I want to make YouTube videos teaching about policy analysis and democratic concepts

I've previously worked in government policy and in political parties and this has been an interest of mine for a while but I'm still nipping at the borders of knowledge in my mind. A couple years ago before some personal stuff I had this idea to interview various experts on their ideal citizen education. The idea was to then bring attention to the fact there are some amazingly smart academics and experts out there with great ideas for fixing democracy. It's been a shaky start to turn it into a podcast and I am a proven neophyte at some radio stuff, but eh, it's not on a university radio station.

The idea is basically, if the average voter is as informed as the average internet comment... we're boned.

We already see the impacts of continuous campaigning and propaganda on people's brains. Politicians, in America as elsewhere but the US is amazingly emblematic, rely on short attention-span and cognitive biases toward tribal identity to lie about not even distant history.

All the while, systemic issues get worse. Inequality gets worse, infrastructure isn't maintained, climate change continues to wreak cascading havoc on food systems prompting resource scarcity and seemingly inevitable water wars.

The capacity for democracies to problem-solve, that is, coalesce around leadership and direction based on evidence to adequately address systemic issues, is badly hurt.

I'm a cynical guy. I think we're doomed. But I at least want to live my life with some constructive cynicism rather than paralyzing cynicism.

So I want to make YouTube videos about policymaking and group problem-solving and other things I've derived from this project on civic literacy and education.

I want to know what others would like to see from it. What sorts of pedagogies could be useful? How could a video using evidence and sources best confer knowledge about these subjects?

We already know more and more people, including over half of Americans, are getting their information about the wider world from a polluted public square enabled by social media. I want to at least contribute something in a more positive direction.

I have an example exploring the concept of a "Policy Window", where things line up for an opportunity to change policy and direction. It's got all the shills and whistles of a YouTube video (God I wish I was a door-to-door salesman in a past life to confidently say "smash that like button!").

Now I'm looking for constructive feedback. Not "don't do it" but "if you do this, here's what I think is useful".

Thanks in advance!

Submitted July 07, 2021 at 09:35AM by civicsfactor https://ift.tt/3hsWXzz