Jeremy Earp

Consumer capitalism dominates our economy, our politics, and our culture, even though a growing body of research suggests it may be well past its sell-by date. In Consumerism and the Limits to Imagination, media scholar Justin Lewis makes a compelling case that consumer capitalism can no longer deliver on its promise of enhancing quality of life, and argues that changing direction will require changing our media system and our cultural environment....

The Great White Hoax, featuring acclaimed anti-racist educator and author Tim Wise, explores how American political leaders of both parties have been tapping into white anxiety, stoking white grievance, and scapegoating people of color for decades to divide and conquer working class voters and shore up political support. The film's primary focus is Donald Trump's race-baiting 2016 campaign for the presidency. But it also widens its scope to show how...

In this highly anticipated sequel to his groundbreaking "Advertising & the End of the World," media scholar Sut Jhally explores the devastating personal and environmental fallout from advertising, commercial culture, and rampant American consumerism. Ranging from the emergence of the modern advertising industry in the early 20th century to the full-scale commercialization of the culture today, Jhally identifies one consistent message running throughout...

Deepa Kumar, one of the nation’s foremost scholars on Islamophobia, looks at how Muslims have become the predominant face of terror in U.S. news and entertainment media -- even though terror attacks by white extremists have far outnumbered attacks by Muslim Americans since 9/11.Arguing that racialized threats have long been used to induce moral panics and advance anti-democratic policies, Kumar explores how ruling elites have been raising the specter...

War Made Easy exposes how presidential administrations of both parties have relied on a combination of deception and media complicity to sell one war after another to the American people. Narrated by actor Sean Penn, and based on the acclaimed book by Norman Solomon, the film exhumes five decades of remarkable archival footage to reveal in stunning detail how the American news media have uncritically disseminated and glamorized the pro-war messages...

Weve been told again and again that sports and politics dont mix, that games are just games and athletes should just "shut up and play." But according to Nation magazine sports editor Dave Zirin, this notion is just flat-out wrong. Not Just a Game, the powerful new documentary based on Zirins bestselling book The Peoples History of Sports, argues that far from providing merely escapist entertainment, American sports have long been at the center...

In 1998, university professor Kembrew McLeod trademarked the phrase “freedom of expression” - a startling comment on the way that intellectual property law restricts creativity and expression of ideas. This provocative and amusing documentary explores the battles being waged in courts, classrooms, museums, film studios, and the Internet over control of our cultural commons. Based on McLeod's award-winning book of the same title, Freedom of Expression...

For years, debates have raged among scholars, politicians, and concerned parents about the effects of media violence on viewers. Too often these debates have fallen into simplistic battles between those who claim that media images directly cause violence and those who argue that activists exaggerate the impact of media exposure. Based on interviews conducted with George Gerbner before his death in 2005, the film urges us to think about media effects...