have that on social media. saying the same thing over and over again, we see some draft digsal candidates like -- traditional candidates like hillary clinton do that on social media and it comes off dull. so i think what we're going to see is that candidates either have to adapt or politicians have to adapt to this new media or a new jeb ration of politician -- generations of politics will come in who are adept at it and we'll see the

same kind of upheaval as we saw with radio and tv. we're getting behinds -- hints of how that will play out but it's going to be very interesting in next year and in future elections as well. shira: it is interesting because it changed who would run for office. television and radio. now social media. what kind of generation of politicians do you think we'll have as a product of the social media dominated environment? nick: i think we'll have people who are a bit more free wheeling. shira: that would be fun for us. nick: it would be fun. and there could be a good side to it and a bad side to it. because i think also social media, again, whether you look at politics or elsewhere, rewards with its attention, kind of very advice ral, emotional messages. that's what cuts through the chatter and cuts through the noise. and the danger there i mean, that can be good, it can bring people into the political process, they can really relate

to. it but the danger is emotionalism is always dangerous in politics because it can breed a kind of consult of personality around a candidate. there's a risk here that will just get more kind of superficial and emotional in the messages and the level of political discourse, which wasn't great to begin with. we'll teal -- will actually come down a little lower. mindy: there absolutely is a new paradigm because of social media. i think of a little bit differently, though, than it fostering the consult of personality. i think it does do that. and we are seeing that with trump and the fact that trump would run. but i'm going to do something really dangerous in this kind of election cycle which is make a prediction. and i don't think that trump will ultimately be the next president. and so it's really been a

question of -- shira: that's very brave. mindy: thank you. so, you know, he's taken off, but is he ultimately successful? there's a lot of energy around his campaign, but does he ultimately become president? or is it somebody else who is able to thread the needle between being presidential, kind of more conservative, as nick would talk about, in their presentation, and have a certain stature, but also show personality? enough personality that people don't think they're wooden. and i actually think it will be the latter. but the new paradigm of social media, what it's really done in terms of -- and this has an impact on who decides to run, it's more participatory. it's more democratic. small d. where everybody is part of the process in a way that they haven't been in a long time. and they feel dominion over that process. and it's empowered people with information and it's -- and it's given them a power to create support and get their

message out quite quickly and raise money quite quickly. and so this is where i know the title of this session, is social media ruining politics, i think when we see things as chaotic and messy as they are, we can tends to think, yes, absolutely, on that question. but but i think where the answer is no, in some ways it's strengthened it, but we're such at beginning of the shift in paradigm that it hasn't all settle out, it's given -- look at republican debate stage or even the democratic field right now, where bernie. and it's big and it's diverse and it's messy because it's hard to know, you know, who is up and who's down, what day, and who believes what. and some people might say, it would be better if we could wrap it in a neat package, but that's democracy. democracy is supposed to fuel the ability of people, no matter who you are and where you come from, the ability to run for president. before the social media era we were getting away from that and it's facilitating it in a way that i think is quite healthy.

shira: speaking to the title of this panel, is social media ruining politics? john: i think the people who are using social media are ruining politics. right? unfortunately. shira: nuance. hn: because i just believe that, a couple things. i don't think it has to be that way. i know for a fact, if some candidate says, i'm going to use twitter tonight to say, i'm going to host a community meeting in boston to talk about what's working in the city, ok, you would have 100 if not 1,000 new people show up to have a conversation about that. and that's the use of social media in the best way. i can guarantee you in that room you'd have an 80-year-old and an 18-year-old and a lot of people in between who want to participate in solving problems. now, that's the first step in building trust within the system. then they are connected with somebody who actually cares. they'll follow that person and

that's the way for social media to save politics. but for whatever reason, and it's difficult, folks haven't figured out how to best use. that even though ogando did -- obama did that beautifully eight years ago. part of it, i think, is that -- shira: if i can just pause. it's interesting, when you talk about social discourse, that discourse that you talked about is still in person. it's at the town hall meeting. it's not necessarily on social media. john: that's ok. you're using social media as a tool to bring people together. those folks, like the example we used in new jersey, if you can't make that town meeting, then you can have an engagement with somebody. the common problem, whether it's millennials or any other generation, is a lack of faith and trust in the system. finally, we have a tool, you say it's participatory in democratic -- and democraticizing, that folks aren't using in that way all the time. i believe if you build trust, create a relationship, that will lead to success in the ballot box.

i think there are enough examples to get there. the problem, though, is that too many of us who are kind of consultants and strategists and communications folks are used to talking to people, they're used to a 30-second spot or 15-second spot or whatever. it's a very different mentality on social media. you have to be prepared to kind of engage and listen and respond. it shows your true self. it's your true personality. in a way in which emails are a true personality before you know they're going to be public, right? there are charming things about those emails. there were charming things about emails. it gives you a window into personality. a lot mar than a tweet or facebook -- a lot more than a tweet or facebook post does if it's heavily edited by a campaign consultant. shira: one more question and then we'll go to your questions. if you have one, please line up at any one of the four mikes distribute around the room -- distributed around the room. nick, i'd also like to you answer the title of this panel. which is, is social media ruining politics?

