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In this new and expanded edition of an already classic work, H. Bruce Franklin brings the epic story of the superweapon and the American imagination into the ominous twenty-first century, demonstrating its continuing importance both to comprehending our current predicament and to finding ways to escape from it. 

Sweeping through two centuries of American culture and military history, Franklin traces the evolution of superweapons from Robert Fulton's eighteenth-century submarine through the strategic bomber, atomic bomb, and Star Wars to a twenty-first century dominated by “weapons of mass destruction,” real and imagined. Interweaving culture, science, technology, and history, he shows how and why the American pursuit of the ultimate defensive weapon—guaranteed to end all war and bring universal triumph to American ideals—has led our nation and the world into an epoch of terror and endless war.

War in Pieces considers media representations of the first phase of the “War on Terror,” set between 2001 and 2013. The book argues that the central figures around which narratives of the conflicts cohered—the war journalist, the active-duty service member, the veteran, and the military family—served to mask the loss of the myth of a unified American national identity and embodied the negotiation of cultural anxieties. Offering a theory of narrative figuration that draws into conversation repetitions and differences across media forms (fiction and nonfiction films, television shows, and online videos), this book breaks down how these figures contributed to a continued sense of unified national identity even as different audiences came away with divergent understandings. This book frames these questions in terms of how US media packaged the “War on Terror” for future cultural memory even as the conflicts continued.

What do we see when we look at a battlefield? How do we come to understand environments as battlefields in the first place? What happens to our perception of war when we focus on the physical spaces of conflict? Warscapes is the first collection to pursue answers to such questions by considering the relationship between war, environment, and media along three lines: imagined geographies of control that prefigure environments as spaces of war; representations of resistance to occupation and ecocidal violence; and elemental reframings of archives and cultural memories of war. This book offers novel perspectives on historical conflict environments while also examining how hypothetical spaces of conflict are imagined. Deploying theoretical perspectives gleaned from film and media studies, ecocriticism, environmental history, urban studies, and postcolonial/decolonial studies, among others, authors highlight an international spectrum of 21st-century fiction films and television series, documentaries, and video installations that challenge how we look at war. 

We Are Not South African explores how national identity functions as a colonial tool of communication, control, and power. Author Rachel Lara van der Merwe examines how humans and the planet are integrally shaped by the idea of the nation and speculates on how different sociopolitical imaginaries, instead of the nation, could inform ways of being-together in the world.

Linking national identity to colonialism, the book broadens the idea of the nation to include its impact on all forms of life, human and more-than-human. Van der Merwe builds her argument on three central observations: that nations are made up of conflicting and fractured imaginaries, not unified, cohesive ones; the nation is divisive by nature, tracing back to its colonial origins; and the nation, along with the state, exploits both humans and more-than-humans. In order to build a more just and sustainable planetary society, she argues, liberation from such colonial formations is vital. In response, the book asks, How could we reimagine how we organize our societies through values of relationality and mutual care rather than rigid borders? What sociopolitical imaginaries do we need, or already possess, that might inform new configurations of community?

Rolling Stone's #1 Music Book of 2015

For a Kentucky rifleman who spent his tour trudging through Vietnam's Central Highlands, it was Nancy Sinatra's “These Boots Are Made for Walkin'.” For a “tunnel rat” who blew smoke into the Viet Cong's underground tunnels, it was Jimi Hendrix's “Purple Haze.” For a Black Marine distraught over the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., it was Aretha Franklin's “Chain of Fools.” And for countless other Vietnam vets, it was “I Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Die,” “Who'll Stop the Rain,” or the song that gives this book its title.

In We Gotta Get Out of This Place, Doug Bradley and Craig Werner place popular music at the heart of the American experience in Vietnam. They explore how and why U.S. troops turned to music as a way of connecting to each other and the World back home and of coping with the complexities of the war they had been sent to fight. They also demonstrate that music was important for every group of Vietnam veterans—black and white, Latino and Native American, men and women, officers and “grunts”—whose personal reflections drive the book's narrative. Many of the voices are those of ordinary soldiers, airmen, seamen, and marines. But there are also “solo” pieces by veterans whose writings have shaped our understanding of the war—Karl Marlantes, Alfredo Vea, Yusef Komunyakaa, Bill Ehrhart, Arthur Flowers—as well as songwriters and performers whose music influenced soldiers' lives, including Eric Burdon, James Brown, Bruce Springsteen, Country Joe McDonald, and John Fogerty. Together their testimony taps into memories—individual and cultural—that capture a central if often overlooked component of the American war in Vietnam.

