A timely and valuable primer on how to assess sources.
A guide focuses on detecting bias in social media posts and news stories.
Dedicating this book to “a more productive, civil discourse,” Bean provides readers with essential tools to assess the validity and bias of social media offerings and news reports. With a doctorate in education, the author is well equipped to teach readers the critical thinking skills required to navigate the labyrinth of social media and fake news and does so in an approachable, easy-to-read format. In under 60 pages, this concise manual teaches readers how to identify bias, differentiate between types of publications, and “test journalistic sources.” As Tim Vos, director of Michigan State University’s School of Journalism, notes in the guide’s foreword, “Biases…are baked into the information we encounter nearly every moment of every day.” The book also contextualizes dangerous trends that discerning readers should be familiar with, such as the role of social media algorithms in promoting disinformation and the disturbing fact that six corporations control 90% of all media outlets in America. The manual’s final chapters introduce readers to common logical fallacies, such as false dichotomies and straw-man arguments, and deliver best practices for maintaining a personal social media account. The author advises readers to avoid sharing information online without utilizing the book’s “reliability tests.” Designed to be a reference tool that readers peruse periodically, the manual eschews long narrative discursions for succinct lists and easy-to-remember acronyms. Also found in the guide is a nine-question “Bias Assessment Form” that readers can use to rate the objectivity of virtually any source they encounter. Accompanied by the colorful, engaging paper artwork of Gorske, this is an important book, ideal for dissemination in libraries, high schools, and other venues with vested interests in promoting information literacy. While targeting the victims of disinformation campaigns in its mission to empower readers who are vulnerable to fake news, the manual unfortunately supplies limited answers on how to deal with those who know better yet still promote falsehoods for their own ideological or financial benefit.
A timely and valuable primer on how to assess sources.Pub Date: July 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-73447-446-6
Page Count: 57
Publisher: Ethan Bean Mental Wellness Foundation
Review Posted Online: Oct. 4, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A cogent “horror story” about the plot to reanimate mid-20th-century White male supremacy at the expense of abortion access.
Incisive look at the destructive path of anti-abortion ideology in the U.S.
Even though most Americans believe in a woman’s right to choose—“consistent research has shown that more than 7 in 10 Americans support legal access to abortion”—the radical right has succeeded in steadily eroding reproductive freedoms since Roe v. Wade. According to NARAL Pro-Choice America leaders Hogue and Langford, the campaign against abortion is but a means to an end for the architects of the pro-life movement. Their true aim is the uncontested dominion of White Christian men. The battle began in 1954, when Brown v. Board of Education struck down “state laws used by segregationists to maintain structural inequality in the nation’s schools.” In 1976, the IRS rescinded the tax-exempt status of the Rev. Jerry Falwell’s segregationist Bob Jones University. What has followed, argue the authors convincingly, is more than a half-century of machinations designed “to halt progressive cultural change and maintain power for a privileged minority.” Anti-abortion rhetoric is just a weapon, driven by design, propaganda, disinformation, and cowed Republican politicians—hallmarks of the Trump era. Hogue and Langdon make a strong case that the rises of Trump, fake news, and science skepticism are not flukes but rather the culmination of a dogged campaign by forces still smarting from desegregation and second- and third-wave feminism. The reproductive freedom of American women is the victim of an “anti-democratic power grab on a historic scale.” The authors build a chilling case that the startling 2019 wave of abortion bans across the nation should serve as a canary in the coal mine for citizens concerned with democracy and a catalyst for bolder messaging, better strategic planning, and sustained action to combat disinformation.
A cogent “horror story” about the plot to reanimate mid-20th-century White male supremacy at the expense of abortion access.Pub Date: July 22, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-947492-50-9
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Strong Arm Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 6, 2020
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.
All right, all right, all right: The affable, laconic actor delivers a combination of memoir and self-help book.
“This is an approach book,” writes McConaughey, adding that it contains “philosophies that can be objectively understood, and if you choose, subjectively adopted, by either changing your reality, or changing how you see it. This is a playbook, based on adventures in my life.” Some of those philosophies come in the form of apothegms: “When you can design your own weather, blow in the breeze”; “Simplify, focus, conserve to liberate.” Others come in the form of sometimes rambling stories that never take the shortest route from point A to point B, as when he recounts a dream-spurred, challenging visit to the Malian musician Ali Farka Touré, who offered a significant lesson in how disagreement can be expressed politely and without rancor. Fans of McConaughey will enjoy his memories—which line up squarely with other accounts in Melissa Maerz’s recent oral history, Alright, Alright, Alright—of his debut in Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused, to which he contributed not just that signature phrase, but also a kind of too-cool-for-school hipness that dissolves a bit upon realizing that he’s an older guy on the prowl for teenage girls. McConaughey’s prep to settle into the role of Wooderson involved inhabiting the mind of a dude who digs cars, rock ’n’ roll, and “chicks,” and he ran with it, reminding readers that the film originally had only three scripted scenes for his character. The lesson: “Do one thing well, then another. Once, then once more.” It’s clear that the author is a thoughtful man, even an intellectual of sorts, though without the earnestness of Ethan Hawke or James Franco. Though some of the sentiments are greeting card–ish, this book is entertaining and full of good lessons.
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-13913-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
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