nick: that would imply that politics was in some sheer state before. shira: fair point. nick: no. i mean, but i don't think it's elevating politics. i think the good news is that it can draw people who are feeling disenfranchised and disengaged, it can draw people in -- draw them into the political process. if you're not watching news on tv or listening to it on radio or reading papers, then you want political discourse to go to social media. you want it to be where people can have the opportunity to get involved. but i worry that ultimately it's making that discourse more superficial rather than richer. it's giving a lot of people, i fear, an illusion of participation, where they think, oh, if i retweet something i'm participating. if i like something or heart something on stain gram or something i'm participating. but what it's not doing is drawing people into a

thoughtful engagement with policy issues and candidates and instead it is repackaging political conversation as streams of superfirble tweets or -- superficial tweets or facebook messages. you would hope that people would go beyond that and use that as the an tray into some deeper engagement. and some people will. but i don't think most people will. shira: we will now go to your questions. just a quick reminder, as an editor, this is verynary and dear to my heart. your question should have a question mark at the end of it. it should be an equal question. let's adhere to that. let's start left and then we'll go right. thank you very much for taking the time to speak with us this evening. my question is mainly directed as john although i'd be interested in hearing from both of you as well. in terms of using social media to save politics, the example

you gave seemed to me to really be more possible at a state or local level as opposed to a national one. so i wonder if could you talk a little bit about -- do you see the same affects you spoke about social media having on politics occurring at the state and local level? is there any sort of difference? might it be more possible for social media to save politics at the state and local level as opposed to the federal one? john: oftentimes the best ideas come right from the local cities an towns across america. which are then, then if they work, they get scooped up by candidates for president. but i think it works everywhere. i think for a candidate to start a conversation about poverty on twitter, you know, national conversation, that they start on twitter and end somewhere else would be helpful at any level. at any level. we've engaged in similar conversations with school teachers across america on issues related to education and poverty and other things. i'm sure it could work. it's a question of, which

candidate kind of wants to do the hard work to get there. because it takes effort to read through people's responses and to engage with people who have a good idea and take those ideas and develop them into kind of a policy issue that might work. . > thank you. >> hi. i'm a sophomore in the college. thanks for being here. my question is getting something that nicky mentioned. to what extent do you think political discourse, moving to a video website gets people involved and care about issues? we have one uncle that posts all his statuses on facebook. do you think it's people encouraging about the issues or

feel more disenfranchised of what's going on? >> i think it's a good medium or galvanizing attention and in getting people involved in thinking about it, an issue, whether it's a good medium for encouraging sustained engagement with the issue. i'm more dubious about that. what we've seen is things burst -- things become very, very important for a day and two days and then they disappear and then we wait and something else becomes very important. certainly for some people following something on social media will be the spur that gets them deeply involved but that's counterbalanced by this churn of our attention as kind of the new thing comes up and

pushes aside something else. and i think for most people it will create bursts of participation and attentiveness but probably won't create the kind of sustained engagement that actually leads to changes hat they might want. mindy: nonof the popular social media platforms are well-positioned to be political discourse. there's not good discourse happening on any of them. they allow people to get instant access to politicians are thinking or saying. sometimes the query booker is an example in that he engages with constituents but even twitter is lacking. there are new platforms every couple years that rise up that say they are going to address this problem. we haven't talked about this on the panel but what quite concerns me and even going to john's idea is that you'll hear from members from capitol hill now, members of congress that they stop doing town halls because they'd rather do it

through social media because it's a lot easier and a lot more controlled. they'll do q&a's on facebook and they can decide what questions me want to take and people might yell at them but there's a way to shut it down that's different than if you were at a town hall meeting and there's a disturbance. i think that aspect is quite concerning. i don't think we're quite there for a media platform to be good for discourse. >> state your name and your affiliation with the college or with harvard if you have one. up there, purple shirt. >> my name is jack and i'm a freshman in the college. my question is, how can candidates appear more authentic even when all their messages, tweets and facebook posts are crafted well ahead of time? >> very good question. let's see, mindy, you worked a little bit directly with candidates. why don't you talk about that? mindy: when they're not crafted

well ahead of time, i would guard against doing that. i don't think that's a good use of the platform. and the culture of a platform, particularly a twitter where it's an instant response. i think what you see campaigns do to shield the candidate a little bit from making a gasp or mistake is they have a lot staffers are empowered. many staff to be tweeting during debates, to commentary and that type of thing and that's a departure. going back 10 years, even 10, eight years ago there would have only be a few people within a campaign who were empowered to actually speak on behalf of the campaign. now they have a full army doing so on twitter, but i would really guard against -- there were stories out of the 2012 election about mitt romney's campaign, a tweet going through 22 approvals. they dispute that. there's different stories, sides of that story but if that's the case or when that is the case that doesn't allow a

