Social Impact in the Era of Misinformation & Media Chaos

We are living through the biggest shift in media and marketing of our lifetimes. Misinformation spreads faster than ever, trust in institutions is crumbling, and social impact leaders are left navigating a fractured, chaotic digital landscape.

So how do you build credibility, mobilize communities, and create real impact when attention is scattered and trust is eroding?

In this episode, Eric and Jonathan break down the new realities of marketing and media—the rise of digital tribalism, the fine line between authenticity and performance, and why the old marketing playbook no longer works.

Episode Highlights:

⏳ [00:00] A Changing Landscape – Why today’s media environment is unlike anything we’ve seen before.
⏳ [02:46] Misinformation, AI, and Media Silos – How rapid shifts in digital communication are reshaping public trust.
⏳ [06:29] The Attention Economy is Broken – We have more information than ever—so why do people feel more disconnected?
⏳ [09:40] Should Your Organization Speak Out? – The pressure to comment on every social issue vs. staying mission-focused.
⏳ [12:48] Authenticity or Performance? – The rise of “authenticity washing” and why your audience sees through it.
⏳ [17:14] The Death of Traditional Marketing – Why the old broadcasting model no longer works—and what’s replacing it.
⏳ [21:24] From Broadcast to Relationships – How social impact leaders can shift their approach to build real trust.
⏳ [26:00] The Future of Digital Trust – How organizations can navigate the chaos and create meaningful connections.

Notable Quotes:

• "We are in the middle of the biggest shift in media and marketing of our lifetimes." – Eric Ressler [01:26]
• "I know that my reaction to the world as it is, has been to sort of shrink my sphere of attention and sort of align my attention with where my ability to make impact overlaps." – Jonathan Hicken [07:31]
• "If we don’t actually take action on the things we say, is it really authenticity—or just another marketing play?" – Jonathan Hicken [12:48]
• "The old marketing playbook is dead. The question is—what replaces it?" – Eric Ressler [17:14]

Resources:

• The Lookout
• Article - Don’t Build Your Brand on Rented Land
• Article - Top 10 Mistakes Social Impact Websites Make
• Article - Develop a Distribution-First Mindset to Win in the Attention Economy
• Article - How to Defeat the 3 Toughest Challenges All Nonprofits Face
• Article - 4 Scroll-Stopping Digital Experiences to Inspire Your Nonprofit's Content

Transcript:

Eric Ressler [00:00]:

If you talk about how people are getting their news, how people are shaping their beliefs, this is just a completely different landscape and I think we have to be careful in the social impact space to figure out how do we navigate that in a way that is ethical, constructive in a way that is effective.

Jonathan Hicken [00:17]:

My attention has gotten really shrunk down to the size of what can I actually touch and influence, which means for me, I'm mostly focused on local and regional politics and local and regional,

Eric Ressler [00:31]:

That trust is going. Right? We talked about this in a previous episode. Your answer I found really interesting. I think that trust you said is going to the personal level, right to relationships. But if that's true, then how come podcasts and digital media continue to have such an important role in shaping our beliefs and our experiences in this world? 

Jonathan, one of our goals for this podcast was to try and channel the energy that we have in our dinner discussions where we meet up for dinner and we talk about social impact, we talk about life, parenthood, et cetera, and I don't think we've really accomplished that fully. We're getting closer right in our second season together here, but I'm hoping that we can do that in our episode today because today I want to cover a really big thorny thing, and I don't have answers here.

[01:26]:

I have a lot of questions and I'm hoping that we can kind of talk about them and work them through together. So I believe that we are in the middle of the biggest shift in media and marketing of our lifetimes right now, and there's a lot going into that from AI to splintering information silos and social media completely being transformed to a complete trust in our relationships with digital experiences and trust and lack of trust in institutions. Things are kind of crazy right now and we're coming out of when we're recording this episode. A couple things that I think are especially salient in this one is the 2024 election for President in America and how much media had an influence on that election and specifically podcast. And then the second is Twitter, formerly known as Twitter X and the splintering of that, and frankly, in my opinion, the complete dumpster fire that that platform has become regardless of what side of the aisle you sit on, I think we can agree that it's a dumpster fire and the refugee crisis where people are moving to Blue Sky right now in droves in search of a new home that is healthier.

[02:46]:

And these are just a couple of examples. If we start to talk about AI and AI generated content, the list goes on and on. So yeah, let's talk about it.

