{"id":8667,"date":"2020-08-11T17:10:43","date_gmt":"2020-08-11T17:10:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adhc.lib.ua.edu\/pandemicbook\/?page_id=8667"},"modified":"2021-11-13T13:58:32","modified_gmt":"2021-11-13T13:58:32","slug":"08-11","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/adhc.lib.ua.edu\/pandemicbook\/08-11\/","title":{"rendered":"08-11"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Tuesday, August 11<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tUS Cases 5.14 million
US Deaths 164,713<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Aug 10: Dr. Scott Atlas from the Hoover Institute joins the White House Coronavirus Task Force as an advisor. Previously, Atlas was a vocal\u00a0advocate<\/a> for herd immunity as well as limited use of face masks.\u00a0 Shortly after Atlas\u2019 appointment,\u00a098 immunologists, epidemiologists and infectious diseases physicians<\/a> criticize Atlas and his views stating that \u201cto prevent harm to the public\u2019s health,\u201d they \u201chave both a moral and an ethical responsibility to call attention to the falsehoods and misrepresentations of science recently fostered by Dr. Scott Atlas.\u201d Hundreds are arrested<\/a> in Chicago after a night of protests and looting.<\/p>

Aug 11: Joe Biden announces that he has picked Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) as his running mate<\/a>. Harris, the daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrants, will be the first woman of color on a major party ticket. Despite still waiting on final data, the Trump administration reportedly agrees to pay $1.5 billion<\/a> to Moderna for 100 million doses of its vaccine candidate, mRNA-1273, or an average per-dose price of $15. The vaccine, however, is still under investigation in the joint phase 3 COVE trial Moderna is conducting with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority. Russian President Vladimir Putin says<\/a> that Russia has developed the first approved vaccine against COVID-19.\u00a0 President Trump says<\/a> that the federal government will purchase 100 million doses of Moderna’s experimental coronavirus vaccine, now in late-stage human trials. The COVID daily death toll rises<\/a> over 1,000 again.\u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tFrom the Cutting Room Floor...\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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At the grocery store today, I see one of my favorite graduate students re-stacking the shelves in the bread aisle. She teaches American History for us as an adjunct instructor in the evenings, but the pay is nowhere near enough to cover rent and food. I always feel guilty when I see her in the store. She seems a little embarrassed, too. \u201cDid you hear the good news?\u201d she asks, straining to see me through her glasses as they fog up behind her mask. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI did!\u201d I don\u2019t know if she can see me smiling behind my mask so I squinch my eyes up as a sign of happiness. \u201cI was rooting for Kamala all along.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

She looks up and nods. \u201cKamala could take on all of them.\u201d She says this last sentence quietly so as to not be heard by the middle-aged woman in her workout clothes who has just leaned over to pick out a $5.50 loaf of Dave\u2019s Killer Bread. I nod at my student as she returns to her work.<\/span>
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She is right; Harris is not someone to underestimate. Born in Oakland, educated at The Mecca, at Howard University, law degree at the University of California. District attorney and a S<\/span>enator since 2017. Her mother is an endocrinologist from India and her father is an African American emeritus professor of economics at Stanford. She comes from a long list of hard-working scientists and intellectuals and her debating skills are unparalleled.<\/span><\/p>\n

A few minutes later, as I am standing in line at the checkout counter, the two women in front of me bring up Harris\u2019 new appointment. \u201cYou know, she\u2019s not an American, just like Obama,\u201d one woman says to the other, her eyes widening for effect as she hugs her daughter and flashes her a warm smile. \u201cFox says Harris might not be able to take over as president if Biden died.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The other woman pushes her cart forward a few inches and then leans back. \u201cAs if we needed another reason for Trump!\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Back in April, the Harvard Kennedy School of Misinformation Review <\/em>published an article arguing that watching Fox News correlated with expressing more inaccuracies regarding COVID-19 than did consumers of other media.[1]<\/a> Despite all the inaccuracies and scandals that have wracked Fox over the years, millions of people continue to watch. Fox News is currently leading the pack in primetime viewership.[2]<\/a> One of the big questions for this year is why?<\/span><\/p>\n

