Social Media Study

Katharine Jenkins offers an introduction to feminist philosophy, giving the listener an idea of what it is, why it is important, and how to think about it. She explores key topics such as gender oppression, beauty, objectification, and sexuality. Moreover, she considers questions about the relation between the personal and the political, what it is to be a woman, whether there is a distinctive kind of women's knowledge, and what feminist philosophy can bring to our understanding of such aspects of our world as justice, work, and the environment.

As a deafblind woman with partial vision in one eye and bilateral hearing aids, Elsa Sjunneson lives at the crossroads of blindness and sight, hearing and deafness—much to the confusion of the world around her. And she knows how wrong our one-size-fits-all definitions of disability can be. Part memoir, part cultural criticism, part history of the deafblind experience, Being Seen explores how our cultural concept of disability is more myth than fact, and the damage it does to us all.

Melding the long-term history of technology with the latest headlines and findings of computer science and social science, The Efficiency Paradox questions our ingrained assumptions about efficiency, persuasively showing how relying on the algorithms of digital platforms can in fact lead to wasted efforts, missed opportunities, and above all an inability to break out of established patterns. Edward Tenner offers a smarter way of thinking about efficiency, revealing what we and our institutions can learn from the random and unexpected.

Five mysterious billionaires summoned Douglas Rushkoff to a desert resort for a private talk. The topic? How to survive The Event: the societal catastrophe they know is coming. Rushkoff came to understand that these men were under the influence of The Mindset, a Silicon Valley-style certainty that they can break the laws of physics, economics, and morality to escape a disaster of their own making—as long as they have enough money and the right technology.

No one understands these problems (and people) better than Krakauer. He has spent years getting to know the most influential players in the industry and this fascinating book is what he’s learned. But most importantly, Krakauer equips listeners with the crucial tools to sniff out when the press is lying or misleading the people of America in the future—so together, we can bypass them altogether.

With a scientific eye and an empathetic heart, the authors turn conventional perceptions about atheism on their head. They show that atheism need not be reactionary (against religion and God), but rather that it can offer a clear set of constructive principles to live by, which establish atheism as a positive worldview.

In 2018, the Marvel Cinematic Universe finally delivered on something fans had long been waiting for: a feature film with a solo Black superhero. Black Panther introduced viewers to the stunning world of Wakanda and to T'Challa, a young man stepping into his role as king and taking up the mantle of the Black Panther title from his late father. Why Wakanda Matters gives this iconic film the in-depth analysis it deserves under the lens of the latest psychological concepts - as well as delving into the lasting cultural impact of this unforgettable story.

From the moment there was an “online,” there was sex online. The famous test image used by software engineers to develop formats like the jpeg was “Lena,” taken from Playboy’s November 1972 centerfold. Early bulletin boards and multi-user domains quickly came to serve their members sexual musings. Facebook started as a way to rate “hot or not” Harvard co-eds. In fact, virtually every significant development that defines the Internet we know and love (and hate) today came out the meeting of sexuality and technology.

Mythopedia is a fun, fact-filled A-Z treasury of myths inspired by natural events. Bringing together fifty legends from antiquity to the present, this delightfully entertaining book takes you around the world to explore sunken kingdoms and lost cities, accursed mountains and treacherous terrains, and lethal lakes and singing sand dunes, explaining the historical background and latest science underlying each tale.

As World War II approached, the six most powerful media moguls in America and Britain tried to pressure their countries to ignore the fascist threat. The media empires of Robert McCormick, Joseph and Eleanor Patterson, and William Randolph Hearst spanned the United States, reaching tens of millions of Americans in print and over the airwaves with their isolationist views.

As a critic at large at The New York Times, Phillips has written extensively on theater, poetry, and the latest blockbusters—with her love of some of the most popular and nerdy fandoms informing her career. Now, she analyzes the mark these beloved intellectual properties leave on young and adult minds, and what they teach us about race, gender expression, religion, and more. Spanning from the nineties through to today, Nerd is a collection of cultural criticism essays through the lens of fandom for everyone from the Marvel movie watcher to the hardcore Star Wars expanded universe connoisseur.

From Benjamin Franklin's newspaper hoax that faked the death of his rival to Abbie Hoffman's attempt to levitate the Pentagon - pranksters, hoaxers, and con artists have caused confusion, disorder, and laughter in Western society for centuries. Profiling the most notorious mischief-makers from the 1600s to the present day, Pranksters explores how "pranks" are part of a long tradition of speaking truth to power and social critique.

In Man Up, Cynthia Miller-Idriss, a leading expert on extremism, reveals how an epidemic of misogyny—both online and off—and a patriarchal backlash are driving an exponential rise in mass and far-right violence. She also offers essential strategies that all of us—including parents, teachers, and counselors—can use to fight the rising tide of violence, beginning with recognizing the misogyny that pervades our everyday lives.

In The Visual Detox, art expert and businesswoman Marine Tanguy explains how the imagery we see shapes our wellbeing. She gives us new tools to think critically about images, combat information overload and participate more in the visual world around us by engaging with the art and content that improves our day-to-day experiences online, at work, in our homes and in public spaces.

A dangerous and revolutionary philosophy is responsible for the street fires in America. It fuels the actions of Black Lives Matter and Antifa. It invades curricula in public schools and in our military. It is in our churches. You have heard the phrase “white privilege,” the need for “safe spaces” on campuses, and perhaps the tongue-twister “intersectionality.” Behind all of these is an ideology called critical theory, which is a form of cultural Marxism that divides society into the oppressed and the oppressors.

A Thousand Cuts is a candid exploration of one of America's strangest and most quickly vanishing subcultures. It is about the death of physical film in the digital era and about a paranoid, secretive, eccentric, and sometimes obsessive group of film-mad collectors who made movies and their projection a private religion in the time before DVDs and Blu-rays.

Female writers, directors, and producers have radically transformed the television industry in recent years. Shonda Rhimes, Lena Dunham, Tina Fey, Amy Schumer, Mindy Kaling: These extraordinary women have shaken up the entertainment landscape, making it look like an equal opportunity dream factory. But things weren't always this rosy. It took decades of determination in the face of preconceived ideas and outright prejudice to reach this new era.

An urgent account of the revolution that has upended the news business, authored by one of the most accomplished journalists of our time.

Trans woman and screenwriter Tilly Bridges takes you through the trans allegories of the Matrix franchise, with deep dives into The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded, The Animatrix, The Matrix Revolutions, and The Matrix Resurrections, tracking one person’s transition journey—from Thomas Anderson, to Neo… to Trinity. Each movie’s allegory is deeply layered, building from movie to movie, and speaks to a different aspect of trans existence.

At first it seemed like a small story. The royal editor of the News of the World was caught listening to the voicemail messages of staff at Buckingham Palace. He and a private investigator were jailed, and the case was closed. But Nick Davies, special correspondent for the Guardian, knew it didn't add up. He began to investigate and ended up exposing a world of crime and cover-up, of fear and favor--the long shadow of Rupert Murdoch's media empire.