candidate to really realize the power of social media. schirra: do you have an example or thought -- shira: do you have an example or thought of a person on social media? john: i don't know off the top of my head but i will say the advice -- i was thinking about this over the weekend. the advice i would give a candidate in terms of being more authentic would be the same advice i would give, like, one of my kids to be more popular in school, right. don't try so hard. just be yourself, ok. don't try so hard. and if you're not comfortable talking about yourself on twitter, then don't talk about yourself on twitter, right? go to insta granled take photos of what your life is like on the campaign trail. e mayor of los angeles has a beautiful instagram of his life

as a citizen of los angeles and what it shows, right. and to me that shows -- something about kind of who he is, how hard he's working, where is he, etc. that campaign stuff is his view of the city. he doesn't seem to be trying so hard. if it's natural, it's natural. if it's not it's not but don't force it if it's not you because consultants want you to be on twitter. mindy: there are several candidates. trump may be a case study in that he gets a lot of engagement. i wouldn't advise the other candidates to copy trump. they've gotten themselves in trouble when they tried to do that. they tried to show a more brash style on twitter and it ended up looking silly and really hurting them. so you do have rubio engaging, jeb. hillary's campaign quite active. bernie's campaign quite active. i actually think they're using the medium quite well. well it's fully themselves, it doesn't come across as inauthentic so i think that's a win. nicholas: one of the challenges now is that there are so many

social media platforms that we have facebook and twitter but then we have snap chat and instagram and pinterest and each one kind of -- each is different. it becomes very hard, very time consuming for a candidate to be authentic on each of these platforms that they're sending their messages out through. i don't mean to -- i guess i'm picking on hillary clinton but if you look at clinton's facebook page and her twitter feed, they're basically mirror images of themselves. you know, if you do that through all the platforms you start to look very, very manufactured. but on the other hand, i sympathize with how hard it would be to authentic on all these platforms all the time. you'd die of authenticity, i think. shira: a lot of putting yourself out there as a normal person and politician who are used to putting themselves out there. up there in the white shirt. >> hi, i'm chris, a sophomore at the college.

and with the rise of social media seems there's a lot more political information out there but the same time the ability to self-select what information you get based on what pages you like and who you follow on twitter and so forth. so i guess my question is, do you think that social media sort of increases people's exposures to different views and standpoints or it further entrenches them in their own iewpoints? shira: nick, you've done some work on this. nicholas: i think in general it leads to more entrenchment in their existing points of view because what happens is they seek information that is confirming rather than opposing to them. that's not true of everybody. some people will give the opportunity to expos themselves to different -- expose themselves to different views. if you give themselves a huge amount of information they'll select stuff with stuff that

resonates with what they're thinking. >> victoria and i lead the women in public policy program here at harvard's kennedy school. we've certainly seen the rise of social media fundamentally enhances the campaigns of nontraditional candidates. the way balm used it. what happens to women candidates -- and i run -- female candidates and women who participate in the social media space, even though overrepresented in many of the platforms, also are much more ikely to have incredibly aggressive shutdowns by people participating in those venues for those that blog regularly can get attacks and there's a lot of trols who spend time doing those attacks. one, do you have advice for how candidates can most effectively

handle that engagement and, two, what do you see as the future for campaigns and beyond how these platforms are regulated so we have less visceral engagement that iminishes discourse? not just dynamic for candidates but even voters participate on social media is i think a deterrent because people are attacked and really shut down. there's people that's almost as if they shouldn't be allowed to express their views. if someone takes an opposing view the way they react to someone is other people react and you're not allowed to have that few and discussion is really shut down. and that's unfortunate. and that really hinders the ability for it to be a platform for discourse. i'm actually more concerned about than than siphoning off people into their own camps and the reason it siphons people

off in their camps, why if you are going to have that response? it is worse for women because of the types of attacks it can lead to. in terms of advice, really, you have two options. either you engage or you don't engage and then if you decide to engage, do you acknowledge those types of commentors or not? i think engagement is always better for all the reasons we're talking about today. if you say silent or absent, people are out there talking about you on social media anyway. you want to be able to kind of -- you want to be not so much control but have participation in that conversation and be part of it. in terms of whether to engage those commentators, at this point because the plat -- where the platforms don't limit, and they really don't, you have to ignore it. and i see this happen all the time with many women candidates. in fact, some of the women who are really the best at being open online, posting every vote, doing the facebook q&a's,

especially the members of the house, and they get those kind of comments and i always wince when i see them but it doesn't stop them from doing it. they continue to do it and i really think it helps in terms of the image that their constituents have of them as someone who is open and some of those women are in swing districts and the reason they continue to be successful is people do see them as accessible. >> would you mind repeating the second part of your question? >> well, the second part is, do you see in the future of social media a better sense of regulation on the platforms? because what we definitely see in social media is the type of discourse. and particularly in gender aspects that are visceral comments that, for example, if they take place in a forum that mic would be cut because they in no way contribute to the discourse or outside the frame for what is considered reasonable dialogue. in some cases would definitely be considered hate speech. one of the benefits of the

