Rachel Kleinfeld and Renée DiResta || How Institutions Earn Trust in the New Media Age
Credentials used to be enough. Rachel Kleinfeld and Renée DiResta on what earns trust now.
Rachel Kleinfeld of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Renée DiResta of Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy join Corey to talk about their new paper, "How to Engage With New Media: A Strategic Guide for Nonprofit Organizations," co-authored with Margot Treadwell. The conversation moves from an institution caught flat-footed when a researcher becomes a target, to why a big following no longer guarantees reach, to how hard disagreements go better when nobody fears being screenshotted.
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Key takeaways
- Kleinfeld says academic credentials and a nice institutional home no longer confer legitimacy. Authenticity and trust do, and they come from building a community that listens.
- The paper cites Meta data showing 41% of posts on the average Facebook feed come from recommended content unconnected to people the user follows. DiResta explains why that means a large following no longer guarantees reach.
- The paper's four questions come before any posting: who the audience is, what the mission is, which gatekeepers shape the field, and how to create content. Kleinfeld says audiences should be sorted by values and worldview, not demographics.
- DiResta finds hard conversations work best in private group chats where no one fears being screenshotted. Kleinfeld says the place to start is common values.
About Rachel Kleinfeld
Rachel Kleinfeld is a senior fellow in the Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where she advises governments, philanthropists, and activists on how democracies make major social change. Raised in a log house on a dirt road in Fairbanks, Alaska, she earned her BA at Yale and her graduate degrees at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar.
About Renée DiResta
Renée DiResta is an associate research professor at Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy and a contributing editor at Lawfare. She is the author of "Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies into Reality" and was formerly research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory.
Links
- "How to Engage with New Media: A Strategic Guide for Nonprofit Organizations": carnegieendowment.org/research/2026/08/nonprofit-organizations-how-to-engage-social-media-new-media-strategy
- "For Expertise to Matter, Nonpartisan Institutions Need New Communications Strategies": carnegieendowment.org/research/2025/09/communications-social-media-nonprofit-institutions-new-media-environment
- Rachel Kleinfeld on Substack: rachelkleinfeld.substack.com
- Renée DiResta: reneediresta.com
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