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20 May 2021 03:52:12 UTC
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78578
Author: Gwendolyn Audrey Foster
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The culture of twenty-first century America largely revolves around narcissistic death, violence, and visions of doom. As people are bombarded with amoral metanarratives that display an almost complete lack of empathy for others on television, in films, and on the internet, their insatiable appetite for excessive pain and routine death reflects an embrace of an endlessly warring culture. Foster explores this culture of the apocalypse, from hoarding and gluttony to visions of the post-apocalyptic world. Table of Contents 1. Disposable Bodies 2. Bunker Mentality 3. Buy Before You Die 4. Embracing the Apocalypse 5. The End of the Future **htmlReview Gwendolyn Audrey Foster writes passionately about the debased media-scape of our death-worshipping culture. She probes into our collective fascination with an Earth without us, even as we continue activities that are sure to lead to yet more ecological devastation and mass extinction. Hoarders, Doomsday Preppers, and the Culture of Apocalypse is not a comforting book, but it is an eloquent call from a voice crying in the wilderness a warning that we ignore at our peril. - Steven Shaviro, Wayne State University In this urgent and important book, Gwendolyn Audrey Foster exposes and explores the multiform obscenities - of violence, wealth, consumption, ownership, avarice, aggression, and more - that infect the politics, businesses, entertainments, and mentalities of todays narcissistic, fear-peddling, death-celebrating culture, shining a laser-sharp spotlight on excesses of sexism, neo-liberalism, speciesism, capitalism, and nationalism in the contemporary media. - David Sterritt, Columbia University Foster explores the excesses of late-capitalist American consumerism her exploration of media representation of gluttony, hoarding, waste, and debt is compelling reading for anyone interested in contemporary popular culture. - Patrice Petro, Professor, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Foster challenges us to confront the apocalyptic narratives of our time in her engaging and thought-provoking book. Through our desire for what she terms apocotainment - the apocalypse as entertainment for the masses - we eagerly digest the mediatized horrors of our planets ecological destruction on screen as we continue to deny it as reality in our own front yards. - Valerie K. Orlando, University of Maryland From the Back Cover In her bookHoarders, Doomsday Preppers, and the Culture of Apocalypse, Gwendolyn Audrey Fostercoins the term apocotainment to describe what looks like a contemporary apocalyptic mentality of American culture.In the book and several articles on the subject, Foster points towards a wide range of recent movies and TV programs on the theme of apocalypse.These include the reality shows -Doomsday Preppers(2012-) andDoomsday Castle*(2013) - which deal with the phenomenon of preppers - that is, people who devote great time and often huge sums of money to prepare for an impending disaster.This includes more or less scientific television series about the Earths evolution after the extinction of humanity, asLife After People(2008-2010) andThe Future Is Wild(2002), where nature regains the planet as well as in Richard JefferiesAfter London.According to Foster, this not only demonstrates an increasing interest in the apocalypse, but also a change in how it is portrayed, a shift from the escapist fantasy of prophecy.Here I think Foster has a point, even if nuclear war movies always been an escapist exception. ---Arbertaren*html
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1 year ago
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25448
Author: Berrin Beasley
File Type: epub
Social media is ubiquitous. From Facebook and Twitter to YouTube, the blogosphere, and Massively Multi-Player Online Role-Playing Games, people have plugged into numerous online venues for social, intellectual, and leisure activities. The pervasiveness of social media calls for ethical reflection, and one of the most pertinent values at stake is that of truth. Current figures estimate there are more than 1 billion social media users worldwide with the ability to connect with people who share similar interests, to present themselves as experts on anything and everything no matter their qualifications, and to contribute the types of factual information formerly limited to professional communication outlets such as news agencies. Its this wide-ranging definition of truth that demands evaluation of the myriad ways social media affect society. This volume does just that by collecting insights from leading experts in the communication and philosophy disciplines as they examine a variety of issues related to the value of truth in the realm of social media.**ReviewIn the blizzard of work on the new social media, this learned book is indispensable. Luminary contributors from philosophy and communications know how to make an argument and clarify ideas. They judge virtual reality by the truth principle, and their smart thinking on it makes this provocative book distinctive. While lucid on social network technologies, the authors teach us that authentic living is central. (Clifford G. Christians, University of Illinois) Berrin Beasely and Mitch Haneys edited book, Social Media and the Value of Truth, involves existential reflection for the 21st century. This collection of essays opens our minds and bodies to think about the nature of truth, experience, the self, and the other in a fast-paced, unreflective, instantaneous, and inescapably deceptive environment of the socially mediated virtual metaverse in which we make our home. This edited volume is a must read for students and scholars interested in understanding our environment philosophically it aims at cultivating phronesis and praxis for living in a complex world driven by social media and where we find ourselves embedded with others. (Annette M. Holba, Plymouth State University) Whereas Socrates and Aristotle desired firsthand peripatetic conversations with the Athenian hoi polloi, members of the contemporary world seemingly prefer to wander the virtual meta-verse as a clandestine avatar unbound by moral or social norms. In Social Media and the Value of Truth, Beasley and Haney have gathered together an outstandingly erudite collection of essays by some of the most cerebral scholars among us. Whether its resistance to shedding our mortally bound coils, a celebration or denunciation of frictionless sharing, or inconspicuous consumption among members of the virtual village, contributing authors have tackled the most captivating questions of our socially mediated time. Ethicists, journalists, sociologists, psychologists, Tweeters, Pinteresters, Tumblrers, Facebook users, Google+ enthusiasts, and even those harboring disdain for all things associated with social media undoubtedly will find the content of this anthology accessible and full of provocative nuggets worthy of serious and extended reflection. (Joseph W. Ulatowski, University of Wyoming) This collection of essays addresses questions raised by social media related to issues such as self-definition and trust. Kathy Richardson argues that a blurring of front-stage and back-stage personas challenges the ability to discern appropriate behavior and information to be shared or kept private. Deni Elliott believes the real name requirement raises questions about responsible information distribution and confidentiality. Paul Bloomfield explores authentic living via participation in multiplayer online games, and concerns about subjugation of real life to the life of ones avatar. Mitchell Haney argues that the speed of social media threatens the ability of persons to engage in life reflection and deliberation about their choices. Vance Ricks argues that social media gossip contributes to information overload and context collapse, preventing seeing information in an appropriate light or for a certain audience. Lee Wilkins discusses liquid journalism, noting that social media users and journalists bring emotion back to the news. Finally, Jane Kirtley discusses trust issues and questions concerning the monitoring of blogs and other forms of social media. This book raises significant questions about a phenomenon--social media--that now is central to peoples lives and culture. Summing Up Recommended. Lower-level undergraduates and above general readers. (CHOICE) About the AuthorBerrin Beasley is associate professor of communication at the University of North Florida. Dr. Beasley works in the areas of media ethics, the medias portrayal of women, and journalism history. Her research has been published in numerous journals and books. Mitchell Haney is associate professor of philosophy and a director of the Florida Blue Center for Ethics at the University of North Florida. Dr. Haney works in the areas of Business Ethics, Ethics of Leisure, and Ethical Theory. His research has been published nationally and internationally. His is the co-editor (with A. David Kline) of The Value of Time and Leisure in a World of Work (Lexington, 2010).
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1 year ago
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application/epub+zip
English