*Changing Our Textual Minds: Towards a Digital Order of Knowledge. Adriaan van der Weel (Prof of Modern Dutch Book History, Dept of Book and Digital Media Studies, Leiden U).  NY & UK: Palgrave Macmillan, March 2012, 240p, $75.  Text has always been the chief vehicle for the inscription and dissemination of knowledge and culture. As more and more of our textual communication moves into the digital realm we have reached a crucial moment in the history of textual transmission. In many respects digital text looks deceptively like print. But beneath the surface of the screen, digital textuality obeys very different rules than printed text.  This new universe offers a wealth of new and exciting possibilities, but also sets new rules for writers and readers engaging with text.  Continuities and discontinuities in  textual transmission are analyzed, concluding that “the need to come to grip with the shift to digital textuality in the early 21C will literally change our minds.”   (COMMUNICATION * KNOWLEDGE IN DIGITAL ERA * DIGITAL TEXTUALITY: NEW RULES)

*Attacks on the Press in 2011: A Worldwide Survey by the Committee to Protect Journalists.  Preface by Sandra Mims Rowe (chairwoman, Committee to Protect Journalists).  Introduction by Joel Simon (executive director, CPJ; www.cjj.org).  Washington: Committee to Protect Journalists (dist by Brookings Institution Press), Feb 2012, 350p, $30pb.  Trade and the Internet are turning us into global citizens, but the news we need to ensure accountability is often stopped at the borders.  In the Americas, national leaders are building elaborate state media operations to dominate the news and amplify their personal agendas.  In European and African nations, authorities are invoking national security laws and deploying intelligence services to intimidate the press.  China is ramping up censorship, Iran is jailing dozens of journalists, Turkey is using nationalist laws to stifle critical reporting, criminals are dictating the news in Mexico, and shadowy agents are attacking investigative reporters in Pakistan.  Analyzes press conditions and documents new dangers in more than 100 countries worldwide.  (COMMUNICATION * PRESS: ATTACKS WORLDWIDE * COMMITTEE TO PROTECT JOURNALISTS * JOURNALISTS ATTACKED)

* The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood.  James Gleick (www.around.com).  NY: Pantheon Books, 2011, 526p/$29.95.  A writer on science/technology issues and author of Chaos: The Making of a New Science (on chaos theory) describes the development of our modern understanding of information, the invention of information theory and the computer, and where we are heading.  “As the role of information grows beyond anyone’s reckoning, it grows to be too much… We have information fatigue, anxiety, and glut.  We have met the Devil of Information Overload.” (p.11)  Deluge as become a common metaphor, and there is a sensation of drowning—information as a rising, churning flood.  Yet a barrage of data often fails to tell us what we need to know, and knowledge does not guarantee enlightenment or wisdom.  Much information is lost, and an unindexed Internet site is in the same limbo as a mis-shelved library book, which is why the most successful businesses of the information economy are built on filtering and searching.  “The old ways of organizing knowledge no longer work.”                                                                                       (INFOGLUT * COMMUNICATION)

* The Age of Distraction: Reading, Writing, and Politics in a High-Speed Networked Economy.  Robert Hassan (Senior Research Fellow, Culture and Communication Dept, U of Melbourne).  Piscataway NJ: Transaction Publishers, Oct 2011, 219p, $34.95.  Reading and writing have functioned to build the world we have known for 3,000 years.  “These interacting processes have now been transformed at their core and are building a different world, where certainties of the previous eras are being displaced by a chronic and pervasive mode of cognitive distraction.”  The arc of progress has transformed: new modes of time, technology, and reading and writing are creating a faster world where we know less about more – and forget what we know ever more quickly.  (COMMUNICATION * THE AGE OF DISTRACTION) 

** Is The Internet Changing the Way You Think?  The Net’s Impact on Our Minds and Future.  Edited by John Brockman (NYC; www.edge.org).  NY: Harper Perennial, Jan 2011, 408p, $14.99pb.  A widely-known literary agent, editor, and creator of the Reality Club in 1981 (rebranded in 1997 as Edge), seeks to engage “the most complex and sophisticated minds” by posing an annual question.  The 2010 question on Internet impact resulted in 150 responses, largely 1-3 pages in length.  Thirty of these responses are briefly described in GFB (see Book of the Month, March 2011), including replies by Nicholar Carr, Clay Shirky, Richard Dawkins, Kevin Kelly, Martin Rees, William Calvin, Nassim Taleb, Helen Fisher, Couglas Rushkoff, Evgeny Morosov, Peter Schwartz, Howard Gardner, and Jaron Lanier.                                                                                        (COMMUNICATION * INTERNET)

* Overconnected: The Promise and Threat of the Internet.  William H. Davidow.  Harrison NY: Delphinium Books, Jan 2011, 240p, $27.95.  Co-author of The Virtual Corporation and former Silicon Valley executive (Intel, Hewlett-Packard, GE) warns that success of the Internet has also created a unique set of hazards, in effect overconnecting us.  Being overconnected tends to create systems that spin out of control and positive feedback that has largely negative consequences, e.g.: the connected age is seen as the ultimate root cause of the recent financial meltdown.  Thought contagions act to accelerate the downfall and make us permanently vulnerable to catastrophe.  Dangers can be reduced by proper regulation.                                                                     (COMMUNICATION * INTERNET)

