Social Media Study

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.

Family Guy and Philosophy brings together low-brow, potty-mouthed, cartoon humor and high-brow philosophical reflection to deliver an outrageously hilarious and clever exploration of one of TVs most unrelenting families. (Okay, its not that high-brow.)

In our "wireless" world it is easy to take the importance of the undersea cable systems for granted, but the stakes of their successful operation are huge, as they are responsible for carrying almost all transoceanic Internet traffic. In The Undersea Network, Nicole Starosielski follows these cables from the ocean depths to their landing zones on the sandy beaches of the South Pacific, bringing them to the surface of media scholarship and making visible the materiality of the wired network.

Cyberspace is all around us. We depend on it for everything we do. We have reengineered our business, governance, and social relations around a planetary network unlike any before it. But there are dangers looming, and malign forces are threatening to transform this extraordinary domain. In Black Code, Ronald J. Deibert, a leading expert on digital technology, security, and human rights, lifts the lid on cyberspace and shows what's at stake for Internet users and citizens.

The idea that journalism should be independent is foundational to its contemporary understandings and its role in democracy. But from what, exactly, should journalism be independent? This book traces the genealogy of the idea of journalistic autonomy, from the press freedom debates of the 17th century up to the digital, networked world of the 21st. Using an eclectic and thought-provoking theoretical framework, the authors analyze the deeper meanings and uses of the terms independence and autonomy in journalism.

In the shadows of global politics, a hidden war is being waged. From disinformation campaigns to economic coercion, subversive tactics are reshaping our world. 'Subversion: The Hidden War - Defending Democracy in the Age of Information Warfare' reveals global powers' covert strategies to destabilize nations and influence public opinion. With insightful analysis and real-world case studies, this book not only exposes the threats but also offers a roadmap for building resilience and protecting the future of democracy—a must-listen for anyone concerned about the integrity of our world order.

Sady Doyle, hailed as "smart, funny, and fearless" by the Boston Globe, takes listeners on a tour of the female dark side, from the biblical Lilith to Dracula's Lucy Westenra, from the T-Rex in Jurassic Park to the teen witches of The Craft. She illuminates the women who have shaped our nightmares: Serial killer Ed Gein's "domineering" mother Augusta; exorcism casualty Anneliese Michel, starving herself to death to quell her demons; author Mary Shelley, dreaming her dead child back to life.

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.

Providing a post-COP26 perspective on the climate emergency, Hothouse Earth: An Inhabitant's Guide acknowledges that it is now practically impossible to keep this side of the 1.5°C dangerous climate change guardrail. The upshot is that we can no longer dodge the arrival of a disastrous, all-pervasive climate breakdown that will come. Bill McGuire explains the science behind the climate crisis, painting a blunt but authentic picture of the sort of world our children will grow old in, and our grandchildren grow up in, a world that we catch only glimpses of today.

High-tech innovations are created at a dazzling speed, and it all points to a world that is getting faster at a dizzying pace. Azeem Azhar knows this better than most. Over the last three decades, he has founded companies bought by Amazon and Microsoft, served as the Economist’s first ever internet correspondent, and created a leading international tech newsletter and podcast, the Exponential View. Now, Azhar offers a revelatory new model for understanding how technology is changing the world.

Mississippi, 1955: 14-year-old Emmett Till was murdered by a white mob after making flirtatious remarks to a white woman, Carolyn Bryant. Till's attackers were never convicted, but his lynching became one of the most notorious hate crimes in American history. It launched protests across the country, helped the NAACP gain thousands of members, and inspired famous activists like Rosa Parks to stand up and fight for equal rights for the first time.

At the turn of the millennium, digital technologies seemed to have immense promise for transforming our society. With these powerful new tools, the thinking went, we would be free to live our best lives, connected to our communities in ways full of infinite potential. A quarter of a century on, this form of utopianism seems like a cruel mirage. So what happened? In Against Platforms, technologist and creator Mike Pepi lays out an explanation of what went wrong—and a manifesto for putting it right.

An unusually sharp look at the way in which the U.S. press and experts have dealt with the crisis in the Middle East and Iran.

Truth: A User's Guide explores how we can guard against the noise of competing truths, in business, in our personal relationships, and within ourselves, but also how we can use them to our advantage. Written with authority and humour, this is an accessible and illuminating narrative that will find a wide audience among listeners in search of understanding why the meaning of "truth" seems to have gone completely haywire.

Virtually anyone who has ever watched a profound movie, a powerful TV show, or read a moving novel understands that entertainment can and does affect us in surprising and significant ways. But did you know that our most popular forms of entertainment can have a direct physical effect on us, a measurable impact on society, geopolitics, the economy, and even the future itself? In You Are What You Watch, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Walter Hickey proves how exactly how what we watch (and read and listen to) has a far greater effect on us and the world at large than we imagine.

This seminal work of nonfiction recounts the new, journalistic mass movement of today. Compiled from more than a decade of investigative reporting, coupled with a vast reference of philosophical research, American Muckraker is the definitive guide of truth-telling in the video age.

What, exactly, is post-truth? Is it wishful thinking, political spin, mass delusion, bold-faced lying? McIntyre analyzes recent examples - claims about inauguration crowd size, crime statistics, and the popular vote - and finds that post-truth is an assertion of ideological supremacy by which its practitioners try to compel someone to believe something regardless of the evidence. Yet post-truth didn't begin with the 2016 election; the denial of scientific facts about smoking, evolution, vaccines, and climate change offers a road map for more widespread fact denial.

In the early 20th century, World War I was the most devastating event humanity had yet experienced. New machines of war left tens of millions killed or wounded in the most grotesque of ways. The Great War remade the world's map, created new global powers, and brought forth some of the biggest problems still facing us today. But it also birthed a new art form: the horror film, made from the fears of a generation ruined by war. From Nosferatu to Frankenstein's monster and the Wolf Man, the touchstones of horror can all trace their roots to the bloodshed of the First World War.

Why are so many of us wrong about so much? From COVID-19 to climate change to the results of elections, millions of Americans believe things that are simply not true—and act based on these misperceptions. In Wrong: How Media, Politics, and Identity Drive Our Appetite for Misinformation, expert in media and politics Dannagal Goldthwaite Young offers a comprehensive model that illustrates how political leaders and media organizations capitalize on our social and cultural identities to separate, enrage, and—ultimately—mobilize us.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the landscape of television began an unprecedented transformation. While the networks continued to chase the lowest common denominator, a wave of new shows, first on premium cable channels like HBO and then basic cable networks like FX and AMC, dramatically stretched television’s narrative inventiveness, emotional resonance, and artistic ambition. Just as the Big Novel had in the 1960s and the subversive films of New Hollywood had in 1970s, television shows became the place to go to see stories of the triumph and betrayals of the American Dream.