The social media platform WeChat has had a subtle but meaningful influence within the Chinese immigrant community in America. It serves as a channel for dispensing political information and keeping this minority racial group connected.

WeChat and the New Chinese American examines how and why the platform, which originated in China and followed many recent immigrants to their new life in America, has become an indispensable source of communication, community access, and interconnection not just between immigrants, but also with China and the rest of the Chinese diaspora.

Jingsi Christina Wu conducts interviews with upper-middle-class Chinese immigrants who settled in America after 2000 to track general trends in the larger WeChat information and opinion environment, including its rise as a source of political discourse during the 2016 election and beyond and its impact on U.S.-China relations. In doing so, she tells a complicated, evolving story about Chinese and Chinese American populations, the changing media landscape, and the ongoing social division in the Chinese immigrant community as well as in the larger American society.

A response is needed to the numerous issues spurred by the expansion of the gig economy, where flexible patterns of employment prevail in contrast to permanent jobs. In this context of the exponential growth of the digital economy and underlying business models the largest nationwide study of its kind into the impact of the working conditions in the UK music industry ‘Can Music Make You Sick?’ has been conducted by MusicTank/University of Westminster.

This research suggests the need to consider the future of work not only from an economic or employment law perspective but from a mental health one too. What are the psychological implications of precarious work and how are factors such as financial instability, the feedback economy and personal relationships reflected in mental health outcomes or connected to the business relationships most musicians and other gig economy participants work under?

Authors Sally-Anne Gross, George Musgrave and Laima Janciute consider which policy measures may help or harm gig economy workers including the taxation of self-employed workers, a universal basic income, education around mental health issues and access to mental health support.

Exploring how DH shapes and is in turn shaped by the classroom

How has the field of digital humanities (DH) changed as it has moved from the corners of academic research into the classroom? And how has our DH praxis evolved through interactions with our students? This timely volume explores how DH is taught and what that reveals about the field of DH. While institutions are formally integrating DH into the curriculum and granting degrees, many instructors are still almost as new to DH as their students. As colleagues continue to ask what digital humanities is, we have the opportunity to answer them in terms of how we teach DH. 

The contributors to What We Teach When We Teach DH represent a wide range of disciplines, including literary and cultural studies, history, art history, philosophy, and library science. Their essays are organized around four critical topics at the heart of DH pedagogy: teachers, students, classrooms, and collaborations. This book highlights how DH can transform learning across a vast array of curricular structures, institutions, and education levels, from high schools and small liberal arts colleges to research-intensive institutions and postgraduate professional development programs. 

Contributors: Kathi Inman Berens, Portland State U; Jing Chen, Nanjing U; Lauren Coats, Louisiana State U; Scott Cohen, Stonehill College; Laquana Cooke, West Chester U; Rebecca Frost Davis, St. Edward’s U; Catherine DeRose; Quinn Dombrowski, Stanford U; Andrew Famiglietti, West Chester U; Jonathan D. Fitzgerald, Regis College; Emily Gilliland Grover, Notre Dame de Sion High School; Gabriel Hankins, Clemson U; Katherine D. Harris, San José State U; Jacob Heil, Davidson College; Elizabeth Hopwood, Loyola U Chicago; Hannah L. Jacobs, Duke U; Alix Keener, Stanford U; Alison Langmead, U of Pittsburgh; Sheila Liming, Champlain College; Emily McGinn, Princeton U; Nirmala Menon, Indian Institute of Technology; James O’Sullivan, U College Cork; Harvey Quamen, U of Alberta; Lisa Marie Rhody, CUNY Graduate Center; Kyle Roberts, Congregational Library and Archives; W. Russell Robinson, Alabama State U; Chelcie Juliet Rowell, Tufts U; Dibyadyuti Roy, U of Leeds; Asiel Sepúlveda, Simmons U; Andie Silva, York College, CUNY; Victoria Szabo, Duke U; Lik Hang Tsui, City U of Hong Kong; Annette Vee, U of Pittsburgh; Brandon Walsh, U of Virginia; Kalle Westerling, The British Library; Kathryn Wymer, North Carolina Central U; Claudia E. Zapata, UCLA; Benjun Zhu, Peking U.

