Coauthored by W. Lance Bennett and Martha S. Feldman, 'Reconstructing Reality in the Courtroom' explains what makes stories believable and how ordinary people connect complex legal arguments and evidence presented in trials to assess guilt and innocence. The explanation takes the core elements of narrative—the who, what, where, when, how, why—and shows how average people who hear hundreds of stories every day use the connections between these elements to assess credibility.A series...

The Logic of Connective Action explains the rise of a personalized digitally networked politics in which diverse individuals address the common problems of our times such as economic fairness and climate change. Rich case studies from the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany illustrate a theoretical framework for understanding how large-scale connective action is coordinated. In many of these mobilizations, communication operates as an organizational process that may replace or su...

We are facing an unprecedented environmental crisis. How can we communicate and act more effectively to make the political and economic changes required to survive and even thrive within the life-support capacities of our planet?This is the question at the heart of W. Lance Bennett’s much-anticipated book. Bennett challenges readers to consider how best to approach the environmental crisis by changing how we think about the relationships between environment, economy, and democracy....

The intentional spread of falsehoods – and attendant attacks on minorities, press freedoms, and the rule of law – challenge the basic norms and values upon which institutional legitimacy and political stability depend. How did we get here? The Disinformation Age assembles a remarkable group of historians, political scientists, and communication scholars to examine the historical and political origins of the post-fact information era, focusing on the United States but with lessons for other...

This book covers various aspects of political communication in dissonant public spheres and their impact on democratic processes. It expands research on campaigning beyond assumptions of well-functioning political systems, to better understand how the erosion of institutional legitimacy and trust affects communication processes.The volume approaches the concept of dissonant public spheres from four divergent perspectives: as instrumental threats to democracy, as communication perfo...

In this book, two titans of social movement scholarship bring together the best current research on the nexus between the local and the global in translating the global justice movement into action at the grass roots, and vice versa. Using recent cases of transnational contention_from the European Social Forum in Florence to the Argentinean human rights movement and British environmentalists, from movement networks in Bristol and Glasgow to the Zapatistas_the original chapters by distingui...

New York Times best-selling author Sawyer Bennett has written her most gripping and poignant tale yet. Provocatively heart-breaking, audaciously irreverent and romantically fulfilling, The Hard Truth About Sunshine exposes just how very thin the line is between a full life and an empty existence.An angry, bitter amputee.An optimist losing her eyesight.A dying kid.A suicidal thief.Four people with nothing in common but their destinat...

Contesting Media Power is the most ambitious international collection to date on the worldwide growth of alternative media that are challenging the power concentration in large media corporations. Media scholars and political scientists develop a broad comparative framework for analyzing alternative media in Australia, Chile, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Russia, Sweden, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Topics include independent media centers, gay online networks and...

Meet the Arizona Vengeance, hockey’s hottest new team. They’re burning up the ice—until a one-night-stand with the coach’s daughter freezes one player in his skates.Bishop Scott, co-captain. Not too shabby, huh? It’s all part of my fresh start with the NHL’s latest expansion team, and that means new teammates, a new coach, a new city, and a big new contract. Basically, I cannot f***ing wait to show my old squad what they’re missing.But first, I decide to check out the town ...

Veteran player Gage Heyward retired from the league following a successful career. Now the Titans need him, but does he have what it takes to get back on the ice and pull this team together?After achieving the goals I set for myself, I walked away from my professional hockey career. It was a tough decision, but the right one at the time. When the Titans organization approached me about joining the team they were rebuilding following a devastating plane crash, I fel...

First there was pain, and now there is just... nothing. No one can ever understand the losses I've suffered. A solitary existence that consists of my work and the empty house that serves as a constant reminder of all I have lost.After months of paralyzing emptiness, I turn to The Wicked Horse so I can feel something. Anything, really. Any shred of emotion that will explain why I'm still here. Any justification for why my life was spared and theirs were not.It's all in vain....

I never thought a pecker would get me in so much trouble.I mean, sure… if you’re talking about a certain anatomical feature of mine that the ladies just love. Given my bachelor status and appreciation for all things curvy and feminine, I could absolutely see that. But a different pecker is making my life much harder than it needs to be.My name is Ford Daniels, partner at the law firm of Knight & Payne, and my latest case has me wading through the finer points of peckers—woo...