LITMIR.BIZ

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Allegations of Russian conspiracies meddling in the affairs of Western countries have been a persistent feature of Western politics since the Cold War – allegations of Russian interference in the US presidential election are only the most recent in a long series of conspiracy allegations that mark the history of the twentieth century. But Russian politics is rife with conspiracies about the West too. Everything bad that happens in Russia is traced back by some to an anti-Russian plot that is hatched in the West. Even the collapse of the Soviet Union – this crucial turning point in world politics that left the USA as the only remaining superpower – was, according to some Russian conspiracy theorists, planned and executed by Russia’s enemies in the West. This book is the first-ever study of Russian conspiracy theories in the post-Soviet period. It examines why these conspiracy theories have emerged and gained currency in Russia and what role intellectuals have played in this process. The book shows how, in the new millennium, the image of the ‘dangerous, conspiring West’ provides national unity and has helped legitimize Russia’s rapid turn to authoritarianism under Vladimir Putin.

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A goldmine of strategic insights and practical business guidance covering all aspects of media entrepreneurship in the Digital Age The media industry is facing epic upheaval. Revolutionary new technologies compel those in businesses as diverse as broadcasting to book publishing to radically recreate their business models or be left in history’s wake. At the same time, those with the next big idea are eager to acquire the business know-how needed to make it in today’s brave new world of media. Written by a uniquely well-qualified author team, this book addresses the concerns of both audiences. Penelope Muse Abernathy and JoAnn Sciarrino provide timely lessons on everything from media financing to marketing, business strategy to leadership, innovation to business accounting. They use numerous case studies and real-world vignettes to reveal the success secrets of today’s hottest media entrepreneurs, as well as the fatal flaws that leads many promising new ventures down the road to ruin. They begin with a primer on digital entrepreneurship basics, covering how to create a winning digital business model, obtain financing, do business accounting, identify strategic challenges, and more. From there they show you how to: Develop sustainable customer-focused strategies while overcoming the unique leadership challenges of the Digital Age Define your company’s unique value proposition, prioritize investments in key assets, and form strategic partnerships and alliances Understand and prepare to exploit the vast potential inherent in the next generation of digital technologies, including artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and blockchain, among others The two companion websites feature a wealth of supplemental material, including updates, instructional videos, essays by media leaders, as well as PowerPoint presentations and study guides for instructors. Packed with practical insights and guidance on all aspects of the business of media in the Digital Age, The Strategic Digital Media Entrepreneur is a must-have resource for professionals and students alike in advertising, marketing, business strategy, entrepreneurship, finance, social media, and more.

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Feminist approaches within the social sciences have expanded enormously since the 1960s. In addition, in recent years, geographic perspectives have become increasingly significant as feminist recognition of the differences between women, their diverse experiences in different parts of the world and the importance of location in the social construction of knowledge has placed varied geographies at the centre of contemporary feminist and postmodern debates. Gender, Identity and Place is an accessible and clearly written introduction to the wide field of issues that have been addressed by geographers and feminist scholars. It combines the careful definition and discussion of key concepts and theoretical approaches with a wealth of empirical detail from a wide-ranging selection of case studies and other empirical research. It is organized on the basis of spatial scale, examining the relationships between gender and place from the body to the nation, although the links between different spatial scales are also emphasized. The conceptual division and spatial separation between the public and private spheres and their association with men and women respectively has been a crucial part of the social construction of gendered differences and its establishment, maintenance and reshaping from industrial urbanization to the end of the millennium is a central linking theme in the eight substantive chapters. The book concludes with an assessment of the possibilities of doing feminist research. It will be essential reading for students in geography, feminist theory, women's studies, anthropology and sociology.

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The poor and working people in cities of the South find themselves in urban spaces that are conventionally construed as places to reside or inhabit. But what if we thought of popular districts in more expansive ways that capture what really goes on within them? In such cities, popular districts are the settings of more uncertain operations that take place under the cover of darkness, generating uncanny alliances among disparate bodies, materials and things and expanding the urban sensorium and its capacities for liveliness. In this important new book AbdouMaliq Simone explores the nature of these alliances, portraying urban districts as sites of enduring transformations through rhythms that mediate between the needs of residents not to draw too much attention to themselves and their aspirations to become a small niche of exception. Here we discover an urban South that exists as dense rhythms of endurance that turn out to be vital for survival, connectivity, and becoming.

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This book is a radical plea for the centrality of experience in the social and human sciences. Lash argues that a large part of the output of the social sciences today is still shaped by assumptions stemming from positivism, in contrast to the tradition of interpretative social enquiry pioneered by Max Weber. These assumptions are particularly central to economics, with its emphasis on homo economicus, the utility-maximizing actor, but they have infiltrated the other social sciences too. Lash argues for a social sciences based not in positivism’s utilitarian a priori but instead in the a posteriori of grounded and embedded subjective experience. His wide-ranging account starts from considerations of ancient experience via Aristotle’s technics, continues through a politics of Hannah Arendt’s ‘a posteriori’ public sphere and concludes with the contemporary – with technological experience, on the one hand, and with Chinese post-ontological thought, in which the ‘ten thousand things’ themselves are doing the experiencing, on the other. This original book by a leading social and cultural theorist will be of great interest to students and scholars in sociology, cultural studies and throughout the social sciences.

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Within the so-called seduction community, the ability to meet and attract women is understood as a skill which heterosexual men can cultivate through practical training and personal development. Though it has been an object of media speculation – and frequent sensationalism – for over a decade, this cultural formation remains poorly understood. In the first book-length study of the industry, Rachel O’Neill takes us into the world of seduction seminars, training events, instructional guidebooks and video tutorials. Pushing past established understandings of ‘pickup artists’ as pathetic, pathological or perverse, she examines what makes seduction so compelling for those drawn to participate in this sphere. Seduction vividly portrays how the twin rationalities of neoliberalism and postfeminism are reorganising contemporary intimate life, as labour-intensive and profit-orientated modes of sociality consume other forms of being and relating. It is essential reading for students and scholars of gender, sexuality, sociology and cultural studies, as well as anyone who wants to understand the seduction industry’s overarching logics and internal workings.

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When there are too many choices, there is no choice. The choices are entangled in a maze of rather confused possibilities. They go through many nebulous paths. Doubt, hesitation, indecision, become the only resolutions possible. Choosing is the anxiety of being wrong! The brand, the quality / price ratio, the aesthetics … give confidence, but often with naivety! There is a gap between the reality of the qualities of the products and the perception of the customer. These are prejudices, illusions, a lack of knowledge … Generally speaking, is the consumer-client able to appreciate, by sight, by touch, or even by a brief trial of operation, all the strengths and weaknesses? a lot of products? Market value dominates the use value. Marketing will discover that we must no longer confuse the consumer (the customer) and the user. The economic system only works because consumers are in the opacity of their choices. The search for technical prowess and above all market value has dominated the search for value in use.

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The technical progress illustrated by the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Big Data technologies, the Internet of Things (IoT), online platforms, NBICs, autonomous expert systems, and the Blockchain let appear the possibility of a new world and the emergence of a fourth industrial revolution centered around digital data. Therefore, the advent of digital and its omnipresence in our modern society create a growing need to lay ethical benchmarks against this new religion of data, the «dataisme».

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