The answer is no doubt over-determined. There are probably many causes, not the least of which relates to the simple, repeated messaging that Fox and Trump are so adept at mobilizing. Fox, Trump, Limbaugh\u2014they all feed on our basest fears, on our centuries of racism and jingoism, and on our desire to feel proud and secure in the world.<\/span><\/p>\n

There is an additional cause that is perhaps less obvious; the persistence of and susceptibility to misinformation could also be tied to lower engagement with reading books. Here, I am not speaking of newspapers, magazines, blogs, tweets, snaps, or Instagram posts, but books<\/em>. For years, the National Endowment for the Arts has tracked Americans\u2019 desire to read books. With one major exception\u2014the aspirational year of 2008 (which was perhaps not coincidentally the year of the great recession)\u2014the trend for the last four decades has been a decline in book readers.[7]<\/a> This does not mean that books are not selling. Saying that reading<\/em> is dropping is not the same as saying paper book sales<\/em> are dropping.[8]<\/a> Before 2020, in fact, sales were increasing, especially at independent bookstores.[9]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

How can we explain this gap between book reading and book purchasing? According to the Pew Research Center, literature that appeals to whiter, wealthier, more educated women always does well. Men, even the educated ones, are much less likely to read books in any form, with less educated, rural men especially, unlikely to \u201cunclasp the secret book\u201d and read on matters \u201cdeep and dangerous.\u201d[10]<\/a> One in three men did not even attempt to read a book in any form<\/em> during 2018-19.[11]<\/a> During the first part of 2020, after the House of Representatives impeached the president and was awaiting his trial in the Senate, Porter Anderson at \u201cPublishing Perspectives\u201d noticed that books with sharply partisan messages were racing off shelves.[12]<\/a> While most of the country was in lockdown from March through May, Bible sales<\/em> skyrocketed. At the same, people reported actually reading<\/em> their Bibles less<\/em>.[13]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

My colleagues and I have been direct witnesses to the decline in book reading, even though we teach at a major research university. Undergraduate students who could once plow through six books in a semester now balk if more than three are listed on the syllabus. When I first became a professor over a decade ago, it was common to expect students to read one hundred pages per course, per week. Now the average is closer to twenty pages. The problem is not just with adults; EducationWorld reports that a majority of school children do not open books unless for a school assignment.[14]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

At the same time, <\/a><\/span>possessing and displaying<\/em> books, taking selfies in bookstores, and posting book covers to Instagram remain a common cultural practice. This is because books still function as cultural talisman and signifier of identity. They indicate that you are the kind of person who values books enough to purchase and display them. Just as they did two thousand years ago, they place you within the educated class that ostensibly reads to learn. They also function as articulations of one\u2019s desired self. It is common knowledge that, if you want to get to know a person, first you check their bookshelf. This trope has become so entrenched that people now post \u201cshelfies\u201d on dating apps in order to help decide if someone might be a good match. This has become particularly critical in the last few months, when all that you see of a person is their head and shoulders floating before a manicured background, framed by a computer monitor. I have, just this week, read posts on the internet about how to \u201ccurate\u201d my bookshelf for my upcoming courses on Zoom. I have decided to put the Solzhenitsyn and Franz Fanon nearer to the camera while tucking out of sight my disintegrating copies of Dune<\/i> and Our Bodies, Ourselves<\/i>. Even now, in writing that sentence, I am signaling who I am\u2014or at least, who I want the world to think I am.<\/span><\/p>\n

But putting the book on display is not the same as reading it. The Bibles that people bought over the last few months turn out not to be \u201creading copies\u201d; they were coffee table books, broken into the individual books of the Bible, like 1 Samuel, Two Corinthians (that\u2019s a Trump joke), and Ezra, decorated with peaceful nature photography, broad white margins, and richly serifed typefaces.[16]<\/a> The selfies in independent bookshops (#Bookstagram), the Bible-themed art books, the pro-Trump or anti-Trump partisan tweet-analysis books\u2014by-in-large, they are not for reading<\/em>; they are for showing the rest of the world that you are a person who is doing the hard work of book reading<\/em>, if only you could find the time.[17]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps there is some connection to be drawn between the not-reading of the bought-books and the lack of skepticism among viewers of America\u2019s number one primetime news show.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Notes<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Dolores Albarrac\u00edn, \u201cThe Relation between Media Consumption and Misinformation at the Outset of the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic in the US,\u201d Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review<\/em>, April 17, 2020, https:\/\/doi.org\/10.37016\/mr-2020-012<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Michael M. Grynbaum, \u201cBoycotted. Criticized. But Fox News Leads the Pack in Prime Time.,\u201d The New York Times<\/em>, August 9, 2020, https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/08\/09\/business\/media\/fox-news-ratings.html<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