social media platform is that people can express their authenticselves. there's a wide range of what that looks like in our political landscape. do you see that as unchartered wild west or over time there will be some more mitigation in those systems to creakt a more effective dialogue -- create a more effective dialogue? mindy: it's sufficient a -- such a tough line because where do you cut it off? where some people see as quite offensive others see it appropriate. this what happens on college campuses and where platforms tend to lean is what's more popular. there's platform policy which continues to be visited. there are things that is absolutely acceptable. if they register a complaint they can be shut down or warned their account will be shut down. they have policies in place and

within those companies there is really thoughtful debates that go on about where they draw those lines but they tend to lean towards being more open because it's part of the promise of the platforms that there will be a platform for open discussion. >> my name is ignacio, a sophomore at the college. so every once in a while a really bad tweet resurfaces, and harms the politician. i was wondering what you thought is going to happen in the next 40 years when people who are running for office have hundreds of thousands if not so many tweets in their name if that's going to be different, if the political landscape will be different, if people will go back and look at all these tweets that people from my generation have been tweeting now and our now and is that going to affect us in the future? >> or facebook and instagram. >> and other social media? >> what is the next generation

politician is going to look like when they see what they were like freshman year and not caring what they put on the internet? memo to all of you. do you think even some of the same things we see now from politicians when we see things from their past resurface and new stories, do you think it will be as harmful down the road or will it pack the same punch or more or less ones, john? john: i'm hopeful that it's put into the proper perspective over time. i mean, i remember the first time that -- there was an ongoing debate about bill clinton smoking marijuana, right, and now you have every candidate talking about a lot of the things they have done during the college life so we had more contact in the last 20, 30 years. i suspect that will be the same. i hope that's the same. it's so difficult now for somebody to run for public office in terms of open themselves up to the history. so hopefully folks will have the proper context over time.

i'm an optimist, though. mindy: social media helped our sensitivities in that way. someone might have been aghast or someone might have exited a race in the past, it might be a big deal. it becomes a huge deal in 24 hours over twitter and facebook but then it goes away because there's so much else to cover. shira: the news cycle becomes so, so quick. yes. >> hi. my name is evan. i'm a senior in the college. by the way, i'm really enjoying this so thank you for coming out. when i think of the question, is social media ruining politics? i think one of two effects. the first one is that everything nowadays is political and becomes very political very quickly. like one example i can think of is there's this woman who tweeted a joke and then by the time she landed in south africa she had been fired. she received death threats. she had to move.

the other one is the comment section. and so the question that i have is just sort of two parts. the first one is, why do you think this seems to pop up everywhere and every explanation that people come with all the time -- it was anonymity, then it was short form, they all seem to go away. why does this always seem to be the case and is it enevitable, will it always be the case? nicholas: one is just the scale of these platforms means that it's very easy to get enough ople concerned or kind of -- or offended that it kind of snowballs very quickly and for all the good things about social media, it is a platform for -- it can be a platform for a mob mentality where people kind of react viscerally without thinking about it or without thinking about the, you know, without giving another person a benefit of the doubt

often. and so it's unfortunately that's part of human nature, and when you create these kinds of -- this kind of scale where anybody can say anything about anything, it becomes very, very hard to avoid that kind of sometimes very unfair and very damaging dynamic. so i have a sense it will probably always be with us. >> hi, there. my name is frankie hill, i'm a freshman at the college and i was wondering, you've talked a lot about how social media can kind of be bad for discourse and talking about political issues. i was wondering if you have seen any like better ways to do it? are there features we could be implementing that would improve social media websites to improve discourse on them? in your studies, have you

ncountered anything like that? john: i have an example or two. it's connected to the original point i made which is you can use social media to start conversation but -- not going to create -- you need to take it off-line or online. i think there are some examples of starting a conversation in multiple places where you find the people who really want to be there, right, who really want to have a voice, who have some perspective and take it to more of a closed face where people can participate, kind of like they participate in a letter to the editor. you have to say who you are, right? and then you can try to work with other members of the community to try to solve the problem where it could be crowd source. within some kind of guidelines in terms of what the problem is and only a respectful conversation can be part of it. it leads to tremendous results.

