New Books In Communications

This book sounds an alarm: after decades of being lulled into complacency by narratives of technological utopianism and neutrality, people are waking up to the large-scale consequences of Silicon Valley–led technophilia. This book trains a spotlight on the inequality, marginalization, and biases in our technological systems, showing how they are not just minor bugs to be patched, but part and parcel of ideas that assume technology can fix—and control—society. The essays in Your Computer Is on Fire (MIT Press, 2021) interrogate how our human and computational infrastructures overlap, showing why technologies that centralize power tend to weaken democracy. These practices are often kept out of sight until it is too late to question the costs of how they shape society. From energy-hungry server farms to racist and sexist algorithms, the digital is always IRL, with everything that happens algorithmically or online influencing our offline lives as well. Each essay proposes paths for action to understand and solve

The connection between local news and political polarization is a hot topic that scholars in political science, journalism, and other fields have explored from multiple angles. It's not often that a real-world experiment presents itself, but that's exactly what happened when a Google alert landed in the inboxes of Joshua P. Darr., Matthew P. Hitt, and Johanna Dunaway. During the month of July 2019, the Palm Springs Desert Sun  dropped national politics from its opinion page and instead filled the space with columns from local writers and letters to the editor about local issues.  In Home Style Opinion: How Local Newspapers Can Slow Polarization (Cambridge UP, 2021), the authors use a show that after this quasi-experiment in Palm Springs, politically engaged people did not feel as far apart from members of the opposing party, compared to those in a similar community whose newspaper did not change. While it may not cure all of the imbalances and inequities in opinion journalism, an opinion page that ignores nat

We are now living in the richest age of public memory. From museums and memorials to the vast digital infrastructure of the internet, access to the past is only a click away. Even so, the methods and technologies created by scientists, espionage agencies, and information management coders and programmers have drastically delimited the ways that communities across the globe remember and forget our wealth of retrievable knowledge. In Architects of Memory: Information and Rhetoric in a Networked Archival Age (University of Alabama Press, 2020), Nathan R. Johnson charts turning points where concepts of memory became durable in new computational technologies and modern memory infrastructures took hold. He works through both familiar and esoteric memory technologies—from the card catalog to the book cart to Zatocoding and keyword indexing—as he delineates histories of librarianship and information science and provides a working vocabulary for understanding rhetoric’s role in contemporary memory practices. This volu

In early twentieth century British India, prior to the arrival of digital medias and after the rise of nationalist political movements, a small-town paper from the margins of society became a key player in Urdu journalism. Published in the isolated market town of Bijnor, Madinah grew to hold influence across North India and the Punjab while navigating complex issues of religious and political identity.  In Print and the Urdu Public: Muslims, Newspapers, and Urban Life in Colonial India (Oxford UP, 2020), Megan Robb uses the previously unexamined perspective of the Madinah to consider Urdu print publics and urban life in South Asia. Through a discursive and material analysis of Madinah, the book explores how Muslims who had settled in ancestral qasbahs, or small towns, used newspapers to facilitate a new public consciousness. The book demonstrates how Madinah connected the Urdu newspaper conversation both explicitly and implicitly with Muslim identity and delineated the boundaries of a Muslim public conversati

What’s the greatest crisis facing America today? — Racism and hate crimes, exploding government debt, climate change, or the mess at the border? It may be none of these. America and many other countries are trapped in high conflict. Both sides are paralyzed by fear and anger as they demonize the other. The national narrative of "us versus them" is a threat to democracy and stops us from working together to build a better world. Best-selling author and investigative journalist, Amanda Ripley, is our guest. She is well-known for her writing in The Atlantic, Time, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, and many other publications. Her latest book is High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out. Amanda argues that good conflict involves nuance and complexity. It can teach us to be better people, who are capable of solutions as they move past misunderstandings. Many are trapped in high conflict, which is threatening to tear us apart, creating an even deeper crisis than we have now. We discuss "conflict ent

