Social Sciences Media Studies

Producing the Acceptable Sex Worker considers how sex work is produced in news media narratives, a site where much of the general public draws its understanding of the industry in the absence of lived interaction with it. Taking New Zealand as a case study, this book considers an emerging discourse of acceptability for some sex workers, primarily those who do low-volume indoor work. Their acceptability is established in comparison with other kinds of sex workers, resulting in a redistribution but not a reduction of stigma.

Disrupters shows what different women in business have done to reach success as they define it. From board members to CEOs to freelancers, the business world is stacked against women because they follow the unspoken rules of business culture made long before women entered the workforce. Tech executive, board member, and angel investor Dr. Patti Fletcher recognizes those rules and then showcases the women who have found success by breaking them.

The crisis that followed the collapse of Lehman Brothers marked the fourth systemic transformation of capitalism since the late 18th century. Capitalism was not destroyed by the crisis, but it was irrevocably changed. This provocative audiobook shows how the forces that precipitated the financial meltdown of 2007-2009 are now creating a new and stronger version of the global capitalist system. This system will continue to be led and shaped by the U.S. if its businesses and politicians play their cards well.

In his final speech "I've Been to the Mountaintop," Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his support of African American garbage workers on strike in Memphis. Although some consider this oration King's finest, it is mainly known for its concluding two minutes, wherein King compares himself to Moses and seems to predict his own assassination. But King gave an hour-long speech, and the concluding segment can only be understood in relation to the whole.

Narratives about decision making are often inadvertently tailored primarily to men. Meanwhile, narratives about women in business overlook decision making or offer advice that is unhelpful and can even backfire. How Women Decide fills this gap. It takes on the very real psychological and cultural obstacles women face, asks how these affect decision making, and suggests practical changes for approaching important choices.

Trans woman and screenwriter Tilly Bridges takes you through the trans allegories of the Matrix franchise, with deep dives into The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded, The Animatrix, The Matrix Revolutions, and The Matrix Resurrections, tracking one person’s transition journey—from Thomas Anderson, to Neo… to Trinity. Each movie’s allegory is deeply layered, building from movie to movie, and speaks to a different aspect of trans existence.

Why are some of the most interesting artists of our time committed to engaging with conflict and exploitation around the world? Beautiful, Gruesome, and True tells the stories of three of them: Amar Kanwar makes riveting films about the destruction of rural India in the drive to extract natural resources. Teresa Margolles creates haunting installations from the traces of crime scenes and drug-related violence in Mexico. The anonymous collective Abounaddara has produced more than four hundred short films chronicling the uprising and civil war in Syria.

Extended reality (XR for short) - which encompasses virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality - is one of the biggest business trends of today. It refers to the use of technology to create more immersive digital experiences that are promising to transform many businesses and industries. In this book, best-selling author, strategic business advisor, and respected futurist Bernard Marr explains the role of XR in providing innovative businesses solutions for companies of varying sizes and across different industries.

Women have made up roughly half of the college-educated workforce for years, and before the onset of the economic crisis of 2020, the gap between the percentage of women and the percentage of men in the labor force was the lowest on record. But women remain underrepresented in positions of power and status. The endurance of these inequalities begs the question: Why haven't we made more progress? Ammerman and Groysberg focus on the pervasive organizational obstacles and managerial actions that create gender imbalance.

What’s coming next for today’s workforce, and the companies behind them? For those eager and willing to adapt, the possibilities are nearly endless, says author Gerard Szatvanyi. Recent advances in technology have led to new trends, and this global transformation holds tremendous potential. Nearly every industry will be impacted, and organizations that set the right vision could benefit from breaking into new markets and creating specialized niches.

With a scientific eye and an empathetic heart, the authors turn conventional perceptions about atheism on their head. They show that atheism need not be reactionary (against religion and God), but rather that it can offer a clear set of constructive principles to live by, which establish atheism as a positive worldview.

Our media environment is in crisis. Polarization is rampant. Polluted information floods social media. Even our best efforts to help clean up can backfire, sending toxins roaring across the landscape. In You Are Here, Whitney Phillips and Ryan Milner offer strategies for navigating increasingly treacherous information flows. Using ecological metaphors, they emphasize how our individual me is entwined within a much larger we, and how everyone fits within an ever-shifting network map.

For today’s teen, being able to communicate clearly in front of an audience is essential. From class presentations to interviews to online videos, an engaging talk can not only inspire and electrify a room, it can change people’s minds, and even change the world. Thank You for Coming to My TED Talk is the definitive guide to public speaking for a teen audience. Drawing from a teen’s day-to-day world - school, extracurriculars, online videos, college admissions procedures, bat and bar mitzvahs, debates, and more - head of TED Chris Anderson shares proven techniques.

A controversial figure in his day, Black Hawk was the leader of the Sauk American Indian tribe in the early 1800s. The son of the tribe’s medicine man, Black Hawk’s exploits as a warrior aided his rise to the status of tribal war leader. Here, Black Hawk chronicles his life as well as the story of his tribe, who were forced from their lands in Illinois during a series of skirmishes with American settlers in what came to be known as the Black Hawk War.

The millions of fans who watch World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) programs each year are well aware of their role in building the narrative of the sport. #WWE: Professional Wrestling in the Digital Age explores the intersections between media, technology, and fandom in WWE's contemporary programming and business practices. In the Reality Era of WWE (2011 to the present), wrestling narratives have increasingly drawn on real-life personalities and events that stretch beyond the story-world created and maintained by WWE.

From Derek Hunter - one of the most entertaining political writers today - comes an insightful, alarming look at how progressives have took over academia, pop culture, and journalism in order to declare everything liberal great, and everything great, liberal. Progressives love to attack conservatives as anti-science, wallowing in fake news, and culturally backwards. But who are the real denialists here? There are three institutions in American life run by gatekeepers that have stopped letting in anyone who questions their liberal script: academia, journalism, and pop culture.

In Enemy of the People, Marvin Kalb, an award-winning American journalist with more than six decades of experience both as a journalist and media observer, writes with passion about why we should fear for the future of American democracy because of the unrelenting attacks by the Trump administration on the press.

Women have been told that being pretty comes at the expense of being taken seriously. If a woman is physically attractive, there is often a presumption that she lacks the substance and smarts necessary to provide leadership. This narrative implies that being pretty and being capable are mutually exclusive. But in Pretty Powerful, Fox News political commentator and legal analyst Eboni Williams rejects that narrative. She says that to accept the false notion that beauty and power are mutually exclusive is to leave an incredibly powerful tool on the table.

Facebook, Google, X (Twitter) & Co., die "Big Tech" genannten IT-Riesen aus dem Silicon Valley, glauben, die Kommunikationsstandards von Milliarden Menschen über ihre Richtlinien und Standards vorschreiben zu können. Diese Anmaßung erfolgt ohne jede demokratische Legitimation. Durch ihre geradezu monopolistische Stellung bestimmen sie die Rahmenbedingungen öffentlicher Kommunikation. Mit dramatischen Konsequenzen: tausendfacher Rechtsbruch, digitale Massenvernichtung freier Rede und drastische Eingriffe in die Meinungsfreiheit sind die Folge.

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.