Decoding News Sources: Credible, Fake, or Click-Bait?: Books

This book examines how social media and modern communication methods are isolating users socially, jeopardizing their intellectual habits, and, as a result, decreasing their chances of achieving social and professional success.

We are bombarded with more information each day than our brains can process--especially in election season. It's raining bad data, half-truths, and even outright lies. New York Times bestselling author Daniel J. Levitin shows how to recognize misleading announcements, statistics, graphs, and written reports revealing the ways lying weasels can use them.

Investigating numerical misinformation, Daniel Levitin shows how mishandled statistics and graphs can give a grossly distorted perspective and lead us to terrible decisions.

It’s Not News, It’s Fark is Drew Curtis’s clever examination of the state of the media today and a hilarious look at the go-to stories mass media uses when there’s just not enough hard news to fill a newspaper or a news broadcast.

The title in the Introducing Issues with Opposing Viewpoints Series examines the facets of media bias: is it real; does it matter; is it polarized into liberal and conservative issues; does big business play a part; and how does it affect society as a whole?

Incorporating anecdotes from today’s headlines alongside case studies from over 30 years as a nationally prominent diversity consultant, Ross helps readers understand how unconscious bias impacts our day-to-day lives and particularly our daily work lives.

From the invention of scripts and alphabets to the long-misunderstood talking drums of Africa, Gleick tells the story of information technologies that changed the very nature of human consciousness.

Steyer examines how we have allowed media to bombard our children's lives and he offers practical advice on countering the incessant parade of images that frighten, intrigue, and influence America's kids.

The carefully selected collection of case studies in Making Sense of Social Problems is designed to help students understand and critically evaluate a wide range of contemporary social issues.

"No Questions Asked" takes an overarching view of media coverage from the day of the 9/11 attacks through the war in Iraq.

An essential guide for anyone who conducts research on the internet—including librarians, teachers, students, business professionals, and writers—this fully revised handbook details what users must know to take full advantage of internet search tools and resources.

Read how a paper, and the world, struggled to find and report the truth of the most disastrous maritime accident in history.

The authors show how a seminar approach can lead students deeper into a text and improve their speaking, listening, and writing skills, as recommended by the Common Core State Standards.

From the papyrus letters that Roman statesmen used to exchange news across the Empire to the advent of hand-printed tracts of the Reformation to the pamphlets that spread propaganda during the American and French revolutions, Standage chronicles the increasingly sophisticated ways people shared information with each other, spontaneously and organically, down the centuries.

In this eye-opening follow-up to her popular 2002 book, Web of Deception, Anne P. Mintz brings together a team of expert researchers, journalists, and subject experts to explain how misinformation is intentionally spread and to illuminate the dangers in a range of critical areas.

Tewksbury and Rittenberg look at the dual role of the internet as a source of authoritative news and as a vehicle for citizens in contemporary democracies to create and share political information.

Innis considers political and economic forces in the context of social change and the role of communication in the creation of both ancient and modern empires.

The Presidency in the Era of 24-Hour News examines how changes in the news media since the golden age of television--when three major networks held a near monopoly on the news people saw in the United States--have altered the way presidents communicate with the public and garner popular support.

This book is full of ballsy commentary from internationally acclaimed super-intellectuals on all of the best Onion articles (indexed for your convenience at the back). You could repeat some of these comments as if you’d just thought of them, at a party or something where everyone suddenly runs out of things to say. Actually, it’s not so much that they’ve run out of things to say as that they’re all thinking of telling Tina that she just called Kyle “Carl” by mistake, but they are too embarrassed (why the fuck is this so embarrassing?) and Tina’s too high to care anyways. Oh, and another selling point about this book is that God has personally recommended it. In fact, He has stated that buying this book (and reading it, but the really important part is buying it) is much less likely to send him into a frenzy of genocidal wrath than anything else you might possibly think of doing. Reached at his Malibu pied-à-terre, His Almightiness commented: “This book makes excellent bathroom reading. I should know. Sometimes I’m in there for a long time” (Associated Press).

This book critically analyses the complex relationship between media and politics, beginning with a discussion of what is meant by the mediating of politics.