Social Media Study

Despite the high number of programs and their evident popularity, paranormal reality television has to date received little critical attention. Ghost Channels provides an overview of the paranormal reality television genre, its development, and its place in television history. Conducting in-depth analyses of over thirty paranormal television series, author Amy Lawrence suggests these programs reveal much about Americans' contemporary fears.

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.

Misinformation affects us daily, from social media to politics and even personal relationships. Policing social media alone cannot solve the complex problem shaped by partisan politics and subjective interpretations of truth. In Misbelief social scientist Dan Ariely explores the behaviour of 'misbelief' that leads people to distrust accepted truths and embrace conspiracy theories. Misinformation taps into something innate in all of us, regardless of political affiliation. By understanding this psychology, we can mitigate its effects.

Combining the deft social analysis of Where Good Ideas Come From with the optimistic arguments of Everything Bad Is Good for You, New York Times best-selling author Steven Johnson's Future Perfect makes the case that a new model of political change is on the rise, transforming everything from local governments to classrooms, from protest movements to health care. Johnson paints a compelling portrait of this new political worldview.

An intimate and profound reckoning with the changes buffeting the $2 trillion global advertising and marketing business from the perspective of its most powerful players, by the best-selling author of Googled. Advertising and marketing touches on every corner of our lives, and is the invisible fuel powering almost all media. Complain about it though we might, without it the world would be a darker place. And of all the industries wracked by change in the digital age, few have been turned on its head as dramatically as this one has.

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

According to Bernard Goldberg, the media crossed an important line in the 2008 presidential race, moving from their usual unthinking liberal bias to crass partisanship of the crudest kind, practically acting as spin doctors for the presidential campaign of Barack Obama. In A Slobbering Love Affair, his most provocative book yet, Goldberg demonstrates how the media launched an unparalleled effort to ensure the election of the man they regarded as the One.

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.

Humanity is on an astronomical trajectory and according to aerospace professional and popular science communicator Kellie Gerardi, that future doesn’t rest solely on the shoulders of rocket scientists. Gerardi’s non-traditional path in the space industry shows us that humanity’s next giant leap will require the contributions of artists, engineers, and everyone in between. Gerardi takes us on a tour of this unique window in history and offers encouragement and advice for anyone who has ever dreamed of the stars and galaxies far, far away.

Do you ever feel overwhelmed and powerless after watching the news? Does it make you feel sad about the world, without much hope for its future? Take a breath. The world is not as bad as the headlines would have you believe! In You Are What You Read, campaigner and researcher Jodie Jackson helps us understand how our current 24-hour news cycle is produced, who decides what stories are selected, why the news is mostly negative, and what effect this has on us, as individuals and as a society.

From the earthquake in Haiti to the war in Ukraine and the Covid pandemic, José and his team at World Central Kitchen have been at the frontlines, serving more than 200 million meals and counting, and bringing comfort and hope in the darkest times. With its lyrical text, this biography about a world-renowned humanitarian and chef is sure to inspire a new generation of community helpers.

A global exploration of the Internet meme as an agent of pop culture, politics, protest, and propaganda on and offline and how they will save or destroy us all. Using social media-driven movements as her guide, technologist and digital media scholar An Xiao Mina unpacks the mechanics of memes and how they operate to reinforce, amplify, and shape today's politics.

Con humor y espíritu crítico, la periodista Marta García Aller nos sumerge en una búsqueda fascinante de lo que significa ser humano en un mundo incierto dominado por las máquinas. El resultado es un libro imprescindible en el que aparecen todo tipo de testigos de lo inesperado.

One of the basic structures of everyday life, money is at its core a communication media. Payment systems - cash, card, app, or Bitcoin - are informational and symbolic tools that integrate us into, or exclude us from, the society that surrounds us. Examining the social politics of financial technologies, Lana Swartz reveals what's at stake when we pay.

Just as Susan Sontag did for photography and Marshall McLuhan did for television, Virginia Heffernan (called one of the "best living writers of English prose") reveals the logic and aesthetics behind the Internet. Since its inception, the Internet has morphed from merely an extension of traditional media into its own full-fledged civilization. It is among mankind's great masterpieces - a massive work of art. As an idea, it rivals monotheism.

Low-level dishonesty is rife everywhere, in the form of exaggeration, selective use of facts, economy with the truth, careful drafting - from Trump and the Brexit debate to companies that tell us 'your call is important to us'. How did we get to a place where bullshit is not just rife but apparently so effective that it's become the communications strategy of our times? This brilliantly insightful book steps inside the panoply of deception employed in all walks of life and assesses how it has come to this.

In A Pair of Silk Stockings, Mrs. Sommers, a once wealthy woman who has fallen on hard times comes into possession of a small fortune of $15. Planning to spend the money on clothing for her children, she becomes sidetracked at a shop counter, entranced by the smoothness of a pair of silk stockings. She goes on to spend the money on the stockings as well as new boots and gloves for herself.

A smart, lively history of the Internet free culture movement and its larger effects on society - and the life and shocking suicide of Aaron Swartz, a founding developer of Reddit and Creative Commons - from Slate correspondent Justin Peters.

As consumers of art, and especially as fans, we have a host of tricky moral question to navigate: do the moral lives of artists affect the aesthetic quality of their work? In Drawing the Line, Erich Hatala Matthes argues that it doesn't matter whether we can separate the art from the artist, because we shouldn't. Matthes argues both that the lives of artists can play an important role in shaping our moral and aesthetic relationship to the artworks that we love and that these same artworks offer us powerful resources for grappling with the immorality of their creators.

In The Exception to the Rulers, award-winning journalists Amy and David Goodman expose the lies, corruption, and crimes of the power elite, an elite bolstered by large media conglomerates. Her goal is “to go where the silence is, to give voice to the silenced majority.” This audiobook includes numerous archival audio excerpts, including statements from filmmaker Michael Moore, civil liberties victims describing their harrowing ordeals in the United States after 9/11, and more.