we've done this dozens of times across the country. at the end of it, you have specific policies that are created at the local level sometimes with experts, sometimes with citizens, ok, that eventually get the attention of the governor, the senator, the mayor, the administrator, the particular program and i think that's the way it could work. so, again, i think we all agree you can't have the most produckive conversation 24/7 on social media but it can start to be an invitation to invite people in based on what your goals and objectives are. mindy: i think there's a lot of room to make it better and to build platforms or improve the existing platforms for discourse and that may be is a challenge to the students and others in this room and something to work on. something i worked on a bit last year with a platform called change.org. i don't know if anybody is familiar with it but it's an open petition platform. petition is the oldest form of tool in our democracy to share

your voice. but one thing we found is it was incredibly -- through people signing petitions and the collective action of sometimes millions of individuals there was a lot of change happening. the things people were wanting were happening. we still had the same issue where it was very one way. one way in the way you would normally expect. we talk about politicians shouting at the public and it being one way, in this case it was a public shouting at decisionmakers, politicians, sometimes it's corporations but not really giving the decisionmakers the headphones to listen in a productive way and engage in a dialogue because sometimes people are clamoring for a particular change and they may not understand why things are the way they are and how people could be working together with government or corporations, frankly, to institute the change. and so we actually created a new feature set of that platform to allow politicians to respond and start to engage in the dialogue which has been

used by dozens of politicians at this point. i'm not saying that's the whole answer but it really was a response to this -- to the disconnect, to the fact that what we see on social media is wholly insufficient for this kind of dialogue. nicholas: i think the easy part would to allow platforms that would allow for discourse. the hard thing is for the politicians to come and the public to come and actually spend a lot of time there. shira: and i think this will be our last question for the evening. >> rick, i'm an alum at the college in the ed school. i'd be interested in talking about how is fundraising and how you see it moving both by candidates and by third parties, you know, like moveon and others, where is that going to go? how is it affecting these campaigns nationally now, and where do you see that having an

impact in the future? thank you. shira: do you mean fundraising generally or through social media and digital? >> social media. how is fundraising through social media, email, facebook, whatever, like bernie sanders and barack, obviously, and third parties as well? thank you. shira: see. why don't we do a quick answer. we'll start at the end. john: sure. i learned ot of -- them in 2004 at howard dean empowering regular citizens to share calm dollars here and there to participate. one of the things was to shut down folks who graded -- they comment on a blog during that campaign. the organizers, nick and joe, would say for every negative comment i want our community to raise x dollars. that was a way they self-corrected that. frankly -- and take a look at

what lawrence is doing on the other side of this campus. he's using social media to raise his campaign and awareness. it's also not surprising he's the one that has the highest proportion of his tweets responding to people. so he's working, he's talking to people and raising a decent amount of money from small donors to get there. shira: mindy. mindy: the great promise of the internet is would redemocracy ties the process. many of the way -- and with fundraising, it's another one of those stories that has two sides. it definitely has in some regard, you look at candidates, certainly bernie sanders right now and the fact he was able to raise almost as much as hillary clinton in the last quarter, the great majority of that was from small dollar donors through social media and online. you see that with some of the republican candidates who are doing that as well. even a certain candidate who is running right now, marco rubio, wouldn't be where he is had he not done that in his senate

primary, charlie crist, running against an entrenched incumbent. there's incredible influence over the system by major wealthy donors. so there really is two sides to the story. that's actually one of the stories to really watch in this election cycle to see will it be that tipping point? even with howard dean, he was able to overperform but not victorious. we had barack obama was ultimately victorious. so there's been a mixed story about those who were able to build that kind of movement behind them and raise their contributions online. shira: and nick. nicholas: i absolutely know nothing about fundraising. shira: all right. fair enough. can we please give our awesome panelist a round of applause? [applause] shira: and thank you, everyone, for coming, very much.

thank you. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. isit ncicap.org] >> the house of representatives is back in session at 4:00 eastern time today to debate several bills. among them a bill changing the process for how the transportation security administration decides what items are banned from airplanes. a measure designed to combat poaching and help other countries fight wildlife trafficking and a resolution declaring the palestinian authority engaged in anti-israel and anti-semitic activities. the house will begin debate on those bills at 4:00 p.m. eastern with votes at 6:30. you can watch that live right here on c-span. and later in the week we're expecting the house to take up highway and mass transit funding. also, a defense policy bill which president obama vetoed last week. and our companion network, c-span2, president obama on the criminal justice system. he'll be speaking in newark, new jersey. you can watch that live at 4:20 eastern on c-span2.

and then live at 7:30 tonight on c-span2, a house veterans' committee hearing with witnesses testifying about alleged misuse of the veterans affairs program to relocate workers. >> all persons having business before the honorable the supreme court of the united states admonish and give their attention. >> this week on c-span's "landmark cases," we'll discuss the historic supreme court case of schenck v. united states. in 1917, the united states entered world war i. patriotism was high. and some forms of criticism of the government were a federal offense. charles schenck handed out and mailed leaflets against the draft. >> this is the flyer that was produced by charles schenck in 1917. 15,000 copies were poe deuced and the point was to encourage men who were liable for the draft not to register.

