shouting loudly

Today in the New York Times “bits” blog, Nicole Perlroth brings us the latest cautionary tale for those who want trust online metrics a little too much.  Titled “Fake Twitter Followers Become a Million Dollar Business,” the article documents the growing market for fake follower numbers. You can buy 1,000 followers on Fiverr for $5. [...]

A…provocative article was published today at the Chronicle of Higher Education, titled “The Dissertation Can No Longer Be Defended.”  The article is premised on a pretty flimsy claim: that “The dissertation is broken. Many scholars agree.  So now what?” The author never actually makes it clear that “many scholars” agree with her premise.  She cites [...]

On Monday evening, the Hunter College Roosevelt House is hosting an event on media policy and reform, featuring former FCC Commissioner Michael Copps. Sadly, it’s in the middle of my Monday class, so I will be unable to attend — and it’s oversubscribed, so I can’t urge you to attend either. Still, I’m really excited [...]

What are political campaigns doing with our data?  How would we know? Sasha Issenberg, author of The Victory Lab, gave a talk at GW last night.  The book offers a strong take on the impact of the Analyst Institute on American political campaigning.  It traces the emergence of more sophisticated (and more widely available) voter [...]

26 months ago, a good friend told me about NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month).  It’s a literary form of life-hacking.  The hardest part of writing is getting the damn words on the damn page.*  So aspiring novelists pick the month of November, set the audacious goal of 50,000 words, and then they just write the [...]

Yesterday morning, I wrote my first piece for the Huffington Post.  I also posted a note to the Blogosphere Authority Index site, explaining that the rankings have been suspended while I tinker with the tracking system.*  There’s a relationship between the two.  Take a look at the toolbar listing under “share this story” in the [...]

It seems my friends and colleagues at the University of Virginia have only two choices left to them: fight or flight. Siva Vaidhyanathan (UVA’s media studies department chair) has penned the definitive take on what’s transpired at Mr. Jefferson’s University.  The Board of Visitors (Regents) quietly decided to fire University President Teresa Sullivan.  Sullivan was [...]

In an ongoing discussion on one of my favorite listservs (Dave Farber’s Interesting People list), folks have been sharing thoughts about online learning as a potential substitute for traditional higher education. As is often the case, this was a response to media coverage that confronts the same question (e.g., College Crackup and the Online Future). If the [...]

Today I submitted the final grades for my students at Rutgers.  I’ve been an Assistant Professor in the School of Communication and Information for the past two years.  They’ve been exciting and productive, (resulting in this book which you can preorder!), and I couldn’t have asked for better colleagues or students. I’m thrilled to announce that [...]

The Wall Street Journal published an OpEd last Friday by Peter Berkowitz, titled “How California’s Colleges Indoctrinate Students.”  Berkowitz argues that higher ed has been “politicized” by “activist professors and compliant university administrators,” leading to the hollowing out of education and erosion of civic cohesion.  He bases these claims on a provocatively-titled new report by [...]