Social Media Study

A seminal and controversial figure in the history of political thought and public relations, Edward Bernays pioneered the scientific technique of shaping and manipulating public opinion, which he famously dubbed the "engineering of consent". During World War I, he was an integral part of the US Committee on Public Information, or CPI, a powerful propaganda apparatus that was mobilized to package, advertise, and sell the war to the American people as one that would "Make the World Safe for Democracy".

With all the whiz, bang, pop, and shimmer of a glowing arcade, volume 1 of The Ultimate History of Video Games reveals everything you ever wanted to know and more about the unforgettable games that changed the world, the visionaries who made them, and the fanatics who played them. Starting in arcades then moving to televisions and handheld devices, the video game invasion has entranced kids and the young at heart for nearly fifty years. And gaming historian Steven L. Kent has been there to record the craze from the very beginning.

Crushed by the Romans in the first century A.D., the ancient Druids of Britain left almost no reliable evidence behind. Historian Ronald Hutton shows how this lack of definite information has allowed succeeding British generations to reimagine, reinterpret, and reinvent the Druids. Hutton's captivating book is the first to encompass two thousand years of Druid history and to explore the evolution of English, Scottish, and Welsh attitudes toward the forever ambiguous figures of the ancient Celtic world.

In this eloquent and persuasive book, Neil Postman examines the deep and broad effects of television culture on the manner in which we conduct our public affairs, and how "entertainment values" have corrupted the very way we think. As politics, news, religion, education, and commerce are given less and less expression in the form of the printed word, they are rapidly being reshaped to suit the requirements of television.

In recent years, "white feminism" and girlboss feminism have taken a justified beating. We know that leaning in won't make our jobs any more tolerable and that white women have proven to be, at best, unreliable allies. But in a time of rising fascism, ceaseless attacks on reproductive justice, and violent transphobia, we need to reckon with what Western feminism has wrought if we have any hope of building the feminist world we need.

One of the least understood countries in the world, North Korea has long been known for its repressive regime. Yet it is far from being an impenetrable black box. Media flows covertly into the country, and fault lines are appearing in the government's sealed informational borders. Drawing on deeply personal interviews with North Korean defectors from all walks of life, ranging from propaganda artists to diplomats, Jieun Baek tells the story of North Korea's information underground.

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.

American society has become anti-male. Men are sensing the backlash and are responding. They're dropping out of college, leaving the workforce, and avoiding marriage and fatherhood at alarming rates. The trend is so pronounced that a number of books have been written about this man-child phenomenon, concluding that men have taken a vacation from responsibility. But why should men participate in a system that seems to be increasingly stacked against them?

In an era of increasing social isolation, platforms like Facebook and Twitter are among the most important tools we have to understand each other. We use social media as a mirror to decipher our place in society, but, as Chris Bail explains, it functions more like a prism that distorts our identities, empowers status-seeking extremists, and renders moderates all but invisible.

For as long as queer women have existed, they’ve created gathering grounds where they can be themselves. From the intimate darkness of the lesbian bar to the sweaty camaraderie of the softball field, these spaces aren’t a luxury—they’re a necessity for queer women defining their identities. In A Place of Our Own, journalist June Thomas invites listeners into six iconic lesbian spaces over the course of the last sixty years, including the rural commune, the sex toy boutique, the vacation spot, and the feminist bookstore.

Communication professor and CNN Opinion contributor Kara Alaimo reveals how social media is affecting every aspect of the lives of women and girls—from our relationships and our parenting to our physical and mental well-being. Over the Influence is an audiobook about what it means to live in the world social media has wrought—whether you’re constantly connected or have deleted your accounts forever.

Outside of the progressive academics and activists whose ideology came to dominate the West in the second decade of the twenty-first century, arguably no group influenced public discourse as much as the Intellectual Dark Web.

She signed up for the sisterhood, free cars, and the promise of a successful business of her own. Instead, she ended up with an addiction, broken friendships, and the rubble of a toppled pyramid . . . scheme. Hey, Hun: Sales, Sisterhood, Supremacy, and the Other Lies Behind Multilevel Marketing is the eye-opening, funny, and dangerous personal story of author Emily Lynn Paulson rising to the top of the pyramid in the multilevel marketing (MLM) world, only to recognize that its culture and business practices went beyond a trendy marketing scheme and into the heart of white supremacy in America.

In They Knew, New York Times bestselling author Sarah Kendzior explores the United States’ “culture of conspiracy,” putting forth a timely and unflinching argument: uncritical faith in broken institutions is as dangerous as false narratives peddled by propagandists. Conspiracy theories are on the rise because officials refuse to enforce accountability for real conspiracies.

In Survival of the Richest, Rushkoff traces the origins of The Mindset in science and technology through its current expression in missions to Mars, island bunkers, AI futurism, and the metaverse. In a dozen urgent, electrifying chapters, he confronts tech utopianism, the datafication of all human interaction, and the exploitation of that data by corporations. Through fascinating characters, Rushkoff explains why those with the most power to change our current trajectory have no interest in doing so.

According to the author of this book, we are currently living through the rise of a phenomenon known as "commercial democracy," in which public relations, promotional culture, and the media play a new and vital role. By providing the public with the promise of representation, voice, and agency, commercial democracy results in the formation of new types of social contracts.

Nothing "goes viral". If you think a popular movie, song, or app came out of nowhere to become a word-of-mouth success in today's crowded media environment, you're missing the real story. Each blockbuster has a secret history - of power, influence, dark broadcasters, and passionate cults that turn some new products into cultural phenomena. In his groundbreaking investigation, Atlantic senior editor Derek Thompson uncovers the hidden psychology of why we like what we like.

Welcome to the age of behavioral addiction - an age in which half of the American population is addicted to at least one behavior. We obsess over our emails, Instagram likes, and Facebook feeds; we binge on TV episodes and YouTube videos; we work longer hours each year; and we spend an average of three hours each day using our smartphones. Half of us would rather suffer a broken bone than a broken phone, and Millennial kids spend so much time in front of screens that they struggle to interact with real, live humans.

When NBC decided to move Jay Leno into prime time to make room for Conan O'Brien to host the Tonight show - a job he had been promised five years earlier - skeptics anticipated a train wreck for the ages. It took, in fact, only a few months for the dire predictions to come true. Leno's show, panned by critics, dragged down the ratings - and the profits - of NBC's affiliates, while ratings for Conan's new Tonight show plummeted to the lowest levels in history.

Leaving no headstone unturned, Sacha Coward will take you on a wild ride through the night from ancient Greece to the main stage of RuPaul's Drag Race, visiting cross-dressing pirates, radical fairies, and the graves of the 'queerly departed' along the way. Queer communities have often sought refuge in the shadows, found kinship in the in-between, and created safe spaces in underworlds; but these forgotten narratives tell stories of remarkable resilience that deserve to be heard.