Showing titles in Media Studies

Napoleon famously observed that "history is a set of lies agreed upon", and Edward Steers Jr. investigates six of the most amazing frauds ever to gain wide acceptance in this engrossing book. The controversies that Steers presents show that there are two major factors involved in the success of a hoax or forgery - greed and the desire to believe.

Fake News: Falsehood, Fabrication and Fantasy in journalism examines the causes and consequences of the "fake news" phenomenon now sweeping the world’s media and political debates. Drawing on three decades of research and writing on journalism and news media, the author engages with the fake news phenomenon in accessible, insightful language designed to bring clarity and context to a complex and fast-moving debate.

Conspiracy theories have always been around. Some are benign, while others are more sinister and seek to create rampant social disorder and chaos. QAnon is the latter. Gaining a foothold in recent years, it is said to have infiltrated the highest political offices. What has accelerated its pervasiveness is the effectiveness of modern communication methods, including social media.

Almost forty years ago, Neil Postman argued that television had brought about a fundamental transformation to democracy. By turning entertainment into our supreme ideology, television had recreated public discourse in its image and converted democracy into show business. In Trolling Ourselves to Death, Jason Hannan builds on Postman's classic thesis, arguing that we are now not so much amusing, as trolling ourselves to death. Contrary to the popular view of the troll as an exclusively anonymous online prankster, Hannan asserts that trolls have emerged from the cave, so to speak.

In our "wireless" world it is easy to take the importance of the undersea cable systems for granted, but the stakes of their successful operation are huge, as they are responsible for carrying almost all transoceanic Internet traffic. In The Undersea Network, Nicole Starosielski follows these cables from the ocean depths to their landing zones on the sandy beaches of the South Pacific, bringing them to the surface of media scholarship and making visible the materiality of the wired network.

Social worker, activist, and cultural commentator Feminista Jones explores how Black women are changing culture, society, and the landscape of feminism by building digital communities and using social media as powerful platforms. As Jones reveals, some of the best-loved devices of our shared social media language are a result of Black women’s innovations, from well-known, movement-building hashtags (#BlackLivesMatter, #SayHerName, and #BlackGirlMagic) to the now ubiquitous use of threaded tweets as a marketing and storytelling tool.

Gary Webb had an inborn journalistic tendency to track down corruption and expose it. For over thirty-four years, he wrote stories about corruption from county, state, and federal levels. He had an almost magnetic effect to these kinds of stories, and it was almost as if the stories found him. It was his gift, and, ultimately, it was his downfall.

In this second Flat Earth Clues book, Mark delves deeper into the conspiracy and looks at some of the key players (love 'em or hate 'em) that are involved in and associated with the struggle. This audiobook is read by the author and covers a range of issues from how we got here (in the Flat Earth struggle) and friends of the family to enemies of the state. It's an easy, informative listen which will (no doubt) leave you wanting to know more. Remember - do your own research, and sharing is caring!

Facebook, Google, X (Twitter) & Co., die "Big Tech" genannten IT-Riesen aus dem Silicon Valley, glauben, die Kommunikationsstandards von Milliarden Menschen über ihre Richtlinien und Standards vorschreiben zu können. Diese Anmaßung erfolgt ohne jede demokratische Legitimation. Durch ihre geradezu monopolistische Stellung bestimmen sie die Rahmenbedingungen öffentlicher Kommunikation. Mit dramatischen Konsequenzen: tausendfacher Rechtsbruch, digitale Massenvernichtung freier Rede und drastische Eingriffe in die Meinungsfreiheit sind die Folge.

Early one morning in the summer of 1999, authorities in the tiny West Texas town of Tulia began a roundup of suspected drug dealers. By the time the sweep was done, over 40 people had been arrested and one of every five black adults in town was behind bars, all accused of dealing cocaine to the same undercover officer, Tom Coleman.

In I Wear the Black Hat, Klosterman questions the very nature of how modern people understand the concept of villainy. What was so Machiavellian about Machiavelli? Why don't we see Batman the same way we see Bernhard Goetz? Who's more worthy of our vitriol - Bill Clinton or Don Henley? What was O.J. Simpson's second-worst decision? Masterfully blending cultural analysis with self-interrogation and limitless imagination, I Wear the Black Hat delivers perceptive observations on the complexity of the anti-hero.

Journalists today are inundated with data about which stories attract the most clicks, likes, comments, and shares. These metrics influence what stories are written, how news is promoted, and even which journalists get hired and fired. Do metrics make journalists more accountable to the public? Or are these data tools the contemporary equivalent of a stopwatch wielded by a factory boss, worsening newsroom working conditions and journalism quality?

The year is 1997, Michael Soussan, a fresh-faced young graduate takes up a new job at the U.N.'s Oil-for-Food program, the largest humanitarian operation in the organization's history. His mission is to help Iraqi civilians survive the devastating impact of economic sanctions that were imposed following the 1990 invasion of Kuwait. As a gaffe-prone novice in a world of sensitive taboos, Soussan struggles to negotiate the paranoia of his boss and the inner workings of one of the world's notoriously complex bureaucracies.

Because we are continuously taking in information from a variety of sources, we are under constant threat from those who would intentionally (or accidentally) misinform - from foreign operatives, advertisers, politicians, and general scammers to our own friends and family. To better prepare you, IREX (International Research & Exchanges Board) has teamed up with The Great Courses to provide a guide for navigating this tricky landscape with this eight-lecture course designed to arm you with the skills you need to be a savvy media consumer.

Were the government actions at Ruby Ridge and Waco "planned executions"? Has the national debt been deliberately increased to give international bankers control over the country? Is there a secret organization of top political, economic, military, and religious leaders whose goal is to control the entire planet?

When a murderous psychopath goes on a killing spree, law enforcement officials and the media never make his religion the central issue - unless he happens to be a Muslim. Then it sets off another frenzied wave of commentary about the inherent evils that lurk within the Muslim faith. From Fox News talking heads, who regularly smear Muslim leaders as secret terrorists, to Bill Maher, who has made Islam a routine target, it has become widely acceptable to libel a religion with a following of over 1.5 billion people.

Journalist, doctor, professor, and CDC-trained disease detective Seema Yasmin, driven by a need to set the record straight, dissects some of the most widely circulating medical myths and pseudoscience. Exploring how epidemics of misinformation can spread faster than microbes, Dr. Yasmin asks why bad science is sometimes more believable and contagious than the facts.

You are not living on a tilting, wobbling, spinning oblate spheroid with bendy oceans and upside-down people in Australia! Earth is a level motionless plane with the sun, moon, and stars revolving over and around us, just as you experience every day. 200 Proofs Earth Is Not a Spinning Ball is a concise introduction to the many scientific evidences people can test for themselves to prove the true shape and motion of the Earth.

In the age of Trump, our society is defined by fear. Indeed, three out of four Americans say they feel more fearful today than they did only a couple decades ago. But are we living in exceptionally perilous times? In his best-selling work The Culture of Fear, sociologist Barry Glassner demonstrates it is our perception of danger that has increased, not the actual level of risk.

Pedogate Primer is a concise intro and overview of a growing child abuse epidemic worldwide. Pedogate Primer delves into material that for many may seem like the stuff of conspiracy theory. For this reason the book draws on academic sources, declassified documents and other reliable sources and steers clear of conjecture. Such shocking, true stories need no embellishment.