Explorer Cafe Fall 2020: Oct. 14

In M. L. Issitt, Opinions throughout history: Social media issues.

In Computational Propaganda: Political Parties, Politicians, and Political Manipulation on Social Media

Presidential candidates and their campaigns in the United States are fully invested in the use of social media. Yet, since 1996 presidential campaigns have been experimenting with ways to use digital communication technologies on the Internet to their advantage. This book tells the stories of the practices of campaigning online between 1996 and 2016, looking at winners and also-rans.

Zucked is both an enthralling personal narrative and a larger tale of an unmoored business sector inadvertently creating a political and cultural crisis with new tools that summon the darker angels of our nature. Like Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window, Roger McNamee happened to be in the right place to witness a crime, and it took him some time to make sense of what he was seeing and what we ought to do about it. The result of that effort is a wise, hard-hitting, and urgently necessary account that crystallizes the issue definitively for the rest of us.

US Media, Russia, and the Politics of Values

How a Band of Broadcasters Took on the Federal Government and Built the Modern Conservative Movement

An account of the Trump presidency draws on interviews with firsthand sources, meeting notes, diaries, and confidential documents to provide details about Trump's moves as he faced a global pandemic, economic disaster, and racial unrest.