the language in this flyer is particularly fiery. it equates conscription of slavery and called on every citizen of the united states to resist the conscription laws. >> he was arrested, tried and found guilty under the recently enacted espionage act. schenck then appealed and the case went directly to the supreme court. find out how far the court ruled, weighing the issues of clear and present danger and freedom of speech. our guests include attorney thomas gold stein. co-founder of scotusblog. gauge, professor of history at yale university. that's on c-span, c-span3 and korea radio. for background on each case, order your copy of the "landmark cases "companion book, it's available for $8.95 plus shipping at c-span.org/landmarkcases. >> becky pringle is vice

president of the national education association here to -- joining us this morning to talk about testing and changes in testing policy. what is the nn association view on the fourth and eighth graders? guest: well, i am a middle school science teacher. the most important part of that sentence is that i am a teacher. i give tests all the time, i love tests. at the challenge that we find with educators around the country is the purpose of tests. roles tozed tests have play, but in this country, we have had such an obsession with standardized testing that we now know that we are over testing

our students and we're using the tests for making high-stakes decisions and they were not created for that situation. they are used for teachers to inform the practice. they ensure that every student is learning at the level that we expect for all of our kids. host: you mention you are it a teacher, 31 years as a middle school teacher. how have you seen standardized testing change? guest: wow. [laughter] guest: a lot. are some of our students spending upwards of 10% of their time and taking the test, preparing for test, taking benchmarks for tests. practicing, playing games to get ready for the tests, and so much focus is on the test and it is taking away the love of teaching

.nd learning we find our students are exhibiting signs of stress because they know that the tests are having such high consequences on whether they are going to fourth grade. host: in terms of the long-term role, when kids get to high school, they are faced with important test. how do you prepare their earlier for that? of takingnevitability those tests that will determine where they go to college? we took the sats and we didn't need all of the tests that are going on right now. it isn't that we are seeing that there isn't a role for the test, there are, but we have to make sure we aren't over testing our students and taking away the time for our students to learn. we want to make sure that we are thecontinuing to spend

billions of dollars on the testing industry instead of making sure that our students have couelors and the opportunities to put his fate in in bandtwo participate and school nurses. we are breaking up our phone lines in little bit differently. 202parents, the number is teachers, 202 748 , and if any students are 748 8003.202 last week, the headlines across the country said that the obama administration calls for limits. here is that the education secretary had to say.

>> the goal of high standards is hugely important. the standards that many states adopted you to no child left behind has had devastated -- devastating impacts. we absolutely believe in high-quality assessments. i will come back to that. we believe in meaningful accountability. aboute to talk achievement gaps. we are talked about the students who are not being treated well. about who isk making progress and who is not. what we don't believe then, are redundanty and assessments. that doesn't help anyone. ways what are the other that secretary duncan mentioned

on determining who is failing and who is not? of metricsave lots that we try to use to determine whether students are being successful. he talked about accountability for schools and states. so we are looking at multiple measures to determine that. butdardized testing is one, we also need to take a look at whether students are successfully completing higher level math and science courses. if they even have access to the courses. there are students who go to schools where they don't have physics. ap physics. host: is that because teachers are not available? guest: that is part of it. but they don't have the resources available to have science labs.

one of the things we are looking at is to make sure we have students there -- we have teachers there. partnershiping in a to make sure that teachers and students have access to the courses that are gateway courses to college. we are working to train more math and science teachers from our core of teachers. host: we have a teacher first step. im from ohio. caller: good morning. actualreat to have an teacher talking about actual classroom things. it usually seems to be politicians or administrators who haven't spent a whole lot of time in the classroom. startedd taking -- i teaching seventh-grade science

in 1986. that i went to high school physics and college physics. i grew away from some of the students. when i started, we did have quizzes and tests every week to grasp the material and be in was lucky enough to a school with lab science. students had their own notebooks and we did labs that i came up with. we had enough of the budget to get some materials. and recently, if i can go about one more minute, i will talk about stem education. about the college i went to and there were only a handful of people being trained to be secondary science teachers. so i began a scholarship program in my area to fund people who wanted to become

seventh-grade-12 grade teachers. it seems that most of the students in that area lean towards i.t.. thank you so much for putting a teacher on c-span. thank you so much for putting a teacher on c-span. guest: thank you and thank you for your activism. you are actually correct. we need to do more individually to make sure that we have enough .s teachers -- when they have the choice, whether they were going to continue to take math and science, they need to have the choice to do that. we need to make sure that we have the newest tools and

technology and equipment so that they can have a love of science and they will continue to pursue it. here we go, on the administrators line in florida. go ahead for becky pringle. caller: yes, i'm am very pleased to have a teacher on. as an administrator and a teacher, i am delighted to hear that -- is bridging the gap in teacher education. one of the things i want to talk about is the policy on testing. florida has been the epicenter of beginning this testing model. governor,ush was the he carried the ball and started the coke brother

funded association to bring in fca itng called s cap -- grades schoolst. and it gives funding based on test scores. as you stated earlier as a science teacher, and as i know teaching, we do train teachers to give lesson plans and to create testing and syllables. time,ce the beginning of we have had teachers developing tests. we have been using that value of teachers plans and testing models and it has created scientists and architects and doctors. so i am not sure where it is that a politician can get the value to be able to come in and

