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How the five web literacies are becoming essential survival skills

Sun, 13 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Nieman Journalism Lab - By Justin Ellis - May. 13 (News Report) - Howard Rheingold isn’t too concerned about whether Google is making us stupid or if Facebook is making us lonely. Those kind of criticisms, Rheingold says, miscalculate the ability humans have to change their behavior, particularly when it comes to how we use social media and the Internet more broadly. “If, like many others, you are concerned social media is making people and cultures shallow, I propose we teach more people how to swim and together explore the deeper end of the pool,” Rheingold said Thursday. Rheingold was visiting the MIT Media Lab to talk about his new book, Net Smart: How to Thrive Online, which examines how people can use the Internet not just to better themselves, but also society as a whole. Rheingold has a longer online history than most, going back to The WELL, one of the first online forums back in the 1980s. Ever since writing about that experience, Rheingold has developed a habit for dropping the kind of book that not just probes what it means to be online, but charts what that means for all of us.

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Role Reversal: Why TV Is Replacing Movies As Elite Entertainment

Sun, 13 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

The Hollywood Economist - By Edward Jay Epstein - May. 13 (News Analysis) - Once upon a time, over a generation ago, The television set was commonly called the “boob tube” and looked down on by elites as a purveyors of mind-numbing entertainment. Movie theaters, on the other hand, were considered a venue for, if not art, more sophisticated dramas and comedies. Not any more. The multiplexes are now primarily a venue for comic-book inspired action and fantasy movies, whereas television, especially the pay and cable channels, is increasingly becoming a venue for character-driven adult programs, such as The Wire, Mad Men, and Boardwalk Empire. This role reversal, rather than a momentary fluke, proceeds directly from the new economic realities of the entertainment business. Consider what happened to Pay-TV. Back in the 1970s, HBO provided something home viewers could not get elsewhere: movies uninterrupted by commercials. It was, as a HBO executive put it, “the only game in town,” so its subscribers paid a monthly fee, no matter how little or often they watch it, to their local cable provider who in turn forked over a share to HBO. As the cable systems grew, so did HBO. By 2010, it had (including its Cinemax unit) over 40 million subscribers, and just the monthly fees produced cash flow of over $1.5 billion a year. Getting new movies was no problem. HBO simply licensed them from a few major studios for an exclusive period (which began a few months after they were released on video and DVD) in so-called “output deals.” To continue to harvest this immense bounty, HBO had merely to stop subscribers from ending their service.

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Emotion can shut down high-level mental processes without our knowledge, in our native language

Tue, 08 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

ScienceDaily - By Bangor University via Science Daily - May. 08 (Research) - Psychologists believe that they have glimpsed for the first time, a process that takes place deep within our unconscious brain, where primal reactions interact with higher mental processes. They have identified a reaction to negative language inputs which shuts down unconscious processing. The psychologists extrapolate this from their most recent findings working with bilingual people.

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Why Is the Conservative Brain More Fearful? The Alternate Reality Right-Wingers Inhabit Is Terrifying

Wed, 02 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Joshua Holland - May. 02 (News Analysis) - Consider for a moment just how terrifying it must be to live life as a true believer on the right. Reality is scary enough, but the alternative reality inhabited by people who watch Glenn Beck, listen to Rush Limbaugh, or think Michele Bachmann isn't a joke must be nothing less than horrifying. Research suggests that conservatives are, on average, more susceptible to fear than those who identify themselves as liberals.

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Experimental Study of Informal Rewards in Peer Production

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Stony Brook University - By Michael Restivo, Arnout van de Rijt - Apr. 29 (Research) - We test the effects of informal rewards in online peer production. Using a randomized, experimental design, we assigned editing awards or “barnstars” to a subset of the 1% most productive Wikipedia contributors. Comparison with the control group shows that receiving a barnstar increases productivity by 60% and makes contributors six times more likely to receive additional barnstars from other community members, revealing that informal rewards significantly impact individual effort.

