As I delve deeper into my thesis research, here are some books, organizations, interviews; I am looking at in the course of next few months—that will make my topic stronger, extensive and more focussed.
A few of the below have already agreed to spend time with me while others are still in the pipeline. Nonetheless, thanks to everyone.
Dialogues:*
•Noam Chomsky (yeah, so excited!) •Dave Eggers, Editor and founder of McSweeney’s and 826 Valencia •Erica Hellerstein, Editorial Fellow at New Village Press •Shareen Rahman, Ex BBC Technical Reporter •Brandon Wolf Hunnicut, PhD Student at Stanford University specializing in Media and Politics
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I am going to be a volunteer designer for the Social Media Club!
Social Media Club hosts conversations around the globe that explores key issues facing our society as technologies transforms the way we connect, communicate, collaborate and relate to each other. The first chapter was launched in the San Francisco Bay Area, California, on August 16, 2006. There are 200+ chapters in existence today, and they cover six of the seven continents. Pretty huge, I’d say!
I spoke to Jessica Murray, their Community Manager at the Chicago office (which is where their head office is located) and she thought my thesis had potential and would be honored to have me contribute in my own way to their organization.
This should be a fun experience and a good platform for this thesis as I will be getting a chance to learn how social media organizations work, what role they play in the society and how they affect change. And interacting with their team and members of the Social Media Club will give me useful insights for my thesis.
Can’t wait to get started on my first project this weekend!
We NEED some sort of identifying/warning system for biased, censored, unreliable and questionable content produced by the media.
Tom Scott does a great job of showing us how this can be done in his Journalism Warning Labels project.
Sticky stuff, Tom!
P.S. It was nice conversing with you on the same.
James Loewen spent two years at the Smithsonian Institute surveying twelve leading high school textbooks of American History. What he found was an embarrassing amalgam of bland optimism, blind patriotism, and misinformation pure and simple, weighing in at an average of four-and-a-half pounds and 888 pages…
…and they wonder why students think history is bo-o-o-o-oring?
Enter James Loewen’s Lies My Teacher Told Me.
Not only does Loewen critique the existing history books, but he also does a stupendous job at pointing out a way to a wonderful retelling of American history as it should—and could—be taught to American students. Beginning with pre-Columbian American history and ranging over characters and events as diverse as Reconstruction, Helen Keller, the first Thanksgiving, and the My Lai massacre, Loewen supplies the conflict, suspense, unresolved drama, and connection with current-day issues so appallingly missing from textbook accounts.
A treat to read and a serious critique of American education!
P.S. This book is for anyone who fell asleep in history class.