create no child left behind, which in fact was a political test. from my understanding in florida, with the administrative standing up against the test and parents opting out. we had millions of parents opting out. that is what we need to continue to advocate. charlotte, thank you for your input. we will get comments from our guest. yout: i am really glad that talked about parents and educators and administrators. community members are coming together and they are saying, stop the over testing and stop using these tests to punish our kids and our schools. and quite honestly, to blame our educators. we are very pleased that the

obama administration has come out forcefully against over testing. we are hopeful that they will take the next step -- the first step. we have decouple the high-stakes testing with their high-stakes consequences. we have to make sure that tests being given are not only pull back in the amount, not only addressing what you talked about in terms of the purpose of the tests and the quality of the test, that we also have to make sure that we are not using these tests in a way that ends up corrupting what it means to teach and learn. and that is what is happening right now. parents are saying enough. twitter, -- tweaks that one of the biggest problems with the test is that it holds back the inquisitive and motivated students.

-- has been a problem in education for a long time. this is the tipping point that has finally gotten it addressed. kids howoesn't prepare to live in society. it does not teach kids how to get and hold a job. guest: i could not agree with that more. to be honest with you, the group of kids that it hurts the most are the students -- the students who, more than likely, are being subjected to these tests and drills through the day more often than others. we know what is going to happen with that. they are not being taught 21st century skills around medication , literacy, critical thinking skills. they enable to solve problems

and work together -- those are skills that have fallen by the wayside. skillstudents need those in schools. ofy cannot be the kinds thoughtful problem solvers that we need them to be when they all -- when they enter the workforce, because they will be solving problems that we don't even know what they will be. that theyon drilling are subjected to is not going to prepare them for what they need. host: cheryl is a parent in california. that morning. caller: good morning. from my observation being in the school system, what i hear from the students is that they are unable to correlate what they theyearning with -- what are learning at their age level

with understanding. son in chemistry, and one of the kids, they were studying, and they looked at the tv and, they said i'll just take the tv and it'll be a nucleus. and he said, oh, i never thought of it that way. so what i hear in this age group is that they don't correlate withthey are learning age-appropriate cognitive skills. with the different grades can incorporate something together so that all of the kids in that age group will understand it. they are creative people. listening to him and his friends is amazing. host: thank you. any thoughts? guest: they are very creative,

please -- creative, we see that every day. we want to make sure that as our students are learning, they are learning collectively and collaboratively. but they are also learning based on what it is that ties the content to reality. because it is not just about learning facts and figures. it is about understanding why they need to learn that. how they can use these problem-solving skills for the future. so that is exactly what we want to focus on and what we don't have the time to focus on because of the focus on toxic testing. secretary iscation stepping down, and his nominee is john king. he spoke recently about why the testing policy in the u.s. should get a second look.

>> i come at this from a perspective of being a teacher and a principal, with a sense that, the key question is, how do you establish the right balance? there is no question that testing that is well can give good information to parents about how they are doing and about how to improve instruction for teachers and two students for how they are progressing towards college. low-level,clear that poor quality assessments can distract from good instruction. they don't provide useful information. they get in the way. the good news that we call out in the plan over the weekend is that we have states all across the country that are moving towards higher quality assessments. states have created better testing that require more

writing and problem solving and critical thinking. clear with conversations with parents and educators and from this report that there are places where there is too much testing and too much testing that is low-quality. deputyhat is the education secretary, now the nominee. speaking about the change in education and testing. up, they are calling for tests that are worth taking. ,, fully transparent to students and parents. they want to use tests as just one of multiple measures and they want to try it to improve learning. what do you do in the short term? testing scores have dropped.

guest: a couple of things. i could not agree more with what he said. -- i wanted to make sure that we had a chance to talk about resources. money, time and the people necessary to make sure these kids can do well. the results that you are referencing, we did see a slight decreasing in the math and science scores. when we take a look at the trend of the new scores from the early

1990's, they are increasing and it does continue to do that. but we do need to take a look metric does one drop a little bit. we need to take a closer look and find out why that is. we began the obsessive focus with no child left behind. the consequences because of the testing -- we need to take a look at that to find out the impact. one more thing i want to bring up, last september, and you we reached a this, historic landmark in our public schools. over 60% of our students attending our public schools -- we can no longer ignore the impact of poverty on whether or not all of our kids get access and opportunities and the support that they need to be successful.

