Kravetz, Lee Daniel
Summary: "Picking up where The Tipping Point leaves off, respected journalist Lee Daniel Kravetz's Strange Contagion is a provocative look at both the science and lived experience of social contagion. In 2009, tragedy struck the town of Palo Alto: A student from the local high school had died by suicide by stepping in front of an oncoming train. Grief-stricken, the community mourned what they thought...
Format: text
Publisher / Publication Date: Harper Wave 2017
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 302 KRASummary: Ads targeting girls between the ages of 8 and 12 employ an increasing level of sexuality. Are advertisers responding to neo-feminist notions of "girl power" or are they leading girls toward harmful self-images? This program examines the trend by following a group of tween girls through their daily lives, recording their perceptions of fashion, celebrities, boys, and themselves. Interviews with...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program examines types of conflict that can occur at the local level, whether that locality is a single town, a region, or an entire country. After generally addressing armed conflict-different types of war, where they tend to proliferate, and kinds of weaponry used-Conflict on a Local Scale illustrates unarmed conflict through five examples. They include a clash of recreational interests...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program redefines fear stimuli and explores the fine line between fright and excitement. The rapid evolutionary modification of supposedly hard-wired responses to heights, enclosed spaces, and darkness by the demands of modern living is described, along with the new terrors that have taken their place. But parallel to the desire for safety is the desire for excitement. The risks people...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Most Americans engage in "retail therapy" from time to time, but what form does it take among immigrant populations? Is excessive shopping a way of coming to grips with a new culture-and leaving another behind? This program examines that possibility in the context of the Latino community, raising provocative questions about cultural identity, consumerism, and assimilation. Ten first-generation...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: The "Summer of Love" is remembered today through a haze of nostalgia, hindsight, and hype. But how was the emergence of the youth counterculture actually covered at the time? In this program, selections from the NBC News archives offer an insightful look at the beginning of a cultural shock wave that is still being felt and debated today. Reporter Aline Saarinen offers a reality check as she...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: Scientific discoveries, futurist Juan Enriquez notes, demand a shift in code, and our ability to thrive depends on our mastery of that code. In this TEDTalk, he applies that concept to the field of genomics. A broad thinker who studies the intersection of science, business, and society, Enriquez has a talent for bridging disciplines to build a coherent look ahead. Says Nicholas Negroponte:...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Bonner, William
Format: text
Publisher / Publication Date: John Wiley & Sons 2007
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 658.743 BONSummary: As common courtesy becomes less common and good taste is all but a contradiction of terms, Americans continue to push the envelope of socially acceptable behavior. Does the Golden Rule still apply, or are people too busy to care about the feelings of others? This program probes the apparent erosion of decorum in the United States, which has had a profound impact on respect for authority, trust...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Pickup basketball is democracy in action. This program-an astute study of sports sociology-tracks a mixed group of serious amateurs through an eight-month period, studying player culture, hierarchy, and interaction as they manifest in a setting that has no place for referees. Age, gender, race, injuries, and multigenerational families of players are also considered, as are the game rules and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: I wondered for many years, reveals the Rev. Billy Kyles, "why I was there at that crucial moment." Rev. Kyles stood only a few feet away from Dr. Martin Luther King when the eminent civil rights leader was assassinated. This Academy Award-nominated documentary features Rev. Kyles' reflections on the tragedy-and on the events leading up to it, most notably the sanitation workers' strike that Dr....
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Who determines when one person's right to expression must give way to another's sense of propriety? In this program, ABC News correspondent John Stossel looks at growing constraints on free speech made in the interest of protecting the public from offense. Using such controversial examples as the worker who was fired for telling a joke he heard on a popular prime-time TV show, Mr. Stossel...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Burt, Andrew
Summary: "The American story of blacklists, scapegoating, conspiracies, and cover-ups that have taken over national politics throughout our history when the mainstream has adopted extremist fear that secret networks--from the Illuminati and Freemasons to Communists and Muslim terrorists--have infiltrated society and threatened destruction from within"--Provided by publisher.
Format: text
Publisher / Publication Date: LP, an imprint of Rowman & Littlefield 2015
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 973 BURSummary: Whether following stated procedures or complying with implicit rules of conduct, modern humans willingly modify their behavior dozens of times each day. In this program, the conformity necessary for mass interactions and the flexibility required to learn and use the behaviors of conformity are investigated. In addition to conventions such as air travel protocol and museum manners, instances of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: When people decide whether or not to follow the crowd, what happens inside their brains? This ABC News program explores that question, highlighting neurological research that helps explain conformity and sheds light on the complex relationship between group and individual behavior. Placing test subjects in candid-camera style settings, the program illustrates how social pressures can alter...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: “What are the rules of behavior? Do people not know, or do they not care?” In this program, host Valerie Pringle explores the reasons behind the ostensible breakdown of manners, defined as treating others with consideration, within the group known as Generation Me. Etiquette experts, such as Judith Martin (or Miss Manners), author Lynne Truss, and Johns Hopkins University professor P. M. Forni,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program examines the Deadhead subculture: What kinds of people are attracted to this culture, and what attracts them to it? What social forms do Deadheads resist? What forms shape their behavior? What separates them from the mainstream? The program also examines the workings of a subculture from within.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program-a valuable tool for introducing the concepts of energy security, antiterrorism, and managing change at the global level-identifies the roots of violent conflict by way of specific examples. Through discussion of territorial conflicts (India/Pakistan, Israel/PLO), genocides (Rwanda, Srebrenica), terrorism (al Qaeda, IRA, ETA), and hybridized violence such as that found in Sudan,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: Occupy Wall Street did not come from nowhere. It was part of a long history of riot, revolt, uprising, and sometimes even revolution that has shaped New York City. From the earliest European colonization to the present, New Yorkers have been revolting. Hard hitting, revealing, and insightful, Revolting New York tells the story of New York's evolution through revolution, a story of...
Format: text
Publisher / Publication Date: University of Georgia Press 2018
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 303 REVSummary: In this program, the need for personal space is explored through the avoidance behaviors people employ to maintain a perceived distance from others, such as falling into a "middle-distance stare" in a crowded subway; the use of a proxy, like a jacket on a barstool, to reserve a place; the attitudes of drivers towards other cars on the road, which can lead to road rage; and the unconscious...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Jacqueline Novogratz founded and leads Acumen Fund, a nonprofit with a businesslike approach to improving the lives of the poor, and her book The Blue Sweater tells stories that evoke sustainable bottom-up solutions over traditional top-down aid. In this wide-ranging TEDTalk, Novogratz introduces us to people she has met through her work in "patient capital" - people who have immersed...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
View online at AVOD
Summary: Philip Zimbardo has spent decades researching the transformation of character that occurs when generally good people are led to engage in evil actions. In this lecture, Zimbardo discourses on theories of conformity, prejudice, aggression, social influence, and antisocial behavior. Topics include the permeability of behavioral boundaries; the nature of evil and its societal consequences;...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program takes a penetrating look at what is happening to American culture as honesty comes to be measured less by truthfulness and more by the reasons for lying and the degree of deception involved. What is to become of a society in which professional ethicists are required to help companies recapture a culture of integrity, a role previously reserved for religion? Experts include Laura...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: No one grasps the connections between social activism, electoral politics, and racial issues better than Congressman John Lewis (D-GA), perhaps the most prominent living veteran of the American civil rights movement. In 2007, he received the Robert J. Dole Leadership Prize from the University of Kansas and, in conjunction with the award, granted this in-depth interview before a live audience....
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009