Mike Ananny
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mikeananny.bsky.social
Mike Ananny
@mikeananny.bsky.social
710 followers 590 following 410 posts
ananny.org

- Media technologies & production cultures
- How sociotechnical systems enact theories of press freedom & “the public”
- GenAI as a public problem

Associate Professor of Communication & Journalism, USC Annenberg

Always 🇨🇦
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mikeananny.bsky.social
Canada’s continued lack of progress on strong AI & data regulation leaves its sovereigny vulnerable.

www.cbc.ca/news/busines...
Article expert: “The 2018 CLOUD Act gives the American government the authority to access data from anywhere so long as it's maintained in a server owned by a U.S. company. Canada and the U.S. have been negotiating a bilateral agreement on the CLOUD Act for three years, but none exists yet. A huge chunk of cloud storage servers and data centres in Canada is owned by companies like Microsoft, Amazon and Google, according to Beaumier - meaning that Canadian data, even if processed on Canadian soil, is ultimately being governed by the United States.”
October 11, 2025 at 3:29 PM
mikeananny.bsky.social
This article is bonkers.

With Benioff’s PR people unable to control his obnoxious, billionaire toxicity (redundant?), he reveals his true self.

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/10/u...
Screenshot of article excerpt: “At the end of the interview, he turned to a public relations executive. He could be heard asking why her mouth was wide open and if he had said anything he shouldn't have. "What about the political questions?" he asked. "Too spicy?" Then he hung up.”
October 11, 2025 at 2:56 PM
mikeananny.bsky.social
Dunno if it's helpful to anyone, but I offer this in the spirit of academics not talking enough about rejection & students sometimes not getting mentoring on the point.

A student (primary author) & I just had a paper rejected from a journal, & I wrote this reply to them sharing the news with me.
Abbreviated text of screenshot of email: "When I get a decision like this---I've had plenty of rejections, btw, it's a common experience!---I like to: give myself a few days to just sit with the answer; go to the reviewer comments with fresh eyes and hopefully a constructive attitude; read the reviewer comments and classify them into 3 types of feedback: big / structural things that might necessitate fundamentally re-thinking the paper; mezzo-level things that could be addressed within the scope / frame of the project; minutiae that are easy to do (e.g., points about language / grammar / adding citations) for each of those, I think about: what do I agree with and think was a reasonable reading of the paper; what do I think is not reasonable / doesn't require further consideration / is something that the reviewers didn't get / is something that was particular to that journal; what do I *want* to work on / make the paper into / where am I willing to invest energy finally, with this distance and structured thinking, I think about other venues for the piece (where to submit it to next) and what kind of changes (if any!) are required before submitting to a different venue. While it's usually good to make some changes based on reviewers' feedback (they're smart people who gave this consideration and the comments are largely thoughtful), it could be that a different venue would be a better fit and not require (or even want) the changes suggested by reviewers for the journal that rejected the piece. I'm happy to talk about this in our next scheduled meeting / before then / any time. And just to reiterate: I truly hope that you don't take this news too hard. It's a very common part of this whole academia business, it's ideally how work gets better and makes stronger contributions, and it's zero reflection on your standing or future as a scholar. All best, -- M."
October 7, 2025 at 10:48 PM
mikeananny.bsky.social
Screen shot of article excerpt: “Every citizen has a role to play in helping democratic movements succeed. Opposition figures need courage to unify and lead. Judges, business executives, lawyers and journalists need courage to withstand intimidation. Voters need courage to participate in elections, protest peacefully and act with agency rather than adapt to authoritarian rule. History can offer both guidance and hope: Authoritarians have lost elections before, and they will again.”
October 2, 2025 at 2:33 PM
mikeananny.bsky.social
And this is the activity we're doing:
chart showing schduson's 6 things can do for democracy plotted against types of revenue description of activity: "ACTIVITY: You lead a news organization that earns its revenue mostly from one of these sources and you need to understand what impact that revenue source has on how your news serves an ideal of democracy. For each of Schudson’s “6 Things”, pose at least one question to your staff that helps you better understand how your revenue model influences your relationship to democracy. There is no “right” question to ask – you need to (a) understand your revenue model, and (b) understand its relationship to at least one of Schudson’s values."
September 18, 2025 at 8:39 PM
mikeananny.bsky.social
Another relevant slide from my class today on intertwined ideologies & economics of media:
text of slide: "The penny press created patterns of news production & circulation still with us today. Objectivity—detachment, holding judgment, telling “both sides”, reporting facts, staying neutral, etc.—first appears not as a professionalism (comes later), but an outgrowth humans, technologies, economics. Objectivity is good business – the aim is to offend no one! But is that good for “democracy”?" and "Instead of mythologizing objectivity, what are the economics of “mature subjectivity”? (Schudson’s term)"
September 18, 2025 at 8:33 PM
mikeananny.bsky.social
Interesting day to be teaching about the economics of news production & how corporate ownership matters.

