Book Review: Safe Enough Spaces: A Pragmatist’s Approach to Inclusion, Free Speech, and Political Correctness on College Campuses by Michael S. Roth

Abstract

methodical analysis of the American situation, and tangible solutions to its challenges, a level of applicability to other regions is lost. This may be a necessary trade-off for the author's aim, but one worth noting just the same.Readers from outside the United States will certainly still find this book to be of value, especially the author's theoretical discussions, such as the delineation of gatekeeping theory in Chapter 2. At the same time, given that most major social media companies are based in the United States, the country's predominance in this scholarly dialogue broadly is somewhat essential.Shifting gears to prescription, the book's final two chapters reflect on how best to move forward from evidence of market failure in the marketplace of ideas. I consider these sections to be the most useful to scholars and policy practitioners working to enact change in these changing times. In Chapter 5, Napoli compellingly argues that the relevance and importance of the public interest has been undermined in dialogues surrounding social media governance, in favor of techno-centric rhetoric. Any reader who has followed Mark Zuckerberg's recent testimonies before the U.S. congress will find this assessment applicable.In "Reviving the Public Interest," the author includes several proposals aimed at encouraging a more robust public interest orientation in social media companies' operations. Among them is a collectivist interpretation of the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which doesn't focus on preserving the rights of the individual, but rather aims to support an environment where "stability, collective decision-making, and, most important, the effective functioning of the democratic process" are preserved.This final chapter, while an engaging read, is one where additional focus might have been paid to whether and how activists could engage with the proposals Napoli so concisely puts forth. If, as the author suggests, Facebook's content moderation policies favor elites over activists, one way to give agency back to this latter group is to support their participation in regulatory proceedings that can influence how Facebook and other social media companies operate.Nonetheless, Social Media and the Public Interest is a timely and smart book that tackles many of the questions at the forefront of the discipline of media studies today, in a clear and thoughtful manner. This volume will be pertinent to media practitioners, students, and scholars alike, especially those with an interest in the state of journalism in the digital age.

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“…mm. Amzil 2017;Hytönen 2016;Roth 2019. ) Kyselymme vastausten pohjalta keskeisin havainto on se, että opiskelijat kokivat turvallisemman tilan periaatteiden käytön kursseillamme pääosin neutraalina tai myönteisenä.…”