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Gay Marriage Foes May Share Psychological Quirk, Study Suggests

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Stephanie Pappas - Apr. 16 (Special Report) - .The study is a demonstration of the "third-person perception," a common psychological bias in which people are convinced that others are much more influenced by outside sources such as media and advertising than they themselves are. In the realm of same-sex marriage, people who strongly value authority and tradition were the most likely to demonstrate this third-person effect.

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Listen up, parents: For toddlers (and chimps), the majority rules

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

ScienceDaily - By Cell Press via Science Daily - Apr. 12 (Research) - A new study offers some news for parents: even toddlers have a tendency to follow the crowd. That sensitivity isn't unique to humans either; chimpanzees also appear more likely to pick up habits if "everyone else is doing it."

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Are Homophobes Just Repressing Their Homosexual Desires? New Study Says Yes

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Julianne Escobedo Shepherd - Apr. 09 (Special Report) - repressed-homosexual homophobics are more likely to come from authoritarian homes. He also discusses a methodology as to how a study like this could even be conducted. Fascinating.

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Coffee Makes Hard Workers Lazy, Rat Study Suggests

Sat, 31 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Jennifer Welsh - Mar. 31 (Special Report) - Caffeine also turns hardworkers into slackers, but doesn't make lazy rats into productive superstars the way amphetamines do. The results of the study appear today (March 28) in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology.

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Why the Right's Zombie Lie About Gas Prices Is Wrong But They'll Never Let it Die

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Joshua Holland - Mar. 29 (News Analysis) - That narrative will be debunked again and again in news stories and editorials. The self-appointed fact-checking organizations that have proliferated in recent years will rate the claim “untrue,” or “pants on fire,” or give it “3 Pinocchios.” The dwindling ranks of “serious” conservative commenters will also call out the fallacious argument for what it is. But for many on the right, objective reality simply won't penetrate. That Obama is responsible for high gas prices – that he wants them high – will become another un-killable “zombie lie” in our political discourse.

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Monsanto ‘Biotechnology Book for Kids’ Caught Brainwashing Children

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Nation of Change - By Anthony Gucciardi - Mar. 22 (Special Report) - There is a serious war on for the minds of developing children right now, and it is being waged by government-approved mega corporations who care not for the health of these children but for profits. The claims made within this book are not only scientifically unfounded, but they are seriously dangerous to the health of children and adults alike.

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The Republican Brain: Why Even Educated Conservatives Deny Science -- and Reality

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

AlterNet - By Chris Mooney - Feb. 24 (News Analysis) - I can still remember when I first realized how naïve I was in thinking—hoping—that laying out the “facts” would suffice to change politicized minds, and especially Republican ones. It was a typically wonkish, liberal revelation: One based on statistics and data. Only this time, the data were showing, rather awkwardly, that people ignore data and evidence—and often, knowledge and education only make the problem worse.

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A Conservative Explains Why Right-Wingers Have No Compassion

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

AlterNet - By Mike Lofgren - Feb. 18 (News Analysis) - Who are these people and what motivates them? To answer, one must leave the field of conventional political theory and enter the realm of psychopathology.

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Police: Iraq War Veteran Suspected Of Killing Park Ranger Found Dead

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - Jan. 03 (News Report) - A plane searching the remote wilderness for Benjamin Colton Barnes, 24, on Monday discovered his body lying partially submerged in an icy, snowy mountain creek with snow banks standing several feet high on either side.

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Stockbrokers More Competitive, Willing To Take Risks Than Psychopaths

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - Sep. 27 (Research) - Various studies have suggested that a certain kind of psychological profile gravitates toward the fast-paced, high-pressure environment of the trading floor -- and that this profile probably has more than a little in common with psychopathic personality, a clinical condition marked by gregariousness, impulsiveness, dishonesty and lack of empathy.