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[7]<\/a> National Endowment for the Arts, \u201cTo Read or Not to Read: A Question of National Consequence\u201d (Washington, DC: National Endowment for the Arts, November 2007), https:\/\/www.arts.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/ToRead.pdf<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> Natasha Frost, \u201cBook Sales Are up This Year over Last Year, and Physical Books Are Thriving,\u201d Quartz, December 28, 2018, https:\/\/qz.com\/1510303\/book-sales\/<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

[9]<\/a> Colin Ainsworth, \u201cBook Sales Are Soaring\u2014And Not Just the Digital Kind,\u201d January 17, 2019, https:\/\/www.mentalfloss.com\/article\/570930\/book-sales-are-soaring<\/a>; Kate Knibbs, \u201cThe Coronavirus Pandemic Is Changing How People Buy Books,\u201d Wired<\/em>, April 27, 2020, https:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/coronavirus-book-sales-indie\/<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

[10]<\/a> Andrew Perrin, \u201cWho Doesn\u2019t Read Books in America?,\u201d Pew Research Center<\/em> (blog), September 26, 2019, https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/fact-tank\/2019\/09\/26\/who-doesnt-read-books-in-america<\/a>. William Shakespeare, Henry IV<\/em>, Act I, Scene 3, line 521.<\/span><\/p>\n

[11]<\/a> Andrew Perrin, \u201cOne-in-Five Americans Now Listen to Audiobooks,\u201d Pew Research Center<\/em> (blog), September 25, 2019, https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/fact-tank\/2019\/09\/25\/one-in-five-americans-now-listen-to-audiobooks\/<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

[12]<\/a> Porter Anderson, \u201cOn Both Sides of the Divide, Political Books Are Soaring,\u201d Publishing Perspectives<\/em>, January 21, 2020, https:\/\/publishingperspectives.com\/2020\/01\/on-both-sides-of-the-divide-political-books-are-soaring-nonfiction\/<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

[13]<\/a> Aaron Earls, \u201cAmericans Finding Solace in Streaming, Not Scripture,\u201d Facts & Trends, August 26, 2020, http:\/\/factsandtrends.net\/2020\/08\/26\/americans-finding-solace-in-streaming-not-scripture\/<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

[14]<\/a> Kassondra Granata, \u201cTech May Be to Blame for Decline in Students\u2019 Reading for Pleasure Education World,\u201d EducationWorld, n.d., https:\/\/www.educationworld.com\/a_news\/technology-proves-negatively-effect-reading-skills<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

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[16]<\/a> Caleb Parke, \u201cCoronavirus Outbreak Spurs Record Bible Purchases: \u2018People Are Looking for Hope,\u2019\u201d Fox News (Fox News, April 6, 2020), https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/faith-values\/coronavirus-bible-book-update-sales-record<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

[17]<\/a> Nisha Chittal, \u201cIndependent Bookstores Are Growing \u2014 and Instagram Helped,\u201d Vox<\/em>, December 19, 2018, https:\/\/www.vox.com\/the-goods\/2018\/12\/19\/18146500\/independent-bookstores-instagram-social-media-growth<\/a>.<\/span>
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“Biden Picks Harris As Running Mate,” NPR, August 11, 2020,\u00a0https:\/\/youtu.be\/DGwrbG8-c_M<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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“Trump Speaks after Kamala Harris Chosen for 2020 Dem VP,” Fox News, August 11, 2020. https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Sdb45vJiBVw<\/a>.<\/div><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Danielle Bainbridge, “Do we still need libraries?” Origin of Everything, PBS Digital Media, June 18, 2019, https:\/\/youtu.be\/2zfhvDhnA5U<\/a><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Lucy Handley, “Why physical books still outsell e-books,” CNBC Reports, September 18, 2019,\u00a0https:\/\/youtu.be\/5Em-U9onvGI<\/a><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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