Media Studies Politics

An empowering, forward-thinking solution for creating intentional and healthy social media habits from an expert on media, technology, and health.

In May 1987, Colorado Senator Gary Hart seemed a lock for the party’s presidential nomination and led George H. W. Bush by double digits in the polls. Then, in one tumultuous week, rumors of marital infidelity and a newspaper’s stakeout of Hart’s home resulted in a media frenzy the likes of which had never been seen. Through the spellbindingly reported story of the senator’s fall from grace, Matt Bai, Yahoo News columnist and former chief political correspondent for The New York Times Magazine, reveals the Hart affair to be far more than one man’s tragedy.

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.

From Tallulah Bankhead to Joan Crawford to the Kennedys and Madonna, ultimate insider Liz Smith has hobnobbed, air-kissed, and lunched with just about everybody who's been anybody over the last half-century - and then rushed to tell the world all about it. Now, in this candid, down-to-earth autobiography, she tells all about herself, and does it with the kind of style and warmth that has made her one of the most widely read columnists in history.

Die Tagesschau ist die wichtigste Nachrichtenmarke des Landes. Millionen Menschen informieren sich täglich bei ihr. Doch immer mehr Zuschauende beklagen eine einseitige Berichterstattung: Über die Flüchtlingskrise, die Coronazeit, den Klimawandel oder die Kriege in Gaza und der Ukraine. Alexander Teske hat sechs Jahre bei der Tagesschau die Themen der Sendungen geplant. In seinem Blick hinter die Kulissen zeigt er wie Karrieristen, Machtkämpfe und politische Überzeugungen die Sendung prägen. Teske hinterfragt die Nähe zur Politik, die Rolle der Experten und den Umgang mit der AfD.

Social media connected the world - and gave rise to fake news and increasing polarization. Now a leading researcher at MIT draws on 20 years of research to show how these trends threaten our political, economic, and emotional health in this eye-opening exploration of the dark side of technological progress.

Dr. Tim Groseclose, a professor of political science and economics at UCLA, has spent years constructing precise quantitative measures of the slant of media outlets. He does this by measuring the political content of news, as a way to measure the PQ, or political quotient, of voters and politicians.

Brandscaping is a big, infectious idea - a new marketing methodology that begins with one simple observation: A rising tide lifts all ships. In this groundbreaking book, media and marketing visionary Andrew Davis shows you how to partner with other brands and undiscovered talent to create content that drives demand for the products and services you sell. Davis dishes up dozens of case studies showing how all types of individuals, companies, and brands have tapped into the power of brandscaping to achieve unparalleled success, often using resources already at their disposal.

Why has punditry overtaken news, with so many media outlets pushing partisan agendas instead of information? Comedian Stephen Colbert's catchword "truthiness" has captured something essential about our age: that people are more comfortable with ideas that feel true, even if the evidence for those beliefs is thin.

The biggest crime story in American history began on the night of March 1, 1932, when the 20-month-old son of Charles and Anne Lindbergh was snatched from his crib in Hopewell, New Jersey. The news shocked a nation enthralled with the aviator, the first person to fly solo nonstop across the Atlantic. American law enforcement marshalled all its resources to return “Little Lindy” to the arms of his parents - and perhaps even more energized were the legions of journalists catering to a public whose appetite for Lindbergh news was insatiable.

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.

What’s gone wrong with our media? The answer: its owners. From William Randolph Hearst to Elon Musk, from the British press barons to colonial upstarts Conrad Black and Rupert Murdoch, media proprietors have manipulated the news to accumulate wealth and influence as they meddled with democracy. Eric Beecher knows the news business from bottom to top. He has been a journalist, editor and media proprietor, with the rare distinction of having both worked for and been sued (unsuccessfully) by the Murdochs. This book reveals the distorted role of the media moguls of the past two centuries.

Tackling the complex subject of bias head on, Skewed investigates the hidden messages we absorb from birth. Looking closely at what the research can tell us, Caryn Franklin and Dr Keon West explain how our inner worlds are shaped by false information, media trends, and the brain’s preference for patterns and stereotypes. Exploring biases around gender, sexuality, race, age and appearance, Caryn and Keon explain how bias impacts all of our lives.

This is the story of Farheen Khan and her inspiring voyage as she rose above betrayal, culture, and tradition to live in the present. She will motivate all women to face challenges and reevaluate their purposes in life in order to focus on what matters most.

This audiobook asks us to reconsider "whose global village" we are shaping with the digital technology revolution today. Sharing stories of collaboration with Native Americans in California and New Mexico, revolutionaries in Egypt, communities in rural India, and others across the world, Ramesh Srinivasan urges us to reimagine what the Internet, mobile phones, or social media platforms may look like when considered from the perspective of diverse cultures.

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.

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.

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.

In the nineteenth century, residents of Marblehead, Massachusetts, reported malicious pixies leading them in circles at dusk. In Aroostook County, Maine, elves called lutins exasperated farmers with their mischievous tricks and games. In Uncasville, Connecticut, beguiling creatures emerged for centuries at twilight to collect corn-filled baskets from members of the Mohegan Tribe. And in Harrisville, Rhode Island, a vision of fearful banshees augured death to an Irish seer.

In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Amaranth Borsuk considers the history of the book, the future of the book, and the idea of the book. Tracing the interrelationship of form and content in the book's development, she bridges book history, book arts, and electronic literature to expand our definition of an object we thought we knew intimately. Contrary to the many reports of its death (which has been blamed at various times on newspapers, television, and e-readers), the book is alive.