Two of the slides for today’s lecture:
Text of slide: “NEWS AS A SPECIAL COMMODITY - A PUBLIC GOOD COMMUNICATION, SOCIETY AND POLITICS Media, Markets, and Democracy C. Edwin Baker 1) Non-rivalrous: we can both have & "use" news at same time 2) Non-excludable: it's realistically hard to completely stop people from getting news 3) Positive externalities for non-consumers: even if you don't consume news, you live in a society where others do 4) Widely shared production costs: you pay a relatively small price to support a large enterprise 5) Shows people's current and imagined preferences: you see what people like, and what they would like to happen.” WHO OWNS NEWS ORGANIZATIONS MATTERS... HOW MEDIA OWNERSHIP MATTERS RODNEY BENSON MATTIAS HESSERUS COMMUNICATION, SOCIETY AND POLITICS 1) Audience capture: convening people across media through one organizational mission 2) Mogul influence: the idiosyncrasies or values of one person become outsized 3) Conflation of commerce and news: being a successful business is related to-but not the same-as being a successful news organization 4) Becoming a political tool: owners may align their news organizations with current, perceived, desired political power 5) Shaping economic realities: the news that an organization is interested in reporting can help or harm that organization's economic intersts. Media Concentration and Democracy Why Ownership Matters C. Edwin Baker
September 18, 2025 at 2:02 PM
mikeananny.bsky.social
SCOTUS won’t save us / U.S.
Screen shot of article excerpt: “In a rare example of honesty from this administration, it admitted that it was racially profiling Latinos, and promised to do so again if the Supreme Court lifted the injunction. The government admitted it was only looking at four factors before pulling people off the street: • Their apparent race or ethnicity • Whether they spoke Spanish or spoke English with an accent • The type of location where they were found • The type of job they appeared to do” Screen shot of article excerpt: “I shouldn't have to explain how this is racist, but since white Republicans might read this, I guess I do. If you are a white guy, anywhere in LA, you are presumptively "legal" and ICE will not bother you. If you are a Vietnamese woman working at a nail parlor, you are also presumptively OK. If you are a Chinese guy running a dry cleaner, you're good. Name the race and the racially stereotypical job, and, according to the US government, you are not on their list. At least for now. Obviously, once the government greenlights racial profiling against one group of people, it's pretty easy for the white people running the joint to support racial profiling against another.”
September 9, 2025 at 4:09 AM
mikeananny.bsky.social
They forgot to update the logo — definitely the detail-oriented crowd you want in charge of nuclear weapons.

www.war.gov/About/Office...
Screen shot of department of war website for “office of the secretary of war” showing department of defense logo
September 6, 2025 at 4:05 PM
mikeananny.bsky.social
Thrilled to be in this collection with such great folks.

I develop an idea of "recursive press freedom": an autonomous, self-monitoring, self-correcting press w/ capacity to learn from its mistakes & power to change itself -- key for GenAI journalism.

Also at: knightcolumbia.org/content/recu...
Screen capture of text reading "Taking seriously the idea that an autonomous press self-monitors and self-corrects, we might question whether the institution has recursive press freedom—a capacity to create for itself the structures that enable journalism and serve the public interest. A recursively free press would confidently trace and shape the social, cultural, political, and technological forces that structure journalism and create news without needing to rely on outsiders for knowledge, permission, or capacity. Such recursive freedom would be especially critical in the context of the synthetic press, which refers to the journalistic practices, forms, and institutional conditions that are intertwined with GenAI and often unknowable and unchangeable within proprietary datasets, machine learning models, and private corporations. Recursive, synthetic press freedom would be the press’s own capacity to shape GenAI according to its own journalistic mission and its own sense of public service."
August 5, 2025 at 7:44 PM
mikeananny.bsky.social
So many elites across so many sectors of US life are being bought, staying silent, trying to ride it out.

