Showing titles in Media Studies

In True or False, former CIA analyst Cindy Otis takes listeners through the history and impact of misinformation over the centuries, sharing stories from the past and insights that listeners today can gain from them. Then, she shares lessons learned in over a decade working for the CIA, including actionable tips on how to spot fake news, how to make sense of the information we receive each day, and, most importantly, how to understand and see past our own information biases so that we can think critically about important issues and put events happening around us into context.

Author Mick West shares over a decade's worth of knowledge and experience investigating and debunking false conspiracy theories through his forum, MetaBunk.org, and sets forth a practical guide to helping friends and loved ones recognize these theories for what they really are. West puts his debunking techniques and best practices to the test with four of the most popular false conspiracy theories today (chemtrails, 9/11 controlled demolition, false flags, and flat Earth) - providing road maps to help you to understand your friend and help them escape the rabbit hole.

Army Wives goes beyond the sound bites and photo ops of military life to bring listeners into the hearts and homes of today's military wives. Biank tells the story of four typical Army wives who, in a flash, find themselves in extraordinary circumstances that ultimately force them to redefine who they are as women and wives.

The true story of a mysterious, dashing stuntman-turned-spy who may have been behind John F. Kennedy's assassination. His name was René Dussaq. He was born in Buenos Aires and educated in Geneva and Cuba. He was a daring WWII paratrooper who parachuted behind enemy lines for dangerous undercover work in support of the French Resistance. He was a handsome, charming man who briefly worked as a Hollywood stuntman. He was also a spy who may have killed John F. Kennedy.

Almost everything about our day-to-day lives - and the broader scheme of human culture - can be found on the Internet. But what is it physically? And where is it really? Our mental map of the network is as blank as the map of the ocean that Columbus carried on his first Atlantic voyage. The Internet, its material nuts and bolts, is an unexplored territory. Until now. In Tubes, Andrew Blum goes inside the Internet's physical infrastructure and flips on the lights, revealing a fresh look at the online world we think we know.

What is paranoia? What makes us mistrustful? How can this be overcome? Daniel Freeman, Professor of Psychology at Oxford, has spent thirty years at the vanguard of paranoia research and treatment. This remarkable and moving book tells the story of that journey. For decades, conventional wisdom held that paranoia was only experienced by people with severe mental health problems and little could be done to rectify its disastrous effects.

The violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, was a terrible day for American democracy, but many people dared to hope that at least it would break the fever that had overcome the Republican Party and banish Trump's relentless lies about the stealing of the 2020 election. That is not what happened. Instead, “the big steal” has become dogma among an ever-higher percentage of American Republicans. What happened to the Republican Party, and America, during the Trump presidency is a story we more or less think we know.

The assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, continues to inspire interest ranging from well-meaning speculation to bizarre conspiracy theories and controversial filmmaking. But in this landmark audiobook, reissued with a new afterword for the 40th anniversary of the assassination, Gerald Posner examines all of the available evidence and reaches the only possible conclusion: Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.

Steven L. Kent has been playing video games since Pong and writing about the industry since the Nintendo Entertainment System. In volume 1 of The Ultimate History of Video Games, he chronicled the industry’s first thirty years. In volume 2, he narrates gaming’s entrance into the twenty-first century, as Nintendo, Sega, Sony, and Microsoft battle to capture the global market.

In an age riven by "fake news," "alternative facts," and disputes over the validity of everything from climate change to the size of inauguration crowds, the authors argue that social factors, not individual psychology, are what's essential to understanding the persistence of false belief and that we must know how those social forces work in order to fight misinformation effectively.

An absolutely essential, not to be missed experience by specialist Edward J. Ruppelt for fans of ufology! This is the first work of any substance written about the fascinating subject of UFOs. Captain Edward J. Ruppelt was the first director of Project Blue Book, and the person who came up with the phrase UFO, Unidentified Flying Object. This work is a unique and comprehensive look at the Air Force's early attempts to investigate UFOs.

On Instagram, the private work of mothering has been turned into a public performance that’s generating billions of dollars, and the message is simple: that we’re all just a couple of clicks away from a better, more beautiful experience of motherhood. Momfluenced examines the performance of motherhood—producers of it and consumers of it—through the multilayered phenomenon of the mommy influencer.

Cultural historian Colin Dickey has built a career studying how our most irrational beliefs reach the mainstream, why, and what they tell us about ourselves. In Under the Eye of Power, Dickey charts the history of America through its paranoias and fears of secret societies, while seeking to explain why so many people—including some of the most powerful people in the country—continue to subscribe to these conspiracy theories.

You are not living on a tilting, wobbling, spinning oblate spheroid with bendy oceans and upside-down people in Australia! Earth is a level motionless plane with the sun, moon, and stars revolving over and around us, just as you experience every day. 200 Proofs Earth Is Not a Spinning Ball is a concise introduction to the many scientific evidences people can test for themselves to prove the true shape and motion of the Earth.

In "Killing Kennedy: Exposing the Plot, the Cover-Up, and the Consequences," author Jack Roth interviews researchers, scholars, eyewitnesses, and family members of those who were part of the tangled web of US intelligence operations associated with the Cold War and the circumstances surrounding the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The author asks important questions, including why the assassination still matters today and what the lasting ripple effects have been since that fateful day.

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, who in his perennial best seller On Killing revealed that most of us are not "natural born killers" - and who has spent decades training soldiers, police, and others who keep us secure to overcome the intrinsic human resistance to harming others and to use firearms responsibly when necessary - turns a laser focus on the threat posed to our society by violent video games.

News is to the mind as sugar is to the body. In 2013 Rolf Dobelli stood in front of a room full of journalists and proclaimed that he did not read the news. It caused a riot. Now he finally sets down his philosophy in detail. And he practices what he preaches: he hasn't read the news for a decade. Stop Reading the News is Dobelli's manifesto about the dangers of the most toxic form of information - news. He shows the damage it does to our concentration and well-being and how a misplaced sense of duty can misdirect our behaviour.

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.

Based on hundreds of hours of research, interviews, and access to exclusive sources and materials, Sandy Hook is Elizabeth Williamson’s landmark investigation of the aftermath of a school shooting, the work of Sandy Hook parents who fought to defend themselves, and the truth of their children’s fate against the frenzied distortions of online deniers and conspiracy theorists.

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?"