Month: November 2018
🎧 ‘The Daily’: The California Wildfires | New York Times
What was once a seasonal concern has become a persistent, year-round threat across the state.
🎧 Episode 56: The Juggernaut (MEN, Part 10) | Scene on Radio
Writer Ben James and his wife Oona are raising their sons in a progressive and “queer-friendly” New England town. They actively encourage the boys to be themselves, never mind those traditional gender norms around “masculinity” and “femininity.” All was well. Until the elder son, Huck, went to sixth grade. Story by Ben James, with hosts Celeste Headlee and John Biewen, and psychologist Terrence Real.
👓 Opinion | Maybe They’re Just Bad People | New York Times
Not all Trump support is ideological.
🎧 Episode 55: Be Like You (MEN, Part 9) | Scene on Radio
Lewis Wallace, female-assigned at birth, wanted to transition in the direction of maleness—in some ways. He shifted his pronouns, had surgery, starting taking testosterone. None of that meant he wanted to embrace everything that our culture associates with “masculinity.” Story written and reported by Lewis Wallace, with co-hosts John Biewen and Celeste Headlee.
Brings up interesting ideas about why we do or don’t expect people who are born women and transition to also take on the toxicity traits of maleness. Why can’t we just be who we are?
As I listen to Scene on Radio’s series Men, I’m a bit jarred when they use the word “virtue” without acknowledging its provenance in relation to their topic.
Virtue’s etymology includes the Latin word vir meaning man, which is also the stem of the Latin word virtus meaning valour, merit, moral perfection, and even strength or manliness. These are also, not coincidentally, the antecedent words for the modern English word virile, which has a more in-your-face relationship with men.
I’m thinking we need a more modern “femina”-centered word meaning moral perfection…
🎧 Episode 54: American Made (MEN, Part 8) | Scene on Radio
American history—law, economics, culture—has built different notions of masculinity (and femininity) for people of varying races and ethnicities. A trip through a century of pop culture and the stereotyped images that white supremacy has manufactured and attached to Asian and African American men. With scholars Tim Yu and Mark Anthony Neal and co-hosts John Biewen and Celeste Headlee.
Now I’m even more sad that Bruce Lee died an early death.
🎧 Lecture 12: "Resist Japan!" 1937–1945 | The Fall and Rise of China by Richard Baum
In the fireball of World War II, witness the brutal Japanese offensives in China and their grim consequences for the Nationalists, while paradoxically sparing the Communists from annihilation. Learn also about growing U.S. ambivalence toward Chiang K'ai-shek and how Japanese brutality actually aided the Communists' seizure of power.
This lecture was pretty information dense, so I’ve listened to it a second time. Also makes a nice review while trying to continue on with the series.
👓 Twitter and Tear Gas: part two of our book club’s reading | Bryan Alexander
With this post we discuss Chapters 2: “Censorship and Attention” and 3: “Leading the Leaderless”.
I’m downloading a copy today and hopefully will be able to play some catch-up.
👓 Twitter and Tear Gas: part one of our book club’s reading | Bryan Alexander
With this post we discuss the Preface, Introduction, and chapter 1, “A Networked Public.”
In this post I’ll briefly summarize the text, then add some reflections and questions. You can participate by writing comments here, or through whichever other means you like (Twitter comments, Hypothes.is annotations, etc.).
👓 Our Twitter and Teargas book club reading schedule | Bryan Alexander
The schedule runs as follows:
November 19, 2018: Preface, Introduction, and chapter 1, “A Networked Public”.
November 26: Chapters 2: “Censorship and Attention” and 3: “Leading the Leaderless”.
December 3: Chapters 4: “Movement Cultures” and 5: “Technology and People”.
December 10: Chapters 6: “Platforms and Algorithms” and 7: “Names and Connections”.
December 17: Chapters 8: “Signaling Power and Signaling to Power” and 9: “Governments Strike Back”.
December 24: Epilogue, “The Uncertain Climb.”
Bryan, thanks for the list of interesting and creative ways one could interact and participate in an online book club. It’s a great outline which includes some not-often-seen methods–and somewhat reminiscent of #DS106 work. I hope to see some interesting creativity come out of it.
As I’m looking at this, folks who want a quick and brief background (or who need to be sold on the importance of the topic) may appreciate Frontline’s recent two part documentary which I recently watched [1][2]. Tufekci appears and gives some excellent commentary in it. For additional overview/background, I’ll also recommend her three TED talks which I’ve watched in the recent past.[1][2][3] I suspect they cover some of the details in this book.
Acquired Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest by Zeynep Tufekci
Zeynep Tufekci (goodreads.com)A firsthand account and incisive analysis of modern protest, revealing internet-fueled social movements’ greatest strengths and frequent challenges
To understand a thwarted Turkish coup, an anti–Wall Street encampment, and a packed Tahrir Square, we must first comprehend the power and the weaknesses of using new technologies to mobilize large numbers of people. An incisive observer, writer, and participant in today’s social movements, Zeynep Tufekci explains in this accessible and compelling book the nuanced trajectories of modern protests—how they form, how they operate differently from past protests, and why they have difficulty persisting in their long-term quests for change.
Tufekci speaks from direct experience, combining on-the-ground interviews with insightful analysis. She describes how the internet helped the Zapatista uprisings in Mexico, the necessity of remote Twitter users to organize medical supplies during Arab Spring, the refusal to use bullhorns in the Occupy Movement that started in New York, and the empowering effect of tear gas in Istanbul’s Gezi Park. These details from life inside social movements complete a moving investigation of authority, technology, and culture—and offer essential insights into the future of governance.
Inspired to purchase via Bryan Alexander‘s book club.
👓 Our next book club reading is Zeynep Tufekci’s Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest | Bryan Alexander
How our reading will proceed: in a few days I’ll blog up a reading schedule, assigning certain chapters to a weekly timeline. Then, once enough time has passed for everyone to get an analog or digital copy, we’ll dig in. All posts will be tagged https://bryanalexander.org/tag/tufekci/, and so will be available in that one spot for any reader now and in the future.
From the author’s bio (and it’s pronounced /too-FEK-chee/):
Zeynep’s work explores the interactions between technology and society. She started her career as a programmer, and switched to social science after getting interested in social impacts of technology. Zeynep, who grew up in Istanbul, Turkey, and came to the United States for graduate school, is now an associate professor at the University of North Carolina and a contributing opinion writer at the New York Times. She’s currently also a faculty associate at the Harvard Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society. Previously, she was an Andrew Carnegie Fellow, a fellow at Princeton University Center for Information Technology, and an assistant professor of sociology at UMBC.
This looks intriguing, though other than deeper detail than some of the sources (especially Tufekci herself, who I follow closely) I’ve read over the past several years, I’m not sure what I might gain from this.
Still, it’s almost assuredly reading for the additional details. I’m hoping she has more detail on her work on the the Civil Rights Movement as a precursor to her more digital social media work.