5:05 PM 6/10/2025
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Testing whether Aron & Melinat’s interpersonal closeness mechanism can work at Deutsch’s security community scale under Allport’s contact conditions to create Putnam’s domestic political constraints.

I’m going to write about the theoretical framework for the lessonslides.com project. The mission is for global human security. The idea is that virtual meetings can create connections between people, and that connections between people across boundaries will prevent conflict through a number of ways. Here are the theories that I build upon:

-Allport’s Contact Theory. This shows that contact between people in different groups under certain conditions can prevent prejudice. I am extending contact to virtual meetings in Zoom. Allport’s contact theory shows that in order for contact to reduce prejudice, the interactions should be under the following conditions: equal status, common goals, intergroup cooperation, and support from authority. For lessonslides.com, this suggests that cooperation towards a common goal is important for meeting the conditions. The way that this might be applied in class might be through emoji on the reflection slides. Brainstorming a creative story around 3 emoji is something that benefits by group effort.

-The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness: A Procedure and Some Preliminary Findings. This theory shows that interaction can be designed to optimize for closeness. In this experiment, the researchers used a questionnaire meant to give structured self-disclosure between research participants. This was shown to increase feelings of interpersonal closeness. For lessonslides.com, this means that the breakout groups, which are structured, should have discussion prompts designed for self-disclosure, and that this will promote feelings of closeness.

-I don’t know what theory this is… maybe related to Noam Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent. But the idea is that the government uses mass media to control the public’s point of view, and that this is necessary for war. My idea is that contact will reduce the effectiveness of propaganda.

-Two-Level Game Theory (Robert Putnam). This is the theory that domestic politics constrains international behavior. What happens internationally is a result of politics happening on two levels: interstate and intrastate. Similar to Noam Chomsky’s manufacturing consent, this theory means that domestic support is necessary for international war, and thus domestic politics can constrain international war.

-there is another theory, though I forget where I read it. Basically, it says that countries which trade together are less likely to fight each other, and countries which have high interdependence with other countries through trade are also less likely to fight.

-Security communities theory is slightly relevant. It basically says that countries create security communities through elite and corporate ties, and that these communities of countries rarely fight.

-most disputes are on a border. forgot where I read that.

Basically, the theory is that contact between students in virtual meetings will create psychological proximity which will defend against the effect of mass media designed to dehumanize outside groups and run wars.

5:24 PM 6/10/2025
OPERATIONAL FRAMEWORK
Now I will talk about the operational framework for the lessonslides.com project.
The project will operate in a methodical, systematic way.
Outreach: outreach will follow an algorithmic system based on analysis of country-indicators and conversation data. The result of the analysis determines and social media outreach. Social, Political and Economic indicators will be collected and compiled in a database. The decision to focus outreach on a geographical area will be based on a set of rules based on this data. The rules will be designed to optimize the conflict-prevention effect of the contact under the theoretical framework outlined above.

As an example, I have compiled the following data which shows bilateral relationships between countries. These all represent many-to-many relationships, and have their own tables in the database.

trade
migration
conflicts
int’l groups

For each country, I also collect the following data. These are one-to-many relationships, and are fields in the countries table.

HDI
Internet speed
timezone
social media platform

Then rules are designed based on this data, which optimize the efficacy of the contact for conflict prevention. For example,
-for countries in dispute with one another, find the top trading partners of each. Focus on building connections between these trading partners.

-find countries which share a neighbor that has a much higher GDP than them, and focus on building connections between them.

The analysis can be done on the database and will result in countries to focus outreach effort on.

BROADCAST COMMUNICATION

Multiple communications channels will be created by language and platform. Posts are promoted based on the analysis results.

For each country in the final results of the analysis, a list of universities can be found on Wikipedia. Universities which have a focus on health, education and agriculture will be selected. A points layer may be created on a map, and geographic coordinates exported. Promoted posts will target these locations within a certain radius.

Audiences will also be defined based on interests and behaviors.

Interests selected based on how inherently international they are:
football, technology, video games, foreign movies, foreign music.

Interests selected based on language proficiency requirement:
TED talks,

Post types will be consistent and alternately static and live content.

-Static content is information retrieved from the database. It is generated programmatically and scheduled en masse.
-Live content is posted manually by a human.

Post, type, description
-lesson content, static, text and images from lessons.
-notifications, static, text about meetings (upcoming and thank you’s)
-livestreams, live, bike streams

Posts can be translated to foreign language for each communication channel.

INDIVIDUAL COMMUNICATION
A chatbot will be developed to be the contact point for new and old contacts. The chatbot will be contacted through the communication channels, and will be able to:
-answer questions about the class
-share meeting links
-give a simple proficiency test
-record user information (name, language level, province, country).

EVALUATION OF RESEARCH
This is something that I haven’t developed yet. I have a theory and a way to operate, but how to measure if the theory is correct and that the idea is working? How do you measure the level of psychological proximity between participants? Even harder, how do you measure if it is working at the scale of international relations?