UBC journalism professor Alfred Hermida wins the National Business Book Award for Tell Everyone

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      A popular UBC professor can add another achievement to his résumé.

      Alfred Hermida, an associate professor in UBC's graduate school of journalism, has just been named winner of the National Business Book Award.

      In Tell Everyone: Why We Share and Why It Matters, Hermida explained how social media is expanding how people communicate and the effect that this is having on society, business, and politics in various countries.

      Tell Everyone is not merely a book about Facebook and Twitter. Rather, it explores the history of how humans have shared information, noting that it's been integrally linked to their survival.

      Even in the modern era, he pointed out how Twitter helps people living in the midst of the Mexican drug war figure out the safest traffic routes to reach their destinations.

      "I wanted to take a step back from how shiny technology is and give you an understanding that what has changed is the media environment," Hermida told the Straight last year in an interview about his book.

      Alfred Hermida sums up his book in less than two minutes.

      Tell Everyone also provides useful advice for people to avoid being duped by social-media scams.

      The two other books shortlisted for the National Business Book Award were Clive Veroni's Spin: How Politics has the Power to Turn Marketing on Its Head, and Jacques Poitras' Irving vs. Irving: Canada's Feuding Billionaires and the Stories They Won't Tell.

      Naomi Klein's This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate was one of four other books on the long list of seven finalists.

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