Behind The Screen

An eye-opening look at the invisible workers who protect us from seeing humanity’s worst on today’s commercial internet Social media on the internet can be a nightmarish place. A primary shield against hateful language, violent videos, and online cruelty uploaded by users is not an algorithm. It is people. Mostly invisible by design, more than 100,000 commercial content moderators evaluate posts on mainstream social media platforms: enforcing internal policies, training artificial intelligence systems, and actively screening and removing offensive material—sometimes thousands of items per day. Sarah T. Roberts, an award-winning social media scholar, offers the first extensive ethnographic study of the commercial content moderation industry. Based on interviews with workers from Silicon Valley to the Philippines, at boutique firms and at major social media companies, she contextualizes this hidden industry and examines the emotional toll it takes on its workers. This revealing investigation of the people “behind the screen” offers insights into not only the reality of our commercial internet but the future of globalized labor in the digital age.

When high school sophomore Hannah discovers that her sister Alexis, a senior, is involved with someone she met online, Hannah tries to learn if she's caught up in a scam.

How teens navigate a networked world and how adults can support them. What are teens actually doing on their smartphones? Contrary to many adults’ assumptions, they are not simply “addicted” to their screens, oblivious to the afterlife of what they post, or missing out on personal connection. They are just trying to navigate a networked world. In Behind Their Screens, Emily Weinstein and Carrie James, Harvard researchers who are experts on teens and technology, explore the complexities that teens face in their digital lives, and suggest that many adult efforts to help—“Get off your phone!” “Just don’t sext!”—fall short. Weinstein and James warn against a single-minded focus by adults on “screen time.” Teens worry about dependence on their devices, but disconnecting means being out of the loop socially, with absence perceived as rudeness or even a failure to be there for a struggling friend. Drawing on a multiyear project that surveyed more than 3,500 teens, the authors explain that young people need empathy, not exasperated eye-rolling. Adults should understand the complicated nature of teens’ online life rather than issue commands, and they should normalize—let teens know that their challenges are shared by others—without minimizing or dismissing. Along the way, Weinstein and James describe different kinds of sexting and explain such phenomena as watermarking nudes, comparison quicksand, digital pacifiers, and collecting receipts. Behind Their Screens offers essential reading for any adult who cares about supporting teens in an online world.

Audisee® eBooks with Audio combine professional narration and sentence highlighting to engage reluctant readers! Hannah's sister, Alexis, has been acting different lately. For one thing, she's constantly on her phone when she never used to care that much about it. But after Hannah discovers that Alexis has developed a relationship with a boy she met online, her strange behavior starts to make sense. What's worse, Alexis plans to skip out on college to run away with this guy. Hannah teams up with her best friend to find out more about the online stranger. What if he isn't who he says he is?

When it comes to Hollywood, Christians too quickly wash their hands of popular culture and leave this immensely influential media to unbelievers. In truth, the industry is listening. There is a church in Hollywood, but too often their work is unrecognized. Behind the Screen offers a glimpse of Hollywood insiders who, through their jobs on movie sets, behind TV shows, and in radio broadcasts, work together to give glory to God. With contributions from the writers and producers of such productions as Joan of Arcadia, Mission Impossible, Batman Forever, That '70s Show, and others, believers everywhere are encouraged to join with the church in Hollywood and do their part in closing the gap between Christianity and culture.

PBS originataed with good intentions: Making the world better through education. But according to media analyst Laurence Jarvik, America's only taxpayer-supported public broadcasting network has gone astray. " ... must reading for anyone who is interested in how the public broadcasting system was created, what it achieved, and where it has gone wrong." -- David Horowitz In his new book, PBS: Behind the Screen, Jarvik provides the first independent, historical account of our nation's television network. Based on years of research and scores of interviews, he tours readers through PBS's evolution, from the early days, when the network was a shining vision in the minds of educators and philanthropists, to later years, when it became the focal point of a never-ending, sometimes ugly tug-of-war between opposing political camps. "PBS: Behind the Screen answers the following questions: - Does Sesame Street really educate? - What political agenda underlies PBS's hard-hitting documentary programs? - Is the real Bill Moyers the carefully crafted image viewers see on the screen? - What challenges did William F. Buckley Jr. have to overcome before Firing Line could be broadcast? - Just how much did America's favorite chef, Julia Child, really know about cooking when she started out?

Conceptualizing production studies from a European perspective, the book evaluates the history of European thought on production: theories of practice, the languages, grammars, and poetics of film, practical theories of production systems such as film dramaturgy, and the self-theorizing of European auteurs and professionals.