Showing titles in Media Studies

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of How to See the World, A Pelican Book, by Nicholas Mirzoeff, read by Jonathan Keeble. In recent decades, we have witnessed an explosion in the number of visual images we encounter, as our lives have become increasingly saturated with screens. From Google...

In the tradition of Neil Postman's masterpiece Amusing Ourselves to Death, Audience of One shows how American media have shaped American society and politics, by interweaving two crucial stories. The first story follows the evolution of television from the three-network era of the 20th century, which joined millions of Americans in a shared monoculture, into today's zillion-channel, internet-atomized universe, which sliced and diced them into fractious, alienated subcultures. The second story is a cultural critique of Donald Trump. 

Kitty Wandsworth pledges to restore the truth in this factual analysis of the press coverage of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, examining the period between their star-studded wedding to the day they fled Britain for the haven of North America. This unemotional and statistically-based work shows that, although there were waves of negative coverage, this was largely driven by key decisions made by the royal pair, and was a reaction to their unpopular actions rather than due to systemic racism.

Drugs as Weapons Against Us meticulously details how a group of opium-trafficking families came to form an American oligarchy and eventually achieved global dominance. This oligarchy helped fund the Nazi regime and then saved thousands of Nazis to work with the Central Intelligence Agency. CIA operations such as MK-Ultra pushed LSD and other drugs on leftist leaders and left-leaning populations at home and abroad.

This is a guidebook on world control and management, a program that Wells believed should be orchestrated (and would be successful) through what he called the "Open Conspiracy". This conspiracy is fully outlined in this work and is designed to be run by many separate organizations working together, as opposed to being run by just one group. Is this required for the world's most powerful people? Maybe it is. Or maybe it should be. Wells was a visionary and genius whose work should be paid attention to.

What really happened to TWA 800? On the 20th anniversary of the crash, author Jack Cashill reveals shocking new evidence. TWA Flight 800 crashed into the Atlantic shortly after takeoff from JFK Airport on July 17, 1996, killing all 230 passengers onboard. Although initial reports suggested a terrorist attack, FBI and NTSB investigators blamed a fuel-tank explosion. But skeptics have long questioned the official story, and new evidence has surfaced that suggests a widespread conspiracy.

What is new about how teenagers communicate through services such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram? Do social media affect the quality of teens' lives? In this eye-opening book, youth culture and technology expert danah boyd uncovers some of the major myths regarding teens' use of social media. She explores tropes about identity, privacy, safety, danger, and bullying. Ultimately, boyd argues that society fails young people when paternalism and protectionism hinder teenagers' ability to become informed, thoughtful, and engaged citizens through their online interactions.

From the author of #1 New York Times bestseller American Tragedy. Nothing written about the death of JonBenet Ramsey can possibly prepare the listener for the revelations in this audiobook. Here, acclaimed writer Lawrence Schiller reveals for the first time the uncensored true story of the...

This groundbreaking book documents how digital platforms and technology companies based in the United States support the Israeli settler-colonial project through censorship. Terms of Servitude explores the paradox whereby prominent digital platforms like Meta, Google, and X that initially...

In his 1988 CBC Massey Lecture, Noam Chomsky inquires into the nature of the media in a political system where the population cannot be disciplined by force and thus must be subjected to more subtle forms of ideological control. Specific cases are illustrated in detail, using the U.S. media primarily but also media in other societies.

Funny Boy: The Richard Hunt Biography tells the life story of a gifted performer whose gleeful irreverence, sharp wit, and generous spirit inspired millions. Richard Hunt was one of the original main five performers in the Muppet troupe. He brought to life an impressive range of characters on The Muppet Show, Sesame Street, Fraggle Rock, and various Muppet movies, everyone from eager gofer Scooter to elderly heckler Statler, groovy girl Janice to freaked-out lab helper Beaker, even early versions of Miss Piggy and Elmo.

From a longtime Vanity Fair writer and editor, a delightfully entertaining, intelligent, and illuminating history and tribute to teen movies—from Rebel Without a Cause to Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and on to John Hughes, Mean Girls, The Hunger Games, and more. What influence did Francis...

Virus of the Mind is the first popular work devoted to the science of memetics, a controversial new field that transcends psychology, biology, anthropology, and cognitive science. Memetics is the science of memes, the invisible but very real DNA of human society. Here, the author carefully...

You need to know that, in the 21st century, the military fabricates terror events to scare the populace into increasing their budget. This practice has only assumed center stage in recent times, since the 9/11 event. These events consolidate right-wing government and are used to demonize an innocent party which receives the blame, usually Muslims.

Shadowland soberly and frighteningly exposes occult influences hidden within Washington's Deep State and modern culture. From Jeffrey Epstein to the Clintons—from Obama and Biden to the Occult Elite—Dr. Thomas Horn uncovers terrifying realities animating from today's polarized culture and the energies operating behind the contest for dominance over values, beliefs, and religious practices.

We are never really taught how to make sense of the torrent of news we face every day, writes Alain de Botton (author of the best-selling The Architecture of Happiness), but this has a huge impact on our sense of what matters and of how we should lead our lives. In his dazzling new book, de Botton takes twenty-five archetypal news stories - including an airplane crash, a murder, a celebrity interview and a political scandal - and submits them to unusually intense analysis with a view to helping us navigate our news-soaked age.

Brought to yoy by Penguin. The average person sees about 10,000 commercial visuals a day. Yet, research shows we can only process about 1% of the visual information we encounter. If a picture is worth a thousand words, where does this excess leave us? In The Visual Detox, art expert and...

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.

Do you have a neighbor or, heaven forbid, friend or family member, who regularly spews utter nonsense in your direction along the lines of their government being out to chip them or that a quack aromatherapy pill like vitamin D might save lives from Covid? Or perhaps you have been accosted by a random conspiracy theorist in the street who adamantly believes that everyone should add horse-dewormer to their morning coffee or that lockdowns aren’t the pinnacle of scientific acumen that they clearly are and that whoever invented them should obviously win a Nobel Prize?

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.