Jonathan Hicken [02:55]:

Frankly, I feel that my experience as a parent here is informing my business thinking because I'm having to navigate, and so are you talking about these things with a five-year-old? And in some ways I don't feel totally prepared. This is all happening so fast. I'm 38. I feel like I'm a little bit on the older side of adopting this technology, which is crazy to say, but I kind of feel that way. Nevertheless, it's my job. It's my job to understand how this is going to change my business and the impact that Seymour Center seeks. So I'm figuring this out on the fly.

Eric Ressler [03:38]:

The thing that I've really been thinking about is, I mean, I have my own personal concerns as a human, as a parent and someone who cares a lot about our future in society, but then I'm also starting to think about what are the implications for this rapidly changing landscape for social impact organizations that, in my opinion, really need to leverage media and technology in order to capture attention, to turn that attention into action, to mobilize their communities when everything is becoming less and less kind of combined in a way that makes sense. So one example of this is that back in the day, everyone got their information from a few key newspapers and a few key TV channels, and there was some kind of shared sense of reality for the most part because most people were getting their news and their understanding of the world through these different channels, and that's just not true at all anymore.

[04:40]:

I mean, if you talk about how people are getting their news, how people are shaping their beliefs about reality, especially as more and more people are consuming information digitally and largely through social media and largely through individual influencers over institutions, this is just a completely different landscape. And I think we have to be careful in the social impact space to figure out how do we navigate that in a way that is ethical, in a way that is constructive, in a way that is effective. And oftentimes those three pillars do not go well together at all. You can be very effective but not be ethical at all. And I think that's largely what we see out there. You can be ethical but not very constructive or effective. So I think this is kind of tough. So I have some ideas around this and maybe it'd be good to talk about.

[05:36]:

One of my framing beliefs that I've been talking about for a long time, which is this concept of the attention economy and the attention economy, it basically posits that it used to be true that information was scarce before, especially the internet. A lot of people had access to information that other people didn't have access to. And now the interesting irony here is that the promise of the internet was that everyone would have free flowing access to information and it would make the world a better place. And I think what we're starting to see is that that hasn't quite penciled out the way we hoped it would, and now we have an overabundance of information and not enough skill about how to make sense of all that information in certain ways. I think that our information processing centers in our brains are just overstimulated, right? We're getting way too much information from way too many sources.

[06:29]:

We're expected to try and figure this out now on an individual level, especially if you don't trust mainstream media or institutions to do that for you, which more and more people aren't. That is a challenge, in my opinion, for social impact organizations, especially when one of the main things that we're trying to do is build trust and credibility. So I know you've been a big proponent of that happening kind of in person when it can. And I do think that there's a really interesting tension here between as we have this kind of reckoning away from digital information and institutions that we are, where's that trust going? We talked about this in a previous episode. Your answer I found really interesting. I think that trust you said, is going to the personal level to the relationships. I think that that's true. But if that's true, then how come podcasts and digital media continue to have such an important role in shaping our beliefs and our experiences in this world? Thoughts?

Jonathan Hicken [07:31]:

Well, I know that my reaction to the world as it is, has been to sort of shrink my sphere of attention and sort of align my attention with where my ability to make impact overlaps. So this goes back years now, but I was paying attention to national politics and international politics and being really invested personally in those stories. And I found that over the years, maybe this is partly confounded by becoming a parent where my attention has gotten really shrunk down to the size of what can I actually touch and influence, which means for me, I'm mostly focused on local and regional politics and local and regional decision-making on a personal level that has really worked for me and I'm trying on the fly. I'm trying to overlay that onto Seymour Center in my work. Does it make sense for my social impact organization to equally become focused and get smaller in a way and really only address the things that we have the ability to address? I don't know. I'm wondering if there's any application here.

Eric Ressler [08:51]:

Yeah, no, I completely hear where you're coming from and I don't have an answer, and I don't think there is one answer. I do think this is something that really has to come down. If you're a social impact leader, you have to think about this from your perspective. And maybe one way of saying this is do you need to have an opinion or a stance or a message for every big culture war issue out there or every breaking news story out there? Does your organization need to have a take on that? I think the answer is no. I agree with that. I think you've done it all. And I think actually we all went way too far on that in the last few years where there was this kind of social pressure that every organization needed to have a take on every cultural issue out there.

