Recent Links – 2.20.09
February 20, 2009
Roger Ebert, whom I have always admired, talks about permanence and impermanence in writing and life. I think it’s time I add his journal to Bloglines; why haven’t I done so sooner?
Stanford historian of science Robert Proctor points out that when it comes to many contentious subjects, our usual relationship to information is reversed: Ignorance increases. He has developed a word inspired by this trend: agnotology. Derived from the Greek root agnosis, it is “the study of culturally constructed ignorance.”
Political clout? Hyperlocal coverage? All in a day’s typing.
Photographer of fashion and people on the street — not an outlandish concept, but now he adds this multimedia component to tell the same types of stories he’s told for a long time but in a new way.
“On the day Barack Obama was elected, a strange new feature appeared on the website of the New York Times. Called the Word Train, it asked a simple question: What one word describes your current state of mind? Readers could enter an adjective or select from a menu of options. . . .
It was a kind of poll. It was a kind of art piece. It was a kind of journalism, but what kind?”
It was a kind of poll. It was a kind of art piece. It was a kind of journalism, but what kind?”
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