No Laughing Matter: Race Joking and Resistance in Brazilian Social Media (Vernon Press, 2020) examines the social phenomenon of construction and dissemination of colonial-like racist discourses fostered against upwardly-mobile black women through disparagement humour on social media platforms, adopting a fresh and innovative perspective. In this book, Luiz Valério P. Trindade explores the idea that disparagement humour might not be as exempt of social impact as the jokers might believe, and that, in fact, this kind of humour reveals the hidden facet of deep-seated colonial ideologies still present in Brazilian society despite being hailed as a unique model of a post-racial society. The author argues that these ideologies establish and naturalise superior social positions and symbolic privileges to whites while undermining and delegitimising black women's upward social mobility. Social media platforms enable the proponents of these beliefs not only to engage in the practice of online hate speech but also to at

In Getting to the Heart of Science Communication (Island Press, 2021), Dr. Faith Kearns unpacks science communication as so much more than the “sage from the stage” perspective. Dr. Kearns, through decades of experience and countless interviews, writes to further a conversation for best practices and necessary training for science communication practitioners. In this interview, we discuss the past, present, and future of science communication. We dig into Part II of the book, The Tools of Science Communication, which for those newer to the field or practice, might be shocked to hear has little to do with speaking. Instead, we talk about relating, listening, conflict, and trauma. While Dr. Kearns is clear this book is not intended to be a final word on the topic, it does force readers to think about how the sciences might adopt training from other fields. We finish our talk with an unanswered question – how do trained generalists fit into the expertise-focused world of science? Learn more about your ad choices

The future of local news and the connection between local news and democracy are two of the hottest topics in philanthropy, education, and media these days. Nikki Usher addresses both head-on in her new book, News for the Rich, White, and Blue: How Place and Power Distort American Journalism (Columbia University Press, 2021).  In the book and in this conversation, Usher recasts the challenges facing journalism in terms of place, power, and inequality. She questions longstanding beliefs about the relationship between local news and civic engagement and separates observed behavior from myths about American democracy and the media's role within it.  Drawing on more than a decade of field research in newsrooms across the United States, Usher illuminates how news organizations strategize about the future and offers ideas for how they can meet community information needs in an inclusive, equitable way. Nikki Usher is an associate professor in the College of Media at the University of Illinois . Jenna Spinelle is a

This is not a book about Sir Winston Churchill. It is not principally about his politics, nor his rhetorical imagination, nor even about the man himself. Instead, it addresses the varied afterlives of the man and the persistent, deeply located compulsion to bring him back from the dead, capturing and explaining the significance of the various Churchill myths to Britain's history and current politics. In The Churchill Myths (Oxford UP, 2020), by Richard Toye, Steven Fielding and Bill Schwarz, the authors look at Churchill's portrayal in social memory. They demonstrate the ways in which politicians have often used the idea of Churchill as a means of self-validation - using him to show themselves as tough and honest players. They show the man dramatized in film and television - an onscreen persona that is often the product of a gratuitous mixing of fact and fantasy, one deliberately shaped to meet the preferences of the presumed audience. They discuss his legacy in light of the Brexit debate - showing how public

How did communities come to terms with the collapse of communism? In order to guide the wider narrative, many former communist countries constructed museums dedicated to chronicling their experiences. Museums of Communism: New Memory Sites in Central and Eastern Europe (Indiana UP, 2020) explores the complicated intersection of history, commemoration, and victimization made evident in these museums constructed after 1991. While contributors from a diverse range of fields explore various museums and include nearly 90 photographs, a common denominator emerges: rather than focusing on artifacts and historical documents, these museums often privilege memories and stories. In doing so, the museums shift attention from experiences of guilt or collaboration to narratives of shared victimization under communist rule. As editor Stephen M. Norris demonstrates, these museums are often problematic at best and revisionist at worst. From occupation museums in the Baltic States to memorial museums in Ukraine, former secret