* The Atlas of New Librarianship.  R. David Lankes (Assoc Prof of Information Studies, Director of the Library and Information Science Program, Syracuse U).  Cambridge: MIT Press (co-published with the Association of College and Research Libraries), April 2011, 243p, $55.  The library field is searching for solid footing in an increasingly fragmented (and increasingly digital) information environment. New librarianship will not be based on books and artifacts, but on knowledge and learning; its new mission will be to improve society through facilitating knowledge creation in their communities.  As knowledge is created through conversation, new librarianship should approach their work as facilitators of conversation; they should seek to enrich, capture, store, and disseminate the conversations of their communities.  To help librarians navigate this new terrain, Lankes offers a map--a visual representation of the field with >140 Agreements and statements about librarianship--as a platform for networking and call to action.                                                           (COMMUNICATION * LIBRARIANSHIP RECONCEIVED)

* The Googlization of Everything (And Why We Should Worry).  Siva Vaidhyanathan (Prof of Media Studies and Law, U of Virginia).  Berkeley CA: U of California Press, March 2011, 265p, $26.95.  The mission of Google is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible”.  Vaidhyanathan exposes the dark side of our Google fantasies, the effect of Googlization on how we think, Google’s impact in China and increasing impact globally, growing resistance to Google expansion, why Google Book Search does not meet our needs, and questions about Google’s approach to intellectual property.   Topics include how Google came to rule the Web, universal surveillance and infrastructure imperialism, Googlization of knowledge and books, Googlization of higher education and students, information overload and the fracturing of knowledge, and the need for a healthy global public culture.  Concludes that we trust Google too much; rather, a truly universal and accessible Human Knowledge Project is proposed.  “We must demand more… (and) build systems that can serve us better.”  We can’t hope that some big, rich company will do it for us.

* Disconnect: The Truth about Cell Phone Radiation, What the Industry Has Done to Hide It, and How to Protect Your Family.  Devra Davis (Washington DC; Visiting Prof, Mt. Sinai Medical Center, NYC; www.devradavis.com ).  NY: Dutton, Sept 2010/304p/$26.95.  Founding director of the toxicology and environmental studies board at the US National Academy of Sciences views cell phone radiation as “a national emergency.”  Cell phone usage has been shown to damage DNA, break down the brain’s defense, reduce sperm count, and increase memory loss, the risk of Alzheimer’s, and even cancer.  The growing brains of children make them especially vulnerable—and half of the world’s four billion cell phone users are under 20.  Shows how federal regulatory standards are set by the trillion-dollar cell phone industry, and how we can make safer cell phones. 

*OECD Information Technology Outlook 2010.  Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.  Paris: OECD (dist by Brookings Institution Press), Nov 2010/325p/$137pb.  IT and the Internet are major drivers of research, innovation, growth, and social change.  The outlook for IT goods and service industries is good, despite the economic crisis. Analyzes trends in OECD country information and communication technology policies (ICTs).  Policy priorities focus on skills and employment, broadband diffusion, R&D, and venture finance. Also focuses on a major new emphasis on using ICTs to tackle environmental problems and climate change. 

* Virtually You: The Internet and the Fracturing of the Self.  Elias Aboujaoude, MD (psychiatrist, Stanford U; www.psychologytoday.com/blog/compulsive-acts).   NY: W. W. Norton, Feb 2011/352p/$26.95.  The Internet can enhance well-being, but many of us spend too much time online and are profoundly disturbed by doing so.  The Internet allows us to act with exaggerated confidence, sexiness, and charisma; this new self, our “e-personality,” manifests itself in every curt email we send, Facebook “friend” we make, and “buy now” button we click. Our e-personality traits seep offline, making us impatient, unfocused, and urge-driven even after we log off. [Also see The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr (Norton, June 2010; GFB Book of the Month, July 2010).] 

* What Is Happening To News: The Information Explosion and the Crisis of Journalism.  Jack Fuller (Pulitzer-winning journalist; former editor and publisher, Chicago Tribune).  Chicago IL: U of Chicago Press: May 2010, 224p, $25.  Journalism has departed from its great tradition, due to mismatch between the new information age and the human brain wired for threats faced by our ancestors.  Draws on neuroscience to explain how information overload makes us more receptive to sensational news, which in turn rends ineffective professional journalism and reliance on expertise and authority.

* You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto.  Jaron Lanier (Berkeley CA; www.jaronlanier.com).  NY: Knopf, Jan 2010/224p/$25.  An inventor of virtual reality cautions that “Something started to go wrong with the digital revolution around the turn of the 21C,” when the web was flooded with “a torrent of petty designs called web 2.0,” ideally promoting radical freedom, but a freedom more for machines than people.  The “widespread practice of fragmenting, impersonal communication has demeaned interpersonal interaction,” and the web has turned into an oppressive and conformist “hive mind.”  The great ecumenical promise of the early web has been superseded by a different faith known in its most florid form as the Singularity—a cult of self-abdication, embraced by those who aspire to inconsequentiality.  Some chapter topics: what is a person, an apocalypse of self-abdication, the noosphere, what money will be, possibilities for humanistic cloud economics, retropolis, and three possible future directions.  [Newsweek calls Lanier “the first great apostate of the Internet era” (18 Jan 2010,p63).] 