so we need to take a look at all of those data points to see what is happening and what has changed in the last couple of years. and also what we need to do differently. bring in the headlines on those testing. both fourth grade and eighth grade students scored lower in science and mathematics. is eliza, she is on the administrator line in south carolina. good morning. caller: good morning. as a teacher and an administrator, i would like to share something about testing. teacher, i didn't know what was going to be on the tests. we would hope that teachers don't know what is going to be on the tests. how tought skills about

test and i tried to cover the whole spectrum of all of these skills. it makes a difference in the classroom with students. poverty, ander in many of the students were behind. but we worked and worked and they and i took great pride in .he progress that they made they did test well. so that is what i would like to say about the teaching of testing. were not uptight about testing. they were going to put down what they knew and that is what the test was asking for. i helpedinistrator,

the teachers keep records of the tests that they would take during the year between the tests. we did a lot of assessing. not testing so much as assessing so that we would know where every student was. host: thank you for sharing your experience. guest: the teachers should know what is on the test. not that they should know the exact questions, but one of the things that we have found over the last few years is that we have test that are teaching something completely different. that is not fair to the students . it is really important that the teachers know what the standards are and what the students are supposed to know and be able to do. so every assessment that is is a locallyr it developed assessment or a standardized test, the teacher should know. host: a few more minutes with

becky pringle. we are talking about student testing and the change in administration following some of the recent result with fourth-graders and eighth graders. , it is our conversation 202 748 8000 four teachers. him involved as a teacher calling tomorrow teachers line. i would like to mention to miss pringle that in my opinion from what i've seen is that kids tend to plateau in those higher math and science skills. a lot of the schools have pushed that particular agenda to the point where other skills that keep a kid interested in school are going begging, i.e. music and art.

those kinds of things that really round out a citizen. we are also training citizens here. the highll you that skills that you are teaching our plateau for the majority of kids and if everyone is went to be a high math genius or a high science genius, that would be a minimum wage job in our society. we need to keep those smart kids in our school instead of having a brain train out, which we have in the state and particulate and the private schools and i know that is true in other states. kidsd to get these together and socialize and understand what life is about as opposed to what a vector is about. you know what i mean? i think you do. these high skills are just a plateau for most kids.

if we need to make this a general education, in my opinion, and more of a factor in turning out a good citizen, i must also say that there is plenty of money and the schools. coststhe administrative that are usin eating the schools up. there is just not enough devoted to the education process in the classroom. thank you. guest: let me begin with the last statement there. there is not plenty of money in the schools. since the recession, we have seen billions of dollars that were originally in our schools that have gone away. we are very glad that a budget deal is imminent so that we can begin to address some of the cuts to education that have occurred in the last several years. in addition to that, we always

have to be focused on making sure that we deal with the inequities across our school systems and that we make sure our students who need the most get the most. i wanted to talk about that. i apologize. i'm a science teacher so let me start with science. i lead with that and i love it. i want to make sure that we did not create a system where some of our kids do not have access to those higher level math and science courses. the collar was absolutely correct. we want to make sure that we have a rich curriculum so that all of our students have access to music and art. and social studies. those are the kinds of courses that not only we believe create more well-rounded citizens, but we know that different students have different interests and it is really important that all of our schools have access to art and music and physical education, which you know is so important and so many schools are limiting because they are trying to make room for prince

harry for the tests or they do not have the funding -- preparing for the tests or they do not have the funding they need. you need to have a real well-rounded, full, and rich curriculum. host: want to talk about the effort to update the no child left behind law. the chairman of the education committee sent on a headline about how you should stop and think on the over testing problems. he wrote that the president is right about students taking too many tests, but i hope he will stop and think before trying to cure over testing by telling teachers exactly how much time to spend on testing or what the test should be. he writes that "the best way to fix over testing is to get rid of the federal mandates. states what the united and it did when it passed by an overwhelming bipartisan majority , 81-17, legislation to fix no

child left behind and get more flexible due to states and classroom teachers to decide which tests to use to see what progress dunes are making." what is their position on that legislation? guest: with respect of the authorization of elementary and secondary education act or no child left behind, we are looking for them to get it right and we are looking for them to get it done now. you're correct that leaders in both the house and senate are in negotiations right now and we are very hopeful. we are very close to getting a bill to the president's desk, which we hope that he will sign, which we hope will include not only a reduction in the test but most especially, and this is really important, when that legislation was first passed when lyndon johnson was president, the purpose was for the federal government to play a role in making sure that all students have access and opportunity, to fill that gap

for those students that were underserved. its role was. with the passage of no child left behind, that was expanded and this testing mania and obsessions, punishing and labeling and blaming and shaming. that is what we have had the past years or so. what we are saying is that we need to make sure that we l ive up to the original intent. we are calling for a dashboard for states to put forward a plan for students to ensure that they have access to nurses and counselors and support professionals to make sure that ap courses and math and science and social studies are available and that they have arts and music. to make sure that in their accountability plan, they are talking to us about how many student's are going on to college ready. that they are seeing the student exley complete college.

we're looking what we call an opportunity dashboard. i should've said this first perhaps. we want to make sure in this reauthorization that the voice of educators are heard because those of the folks were closest to our students and have a better understanding of what asy and their parents need they know the kind of education that those students must have to be ready for college. to ouret's go back educators like your skin is on the teacher's line in valley springs, california. i really like this discussion because it really hits home with me. i grew up in the 1950's and 1960's through school and i can remember distinctly how school ran back in those days. there was no testing almost whatsoever. when i went through elementary school, we had weekly