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Jeff Jarvis

3 May, 12 tweets, 5 min read

I've been delinquent in recommending some wonderful new books I've read (and listened to) lately.... 1/

@RussellShorto

I'm a big fan of @RussellShorto's history. "Smalltime" is a history of his own family's secrets: connections to a small-town mob. It's wonderful to follow his research process and the impact on his relationships. 2/amazon.com/Smalltime-Stor…

@philippesands

I greatly admired @philippesands' "East West Street". "The Ratline" is a sequel of sorts about children of Nazis trying to understand their stories. Both books are meticulously researched and so engagingly told. 3/
amazon.com/Ratline-Exalte…

@tom_grattan

.@tom_grattan's "The Recent East" is a wonderful novel about families and boundaries. I am fascinated by tales of the former DDR and so the setting enthralls me. 4/
amazon.com/Recent-East-No…

@menachemkaiser

"Plunder: A Memoir of Family Property and Nazi Treasure" is a wry, creative, true story about
@menachemkaiser's effort to reclaim not so much property but his family's past in Poland. 5/ amazon.com/Plunder-Memoir…

@alexander_wolff

"Endpapers" by former Sports Illustrated writer @alexander_wolff is an amazing family saga, the story behind Kurt Wolff's publishing houses in Germany and the U.S. 6/
amazon.com/Endpapers-Fami…

Having survived Robert Maxwell as my boss, I gobbled up John Preston's "Fall: The Mysterious Life and Death of Robert Maxwell, Britain's Most Notorious Media Baron." I could tell you even more stories. 7/
amazon.com/Fall-Mysteriou…

Jonathan Biss' "Unquiet: My Life With Beethoven" is a open and generous account of anxiety made for audio. I love the experimentation with the form. 8/amazon.com/Unquiet-My-Lif…

There have been a rash of books by the next generation of Holocaust survivors and victims. Jonathan Lichtenstein's "The Berlin Shadow" is about his father, who came to England on the Kindertransport. Very touching. 9/
amazon.com/Berlin-Shadow-…

@alexlandragin

Speaking of playing with the form, I really enjoyed @alexlandragin's "Crossings," a circular story you can start in the beginning or the middle, which is another beginning. Quite enjoyable. 10/
amazon.com/Crossings-A-No…

@AnnieJacobsen

"Operation Paperclip" by @AnnieJacobsen is a book I bought sometime ago and just caught up with listening to it. It's an impressively research work on the operation that brought Nazi scientists to the U.S. 11/ amazon.com/Operation-Pape…

That's a list of some of the books I've enjoyed from recent weeks, not counting those I'm reading for my own research, on book and newspaper history. I'll start that list another day.

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More from @jeffjarvis

Jeff Jarvis

@jeffjarvis

1 May

This would teach that rather than throwing content at these people, we should offer community. See how often it talks about joining extremist groups for "belonging." Obviously, it's not that simple; racism is deep. Still, there's a lesson here for media. washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/04…

But a problem with this communitarian view is that it assumes racists are made rather than gathered: convenient to blame the net. But all this talk about belonging could instead be racists saying they found a group that encourages the beliefs they already have. Blame nurture then

Still, there is a discussion to be had about whether creating spaces where people can find productive commonality -- not as a singular mass but in a diversity of communities -- would be fruitful. This is why I want to bring anthro and soc to journalism school.

Read 4 tweets

Jeff Jarvis

@jeffjarvis

25 Apr

Moral panic in clickbait:
"The more we understand about clickbait-driven content, the addictive allure of social media & the hidden hand of the algorithm, the more obvious is the connection to growing ideological division & sociopolitical groupthink."
theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

More moral panic: 'Online search engines have reinforced certainty, prejudice and chauvinism. Predictive capitalism based around the motto “if you like this, you’ll like that” has allowed big tech to narrow the boundaries of creative thinking...' Oh, my.

Plus: "Against a worrying drumbeat of nationalism and populism, museums and galleries celebrate multiculturalism, exchange and cosmopolitanism."
Also colonialism.

Read 4 tweets

Jeff Jarvis

@jeffjarvis

21 Apr

@duncanjwatts

This is a terribly important call for research on actual impact of misinformation online *and* in media from
@duncanjwatts, @DavMicRot & @markusmobius. Too much fear & too many regulatory interventions are being dreamed up on presumptions without data.
pnas.org/content/118/15…

The panic over "fake news" is likely overblown: 5k academic papers & countless panels on the topic since 2017. Yet as they show, consumption of news--let alone fake--is small and more on TV than online. pnas.org/content/118/15…

The social scientists propose a structure for sharing & collaborating on data an&d infrastructure & communicating effectively w/the public. We desperately need this work to be funded & need pressure on many parties, starting with platforms, to share data. pnas.org/content/118/15…

Read 4 tweets

Jeff Jarvis

@jeffjarvis

21 Apr

@MrKRudd

I've just read former Australian PM @MrKRudd's barn-burning book, "The Case for Courage," a grand polemic against Rupert Murdoch, "the cancer on our democracy that is the Murdoch media monopoly." A few key quotes in a 🔥🧵:

@MrKRudd

"Murdoch manipulates our democracy in multiple, sometimes crude and occasionally subtle ways.... In Australian politics, Murdoch's power is near-complete.... We are beginning to see the radical Americanization of Australian politics." - @MrKRudd

"Murdoch works overtime in cultivating a climate of national anxiety, fear & anger.... They overwhelm our natural sense of optimism, enterprise & generosity of spirit, transforming us instead into a frightened & fractured people--a nation of us versus them & fuck everybody else."

Read 12 tweets

Jeff Jarvis

@jeffjarvis

21 Apr

@benyt

.@benyt should get his facts straight. I've said often: I receive nothing personally from any platform. I say what I say because I believe what I say. I defend the net against media's moral panic. Ben didn't like my calling him on doing Murdoch's bidding.

medium.com/whither-news/a…

My university gets funding from Google and Facebook to fund scholarships, training in product and leadership, and projects in disinformation and quality in news. The New York Times also gets funding from Google and Facebook.

And now I'm going to get back to a next book project -- seriously -- on media's moral panic and war against the net.

Read 4 tweets

Jeff Jarvis

@jeffjarvis

18 Apr

NJ's vaccination rollout has been so F'd up. These accounts are needed only because signing up is impossible. Govts should be actively reaching out to & signing up underserved communities; it's their fault. nj.com/coronavirus/20…

This article enraged my wife, who spent a few weeks doing everything possible to get extended family who were eligible vaccine appointments. She was able to only with the advice of volunteers on Twitter & Facebook, who are criticized in the report. 1/

My wife texted: "Inner city issues are transportation to the site, getting time off work, returning for 2nd dose, vaccine hesitancy. They need to get it to community centers, churches, local pharmacies. I think without the J&J it's harder to serve these populations." 2/

Read 5 tweets

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