A student-led initiative focused on addressing misinformation and media literacy hosted a TEDx event with guest speakers from the ASU community Thursday on the Downtown Phoenix campus.
Cindy Huang, a freshman studying political science and mathematics and a co-organizer of the event, said the initiative, Between the Lines, originally started as a community service project.
Huang said she, alongside classmates Maya Bustos and Johanna Villanueva, had an interest in news and media and wanted to center their initiative around misinformation and the necessity to read between the lines.
To reach a broader audience, Huang said they applied for a license to host a TEDx event, which is independently organized and operates in the TED format.
The event featured five speakers, including students of varying grade levels and a professor.
Bustos, a freshman studying business and co-organizer, said the group of speakers created a space where diverse voices at ASU were heard.
Bustos said the organization wanted to find speakers who resonated with the message of reading between the lines. She said they also wanted to tie ideas surrounding media literacy back to individual stories and experiences.
"Everybody has something that they're inclined to want to work toward, a change that they want to see in the world," Bustos said. "We really wanted to showcase ourselves as a platform for people to be able to do so."
Huang said having diverse speakers adds new perspectives to existing issues in the world, such as political polarization and misinformation. She said these varying perspectives tie back to their message of encouraging media literacy.
"It really does make you think critically about all of these different stories that you're being presented with, all these different versions of the human experience," Huang said. "There's something super valuable in having a diverse list of speakers when we have a theme that really speaks to (and engages) with the world in a critical way."
Villanueva, a freshman studying music and co-organizer, said the event helped Sun Devils access a platform as well-known as TED.
She said because TED talks typically feature guests who are well-established in their field, this TEDx event created an opportunity for students to share their perspectives and stories in a space that is not always accessible.
"We as people who have not gained those accolades yet still have ideas worth spreading, still have perspectives and lives and stories that should be told," Villanueva said. "We got to open up access to having people's ideas shared."
Villanueva said the initiative's mission is to serve ASU students who are growing up in an age of social media.
She said it was important to them to help students better understand what they see on social media, which can include misinformation and charged language.
"Giving ASU students the tools to be able to parse out the truth and really the drive to seek the truth — because I think that's our due diligence, to seek truth — I think that's really important," Villanueva said. "This is a great place to start with that mission."
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Oumayma Hilal, a doctoral student attending ASU as a Fulbright scholar and one of the speakers, said she was excited to participate in the event because it allowed her to represent the international student community.
Hilal said individuals may believe their background is too complex to be shared. In representing the international community, she said she wants to inspire students to stand out instead of blending in.
"I just want to make sure, if it's 12 minutes with TEDx, to let them feel that our backgrounds and our stories are not something to manage or to fix," Hilal said. "It's something to use in a very beautiful way."
Hilal said she worked with the hosts to encourage international students to take advantage of their differences and apply them to research projects and organizations.
She said those differences offer new ways of seeing the world.
Huang said they wanted to empower students to think critically about the world and leave the event considering ways to read between the lines in their lives.
Bustos said she hopes students resonated with the speakers and can apply their messages back to their own lives or the greater community.
She said they hope to continue to grow the initiative.
"Our focus after this will be on building Between the Lines," Bustos said. "We really do believe that this is a message worth spreading, not just at ASU, but also within the greater Arizona community."
Edited by Carsten Oyer, Senna James and Pippa Fung.
Reach the reporter at alillest@asu.edu and follow @allylillestol on X.
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Allison Lillestol is a reporter for the community and culture desk. She is in her 4th semester with the State Press. She also works for Arizona PBS.Â
