From the Tea Party to Occupy Wall Street, and from cryptocurrency advocates to the #MeToo movement, Americans and citizens of democracies worldwide are losing confidence in what we once called the system. This loss of faith has spread beyond government to infect a broad swath of institutions—the press, corporations, digital platforms—none of which seem capable of holding us together. The dominant theme of contemporary civic life is mistrust in institutions—governments, big business, the health care system, the press.

How should we encourage participation in public life when neither elections nor protests feel like paths to change? The Knight Institute’s Katy Glenn Bass talks to Ethan Zuckerman about his new book, Mistrust, exploring ways to address the public’s loss of faith in institutions through new ways of participating in civic life.