Thursday News: Authors Guild v. Google redux, the pitfalls of social media research, and two fantabulous articles on cultural representation

JanetPublishing Newscopyright / diversity / Fair Use / Google / lawsuit / Race / representation / research / SFF / social media / Speculative-Fiction3 Comments

Second Circuit Hears Google Books Case – Yesterday was the day for oral arguments in the appeals case Authors Guild has brought in the hopes of reversing the lower court’s summary judgment against them. Arguments apparently went to 90 minutes, 60 over the allotted time, but the fact that the lower court praised some of the elements of the Google Books scanning project that the Authors Guild is perceived as a substantial obstacle. Moreover, AG is trying to argue that Google’s profit motive is decisive, while the lower court was very clear in asserting that the “educational importance” outweighed that factor.

In his argument Wednesday, attorney Paul Smith quickly sought to differentiate the Guild’s case against Google from its unsuccessful HathiTrust case, citing Google’s commercial nature. But almost immediately, Judge Pierre Leval shut him down, telling Smith he would not succeed by arguing that Google’s commercial nature precluded fair use. Smith, however, pressed on, arguing that Google’s scanning deprived authors of a potential market to license books for search. Again, Leval pushed back, noting the transformative nature of the use is what mattered, not whether somebody might potentially pay to make that use. . . .

Arguing for Google, attorney Seth Waxman largely stuck to the script that has served Google well thus far: he argued that Google’s database “quintessentially” promoted the progress of the sciences and useful arts. Waxman portrayed the program as a collaboration between libraries and Google—with libraries benefiting from Google’s scale and technology, and Google benefiting from the libraries’ collections. And lastly, he stressed that there was no evidence of any market harm, and there was no issue with security as the record shows there has not been one security breach of Google Books in a decade. –Publishers Weekly

Facebook, Twitter and Other Social Media Are Unreliable Sources for Studying Human Behavior  – A joint study from McGill and Carnegie Mellon confirms a number of complaints about social media research, namely that it suffers from oversimplification, excessive subjectivity, and failure to account for demographic differences and a variety of biases. I haven’t had a chance to read the whole study yet, and I’m hoping Sunita will weigh in, since she has the social sciences expertise here, but I think we’ve all seen conclusions derived from social media sources that seem premature, at best.

The study compares the fallacies in social media research to one of the most infamous errors in telephone polling, in which an undersampling of Harry Truman supporters resulted in the publication of the 1948 headline “Dewey Defeats Truman.” Similarly flawed methodologies are plaguing research based on social networking data, the study concluded.

Before information from sites like Facebook and Twitter can yield truly meaningful insights, scientists must realize there are problems with the way data is typically analyzed from social media networks, according to Derek Ruths, an assistant professor in McGill’s School of Computer Science. For now, many of the insights gleaned from social media are often about as reliable as the 1948 telephone poll. –Tech Times

Emic, Etic, and the depiction of Otherness in SFF – Tade Thompson’s excellent, excellent piece on the complex issues involved in the representation of “Otherness” in SFF (although it’s relevant for any and every genre) is a must read for anyone interested in these issues, either from a reading or writing perspective. Actually, it’s a must read for anyone who isn’t interested in these issues, too, but that’s a whole different discussion. Anyway, the list of questions he suggests people ask at the end is fantastic for anyone looking to represent different cultures in fiction, and the discussion of essentialism made me give a little fist pump, because I think it’s so incredibly important and yet so often ignored or unconsciously indulged in during discussions of racial and cultural identity.

No fictional portrayal of any community is ever going to be accurate, including those by members of said community. The best we can hope for is some degree of concordance with lived experience. For example, the stereotype of the obedient Asian wife will have poor concordance while a more nuanced, complex character will have higher concordance. This has to do with the complexity of real life. One thing that becomes obvious from reading anthropology and history is the inability of anyone to capture the entire essence of a culture in words or images. We can try, but it is impossible, and not just to the observer from without. Outsiders cannot see everything and have biases; insiders cannot see everything and have biases. –Safe

THE UNBEARABLE SOLITUDE OF BEING AN AFRICAN FAN GIRL – This article is from a new online journal that features “speculative fiction writers from across Africa and the African Diaspora.” I was so excited when I found this site, and the post I’ve linked to on being an African fan girl of “geek culture” is incredibly relevant to the variety of discussions occurring about representation. In fact, read the Thompson piece and then read this one. So much of what Chinelo Onwualu talks about is illustrative of the issues Thompson elucidates. But beyond that, Onwualu’s discussion of how feeling that she, as a Nigerian woman, is often marginalized by a community that has itself felt marginalized is poignant and brilliantly articulated. Judging by this inaugural issue, I hope Omenana is around for a long time.

You understand that geek culture is supposed to be the refuge of the misunderstood. All of us were at one point the kid who stayed inside during recess reading in the library rather than playing with the others. We were the ones pretending to have lightsaber battles when the other kids were playing soccer. Your Barbie dolls never played house; they were too busy exploring the alien landscapes of your bedroom floor and befriending the monsters under you bed. None of us fit into the easy boxes of our societies – you know this. But when you see that the self-appointed gatekeepers of the world you claimed before you knew they existed have erected wall to keep out members of your sex and race, it can’t fail to hurt. –Omenana

Janet

isn't sure if she's an average Romance reader, or even an average reader, but a reader she is, enjoying everything from literary fiction to philosophy to history to poetry. Historical Romance was her first love within the genre, but she's fickle and easily seduced by the promise of a good read. She approaches every book with the same hope: that she will be filled from the inside out with something awesome that she didnʼt know, didnʼt think about, or didnʼt feel until that moment. And she's always looking for the next mind-blowing read, so feel free to share any suggestions!

→ Janet