Outstanding Academic Titles 2024: Technology, AI, and Social Media

Five picks for tech scholarship

Posted on December 18, 2024 in Blog Posts

Every December, Choice publishes its highly anticipated Outstanding Academic Title award winners. These books go through a battery of evaluations to determine their merit. Below are five award-winning books, along with their Choice reviews. These books were specially selected for LibTech Insights readers. Besides great additions to your library collections, they promise to make excellent personal reading this winter. ❄️

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As if human : ethics and artificial intelligence
Shadbolt, Nigel and Roger Hampson. Yale, 2024

Are we conscious or is consciousness simply an illusion? Shadbolt and Hampson examine human consciousness to explore the way artificial intelligence is rapidly progressing toward a day when AI devices may actually be viewed as conscious beings capable of moral and ethical decision-making. When AI devices can no longer be distinguished from interactions with humans, moral and ethical questions arise. One final conclusion of this text is that “Humans have a right to be judged by humans if they so wish,” not by artificial intelligences. The academic world is currently flooded with books speculating about the potential horrors or benefits of AI, and many are highly speculative and based on slim premises. As If Human is a very readable, in-depth analysis of the ethics and moral issues of artificial Intelligence and how humans should approach total emersion into the world of AI. This is a book that should be read by the general population and taught in computer science and philosophy courses.

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In the land of the unreal : virtual and other realities in Los Angeles
Messeri, Lisa. Duke, 2024

In this noir-like ethnography, Messeri (Yale Univ.) takes readers into the world of virtual reality, along with its creators and proponents, in Los Angeles. She critically observes how the push for “VR for Good” frames virtual reality as a liberal progressive tool to engender empathy in its users, introducing a new, high-tech form of civic engagement. Intersecting with Hollywood and filmmakers, virtual reality itself becomes a cinematic experience that at once affects the elite, as Messeri details, the rationale being that such impact would slowly “trickle down” to others. As she further illustrates, virtual reality is good to think with as it enables contemplation into what she terms “the unreal”—the fracturing of reality in a post-truth, alternative-facts context of a Trump presidency, the backdrop to her ethnography. Parsing through the construction, management, and use of virtual reality, this accessible and innovative ethnography expertly weaves anthropology, science, and technology studies in nuanced ways that will leave readers asking after their own realities. In short, this is a must-read volume for anthropologists of technology and anyone wondering about the fractured realities in which we live.

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Social media and adolescent health
National Academies, Sciences, Engineering, Medicine et al. National Academies Press, 2024

In an increasingly digital society, debates about the impact of social media on adolescent health are among the top discussion items for parents and policy makers alike. Against this backdrop, a group of 11 scholars and accompanying staff were assembled by the National Academies to provide evidence-based answers to “the social media question” and do so in a clear, concise, and compelling manner. Across eight chapters, this volume is among the most lucid and comprehensive discussions of social media published to date. The report reinforces the complexities of social media, and does so in an impartial and dispassionate manner. Reporting is straightforward and focused on the quality and robustness of extant theory and data, and is written in such a way that even those with little or no prior background in research can easily understand. The volume is careful in defining key terms and anchors them in scholarship, and likewise takes appropriate space to elaborate on the “inner workings” of social media platforms. For anyone with an earnest concern regarding social media, this volume is a landmark study, serving as a reminder of the high standard of evidence needed to establish causal relationships (of which, have yet to be met) while also providing concrete and reasoned action items worthy of serious consideration. 

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Entitled opinions : doxa after digitality
Alford, Caddie. Alabama, 2024

Although a number of books have been published on the topic of social media and opinion in the last several years, Alford (Virginia Commonwealth Univ.) offers something remarkably fresh: a rhetorical theory that demonstrates the mutually constitutive nature of social media and opinion, and that provides a conceptual framework for analyzing the functional operations of opinion in the digital world and the open-ended and generative nature of its process of formation. Alford explains how the ancient Greek concept of doxa allows for a deeper appreciation of the nuanced ontological and epistemological workings of opinion creation and transformation. The chapter on opinion and invention is particularly inspired; it examines how an opinion marking what has been unrecognized and undiscussed exists, momentarily, as a wholly new, often catalyzing creation before being incorporated into the always evolving and generating discourse of doxa. In a world seen as increasingly polarized and despairing of authentic dialogue via social media, Alford offers a way forward that is thought-provoking and potentially groundbreaking. Ideal for students and scholars of rhetoric and communication, the volume is also relevant for work in philosophy, critical theory, and information science.

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High-impact design for online courses : blueprinting quality digital learning in eight practical steps
Simunich, Bethany, Andrea Gregg, and Penny Ralston-Berg Routledge, 2024

Readers looking for a master class on creating high-quality digital learning will find High-Impact Design for Online Courses (HIDOC) a perfect fit. Whether newbies or veterans to digital learning with minimal or abundant technical resources and support, readers will learn much from this eight-step, practical approach, which offers a guided, evidenced-based tutorial on planning, developing, and implementing synchronous, asynchronous, and hybrid learning. Beginning with a focus on understanding learners, desired learning outcomes, backward-design, and a “learning first, technology second” perspective, this book gives readers simulated, hands-on learning of each of the eight steps through use of downloadable design documents and the HIDOC Course Blueprint. Chapters on the eight steps—learner analysis, learning outcomes, course structure, assessment and activities, instructional materials, technology and tools, online learner support, and continuous improvement—are designed in a gradual release format. For each step, readers learn the “why,” understand the design implications, apply the content authentically, and participate in a simulated coaching session through a faculty-instructional designer collaboration transcript. Any educator working in the online space deserves this instructional gift.

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