Michael Socolow

@michaelsocolow

Communication & Journalism, University of Maine. 2019 Fulbright Scholar, University of Canberra. Posts speak only for myself, not my employer

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Michael Socolow@michaelsocolow· 13d

A+ headline + photo combo here from @bangordailynews.bsky.social

Michael Socolow@michaelsocolow· 20d

It's sort of amazing how quickly X has become a Chinese propaganda outlet. It's not just the ads. The algorithm's no doubt sold, too. China can't be spending all that money without expecting more in return.

Michael Socolow@michaelsocolow· Jul 6

Wall Street Journal one month ago. Remarkable. www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

Michael Socolow@michaelsocolow· Jul 1

Amnesia? Cognitive dissonance?

Screenshot image of NPR headline: "The Rise of Oliver Anthony and 'Rich Men North of Richmond"

Drudge Report headlines: "Crypto King: Don Pockets $1.4 Billion" and "Governance Tokens" and "And It's Legal!" and "Net Worth Triples in Second Term" and "$80 Million Suing Media" and "First Flight on Qatari-One"

Michael Socolow@michaelsocolow· Jun 16

The ghost of Gawker lives on in local Maine news? www.bangordailynews.com/2026/06/16/d...

Local newspaper article: "Comedian Fred Armisen Spotted Down East" by Christopher Burns in Bangor Daily News.

Michael Socolow@michaelsocolow· Jun 16

I've got the power.

A letter from the Nielsen Corporation about TV ratings, addressed to "Bangor Area Household" - stating that the household address has been selected for a TV ratings survey.

Michael Socolow@michaelsocolow· Jun 1

The @nytimes.com comments on the @60minutes.bsky.social article are... just perfect. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/01/b...

Image of comment thread at "60 Minutes" article at NY Times. First post says: "Enjoy the bagels! That's my new sign-off when I find myself in a place where I'm not welcome."

Michael Socolow@michaelsocolow· May 27

Wait a minute... so as a peer-reviewer, I'm required to check a box attesting to the fact that I have not used AI in my evaluation, but the scholar who's article I'm reviewing can submit a manuscript that used AI as long as an "AI-Transparency Statement" is included? What's going on here?

An image of a checked box, with the words: "I confirm I have not uploaded the author manuscript to any third party tool and have not used a generative AI tool to produce this reviewer report."

Michael Socolow@michaelsocolow· May 27

First time I've seen an "AI-Transparency Statement" at @chronicle.com. We seem to be in a limnal moment - will these be standardized and codified? Or, in a few years, dropped and forgotten? Is the key ethic transparency (which can easily be lied about)? www.chronicle.com/article/ai-g...

"An AI-Transparency Statement" appears at the end of the essay titled, "AI Gave Me Confidence I Hadn't Earned." It discusses how AI (Claude/Anthropic) was used in drafting the essay for the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Michael Socolow@michaelsocolow· May 23

uh... this was just tweeted out by Lindsay Graham a few hours ago....

Michael Socolow@michaelsocolow· May 18

Not quite sure how to address this in my graduate-level humanities course this coming fall. The concept of "authorship" is being fundamentally restructured in a very short period of time (submission to acceptance, 19 days, published in less than 90 - but author is an editor of Journal).

Michael Socolow@michaelsocolow· May 8

"A strange and disturbing shallowness": Did CNN "wreck" television news by 1994? Tom Rosenstiel thought so (cover story in @newrepublic.com) At the time this written, O.J. Simpson's trial was generating +$200 million in profit for CNN. That's why Murdoch started Fox News soon after.

Cover of the New Republic magazine. Written text over a field of cameras and televisions: "Dead Air: How CNN Wrecked Television News" by Tom Rosenstiel.

The final paragraph of Tom Rosenstiel's aritle in the August 22 & August 29, 1994 edition of The New Republic magazine critiquing CNN for giving "the media a strange and disturbing shallowness."

Michael Socolow@michaelsocolow· May 6

It's difficult to explain in 2026 just how big the cable TV revolution of 1990 - 1995 was. In a year the U.S.A. won a war, Ted Turner was named Man of the Year for making the world smaller. Perot campaign (1992), O.J. Simpson Trial (1994-5) + Fox News (1996) all followed Turner's vision. RIP.

Cover of Time Magazine in January, 1991, with CNN's Ted Turner: History as it happens on it. Turner's head is in a graphic with the world around it. Man of the Year is written above Time

Michael Socolow@michaelsocolow· Apr 21

Kudos to the @centralmenewsbot.bsky.social team for this amazingly Maine-centric headline last week.

Morning Sentinel newspaper with headline: "Lobster Turf War on Maine's Coast Has Been Simmering to a Low Boil"

Michael Socolow@michaelsocolow· Apr 14

I just used my university's subscription version of Google Gemini (which we're encouraged to use) for a very simple task: Go through a dissertation and let me know if all in-text citations appear in the references list. We went around several times. Worse than useless. Time-wasting and frustrating.

Michael Socolow@michaelsocolow· Mar 31

Paramount Skydance stock price: -33% in the last month. -52% in previous six months. If it wasn't owned by a nepo baby with a billionaire father who's one of the richest people on the planet, it'd be in real trouble and the WB-Discovery purchase wouldn't conclude.

Michael Socolow@michaelsocolow· Mar 27

Kudos to my local newspaper, @bangordailynews.bsky.social for making local impact(s) of the Iran War clear to every Mainer.

Picture of the front page of the Bangor Daily News with the headline: "The Iran War is Causing Road Paving Problems in Maine"

Michael Socolow@michaelsocolow· Mar 21

I think these are some of the earliest images of CBS News in existence? I screenshoted them from Ted Husing's book "Ten Years Before The Mic" (1935). They show Husing covering the 1928 political conventions. At the time, CBS was less than one year old.

