What Media Writings Most Influenced You in 2008?
Please help me put together a reading list of the year's most influential writing about media, technology, the internet and such. Who or what changed or added to the the way you think of media and technology's effect on society? Pieces need not to have been published in 2007 to qualify for the list– they just need to have inspired, influenced or otherwise changed the way you think or work. You can share your suggestions here, @jsb on twitter, or at johnsbracken at gmail. I will publish the top results on my blog at johnbracken.net.(Unless you state otherwise, I'll mention your name if I use your suggestion.)
thanks
jb.
Answers (9)
Clay Shirky's Here Comes Everybody. I tell everybody I know they should read this book.
Links:
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
Andrew Keen's The Cult of the Amateur
Hi John,
In terms of books about media, three spring to mind. Clay Shirky's 'Here Comes Everybody' did a great job of bringing out some of the political implications of our technical revolution. Charles Leadbetters 'We think' started very well (not least with its first line, 'If you are not perplexed, you should be') though lost its way slightly. And Nick Davies' book, 'Flat Earth News: An Award-winning Reporter Exposes Falsehood, Distortion and Propaganda in the Global Media' created enough heated debate this side of the Atlantic to last through to the launch of the paperback next year.
Two books: Charlie Beckett's SuperMedia (http://www.polismedia.org/publications/savingjournalism.aspx) and Wally Dean's We Interrupt this Newscast http://www.cambridge.org/us/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521691543
And of course, my own report, but I can't really put that can I?
I seemed to spend all of 2008 at conferences arguing with Nick Davies about his book Flat Earth News. I passionately disagree with Nick's assumptions, but it proved that people still care about the quality of journalism in the UK. Adrian Monck wrote the most honest book about journalism, Can You Trust The Media (no you can't and you never could is his answer).
Clay Shirkey's Here Comes Everybody was more convincing than Charlie Leadbeate'rs We Think, but both helped advance the forward march of networked media.
Freshest book for me was Subject to Change by the team Adaptive Path. Despite (or because) of its Design/Marketing approach it seemed to have something to say about the future of media business models.
Also honourable mentions to books by journalists about US politics. James Harding's Alpha Dogs and Barton Gellman's Angler reminded us of the close and dangerous relationship between media and politics.
Des Freedman's "The Politics Of Media Policy" was an overlooked gem. I also found much to thing about in John Palfrey & Urs Gasser's "Born Digital" and (published late in the year) "Networked Publics" edited by Kazys Varnelis, which is, I think, going to be quite influential.
Flat Earth News by Nick Davies... I have since passed it around lots of colleagues, all of whom related to it.
Two older but excellent books, "The Powers That Be" and "Where the Suckers Moon" to know what was. "Groundswell" for what is. "Kellogg on Media and Advertising" for what the thinking about it is, practitioners and professors alike (I have an article in it, but, really, the other syuff impressed me a great deal, particularly Calder and Deirmeirer)