Such power, money, influence being coopted is both shocking & unsurprising — you don’t become elite in this country without reading the room & going along.

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/23/o...
Quote from linked article: “Here, too, powerful people are responding to authoritarian advances just as their Hungarian counterparts have - not with defiance, but with capitulation, convinced that they can maintain their independence and stay above the fray. Major corporations whose logos were once plastered on Pride floats parading down Fifth Avenue now choose to remain on the sidelines. Institutions and professions that have long acted as bastions of critical inquiry, civilized contestation and government accountability have fallen silent.”
July 23, 2025 at 1:44 PM
mikeananny.bsky.social
Great satire-as-critique:

mamdanitimes.com
Satirical New York Times headline from the linked site, reading “Mamdani's Economic Message Failed to Move These Trump Voters In Rural Tennessee Diner”
July 8, 2025 at 5:22 PM
mikeananny.bsky.social
( h/t @poetryisnotaluxury.bsky.social )
Picture of poem: “No Explosions” To enjoy fireworks you would have to have lived a different kind of life By Naomi Shihab Nye
July 5, 2025 at 6:16 AM
mikeananny.bsky.social
These people are just plain evil.

Masked men in unmarked cars grabbing a man from a church parking lot while aiming a gun at the pastor.

Each hour brings new evidence of the US’s descent into authoritarianism.

www.nytimes.com/2025/06/11/u...
“The Rev. Tanya Lopez, senior pastor of Downey Memorial Christian Church, said she was in her office on Wednesday when three SUVs with tinted windows pulled up to her church. Then, Ms. Lopez said, five men, some wearing badges and tan bulletproof vests that said "POLICE," rushed out of the vehicles and detained a man in the parking lot. The men, Ms. Lopez said, refused to identify which agency they worked for, and they did not share their names or badge numbers when asked. Their vehicles had out-of-state license plates. They also did not provide a warrant, she said. They took the man into a black SUV. And, Ms. Lopez said that as she shouted instructions in Spanish to the man inside the vehicle, an agent drew a rifle at her.”
June 12, 2025 at 4:53 AM
mikeananny.bsky.social
My employer USC—which froze faculty hiring & salaries & cut the budget of the very student paper that wrote this story—pays 17 people more than $1M USD, including *former* basketball & football coaches.

The current football coach gets $11.4M.

Grift On, Trojans!

dailytrojan.com/2025/06/04/s...
Bar chart of highly paid USC “leaders”, with full stats at URL linked to in post
June 7, 2025 at 2:38 AM
mikeananny.bsky.social
Excerpt from @laurahazardowen.bsky.social @niemanlab.org story on Google bullets on news articles. Note:

1) publisher wasn't sure of bullets origins ("may come from")

2) even if publishers "write" bullets, I'd bet they're GenAI-made suggestions by news CMS / Google

#pressFreedomAsInfrastructure
Screenshot of article excerpt reading: "At first I assumed that these were AI-generated (and I wrote that in an earlier version of this piece), but on Tuesday afternoon, I heard from a publisher who said the text may come from Google News Showcase, a tool that lets participating publishers package their content for Google’s products. If that’s the case then these bullet points are written by the publishers themselves, not AI. I have asked Google about all this, and will update my post if I hear back."
June 3, 2025 at 10:29 PM
mikeananny.bsky.social
The NYT was also confounded by Musk’s N*zi salute—could have meant anything, who knows, hard to tell, who are we to judge, “objectivity!”

So it’s not surprising that it thinks “strains the bounds of propriety” is smart writing.

(The NYT continues to be exhausting.)

www.nytimes.com/2025/05/12/u...
NYT headline: “Trump's Plan to Accept Luxury Jet From Qatar Strains Bounds of Propriety”
May 13, 2025 at 12:44 AM
mikeananny.bsky.social
So much is broken right now, but I want to share an amazing new set of short, teachable interdisciplinary essays on

** Sociotechnical Error **

Live at IJOC journal @ijoc-usc.bsky.social: ijoc.org/index.php/ij... (scroll to Forum)

Intro by me & Simogne Hudson: ijoc.org/index.php/ij...