In Rebirthing a Nation: White Women, Identity Politics, and the Internet (U Mississippi Press, 2021), author Wendy K. Z. Anderson details how white nationalist and alt-right women refine racist rhetoric and web design as a means of protection and simultaneous instantiation of white supremacy, which conservative political actors including Sarah Palin, Donald Trump, Kellyanne Conway, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and Ivanka Trump have amplified through transnational politics. By validating racial fears and political divisiveness through coded white identity politics, postfeminist and motherhood discourse functions as a colorblind, gilded cage. Rebirthing a Nation reveals how white nationalist women utilize colorblind racism within digital space, exposing how a postfeminist framework becomes fodder for conservative white women’s political speech to preserve institutional white supremacy. Wendy K. Z. Anderson (she/her) is an independent researcher and instructor in the Department of Communication Studies at the Univers

Today I talked to Jessica Helfand about her new book Face: A Visual Odyssey (MIT Press, 2019) Helfand is a designer, artist, and author. She’s taught at Yale University for more than 20 years, cofounded Design Observer, and has had additional roles at a variety of institutions ranging from the American Academy in Rome to the California Institute of Technology. We’ve always visited churches and museums to gaze at faces. So what’s now changed? Today, about two billion images get uploaded daily to social media – of which nearly 100 million are estimated to be selfies. As Daniel Boorstin presaged in his seminal 1962 book The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America, we’ve become consumed as a culture by our own self-reflections. In this episode, Helfand guides listeners through everything from caricatures (i.e., loaded portraits), to Facebook and selfie-sticks hitting the mainstream in 2006, to how now every third photograph taken by people from 18 to 24 years of age is of themselves. From the question of who’s

What is the future of the book? In Book Wars: The Digital Revolution in Publishing (Polity, 2021) John Thompson, Professor of Sociology at the University of Cambridge, examines the impact of digital technology on the publishing industry. The book grapples with broad questions of the changing nature of capitalism, the idea of information capital, and offers a detailed engagement with the development of the e-book, the rise of Google and Amazon, and new business models such as crowdfunding. A fascinating study of the past, present, and future of publishing, the book will be essential reading for all New Books Network listeners, and anyone interested in books! Dave O'Brien is Chancellor's Fellow, Cultural and Creative Industries, at the University of Edinburgh's College of Art. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/communications

Why did hundreds of thousands of Thai people rise up in opposition to elected governments in 2006, 2008 and 2013-14? What were the ideological underpinnings of the yellow shirt movement? How did the original People’s Alliance for Democracy differ from the later People’s Democratic Reform Committee? Were the yellow shirts simply trying to provoke military coups against administrations linked to the controversial former premier Thaksin Shinawatra? And why did the rise of satellite TV and digital media apparently undermine rather than enrich Thai democracy? In this lively conversation, Aim Sinpeng – senior lecturer in comparative politics at the University of Sydney – discusses these topics with Duncan McCargo, director of the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies and professor of political science at the University of Copenhagen. She explains how many of her family, friends and neighbours took part in the yellow shirt protests, and argues for a more nuanced understanding of these movements, one that goes beyond the

I've had 18 years of formal education - why is writing so hard? Today's guests Dr Katherine Firth explains the disease's cure. The book Level Up Your Essays guides the reader through university essay writing, running through stages including essay plans, developing research strategies, writing with distinction, finishing strongly with editing, and getting your referencing right. Katherine Firth manages learning programs for undergraduates and graduates in university settings, and has been developing students as writers for more than a decade. She runs writing workshops for doctoral students and currently runs the academic program at International House, a college of the University of Melbourne. She is co-author of Your PhD Survival Guide and gives writing advice on her blog Research Degree Insiders. Bede Haines is a solicitor, specialising in litigation and a partner at Holding Redlich, an Australian commercial law firm. He lives in Sydney, Australia. Known to read books, ride bikes and eat cereal (often). be

