Social Media Study

In today’s chaotic world, where the multiplication of information sources creates competing narratives, credibility is the key to winning the war of ideas. This is the reason why governments and corporations resort to astroturfing - creation of ostensibly grassroots movements set up to advance political agendas and commercial campaigns. The democratization of information and polarization of politics offer a perfect storm.

THE EARLY 2000s conjures images of inflatable furniture, flip phones, and low-rise jeans. It was a new millennium and the future looked bright, promising prosperity for all. The internet had arrived, and technology was shiny and fun. For many, it felt like the end of history: no more wars, racism, or sexism. But then history kept happening. Twenty-five years after the ball dropped on December 31st, 1999, we are still living in the shadows of the Y2K Era.

People are now exposed to more information than ever before, provided both by technology and by increasing access to every level of education. These societal gains, however, have also helped fuel a surge in narcissistic and misguided intellectual egalitarianism that has crippled informed debates on any number of issues. Today, everyone knows everything and all voices demand to be taken with equal seriousness, and any claim to the contrary is dismissed as undemocratic elitism.

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 widely acclaimed memoir ("Riveting, moving...a wonderful book" The New York Times Book Review), Katharine Graham tells her story—one that is extraordinary both for the events it encompasses and for the courage, candor, and dignity of its telling.

There is a war on for your mind. We are endlessly confronted by those who would manipulate us – advertisers, pick-up artists, politicians, big tech, cult leaders and many more – even the humble waiter who asks, ‘Still or sparkling?’ All forms of communication are designed to persuade you in some way. Politicians and nudge units manipulate us into agreeing with controversial policies. Adverts tell us to buy lots of this, but none of that. The news tells us what to care about. Charities compete for our support. Social media buffets us with algorithms.

The folklore roots of Christmas under its many other guises (Yule, the Winter Solstice, Saturnalia) is examined in a different, darker light. The Winter Solstice is a time to be afraid. It’s the shortest day of the year, the longest night. In some parts of the world, the sun doesn’t rise at all. It’s dark, and we have to wonder if the sun will ever come back at all. Christmas has always been creepy and with The Fright Before Christmas, you'll see that side. This is a book for everyone who loves a little darkness around the holidays.

Indigenous author Renee Linklater explores healing and wellness in the Indigenous communities on Turtle Island. Drawing on a decolonizing approach, which puts the “soul wound” of colonialism at the center, Linklater engages ten Indigenous health care practitioners in a dialogue regarding Indigenous notions of wellness and wholistic health, critiques of psychiatry and psychiatric diagnoses, and Indigenous approaches to helping people through trauma, depression, and experiences of parallel and multiple realities.

In The Art of the English Murder, Lucy Worsley explores this phenomenon in forensic detail, revisiting notorious crimes like the Ratcliff Highway Murders, which caused a nationwide panic in the early 19th century, and the case of Frederick and Maria Manning, the suburban couple who were hanged after killing Maria's lover and burying him under their kitchen floor. Our fascination with crimes like these became a form of national entertainment, inspiring novels and plays, prose and paintings, poetry and true-crime journalism.

In the years between World War II and the emergence of television as a mass medium, American popular culture as we know it was first created in the bold, pulpy pages of comic books. The Ten-Cent Plague explores this cultural emergence and its fierce backlash while challenging common notions of the divide between "high" and "low" art.

When Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center was first published in 1984, it was welcomed and praised by feminist thinkers who wanted a new vision. Even so, individual audiences frequently found the theory unsettling or provocative. Today, the blueprint for feminist movement presented in this audiobook remains as provocative and relevant as ever. Written in Hooks's characteristic direct style, Feminist Theory embodies the hope that feminists can find a common language to spread the word and create a mass, global feminist movement.

An incisive observer, writer, and participant in today's social movements, Zeynep Tufekci explains in this accessible and compelling book the nuanced trajectories of modern protests - how they form, how they operate differently from past protests, and why they have difficulty persisting in their long-term quests for change.

These presentations on “CURRENT TRENDS IN SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP, A.I AND EMERGING TECH INNOVATIONS FOR NAVIGATING THE DIGITAL AND CIRCULAR JOBS MARKETS “explores the rapidly evolving landscape of modern entrepreneurship, highlighting key technological advances and trends shaping today’s economy. In the 21st century, traditional career paths are being redefined by automation, artificial intelligence (AI), and innovative technologies that are transforming industries across the board. These materials serves as a guide for aspiring entrepreneurs, digital innovators, professionals, and ...

From Aristotle to Wittgenstein and Zizek, 50 Philosophy Classics provides a lively entry point to the field of philosophy. Analyses of key works by Descartes, Schopenhauer, Hegel, Heidegger, and Nietzsche also show how philosophy helped shape the thinking and events of the last 150 years.

Steven L. Kent has been playing video games since Pong and writing about the industry since the Nintendo Entertainment System. In volume 1 of The Ultimate History of Video Games, he chronicled the industry’s first thirty years. In volume 2, he narrates gaming’s entrance into the twenty-first century, as Nintendo, Sega, Sony, and Microsoft battle to capture the global market.

From one of the greatest French philosophers of the 20th century comes a seminal study and critique of propaganda. Taking not only a psychological approach but a sociological approach as well, Jacques Ellul outlines the taxonomy for propaganda and, ultimately, its destructive nature towards democracy. Drawing from his own experiences fighting for the French resistance against the Vichy regime, Ellul offers a unique insight into the propaganda machine.

Clean water, paved roads, public transit, electricity and gas, sewers, waste processing, telecommunication, even the Internet—all this infrastructure is what makes cities work and powers our lives, often seamlessly and silently. Virtually everything we do and consume depends on infrastructure. Yet, most people have no idea how these systems work. How is water treated? How do cities manage rainwater? Why do traffic jams exist? How is electricity generated and distributed? What happens to trash after it is picked up? How does the Internet work?

Women make over 80% of healthcare decisions in the U.S., yet only 4% of all medical research and development is focused on women's health issues. From periods and childbirth to menopause, female pain has been normalized, as society shrugs and says "Welcome to being a woman," instead of coming up with better solutions. But it doesn't have to be this way. In The Vagina Business, award-winning journalist Marina Gerner, Ph.D. takes an eye-opening look at the innovators challenging the status quo to deliver the healthcare solutions women need.

To his successful examinations of some of the most powerful forces in modern life - envy, ambition, snobbery, friendship - the keen observer and critic Joseph Epstein now adds Gossip. No trivial matter, despite its reputation, gossip, he argues, is an eternal and necessary human enterprise. Proving that he himself is a master of the art, Epstein serves up delightful mini-biographies of the Great Gossips of the Western World along with many choice bits from his own experience. He also makes a powerful case that gossip has morphed into a corrosive new-school version.

The Sopranos. Oz. The Wire. Deadwood. The Shield. Lost. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. 24. Battlestar Galactica. Friday Night Lights. Mad Men. Breaking Bad. These 12 shows, and the many more they made possible, ushered in a new golden age of television, one that made people take the medium more seriously than ever before. Alan Sepinwall became a TV critic right before this creative revolution began, was there to chronicle this incredible moment in pop culture history, and along the way changed the nature of television criticism.