* Pitch Perfect: Communicating with Traditional and Social Media for Scholars, Researchers, and Academic Leaders. William Tyson (Morrison & Tyson Communications). Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing, May 2010, 176p, $19.95pb. A practical guide for scholars keen to communicate their knowledge and research to a wider public. On using traditional and digital media, and engaging with social media such as blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, podcasts, and wikis. Tyson has advised scholars and academic leaders on media relations for >30 years. An appendix lists key media in North America, Australia, and the UK.                         (COMMUNICATIONS * EDUCATION * METHODS)

** Communication Power.  Manuel Castells (Prof of Communication, USC; Distinguished Visiting Prof, MIT & Oxford U). NY: Oxford UP, Sept 2009/608p/$34.95. A leading communication theorist and author of The Information Age trilogy argues that power now lies in the hands of those who understand or control communication; also discusses the new network society of instant messaging, global media deregulation, the role of the Internet in the Obama campaign for president, media control in China and Russia, and the worldwide crisis of political legitimacy.       (COMMUNICATION * WORLD POLITICS)

 

* The Future of the Internet—and How To Stop It. Jonathan Zittrain (Prof of Law, Harvard U; co-director, Center for Internet & Society). Yale U Press, Feb 2009/352p/$17pb (hc, Sept 2008/$30). Explains the engine that has catapulted the Internet from backwater to ubiquity, revealing that it is sputtering precisely because of its runaway success. With the unwitting help of its users, it is on a path to a lockdown, ending its cycle of innovation and facilitating new kinds of control. This edition has a new Preface by the author and a new Foreword by Lawrence Lessig of Stanford Law School.

 

** The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. Nicholas Carr (Colorado). NY: W. W. Norton, June 2010/256p/$26.95. Author of The Big Switch: Rewiring the World (Norton, Jan 2008), on impacts of the Internet revolution, explains the cultural consequences:  how the Net is rerouting our neural pathways, replacing the subtle mind of the book reader with the distracted mind of the screen watcher. See longer review as GFB Book of the Month, July 2010. (COMMUNICATION * INTERNET)

 

* Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age. Maggie Jackson (senior fellow, Center for Work-Life Policy, NYC). Amherst NY: Prometheus Books, Sept 2009/327p/$18pb (hardcover, 2008). Award-winning journalist laments that we have oceans of info at our disposal, yet we increasingly seek headlines on the run in our culture of diffusion, fragmentation, and detachment. In this hyper-mobile, cyber-centric, attention-deficit life, we are eroding our capacity for deep attention. In response, we need to shape skills of focus, awareness, and judgment.           (COMMUNICATION * INFOGLUT)

 

** Access Controlled: The Shaping of Power, Rights, and Rule in Cyberspace. Edited by Ronald Deibert (Director, Citizen Lab, U of Toronto), John Palfrey (Prof of Law, Harvard U), Rafel Rohozinski (SecDev Group), and Jonathan Zittrain (Prof of Law, Harvard U). Cambridge MA: The MIT Press, April 2010/656p/$25pb. A project from the Open Net Initiative, offering six substantial chapters on Internet control in Western and Eastern Europe, and shorter regional reports and country profiles. Finds that Internet filtering, censorship of Web content, and online surveillance are increasing in scale, scope, and sophistication in democratic and authoritarian countries. New techniques include targeted viruses, denial-of-service attacks, surveillance, take-down notices, stringent terms of usage policies, and national information strategies. Also see Access Controlled: The Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering (MIT, 2008).                                (COMMUNICATION * INTERNET FILTERING * OPEN NET INITIATIVE)

 

* World Wide Research: Reshaping the Sciences and Humanities. Edited by William H. Dutton (Director, Oxford Internet Institute) and Paul W. Jeffries (Director of IT, U of Oxford). Cambridge MA: The MIT Press, July 2010/424p/$33pb. Use of increasingly powerful and versatile computer-based and networked systems promises to change research activity as profoundly as the mobile phone, the Internet, and e-mail have changed everyday life.  Offers an overview of these new “e-Research” approaches, their ethical/legal/institutional implications, and how new networks of information and expertise can change what is observed. (SCIENCE * COMMUNICATION * RESEARCH AND INFOTECH)

* Cosmopolitan Communications: Cultural Diversity in a Globalized World. Pippa Norris (Lecturer in Comparative Politics, Harvard U) and Ronald Inglehart (U of Michigan; Director, World Values Survey). Cambridge U Press, Nov 2009/416p/$25.99. Will the growing flood of information from diverse channels generate cultural convergence around modern values? Is national diversity threatened? Using evidence from the World Values Survey of >90 societies, threats to cultural diversity are examined.