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Debt Ceiling Holy War: Why Do Conservatives Have Unshakable Faith in Ideas That Are Totally, Demonstrably False? | | AlterNet

Mon, 18 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Chauncey DeVega - Jul. 18 (News Analysis) - The Republican Party is holding the U.S. economy hostage. While the American people overwhelmingly support a solution to the debt ceiling impasse that includes a mix of tax hikes on the rich and cuts to the federal budget, the Tea Party GOP is deaf to their concerns.

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Teaching Empathy to the ‘Me’ Generation

Mon, 18 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Miller-McCune - By Eric Leake - Jul. 18 (Special Report) - A Midwestern university experiments in teaching empathy not merely through classroom curriculum, but by having students live the lives of the working poor. The six participating students and their community partners are introduced in turn. Diana Crandall, a first-year psychology major in a smart black jacket and tie, talks about the children she worked with through the Children’s Hunger Alliance. “I know that I can’t walk away from this and be the same person I was before.”

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PTSD Affecting U.S. Soldiers More Than British

Thu, 23 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Miller-McCune - By Michael Scott Moore - Jun. 23 (Research) - Combat stress is still a murky and sometimes taboo element of soldiering, but one of the strangest discoveries is that the strain isn’t evenly spread among vets from different countries. For example: A far higher percentage of American soldiers suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder after combat in Iraq and Afghanistan than British soldiers do.

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Elizabeth Smart Case: Street Preacher Sentenced To Life In Prison For Kidnapping, Rape

Wed, 25 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Jennifer Dobner - May. 25 (News Report) - Mitchell's sentencing closed a major legal chapter in the heartbreaking ordeal that stalled for years after he was declared mentally ill and unfit to stand trial in state court. A federal jury in December unanimously convicted the 57-year-old of kidnapping and unlawful transportation of a minor across state lines for sex.

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The Science of Why We Don't Believe Science

Mon, 18 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Chris Mooney - Apr. 18 (Special Report) - Through her, the aliens had given the precise date of an Earth-rending cataclysm: December 21, 1954. Some of Martin's followers quit their jobs and sold their property, expecting to be rescued by a flying saucer when the continent split asunder and a new

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New York Court to Hear Case Against Psychologist Accused of Torture in Guantánamo Interrogations

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Apr. 06 (News Report) - The Obama administration has announced that key suspects in the 9/11 attacks will be tried by military commissions at the U.S. military base at Guantánamo Bay -- not in U.S. civilian court. There will, however, be one Guantánamo case tried in New York. Today the New York State Supreme Court will hear the case against Dr. John Leso, a psychologist accused of participating in torture during interrogation of detainees in Guantánamo. The case was brought on behalf of Dr. Steven Reisner, who is at the center of a growing group of medical professionals campaigning against the participation of psychologists in the U.S. government’s interrogation programs. [includes rush transcript]

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Killing the Mentally Ill

Sun, 03 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

TruthOut - By Robert Wilbur - Apr. 03 (Investigative Report) - with Reagan's incision barely healed, politicos across the country lined up to strangle the insanity defense and, in four states (Idaho, Montana, Utah and, later, Kansas) to abolish it altogether. In 1984, the federal government hopped on board with its own draconian insanity defense statute.

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Aftershock: The Blast That Shook Psycho Platoon

Sun, 27 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0700

ProPublica - By T. Christian Miller, Daniel Zwerdling - Mar. 27 (Investigative Report) - "Shock waves from roadside bombs can ripple through soldiers’ brains, causing damage that sometimes leaves no visible scars but may cause lasting mental and physical harm. "

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Photos Implant ‘Memories’ of Fictional News Events

Fri, 19 Nov 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Miller-McCune - By Tom Jacobs - Nov. 19 (News Report) - Participants in a study were far more likely to “remember” a fictional news event when a headline was accompanied by a tangentially relevant photograph.

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More Discussion Will Not Find Consensus on Controversial Topics | Smart Journalism. Real Solutions. Miller-McCune.

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Miller-McCune - By Emily Badger - Nov. 11 (Special Report) - Talking out our differences on controversial scientific and technological issues may be just the wrong way to reach agreement, new research suggests.

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