Communication Studies

The author of the widely praised Wordslut analyzes the social science of cult influence: how cultish groups from Jonestown and Scientology to SoulCycle and social media gurus use language as the ultimate form of power. What makes cults so intriguing and frightening What makes the...m powerful The reason why so many of us binge Manson documentaries by the dozen and fall down rabbit holes researching suburban moms gone QAnon is because we're looking for a satisfying explanation for what causes people to join-and more importantly, stay in-extreme groups. We secretly want to know: could it happen to me Amanda Montell's argument is that, on some level, it already has . . . Our culture tends to provide pretty flimsy answers to questions of cult influence, mostly having to do with vague talk of brainwashing. But the true answer has nothing to do with freaky mind-control wizardry or Kool-Aid. In Cultish, Montell argues that the key to manufacturing intense ideology, community, and us/them attitudes all comes down to language. In both positive ways and shadowy ones, cultish language is something we hear-and are influenced by-every single day. Through juicy storytelling and cutting original research, Montell exposes the verbal elements that make a wide spectrum of communities cultish, revealing how they affect followers of groups as notorious as Heaven's Gate, but also how they pervade our modern start-ups, Peloton leaderboards, and Instagram feeds. Incisive and darkly funny, this enrapturing take on the curious social science of power and belief will make you hear the fanatical language of cultish everywhere.
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By honing our tools of persuasion, we can convince even the most stubborn individuals to change their minds

This book is an accessible guide to the latest thinking on effective library impact evaluation for anyone who wants to gauge the impact of their services or projects on their service users for library advocacy and service development.

Michael Jackson died in 2009. But he has never left us and there are no signs he ever will. Even by today's standards, Jackson lived a weird life and an even weirder afterlife. A globally acclaimed childstar in the 1970s, the world's premier entertainer in the final decades of th...e 20th century, a perplexingly odd character in the 21st century, Jackson defied every known category and became borderline incomprehensible. Ellis Cashmore's venture to render him comprehensible reflects the restless, unorthodox and mysterious life Jackson led. Cashmore's is no ordinary biography: for a start, it begins in the present and journeys back to Jackson's birth, then even deeper. Cashmore's task is to reveal Jackson in his times, specifically the post-civil rights era, when America was rebuilding and searching for someone who symbolized a new age as it struggled to unburden itself of racial inequality. Jackson was created. Cashmore explains how - and why. In the process, he uncovers the influences of Elizabeth Taylor, Whitney Houston, OJ Simpson, Elvis, Princess Diana, Madonna, Bill Cosby, Oprah and Michael Jordan on Jackson and the world he, for a while, seemed to dominate. But did he? Or did it dominate him? Cashmore's provocative answer will excite and enliven debates on Jackson. This is not a book designed to comfort: it will force readers to see Jackson in a past that leaps frighteningly into the present. The book is enriched with a comprehensive timeline of Jackson's life and a Who's Who of the key figures of the Jackson era. There is also a Spotify playlist of all the songs mentioned in the text.
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