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"John Carey and Martin Elton are among the most skilled and insightful researchers studying the dynamic changes in technology and the impacts on consumer attitudes and behaviors. Their comprehensive and actionable observations make this a must read for anyone interested in understanding the current (and future) media environment."
---Alan Wurtzel, President, Research and Media Development, NBC Universal

"When Media Are New should be read by every media manager faced with disruptive change brought on by new technology. The book transcends the fashionable topics and themes that are here today and gone tomorrow and instead places emphasis on those areas of research and implementation where fatal mistakes are made. They capture something universal, and therefore highly useful, by stripping away the hype and focusing relentlessly on consumers and the ways they adopt or fail to adopt new media products and technologies into their lives."
---Martin Nisenholtz, Senior Vice President, Digital Operations, The New York Times Company

"The burgeoning development of the Internet has deflected attention from a wider history of new media innovations that has shaped its success. John Carey and Martin Elton demonstrate that earlier initiatives to launch videophones, two-way interactive cable systems, videotext and other media innovations can teach us much about the present state and future course of information and communication technologies. This is a key reference on the new media, and must reading for students of the Internet---the platform for continuing the new media revolution."
---Professor William H. Dutton, Director, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford

The world of communication media has undergone massive changes since the mid-1980s. Along with the extraordinary progress in technological capability, it has experienced stunning decreases in costs; a revolutionary opening up of markets (a phenomenon exemplified by but not limited to the rise of the Internet); the advent of new business models; and a striking acceleration in the rate of change. These technological, regulatory, and economic changes have attracted the attention of a large number of researchers, from industry and academe, and given rise to a substantial body of research and data. Significantly less attention has been paid to the actual and intended users of new media. When Media Are New addresses this research and publishing gap by investigating the human side of the technological changes of the last 50 years and the implications for current and future media. It will find a broad audience ranging from media scholars to policymakers to industry professionals.

John Carey is Professor of Communications and Media Management at Fordham Business School and has extensive experience in conducting research about new media for companies such as AT&T, Cablevision, NBC Universal, and the New York Times (among many others) as well as foundations and government agencies. His extensive publications have focused on user adoption of new media and how consumers actually use new technologies.

Martin C. J. Elton was Director of the Communication Studies Group in the UK, which pioneered in the study of user behavior with new media technologies, and founded the Interactive Telecommunication Program at New York University. He has published widely on user research, forecasting, and public policy and has conducted extensive research for many prominent foundations, companies, and government agencies in the USA and Europe.

The stories of those without access to broadband services—and an urgent call for their connection.

The average American will spend years of their lives online. For many, the Internet is life, facilitating employment, education, commerce, and connection. But imagine students who only have online access in the early hours of the morning, when the sun is down, and the Internet traffic is low. Imagine living through a pandemic without Internet access because you can’t afford the monthly subscription. Imagine a first responder unable to find a strong enough signal to seek life-saving services. In this eye-opening book, communications scholar Christopher Ali shares such stories—and calls for policymakers, broadband companies, and governments to connect these communities with meaningful, affordable broadband.

It may seem unthinkable that tens of millions of people across the country are unable to access the Internet because of a lack of infrastructure; a computer; affordable broadband subscription options; or training, support, and skills. These people, some who are still using dial-up connections, are part of what is often called “the digital divide.” Where the Wires End brings them into the broadband policy conversation, incorporating interviews, surveys, focus groups, and field visits with individuals, communities, and organizations across the country, from inner-city Pittsburgh to the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation in California. Ali focuses on the stories of those without access to broadband and those who work to get them attention and connection. He then links these stories to ongoing policy issues, demonstrating how we all benefit from a more empathetic approach to broadband policy that is digitally equitable, inclusive, and ultimately, more successful.