Listen to this interview of Brooke Rollins, Assistant Professor of English at Lehigh University. We talk about lots of Greeks and about one Frenchman and (if you write) also about you. Brooke Rollins : "I think there is a way that practice in reading and writing–––that it lines up so nicely with physical training. You know, to run a marathon, you don't simply just run 26.2 miles every day to practise for that. There are things that gradually take you up to that, but it's persistent. It's over an extended period of time. Regularity in reading and writing is important. And I certainly feel like the contemporary university doesn't do enough of that with writing. There's first-year courses, and then the thinking is, 'Well, they've had that, they've passed that bar, and now they can move on to their fields and not worry about writing anymore. We've taken care of that.' But in fact, writing development is necessary along the whole course of study. That's why writing-in-the-discipline programs are so important." Da

Many believe the solution to ongoing crises in the news industry — including profound financial instability and public distrust — is for journalists to improve connections to their audiences. Conversations about the proper relationship between the media and the public go back to Walter Lippmann and John Dewey and through the public journalism movement of the 1990s to today and what's come to be known as engaged journalism.  In Imagined Audiences: How Journalists Perceive and Pursue the Public (Oxford UP, 2021), Jacob L. Nelson examines the role that audiences have traditionally played in journalism, how that role has changed, and what those changes mean for both the profession and the public. The result is a comprehensive study of both news production and reception at a moment when the relationship between the two has grown more important than ever before. Beyond the arguments in Imagined Audiences, Nelson talks with New Books in Journalism host Jenna Spinelle about how journalism researchers and practitioner

Most of us have had this experience: browsing through countless options on Netflix, unable to commit to watching any given movie—and losing so much time skimming reviews and considering trailers that it’s too late to watch anything at all. In a book borne of an idea first articulated in a viral commencement address, Pete Davis argues that this is the defining characteristic of the moment: keeping our options open. We are stuck in “Infinite Browsing Mode”—swiping through endless dating profiles without committing to a single partner, jumping from place to place searching for the next big thing, and refusing to make any decision that might close us off from an even better choice we imagine is just around the corner. This culture of restlessness and indecision, Davis argues, is causing tension in the lives of young people today: We want to keep our options open, and yet we yearn for the purpose, community, and depth that can only come from making deep commitments. In Dedicated: The Case for Commitment In An Age

Political Theorist Robert Bartlett spoke with the New Books in Political Science podcast about two of his recent publications, which take on translating the work of two distinct classical thinkers, Aristotle and Aristophanes. In discussing these thinkers, we talked about two of Aristophanes’ earliest extant plays, The Acharnians and The Knights. We also discussed Aristotle’s text, The Art of Rhetoric. All three of these works focus on the interaction of the words spoken by a public individual, and how those words are also received and considered by an audience, especially the citizens of the state. This conversation took us to ancient Athens and some of the earliest western thinking about the interrelationship between political rhetoric and emotions, and how these connections can be both useful and dangerous, especially for democracies. Bartlett explains that Aristotle’s Art of Rhetoric (University of Chicago Press, 2019) is an important component of Aristotle’s thinking about politics, and one of his later w

Listen to this interview of Iain McGee, a PhD student in the Department of Religion and Theology at the University of Bristol (UK), where he also teaches Applied Linguistics. We talk about his book Understanding the Paragraph and Paragraphing (Equinox, 2018), the paragraph as a break in the text, about the paragraph as a unit of the text, and about the ¶. Iain McGee : "Often writing instruction in classroom environments is readerless in terms of the actual text and in terms of who will engage with it. Many writers in classrooms know that the only reader will be the teacher. But when it comes to writing for purposeful reasons, then we will be thinking of the reader, and the reader will have certain (as Michael Hoey puts it) textual colligation expectations, that means that the reader will be expecting paragraphs to flow in a certain way, will be expecting certain ways of organizing that text. And so, for the writer in that environment, the writer needs to be aware of those discourse-specific ways in which we c