AGAINST THE MACHINE: BEING HUMAN IN THE AGE OF THE ELECTRONIC MOB
By Lee Siegel
Spiegel & Grau, 182 pages, $22.95

To read the social critic Lee Siegel’s latest treatise on the deleterious effects of Internet culture is to find oneself exultantly blurting things like “Mmm-hmm!”, “That’s right!” and “Sing it!” Overhearing me ejaculate thusly, my friend Mike said he imagined a bunch of geeky white journalists sitting in a Baptist church, huzzahing a sermon whose highlights included, for example, the declaration that the Internet “has forced traditional news outlets to seek out more and more trivial news,” and that it has “engorged the ‘old’ media with streams of useless information.” Ain’t it the truth, brother!

“But I feel like I read posts about that stuff every day on Romenesko,” said skeptical Mike, referring to the oft-clicked “media news” Web site. (Mike is a sometimes television writer who doesn’t share Mr. Siegel’s tastes in that particular medium.)  read more »