Merging new research with bold interpretation, James Schwoch details the unexplored dimensions of the frontier telegraph and its impact. The westward spread of telegraphy entailed encounters with environments that challenged Americans to acquire knowledge of natural history, climate, and a host of other fields. Telegraph codes and ciphers, meanwhile, became important political, military, and economic secrets. Schwoch shows how the government's use of commercial networks drove a relationship between the two sectors that served increasingly expansionist aims. He also reveals the telegraph's role in securing high ground and encouraging surveillance. Both became vital aspects of the American effort to contain, and conquer, the West's indigenous peoples—and part of a historical arc of concerns about privacy, data gathering, and surveillance that remains pertinent today.

Entertaining and enlightening, Wired into Nature explores an unknown history of the West.

2023 Publication Award Honorable Mention, British Association for Film, Television and Screen Studies

An examination of the sound and silence of women in digital media.

In today’s digital era, women’s voices are heard everywhere—from smart home devices to social media platforms, virtual reality, podcasts, and even memes—but these new forms of communication are often accompanied by dated gender politics. In Women’s Voices in Digital Media, Jennifer O’Meara dives into new and well-established media formats to show how contemporary screen media and cultural practices police and fetishize women’s voices, but also provide exciting new ways to amplify and empower them.

As she travels through the digital world, O’Meara discovers newly acknowledged—or newly erased—female voice actors from classic films on YouTube, meets the AI and digital avatars in Her and The Congress, and hears women’s voices being disembodied in new ways via podcasts and VR voice-overs. She engages with dialogue that is spreading with only the memory of a voice, looking at how popular media like Clueless and The Simpsons have been mined for feminist memes, and encounters vocal ventriloquism on RuPaul’s Drag Race that queers and valorizes the female voice. Through these detailed case studies, O’Meara argues that the digital proliferation of screens alters the reception of sounds as much as that of images, with substantial implications for women’s voices.

In World War and World Peace in the Age of Digital Capitalism, Christian Fuchs asks: how do violence and war manifest themselves in global digital capitalism? How do digital capitalism and digital technologies manifest themselves in violence and warfare? What are the prospects for world peace today?

To prevent world war and advance world peace we need a better understanding of war and violence and their contexts and causes. We need to ask what war is, what violence is, what war and peace look like today and how they have changed in the 21st century. This book addresses these urgent questions and provides possible answers.

Writing History in the Digital Age began as a “what-if” experiment by posing a question: How have Internet technologies influenced how historians think, teach, author, and publish? To illustrate their answer, the contributors agreed to share the stages of their book-in-progress as it was constructed on the public web.

To facilitate this innovative volume, editors Jack Dougherty and Kristen Nawrotzki designed a born-digital, open-access, and open peer review process to capture commentary from appointed experts and general readers. A customized WordPress plug-in allowed audiences to add page- and paragraph-level comments to the manuscript, transforming it into a socially networked text. The initial six-week proposal phase generated over 250 comments, and the subsequent eight-week public review of full drafts drew 942 additional comments from readers across different parts of the globe.

The finished product now presents 20 essays from a wide array of notable scholars, each examining (and then breaking apart and reexamining) if and how digital and emergent technologies have changed the historical profession.

During the mid-1960s, a small group of young journalists made it their mission to write about popular music, especially rock, as something worthy of serious intellectual scrutiny. Their efforts not only transformed the perspective on the era's music but revolutionized how Americans have come to think, talk, and write about popular music ever since. 

In Writing the Record, Devon Powers explores this shift by focusing on The Village Voice, a key publication in the rise of rock criticism. Revisiting the work of early pop critics such as Richard Goldstein and Robert Christgau, Powers shows how they stood at the front lines of the mass culture debates, challenging old assumptions and hierarchies and offering pioneering political and social critiques of the music. Part of a college-educated generation of journalists, Voice critics explored connections between rock and contemporary intellectual trends such as postmodernism, identity politics, and critical theory. In so doing, they became important forerunners of the academic study of popular culture that would emerge during the 1970s. 

Drawing on archival materials, interviews, and insights from media and cultural studies, Powers not only narrates a story that has been long overlooked but also argues that pop music criticism has been an important channel for the expression of public intellectualism. This is a history that is particularly relevant today, given the challenges faced by criticism of all stripes in our current media environment. Powers makes the case for the value of well-informed cultural criticism in an age when it is often suggested that “everyone is a critic.”