Can real news survive in an era of social media and spin? An updated edition of the "smart, provocative introduction to media and American politics."—Paul Freedman, author of Campaign Advertising and American DemocracyFor over thirty years, News: The Politics of Illusion has not simply reflected the political communication field—it has played a major role in shaping it. Today, the familiar news organizations of the legacy press a...

Coauthored by W. Lance Bennett and Martha S. Feldman, 'Reconstructing Reality in the Courtroom' explains what makes stories believable and how ordinary people connect complex legal arguments and evidence presented in trials to assess guilt and innocence. The explanation takes the core elements of narrative—the who, what, where, when, how, why—and shows how average people who hear hundreds of stories every day use the connections between these elements to assess credibility.A series...

We are facing an unprecedented environmental crisis. How can we communicate and act more effectively to make the political and economic changes required to survive and even thrive within the life-support capacities of our planet?This is the question at the heart of W. Lance Bennett’s much-anticipated book. Bennett challenges readers to consider how best to approach the environmental crisis by changing how we think about the relationships between environment, economy, and democracy....

The Logic of Connective Action explains the rise of a personalized digitally networked politics in which diverse individuals address the common problems of our times such as economic fairness and climate change. Rich case studies from the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany illustrate a theoretical framework for understanding how large-scale connective action is coordinated. In many of these mobilizations, communication operates as an organizational process that may replace or su...

In this book, two titans of social movement scholarship bring together the best current research on the nexus between the local and the global in translating the global justice movement into action at the grass roots, and vice versa. Using recent cases of transnational contention_from the European Social Forum in Florence to the Argentinean human rights movement and British environmentalists, from movement networks in Bristol and Glasgow to the Zapatistas_the original chapters by distingui...

Contesting Media Power is the most ambitious international collection to date on the worldwide growth of alternative media that are challenging the power concentration in large media corporations. Media scholars and political scientists develop a broad comparative framework for analyzing alternative media in Australia, Chile, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Russia, Sweden, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Topics include independent media centers, gay online networks and...

First there was pain, and now there is just... nothing. No one can ever understand the losses I've suffered. A solitary existence that consists of my work and the empty house that serves as a constant reminder of all I have lost.After months of paralyzing emptiness, I turn to The Wicked Horse so I can feel something. Anything, really. Any shred of emotion that will explain why I'm still here. Any justification for why my life was spared and theirs were not.It's all in vain....

t all started with a wedding…Well, three weddings, to be exact. The one that happened, the one that went up in flames, and the one nobody saw coming.Andrew Collings has seen a lot of things living in Vegas. Hell, he’s done a lot of things. But one thing he’s never witnessed is a beautiful brunette, hitchhiking her way into the city, wearing a wedding dress. Until now, that is.Brynne Adams is running away from a broken heart. She expected a lot of t...

I am the most sought after man in The Wicked Horse. Sex is nothing but a game to me and I’m the type that will leave at the end of the night without looking back. Tonight, there is no way I can walk away from the mysterious green-eyed beauty behind the mask of sapphire feathers at the club’s masquerade event.Clearly looking to walk on the wild side, she’s the escape I’m looking for. Unfortunately, I realize too late that I know exactly who she is. And now I’m left to reconcile the ...

Those that truly know August Greenfield, will tell you that I live my life to the fullest. Work hard as part of the team at Jameson Force Security but play just as hard at The Wicked Horse Vegas. I have no regrets about my life.Well, maybe just one.Leighton Hale was my first love and the woman I wanted to spend my life with, but one day she was just gone. Vanished without a trace. Even my extensive contacts as part of the team at Jameson left me empty-handed in my search fo...

Rachel Hart and I are nothing more than teammates. As mercenaries for hire with the elite Jameson Group, we have each other’s backs in the most dangerous of circumstances. But after a mission gone deadly wrong, we do something we’ve never done before. We cross the professional line and take comfort in one another’s arms.One night of passion turns our lives upside down with a pregnancy neither of us expected, and one that Rachel clearly never wanted. But I am a family man through an...

New York Times best-selling author Sawyer Bennett has written her most gripping and poignant tale yet. Provocatively heart-breaking, audaciously irreverent and romantically fulfilling, The Hard Truth About Sunshine exposes just how very thin the line is between a full life and an empty existence.An angry, bitter amputee.An optimist losing her eyesight.A dying kid.A suicidal thief.Four people with nothing in common but their destinat...