Pls share!
Headline: " International Journal of Communication Publishes a Forum on "Oops? Interdisciplinary Stories of Sociotechnical Error"" Abstract: " What can we learn about people and technology through interdisciplinary stories of sociotechnical errors, failures, breakdowns, and mistakes? Guest edited by Mike Ananny and Simogne Hudson, the Forum on Oops? Interdisciplinary Stories of Sociotechnical Error takes up the question through a playful and provocative mix of projects that show how sociotechnical errors happen, why they matter, and what they reveal about people, technology, and power. Amidst so many complex collisions among people, data, engineering, and media—and in an age when technological "innovation" is widely celebrated and inescapable—these articles offer changes to pause and ask what system failures show about how people and machines intersect and vie for power. Including scholars from communication, media studies, urban planning, critical data studies, and science and technology studies, the collection of essays invites readers to see failures anew—to consider errors, breakdowns, and mistakes from a different perspective, method, or normative stake. Use these essays to start conversations about what "error" means in your work or community, and why it matters. We invite you to read these articles that published in the International Journal of Communication on April 23, 2025. Please log into ijoc.org to read the papers of interest. We look forward to your feedback!" List of authors and essay titles: Oops? Sociotechnical Errors as Interdisciplinary Stories of Complex Relations, Shared Consequences, and Resilient Hopes—Introduction Mike Ananny, Simogne Hudson Uncertainty as Spectacle: Real-Time Algorithmic Techniques on the Live Music Stage Stephen Yang When Faulty AI Falls Into the Wrong Hands: The Risks of Erroneous AI-Driven Healthcare Decisions Eugene Jang Fake It Till You Make It: Synthetic Data and Algorithmic Bias Sook-Lin Toh, Jiwon Park Discourses of Sociotechnical Error and Accuracy in U.S. and PRC News Media: The Case of the 1999 Bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade Max Berwald Affective Experiences of Error Megan Finn, Youngrim Kim, Ryan Ellis, Amelia Acker, Bidisha Chaudhuri, Stacey Wedlake Peeling Back the Layers of “Paint on Rotten Wood”: Unraveling the Senate’s “Big Tech and Child Sexual Exploitation Crisis” Hearing Kyooeun Jang Kicking Error Out of the Game: Video Assistant Referee as Technosolutionism Pratik Nyaupane, Alejandro Alvarado Rojas When User Consent Fails: How Platforms Undermine Data Governance Rohan Grover Ephemeral Platforms, Enduring Memories: Errors and Digital Afterlife Sui Wang :Chatting: Errors in Live Streamer Discord Servers Kirsten Crowe Hole in the (Pay)Wall: Monetized Access, Content Leaks, and Community Responsibility Celeste Oon Edges, Seams, and Ecotones: Error in Interstate Landscapes Cindy Lin, Steve J. Jackson Quantifying Housing Need in California: The Erroneous Practice of Evidence-Based Policy Elana R. Simon
April 24, 2025 at 4:12 PM
mikeananny.bsky.social
Best 2 grafs I’ve read in a while.

M. Gessen shows how universities can beat Trump & his thugs—not only by refusing his evil & illegal attacks, but by (re)focusing their missions & reversing their slides into vapid values that left them ill-prepared for this moment

www.nytimes.com/2025/04/14/o...
Article excerpt: “Almost three months into the Trump administration's war on universities, and a year and a half into the Republican Party's organized campaign against the presidents of top colleges, it is clear that antisemitism and D.E.I. are mere pretexts for these attacks. Like much of what this administration does, the war on higher education is driven by anti-intellectualism and greed. Trump is building a mafia state, in which the don distributes both money and power. Universities are independent centers of intellectual and, to some extent, political power. He is trying to destroy that independence. There is a way for universities to fight back. It requires more than refusing to bend to Trump's will, and it requires more than forming a united front. They must abandon all the concerns - rankings, donors, campus amenities - that preoccupy and distract them, and focus on their core mission: the production and dissemination of knowledge. Intellectuals have adopted this strategy to fight against autocrats in other countries. It works.”
April 15, 2025 at 6:38 PM
mikeananny.bsky.social
Of COURSE she says this.

Thinking of her as “Attorney General” is conceptually wrong. She & the others are not their usual titles & roles.

This regime is fundamentally, existentially *different* from previous eras.