[09:40]:

And this has been largely and in my opinion, kind of not always accurately framed under this guise of woke politics and woke and the woke mind virus that everyone likes to talk about. And I think that there was some ammo that everyone gave that narrative that I think is somewhat valid. And at the same time, I think that what I saw happen, and I was really intentional about this in terms of our own communications at Cosmic, is that everyone felt the need to weigh in on every issue in the world, whether or not it had anything to do with the purpose of their organization. And this is tricky, right? Because if generally we are doing social impact work and we want to create progress for society and we want to create a more just and equitable world, which I think a lot of social impact leaders want to do, there's kind of like a natural inclination to feel like you need to take part in those conversations potentially.

[10:37]:

So if you're doing climate justice work, for example, and there's issues around gender equality and you understand how those issues intersect, well, you have a take on gender equality if you're doing climate justice work, for example. I know organizations who believe very strongly that that's true, and I think they have a solid point of view there. But that's just one example. And I think we saw people reach way, way further than that and kind of have a take on those things. And I think it was largely because there was this cultural upswell of everyone's got to have a take on every social issue out there.

Jonathan Hicken [11:12]:

I'm conflicted about this because on one hand I talk a lot about this idea of relevance for the philosophy behind Seymour Center. We want people to walk into our space and see themselves reflected in the space.

Jonathan Hicken [11:27]:

And there's a lot of ways to do that, and we try to do that online too, but this idea of becoming ultra hyper-relevant to the lives and the attention of the people we serve. And so on one hand I'm like, I don't want to comment on everything that's happening in the world because we have such a narrow impact mission. On the other hand, I know that our audience cares about these things and I want to their values and their care in the space and in how we speak. I'm conflicted. Can I both be relevant to my audience and not discuss the things that they care about most at the same time?

Eric Ressler [12:09]:

I'll just ask a question, does this come down to actual action over some kind of performative action or virtue signaling around if you are going to have a take on something and make a claim about something? And in my opinion, it kind of has to have two backing elements for that to be true. One, it does have to have some kind of logical relevance to the work that you're doing, and you need to be able to defend that. And two, I think you have to be able to support that statement or that communication with authentic action in the real world. And I think if neither of those things are true, then it really is kind of just performative.

Jonathan Hicken [12:48]:

I agree. I agree. Where my mind was going was like Seymour Center have the ability to act meaningfully towards the particular issue or the particular conversation. Do we have something valuable to add or can we advance our impact or our mission by becoming involved in that conversation in some way? And if the answer is no, my inclination is we're out. We're not going to talk about that.

Eric Ressler [13:18]:

Okay. So now a counterpoint that I think about a lot here is that when it comes to making big cultural shifts, even just speaking truth about something and you don't have a solution and maybe it isn't necessarily relevant, that kind of power in numbers and message and cultural change is valid too. So there are some advocacy focused organizations that are trying to drum up support from a broad coalition, even if they're not directly a bullseye fit for the mission, but that have enough value alignment and ethical alignment or whatever, however you might measure that, who become allies. And so I think there's a counterpoint to this, and I think this, it is squishy, it's hard, and I feel like I have a clear answer to this and a clear point of view on it. And then a week later, I'll start to question that a little bit too.

Jonathan Hicken [14:11]:

I took a little heat for not commenting on the results of the 2024 presidential election from an official standpoint.

Eric Ressler [14:18]:

Oh, really?

Jonathan Hicken [14:19]:

Yeah. And look, the community we live in, I think went 70% Harris, 30% Trump, and I took a little heat for not discussing that or putting out a statement, whereas some of my colleagues who are in similar positions at other science centers and other aquariums did, and we chose not to. And I took some heat for that, and that heat has died down pretty quickly. But it was a moment of like, oh, this really mattered. And this question of who does this matter to and does commenting on this help deliver impact? Those were the big questions going through my head.

And ultimately I thought the answer was no, but I can see the argument that actually it could have been meaningful to building momentum, building community, building a groundswell that may have brought more support to the organization or more attention or I can see those arguments.

Eric Ressler [15:16]:

Yeah, and I think one thing I think about is that we need to have some grace here around you as an executive director making that choice and not having a picket line in front of the Seymour Center. There are, in my opinion, I can see how you could have gone the other way. There's some obvious, in my opinion, relevance to, let's just be honest, the track record of Trump and his cabinet and his appointees and his just general politics and climate action, which is obviously a huge mission for the Seymour Center. There's an argument to be made that you could have and maybe even should have done that. But I also think that if all we do is just kind of call out culture around organizations like yours and leaders like yours not doing that for whatever reasons you chose to, should we be boycotting you now?

