The Sandra Day O’Connor Institute For American Democracy will present a free online webcast, The Holy Grail: Can Social Media and Civil Discourse Coexist? The complimentary webcast will feature Monica Anderson of Pew Research Center and Beau Kiniry of BuzzFeed on Thursday, March 25, 2021, at 2 p.m. EDT. 
The Holy Grail: Can Social Media and Civil Discourse Coexist? will offer a provocative look at the intersection of social media and civil discourse. The expert panel will explore the impact that social media outlets and often contentious speech play on society, including its economic impact, consumer boycotts, the “cancel culture” phenomenon, relationships among friends, family and colleagues, as well as the positive benefits of social media.
The webcast is presented by the Institute under its LAB 102 initiative, a social experimentation laboratory to cultivate civil discourse and civic engagement for Millennials and GenZ. The program is named for the 102nd U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.
Monica Anderson is an Associate Director of Research at Pew Research Center and primarily studies internet and technology issues. Much of her recent work has focused on the impact of the digital divide, the gulf between those who have ready-access to computers and the internet and those who do not, the role of technology in the lives of teens, and activism in the age of social media.Â
Beau Kiniry is a senior social media strategist at BuzzFeed in Los Angeles where she leads the publishing team that works on social video content strategy for BuzzFeedVideo, As/Is, Unsolved Network, Cocoa Butter, Goodful, and BuzzFeed Celeb.
Guest moderator for the forum will be Ian Curtiss, a member of the Institute’s Emerging Leaders Network Executive Council and Assistant Dean at the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University. After 10 years of experience working in global government affairs including U.S.-Chinese tech, data and information policies at the American Chamber of Commerce in China, his current areas of focus include global strategy, tech-policy and organizational innovation.
Following her retirement from the U.S. Supreme Court, Justice O’Connor founded the Sandra Day O’Connor Institute For American Democracy. The nonpartisan nonprofit organization advances American democracy through civil discourse, civic engagement and civics education. For more information and to register for the free webcast, visit OConnorInstitute.org.