Showing results for "Digital Media" in Popular Culture

The stuff of conspiracy theories makes for great, entertaining stories in movies, books, and television. And there is no shortage of subjects: from who really killed JFK to the truth behind 9/11. And then, there are subjects from alien invasions to the Moon landing was simulated - theories that are truly out of this world, which according to some, is flat. Many of these crazy concepts have jumped off the pages or screens to become so pervasive in our culture that thousands - even millions - subscribe to them as reality.

A different kind of politics for a new kind of society - beyond work, scarcity, and capitalism.

From the author of the New York Times bestseller Mind Wide Open comes a groundbreaking assessment of popular culture as it's never been considered before: through the lens of intelligence.Forget everything youâ€ve ever read about the age of dumbed-down, instant-gratification culture. In...

UAE - Culture Smart! will help you turn your visit - whether it's for business or pleasure - into a memorable and enriching experience. Its contents include: local customs and traditions; the impact of history, religion, and politics; the Emiratis at home, work, and play; eating and drinking, Emirati style; dos, don'ts, and taboos; business practices; communication, spoken and unspoken; and many practical tips for managing the unexpected.

Possessing no supernatural powers, Batman is the most realistic of all the superheroes. His feats are achieved through rigorous training and mental discipline, and with the aid of fantastic gadgets. Drawing on his training as a neuroscientist, kinesiologist, and martial artist, E. Paul Zehr explores the question: Could a mortal ever become Batman? Zehr discusses the physical training necessary to maintain bad-guy-fighting readiness while relating the science underlying this process, from strength conditioning to the cognitive changes a person would endure in undertaking such a regimen.

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.

From Brut and Paradiso Media comes a weekly deep dive into the ongoing trends and stories that matter to everyday life, from sex to politics to social media.

Explore the world of names: What is something that literally everything in existence has in common? It all has a name! With this audiobook, you can learn the origins of these names. From countries and cities to toys and animals to even planets, learn the etymology of interesting words in a fun and entertaining way. Learn new things: Why is New York called New York? Name Explain has the answer for you.

Many Disney films adapt works from the Victorian period, which is often called the Golden Age of children's literature. Animating the Victorians: Disney's Literary History explores Disney's adaptations of Victorian texts like Alice in Wonderland, Oliver Twist, Treasure Island, Peter Pan, and the tales of Hans Christian Andersen.

It seems like we can't talk about anything nowadays. Whether it's war or something utterly inconsequential, the internet is primed for furor. And the results can be horrifying—from online pile ons and doxing to job loss and, in some cases, death. But how did we end up here?

Comic Book Women offers a feminist history of the golden age of comics, revising our understanding of how numerous genres emerged and upending narratives of how male auteurs built their careers. Considering issues of race, gender, and sexuality, the authors examine crime, horror, jungle, romance, science fiction, superhero, and Western comics to unpack the cultural and industrial consequences of how women were represented across a wide range of titles by publishers like DC, Timely, Fiction House, and others.

In this incisive new work, Adrian Daub analyzes the global spread of cancel culture discourse as a moral panic, showing that, though its object is fuzzy, talk of cancel culture in global media has become a preoccupation of an embattled liberalism. There are plenty of conservative voices who gin up worries about cancel culture to advance their agendas. But more remarkable perhaps is that it is centrist, even left-leaning, media that have taken up the rallying cry and really defined the outlines of what cancel culture is supposed to be.

The Color Pynk is a passionate exploration of Black femme poetics of survival. Sidelined by liberal feminists and invisible to mainstream civil rights movements, Black femmes spent the Trump years doing what they so often do best: creating politically engaged art, entertainment, and ideas. In the first full-length study of Black queer, cis-, and trans-femininity, Omise'eke Natasha Tinsley argues that this creative work offers a distinctive challenge to power structures that limit how we color, gender, and explore freedom.

We are surrounded by emoji. They appear in politics, movies, drug deals, our sex lives, and more. But emoji's impact has never been explored in full. In this rollicking tech and pop culture history, Keith Houston follows emoji from its birth in 1990s Japan, traces its Western explosion in the 2000s, and considers emoji's ever-expanding lexicon. Named for the world's most popular pictogram, Face with Tears of Joy tells the whole story of emoji for the first time.

In The Wicked Witch of the West: The Enduring Legacy of a Feminist Icon, Lona Bailey explores the radical feministic undertones of one of the most enduring characters in popular culture. This book traces her transformation over the past century, highlighting how she has evolved through countless adaptations from The Wizard of Oz to the film adaptation of Wicked while maintaining her core identity as a powerful, defiant figure.

There’s no doubt that technology has made it easier to communicate. It’s also easier to shut someone out when we are confronted with online discourse. Why bother to understand strangers - or even acquaintances - when you can troll them, block them, or just click “Unfriend” and never look back? However briefly satisfying that might be, it’s also potentially eroding one of our most human traits: empathy.

Gen X is the “forgotten generation.”

Author Finn Brunton reveals how technological utopians and political radicals created experimental money to bring about their visions of the future: protecting privacy or bringing down governments, preparing for apocalypse or launching a civilization of innovation and abundance that would make its creators immortal. Filled with marvelous characters, stories, and ideas, Digital Cash is an engaging and accessible account of the strange origins and remarkable technologies behind today’s cryptocurrency explosion.

Anyone who observes the skyrocketing number of incendiary political opinion shows on television and radio might conclude that political vitriol on the airwaves is fueled by the increasingly partisan American political system. But in The Outrage Industry Jeffrey M. Berry and Sarah Sobieraj show how the proliferation of outrage says more about regulatory, technological, and cultural changes, than it does about our political inclinations.

Contemporary cultural style boosts transparency and instantaneity. These are values absorbed from our current economic conditions of disintermediation: cutting out the middleman. Like Uber, but for art. Immediacy names this style to make sense of what we lose when the contradictions of twenty-first-century capitalism demand that aesthetics negate mediation. Surging realness as an aesthetic program synchs with the economic imperative to intensify circulation when production stagnates. Flow is the ultimate twenty-first-century buzzword, but speedy circulation grinds art down to the nub.