Michael Socolow@michaelsocolow· Mar 4

If you're in the Orono area, I'll be moderating the Q-and-A following the Marcus Urann Lecture by University of Maine President Dr. Joan Ferrini-Mundy tomorrow (Thursday). Come join us!

Poster for the Marcus Urann Lecture at the University of Maine. Titled: "More than Learners: Students as Makers of the University of Maine" it will be delivered by University of Maine President Dr. Joan Ferrini-Mundy on Thursday, March 5, 2026 from 4:00 to 5:00 pm in the Minsky Recital Hall on campus.

Michael Socolow@michaelsocolow· Feb 22

What makes the Olympic Games irresistable broadcast entertainment? My book's concluding paragraph about how the Olympic experience is simultaneously deeply personal + global. You're watching people's lives being transformed through incredible achievement... live, as it occurs.

Michael Socolow@michaelsocolow· Feb 16

I'm quoted in @bostonglobe.com on Trump's media stratgies. www.bostonglobe.com/2026/02/15/b...

Michael Socolow@michaelsocolow· Feb 16

Look at the last sentence of his bio at the Plain Dealer website: "He received by journalism degree at Temple University." www.cleveland.com/staff/cquinn/

Biography of Chris Quinn, Editor, Cleveland.com/The Plain Dealer. Has typo in last sentence, which reads: "He received by journalism degree at Temple University."

Michael Socolow@michaelsocolow· Feb 6

One of the greatest American hockey players of the 20th century - first American to win an Olympic medal and the Stanley Cup - is largely forgotten. He was forced to pass as white [he was Ojibwe] and was blacklisted from the NHL for fighting for dignity of labor. theconversation.com/clarence-taf...

Cartoon from 1929 Rochester Democrat and Chronicle shows Taffy Abel, hockey player for the New York Rangers. Inset is a smaller cartoon of an elephant skating and text reads: "Impression of Taffy trampling down the ice in all of his elephantine grace."

Cartoon from Collier's Weekly in 1948 showing a crowd of hockey players being pushed into a goal with a story below it about Taffy Abel pushing 2 players and the puck into a goal.

Michael Socolow@michaelsocolow· Jan 26

The carved cedar transformation mask created by the Kwakwaka’wakw people of British Columbia that provided the original inspiration for the Seattle Seahawks logo... ... resides in the Hudson Museum at the University of Maine. umaine.edu/news/2025/09...

image of a ceremonial carved cedar transformation mask created by the Kwakwaka’wakw people of British Columbia.

Michael Socolow@michaelsocolow· Jan 25

It's a descriptive case study analysis (as per Yin, 2003), in which theory is deduced from the case studies. Boy, did this theory ever pan out. Now it's being proven daily.

Text: "Theory One would seem to sugest that online video may function as a counterbalance to police manipulation of official documentation. This possibility has significant implications for police accountability, particularly Fourth Amendment protections against search and seizure and arrest without probable cause. These implications increase the potential value of research that would either affirm or refute the empirical applicability of this theory."

Michael Socolow@michaelsocolow· Jan 22

Look what I found on an old bookshelf: "CBS News Standards" (1999) CBS News President Andrew Heyward's February, 1999 update (Linda Mason oversaw the revisions). The original was written by CBS News President Richard Salant in 1976. Will make interesting reading.

picture of "CBS News Standards" book, in hand.

image of "CBS news standards" book held by a hand.

Michael Socolow@michaelsocolow· Jan 5

Walter Cronkite in 1972: "I don't think [TV viewers] ought to believe me, I don't think they ought to believe Brinkley, or anybody else who's on the air, and I don't think they ought to get all their news from one television broadcast..." Truthful media literacy lesson unavailable in 2025.

Michael Socolow@michaelsocolow· Dec 19

I'm quoted in today's @pressherald.com on the huge amounts of money being poured into Maine's 2026 Senate race already. Many factors, including a competitive Democratic primary and an incumbent with a huge funding base in D.C., are playing a role. www.pressherald.com/2025/12/19/m...

Text from article: "Michael Socolow, a communications and journalism professor at the University of Maine in Orono, said the early spending is driven by many factors, including the state's relatively affordable advertising rates compared to larger markets and the overall competitiveness of the race. "The more compeitive the race, the more money is going to be put into it by both parties," Socolow said. "If you look at the national map, picking out the really compeitive places is getting harder and harder, and that's why somebody's coming into Maine."

Michael Socolow@michaelsocolow· Dec 17

There's far too many @niemanlab.org predictions to wade through. I'd read 10, maybe 15, perhaps 20... but not 127. This point about how journalists must prepare *now* for the possibility of big stories coming in 2026, by Richard Tofel, seems very smart. www.niemanlab.org/2025/12/work...

Text from Richard Tofel's piece at Nieman Lab: "There may come a day, even in 2026, when the President and his cronies seek to impose something like martial law, or to defy a clear final ruling of the Supreme Court, or to prevent the people from exercising their sacred franchise. All of our work in journalism should, in an important sense, be preparing ourselves and those we seek to inform for this moment, both by charting events compellingly, and doing so in a manner that enhances credibility."

Michael Socolow@michaelsocolow· Dec 16

“Pardon me for laughing,” said Michael J Socolow, professor of communication and journalism at the University of Maine. “I don’t mean to be dismissive..." As a legal case, Trump's lawsuit is laughable. But it effectively corners the BBC in a very sensitive political way. I'm quoted in Telegraph