Opposition strategy needs to flow from new conceptualizations of these characters.
Screen shot of NYT article with this headline: “Pam Bondi Indicates Signal Leak Will Not Be Criminally Investigated” The attorney general said the focus should be on the success of the U.S. military strike in Yemen, not that military information was shared in a group text.
March 27, 2025 at 4:19 PM
mikeananny.bsky.social
I started reading this headline & thought “oh FFS, what has USC admitted to now?”
Screen shot of Instagram post by USC with headline reading “• BREAKING NEWS USC admits roughly 8.5% of regular decision applicants The University received nearly 83,500 applications, a new record surpassing last year by nearly 1,500.”
March 27, 2025 at 3:30 AM
mikeananny.bsky.social
Please read this whole story.

International students & faculty are right to be worried that they are under threat from the Trump regime for engaging in basic free speech activities.

www.nytimes.com/2025/03/15/n...
Quote from article: “"I'm fearful that even the most low-level political speech or just doing what we all do — like shout into the abyss that is social media — can turn into this dystopian nightmare where somebody is calling you a terrorist sympathizer and making you, literally, fear for your life and your safety," Ms. Srinivasan said in the interview on Friday.”
March 16, 2025 at 12:54 AM
mikeananny.bsky.social
This is an astounding attack by the US regime not just on Columbia, but all universities.

This is how authoritarians control learning & scholarship.

University presidents must organize & resist with solidarity.

They are otherwise “useful idiots” of fascism. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_...
Screen capture of letter reading: “government. Please ensure and document compliance with the following no later than the close of business on Wednesday, March 20, 2025: • Enforce existing disciplinary policies. The University must complete disciplinary proceedings for Hamilton Hall and encampments. Meaningful discipline means expulsion or multi-year suspension. • Primacy of the president in disciplinary matters. Abolish the University Judicial Board (UJB) and centralize all disciplinary processes under the Office of the President. And empower the Office of the President to suspend or expel students with an appeal process through the Office of the President. • Time, place, and manner rules. Implement permanent, comprehensive time, place, and manner rules to prevent disruption of teaching, research, and campus life. • Mask ban. Ban masks that are intended to conceal identity or intimidate others, with exceptions for religious and health reasons. Any masked individual must wear their Columbia ID on the outside of their clothing (this is already the policy at Columbia's Irving Medical Center). • Deliver plan to hold all student groups accountable. Recognized student groups and individuals operating as constituent members of, or providing support for, unrecognized groups engaged in violations of University policy must be held accountable through formal investigations, disciplinary proceedings, and expulsion as appropriate. • Formalize, adopt, and promulgate a definition of antisemitism. President Trump's Executive Order 13899 uses the IHRA definition. Anti-"Zionist" discrimination against Jews in areas unrelated to Israel or Middle East must be addressed. • Empower internal law enforcement. The University must ensure that Columbia security has full law enforcement authority, including arrest and removal of agitators who foster an unsafe or hostile work or study environment, or otherwise interfere with classroom instruction or the functioning of the university. • MESAAS …
March 14, 2025 at 12:42 AM
mikeananny.bsky.social
Hmm, close but not quite right, Algorithmic Marketing Machine!
Advertisement for “elbows up” tshirt that is “made in the USA”
March 5, 2025 at 4:26 PM
mikeananny.bsky.social
Sigh.

Instead of this ridiculousness, @latimes.com, you could:

- hire good humans

- pay them decently

- help them be thoughtful

- develop journalism as a professional craft

- reject gamified democracy when it matters.

But you outsourced yourselves to AI companies.

www.latimes.com/insights/
Text of screen capture: “What is Viewpoint analysis? Viewpoint analysis is generated by Al in partnership with Particle News. It offers five positions on the political spectrum: Left, Center Left, Center, Center Right or Right. The Al model uses many factors to identify the political leaning of a Voices article - including specific policy positions taken, types of arguments used, recognition of opposing views, rhetorical devices, use of expert sources, views on government intervention, and the approach to solving social problems. How are Perspectives generated? Perspectives summaries are generated by Al in partnership with Perplexity to identify the ideas expressed in a Voices article, along with links to additional sources. Perspectives also uses Al to offer different views on the topic, with links to a variety of other sources.”
March 4, 2025 at 1:13 AM