The stickiness of so-called “reverse racism”
When an idea is “intuitive” but also steeped in a culture war we have a heightened duty to examine it.
When an idea is “intuitive” but also steeped in a culture war we have a heightened duty to examine it.
From time to time I like to check in on how news orgs are doing with their online publishing practices. In particular, I like to review how they handle reports and science articles. So when Oxfam published their inequality report this year, I was keen to see how journalists and their editors are doing. Hyperlinking,…
I’m awed by Ayla Brown’s handmade design. Oh wow, turns out there is more art where this came from: Bentwood Box.
Some thoughts on how not to amplify hate accounts on Twitter.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the ambient misogyny and racism (and more) that floats around my Twitter communities. It’s ambient in the sense that it’s pervasive, and also that we don’t have to follow an antagonist to see their tweets or have them engage us directly. It’s an ecology of violence. And misinformation….
The more generations that pass by, the more obscured women’s lives are, by waves of patriarchal interests. It’s a kind of entropy fuelled by misogyny and whiteness.
This particular Code Switch episode on the explanatory comma is itself a kind of extended explanatory comma, or perhaps an interrogatory comma.
Sunday was coffee with a luminous being studying to be an even more powerful jedi.
Headlines matter. Publishers know it. Good headlines help with the understanding, reach, and impact of a story. Headlines frame articles, shaping the information in the article that follows, and alter reader comprehension. Headlines can induce positive priming effects in readers.1 Headlines are efficient at doing this. They play a significant role in readers’ memories, inferential…
Recently I encountered an issue while trying to text a colleague who no longer uses Signal. This app is popular for its range of features including encryption, wifi-enabled texting and encrypted phone calls. So it didn’t surprise to me to learn that they were a user. But they were a lapsed user, and this was…
Where I grew up in Northern Alberta, hockey was a big deal. My big brother played hockey. And my dad, who was not a great skater, played hockey in a community league. Everyone had a team, or pretended to. Everyone talked about the “game last night”. Neighbours, mostly men, watched televised games together. They sat…
I like to imagine different metaphors for journalism. Consider that the press is a giant inertia machine, for example.1 I like to imagine different metaphors as a way to resist, and make evident, the dominant ones. The dominant frames are so common, so worn, they become invisible. One worn metaphor for journalism is food: it…
She was kind. But she was also ruthlessly attentive to my Northern Alberta dialect. Sometimes she would simply say it back to me. I seen.
Good journalists do what they do because they care. They have interests. The organizations that employ journalists also are guided by interests. They have purpose. The Washington Post wears their mission on their sleeve. Their tagline is “Democracy dies in darkness.” This stated vision is shared by many in journalism. If true, journalism has a…
Misinformation is a big deal. Hate online is a big deal. And as the public catches up to their reach and impact, we’ll see more and more talk about regulation of media. Interestingly, news organizations love talking about regulating Facebook. But journalists, and their overlords, are allergic to talking about regulating news. So allergic are…
I like Maclean’s about as much as I like the National Post. They’re rightwing, partisan, and legacy. On my view they have courted hate and burned trust, undermining journalism along several dimensions.1 Also. I will admit it. I often don’t get sarcasm.2 When I saw the “the resistance” cover by Maclean’s, I thought it was…
When I was growing up I was bad with context. Super bad. My young logic-oriented self just did not understand humans and their social “nuance.” I’m still trying. Perhaps I’m practical-intelligence deficient. But, luckily, I’ve had a fleet of friends and colleagues who’ve helped me and I am grateful. They’ve held my hand tight, so…
Some years we have more. Some years we have less.
If news orgs are serious about being good partners in mitigating misinformation, they need to link meaningfully to relevant references and especially science-based organizations…
My local gym and community centre is awesome. It’s a little less than three kilometres from my home. The pool is great. The gym is nice. It’s got a kind of weird gate system that totally doesn’t work, but the people who work there are super nice. I don’t go often enough. The funniest thing…
But here’s an old idea: what if dominant journalism, by and large and in the long run, is actually a drag on progress? What if dominant journalism, and by that I mean the mainstream press, is actually a conservative force? On this view, it’s a drag on change…
If you ask white folks about the over-representation of white folks on screen, they will often misunderstand and/or underestimate the degree and seriousness of over-representation. Luckily we have some tools to help us with our reality testing…
I campaigned during the first and second referendums we had here in BC regarding proportional representation. We won the first one. 58% of voters voted yes for the Citizen Assembly recommendation to implement the Single Transferrable Vote. But the BC Liberals had set the “binding” threshold, arbitrarily, at 60%. And the Liberals here in BC…
Once in a while I have to work with video or audio recordings. Or sometimes I need to convert file formats. And sometimes when I do media critique I have to do a little creative, fair use, editing. Here are three tools that I’ve found useful. VLC, Handbrake, Audacity Many years ago my good friend…