[16:13]:

Of course not. So I think as a culture and as a society, we need to be a little bit less reactive around all of this. And I think largely that reactivity, in my opinion, seems to be directly correlated with how integrated internet culture is in our lives. The more we are terminally online versus just talking to each other as people in the real world, the more that complete lack of grace and empathy and nuance in my opinion kind of happens. And so that's tough. How do you make those calls? And how do you know when to stand up for an issue and when not to? Because I think the other thing is if you comment and have a take on everything, then I think it does start to become more performative. And then when you do want to put your voice in the mix, it's not as loud, it's not as clear, it's not as meaningful. And so I think you do have to kind of pick your battles there.

[17:14]:

Okay. Another thing I've been thinking about a lot that feels sort relevant to this is a new term that maybe I'm inventing, and maybe someone else has already invented it, but I'm calling it authenticity washing. And we've heard of greenwashing. I wrote an article probably eight years ago now about causewashing. Someone else probably had already invented that too. And now I'm talking about authenticity washing. And this is coming out of this kind of new cultural drumbeat around authenticity. And I've been part of this drum beat, don't get me wrong, and authenticity is the answer right now in all of this noise and all of this inauthenticity. But now I'm actually starting to wonder is that even becoming a new form of performative marketing? And I see this in the rise of almost this kind of fake vulnerability that I see a lot where people are sharing more about their personal lives as professionals, as a way to be more human. And I think there's a good inclination there. There's something to that idea. But when it gets taken too far to the point where people are basically almost just exposing more themselves than is healthy, let's take an example. Have you ever met someone before where you don't know them very well and they start sharing extremely personal information really quickly?

Jonathan Hicken [18:35]:

Yes.

Eric Ressler [18:36]:

That can be uncomfortable, right? Extremely. And for me, it's kind of a red flag, and sometimes this might be a result of trauma or some kind of mental health issue. And so I'm not here to judge those people, but I think that experience is really uncomfortable on the receiving end of that. And I think that can be true too, if you are doing this kind of authenticity, vulnerability play to a point that is just not necessary and too much. And so I think, again, most things, this comes down to a balance, but I do think sometimes your audience can see through that fake authenticity where you're trying to be authentic, which is kind of an ironic act, right? Because if you're trying to be authentic, you're actually not being authentic in the first place.

Jonathan Hicken [19:18]:

You use the word balance. And I think that's exactly right. What's the reciprocal to authenticity? What's the opposite? And I think that the way the pendulum is going to swing on this, I think it's actually going to have to do with results and excellence. So I think there's going to be, and I've actually started to see this, obviously a very small sample size, but I've already begun seeing this in some conversations with funders where really the conversation is straight towards, I just need to know what are your results? I don't care what you look like online. I just need to know the results. And are you being excellent? And are you delivering excellence in terms of your impact? That's my guess of where this might swing, but that's at least what I'm starting to see.

Jonathan Hicken [20:07]:

And frankly, I don't hate that there's a part of me that thinks that there is probably some balance here. I might be wrong, excellence or results might not be the reciprocal to authenticity, but it's at least the direction that the arrow is pointing in the few conversations that I've had in the last, let's say six months or so.

Eric Ressler [20:28]:

And I agree. I don't know if that's necessarily wrong, because I think that as much as I believe in the power of brand, I believe in the power of marketing and being strong with communications and having a clear digital presence, and I continue to think that is only going to become more important. I do think that that's going to need to be balanced by actual results and real world actions and real relationships. And there's a lot of talk right now about this kind of shift from a broadcasting model to a relationship building model as it relates to marketing. And I think this is kind of the seed of this entire conversation, but we have to look at the entire landscape to be able to assess broadcasting and relationship building. It's not just this dichotomy. It exists in this very rapidly changing, in my opinion, kind of just in a bigger way than ever before, media landscape.

[21:24]:

And I think that where this lands, I don't know, I actually worry about where it lands. And even thinking about how much power individual influencers are having in terms of how people construct their own views around reality and beliefs, it's almost like we've given up as a culture on, and maybe even because it just doesn't exist, local news. We know of an organization locally here in Santa Cruz who's trying to really rebuild the local news scene that's been deconstructed and defunded. They're called Lookout, and they're based here in Santa Cruz, and they're spreading to other cities and municipalities across, I think California, west coast, they're expanding

Jonathan Hicken [22:07]:

To Oregon.

Eric Ressler [22:08]:

Actually

Jonathan Hicken [22:08]:

Shout out, Lookout local, because an amazing example of local news, I'm a big fan.

