Social Sciences Media Studies

Taking listeners back to the days of TaB cola, dot matrix printers, and digging through the couch for just one more quarter, Alex Rubens combines his knowledge of the tech industry and experience as a gaming journalist to conjure the wild silicon frontier of the 8-bit ’80s. 8-Bit Apocalypse: The Untold Story of Atari's Missile Command offers the first in-depth, personal history of an era for which fans have a lot of nostalgia.

Andrea Mitchell started her pathbreaking career as the quintessential girl reporter and quickly became one of the first women in broadcast news. She's been labeled a "pushy broad", yet her intelligence, tenacity, and ability to always be "where the action is" have catapulted her to the top of her profession. As one of America's most watched correspondents, Mitchell has regularly shared her observations with millions of television viewers for more than three decades.

Nie war die Gefahr so groß wie heute, die eigenen Wünsche und Träume zu verraten. Der moderne Mensch lebt für die Arbeit, für die Familie oder für den Facebook-Account, aber nicht mehr für sich selbst. Die Medien sagen uns, was wir denken sollen; die Modedesigner, wie wir uns zu kleiden haben; die Arbeitgeber, womit wir den Tag verbringen müssen. Oft sind Burnout und Depression die Folge dieser Angepasstheit.

This year has seen unprecedented scrutiny of Rupert Murdoch’s empire in Britain. But what about in Australia, where he owns 70 per cent of the press? In Bad News, Robert Manne investigates Murdoch’s lead political voice here, the Australian newspaper, and how it shapes debate. Since 2002, under the editorship of Chris Mitchell, the Australian has come to see itself as judge, jury and would-be executioner of leaders and policies. Is this a dangerous case of power without responsibility?

In this thought-provoking and highly listenable book, Robert Mann provides a concise, engaging study of the "Daisy Girl" ad, widely acknowledged as the most important and memorable political ad in American history. Commissioned by Johnson's campaign and aired only once during Johnson's 1964 presidential contest against Barry Goldwater, it remains an iconic piece of electoral propaganda, intertwining cold war fears of nuclear annihilation with the increasingly savvy world of media and advertising.

In Surrounded by Idiots, Mike Gallagher, one of the top radio talk show hosts in America, takes us to the front lines of the unprecedented cultural and political war confronting all decent Americans.

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.

Unlike many celebrities, Winfrey's is an overwhelmingly positive public persona. Here, religion reporter Marcia Nelson explores the spiritual dimensions that are prevalent in all aspects of the Oprah Winfrey media empire. Though Oprah is rarely explicitly religious on her television show or magazine, Nelson points out that there are several major Christian themes that weave through these aspects of her life and work: confession, redemption, healing, mission, forgiveness, and salvation.

Our devices and data are woven into our lives. We can't simply reject them. Margaret Morris argues we need to adapt technology creatively to our needs and values. In Left to Our Own Devices, Morris offers examples of individuals applying technologies in unexpected ways - uses that go beyond those intended by developers and designers. Morris examines these kinds of personalized life hacks, chronicling the ways that people have adapted technology to strengthen social connection, enhance well-being, and affirm identity.

Everyone reads the headlines. Millennials aren’t buying diamonds or saving for retirement. Millennials want cushy jobs handed to them by organizations with futuristic nap pods. Millennials are killing the housing market because they eat too many avocados. The truth is, millennials were raised being told they could do anything if they worked hard, and then they worked hard only to be told the world owes them nothing. Here’s a headline people need to read: Millennials were set up. The tide of young adults standing up for themselves is culminating in massive societal change.

In this truly one-of-a-kind book, the author/narrator - a representative, in extremis, of contemporary American obsession with beauty, celebrity, transmitted image - finds himself suspended, fascinated, in the remoteness of our wall-to-wall mediascape. David Shields reads his own life - reads our life - as if it were an allegory about remoteness and finds persuasive, hilarious, and heartbreaking evidence wherever he goes.

Desde una estrella en ascenso en The New Yorker, una crónica profundamente inmersiva de cómo los empresarios optimistas de Silicon Valley se propusieron crear un internet libre y democrático, y cómo los propagandistas cínicos de la alt-right explotaron esa libertad para impulsar el extremo hacia la corriente principal. Durante varios años, Andrew Marantz, un escritor neoyorquino, ha estado incrustado en dos mundos.

Prostitution in the Digital Age: Selling Sex From the Suite to the Street explores the sex trade in modern times. For those without direct experience with the seamy, real-life world of prostitution, it can be easy to accept the glamorized depictions of the sex-for-sale industry as it is often portrayed in fiction and Hollywood or sensationalized in the media. In reality, the business of sexual exploitation such as prostitution, sex trafficking, pornography, and sex tourism is far from attractive and, in many instances, can be dangerous, if not deadly.

Una serie TV può cambiare la percezione di intere nazioni su tematiche sociali, scientifiche, politiche, relazionali, dando voce a persone che nella nostra società sono ancora invisibili, a cui non viene mai data la parola. Il merito di Marina Pierri è la capacità di mettere insieme mondi che fanno fatica a parlarsi: quello del femminismo intersezionale e quello della psicologia del profondo. In "Eroine", Marina Pierri prende il testimone da una vasta letteratura filosofica, cinematografica e psicologica, e compie un'operazione ancora inedita.

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.

A Thousand Cuts is a candid exploration of one of America's strangest and most quickly vanishing subcultures. It is about the death of physical film in the digital era and about a paranoid, secretive, eccentric, and sometimes obsessive group of film-mad collectors who made movies and their projection a private religion in the time before DVDs and Blu-rays.

Life-long liberal Kirsten Powers blasts the Left's forced march towards conformity in an exposé of the illiberal war on free speech. No longer champions of tolerance and free speech, the "illiberal Left" now viciously attacks and silences anyone with alternative points of view. Powers asks, "Whatever happened to free speech in America?"

In Sit Down and Cheer, Martin Kelner traces the development of this relationship from its humble origins in the 1960 Olympics, by way of the first-ever Match of the Day in 1964, through to the financial impact of Sky, right up to the high-tech gadgetry of our present-day viewing. Insightful and very funny, this is an entertaining exploration of two major national pastimes and not to be missed.

In The Obama Hate Machine, Bill Press returns to show how the Right has taken rhetoric to slanderous new levels in attacking the nation’s forty-fourth president. But presidents have always been attacked like this, right? Wrong. As the author shows, while presidents and presidential candidates have routinely been subject to personal attacks, the outright disdain Obama’s extremist opponents have for the facts has inspired an insidious brand of character assassination unique in contemporary politics.

Research polls, media interviews, and everyday conversations reveal an unsettling truth: citizens, while well-meaning and even passionate about current affairs, appear to know very little about politics. Hundreds of surveys document vast numbers of citizens answering even basic questions about government incorrectly. Given this unfortunate state of affairs, it is not surprising that more knowledgeable people often deride the public for its ignorance.