Eric Ressler [22:14]:

So all that to say in lieu of that in most communities, and because of this distrust that is happening with mainstream media, people are forming their opinions based on random podcast bros. Hopefully not only us, and please listen to us, be fans of us, but also take it with a grain of salt because we're sharing our experiences and there's other perspectives out there that you should be listening to as well. So if you're a social impact leader or organization, how does this influence how you show up in the world and as a brand?

Jonathan Hicken [22:49]:

Yeah,

Eric Ressler [22:49]:

It's an open question. Honestly,

Jonathan Hicken [22:50]:

I find myself kind of vacillating between my personal feelings and my putting on my executive director hat in this conversation, which is fascinating. But if I just put on that executive director hat, the answer becomes a little bit more clear in terms of how I'm going to show up for my own team and talk about this, which is really just getting focused on where is our ability to connect with people and where does that happen and where does that exist? And are we showing up to those conversations and those relationships as the best version of ourselves? We've talked about reasons why in a past episode, reasons why people might be motivated to do social impact work. And to me, my gut reaction here is as a leader, is to go to those things even more strongly. Like, why are we here? Why are you doing this work? Why are you showing up to work? And if we can live that in just the relationships that we're having with people who walk through the door who participate in our programs, that's the absolute best way that we can be authentic without authenticity washing

Eric Ressler [24:01]:

For whatever reason. In reflection to that last point you made, it reminded me of this phrase to fall in love with the problem. And I think that that really is the core of this kind of work is that, and I think the core of the powers a lot of social impact organizations and leaders is that they do really fall in love with the problem for one reason or another. And sometimes they might lose sight of that problem or the scope of that problem might increase, and that's just a misstep that can be corrected, but getting really clear about falling in love with that problem, and then a lot of this kind of becomes noise. Now, with that said, I don't think you can just opt out of the way that current culture is working, and I don't think you can just not have a brand or a digital presence or not show up on social media or have your own newsletter and navigate the way that largely we do communicate these days. Even if you are interacting in real life with a lot of your constituents or your donors or your funders and building those relationships, all of those real life interactions are now happening on top of the context of culture more broadly, which is largely shaping our beliefs and experiences and what matters and what doesn't matter through these digital channels. So you have to be able to hold both at the same time, I think.

Jonathan Hicken [25:19]:

Alright, dude, thought experiment.

Eric Ressler [25:20]:

Yeah.

Jonathan Hicken [25:21]:

What if Seymour Center completely disappeared from online presence completely? And it was like a statement I'm thinking about, strangely enough, I'm thinking about REI, do you remember when then they did a opt outside and they closed for Black Friday. It was like a deliberate in your face rejection of that particular value. I think they've stopped doing that. I think they're opening on Black Friday again, but it was a moment and it captured their audience's attention or their customer's attention. I'm just thinking thought experiment. What would it look like to completely divest from the

Eric Ressler [26:00]:

Internet, so to speak? Well, okay, here's an interesting reflection of that. How did that story spread on the internet? Right? So did they actually even accomplish that, right? Yeah. Right. And was that just for the memes and the clicks and to go viral, right? And was it really just like a, and look, I like RE, I think they're a good brand. I think it was a smart campaign,

[26:23]:

But if we're being real, the message was right, but the message spread through the exact medium they were boycotting that day, right? So that's what I mean by the internet is not going away. Digital communications are not going away. And I hope that we as a culture can take this moment to rethink how can we actually integrate in this powerful technology into our lives in a more constructive, skillful, healthy way? Because I don't think that's how it's working right now. And it's ironic for me to say this as a leader of an organization that largely builds work digitally and loves that, and I do have a deep love for the internet. I grew up on it. I think it is amazing, and I'm kind of sad to see the bastardized version it has become, and thinking back to the early days where it felt like this exciting thing that could make the world better, and now it feels like this runaway beast that is slowly killing us all or quickly killing us all.

[27:27]:

And so I hope that we can reign that beast in and use it more constructively again, because it really can be incredible and continues to be incredible. I think about so many organizations that we've helped that the internet has allowed us to help and connect us with that otherwise we never would've been able to do, right? And so it cuts both ways. And so this is truly, listeners been pretty authentically close to one of our conversations. Definitely one with a lot more questions than answers today. I thought it was really fun. Hopefully listeners agree, but thank you for doing it, Jonathan.

Jonathan Hicken [28:03]:

Thank you, Eric, this was great.