Newswise

Ruining Your Holiday....Why the FBI Thought "It's a Wonderful Life" was a Subversive Film

"It's a Wonderful Life" is one of the most popular and heartwarming films ever made. Long regarded as the definitive Christmas movie, "It's A Wonderful Life" tells the tale of a man's life that is recognized as wonderful and truly rich after he suffers through many hardships and trials. Yet in 1947, the FBI had some very different ideas about this holiday classic. In fact, the FBI branded "It's a Wonderful Life" and seven other films, including "The Best Years of Our Lives" as subversive.

Counting Down to the Millennium

Playing with the idea of "The End" is simply too close to the realities of modern anxiety and too much fun to ignore, as Carnegie Mellon Social Historian Peter N. Stearns shows in his book, "Millennium III, Century XXI."

Fat History Gives the Skinny On Fat

The start of a new year -- at least for most of us -- means a vow to diet and to get into shape. Beyond the obvious health considerations, did you ever wonder why getting skinny tops our lists of resolutions?

"Creating Country Music" Explores Authenticity in Popular Culture

"Creating Country Music: Fabricating Authenticity" is the culmination of extensive research into country music and the sociology of culture by Richard Peterson, Vanderbilt University sociologist.

The Making Of Celebrities, from Dennis Rodman to the Lone Ranger

In an era of spin doctors and media handlers, high profile agents and power publicists, the public's awareness of celebrity is greater than ever.

Studies Show It's Not Just Rock and Roll

A new book, It's Not Only Rock and Roll: Popular Music in the Lives of Adolescents (Hampton Press) by Peter Christenson, professor of communication at Lewis & Clark College, and Donald Roberts, the Thomas More Storke Professor of Communication at Stanford University, documents the wealth of research on the effect of popular music on adolescents and strives to bring rationality to the volatile debate. The book includes the only research to date on the effect of warning labels on music.

Sign Wars Turn Culture into a Commodity

Sign Wars: the cluttered landscape of advertising, a new book by Robert Goldman, professor of sociology at Lewis & Clark College and Stephen Papson, professor of sociology at St. Lawrence University, uses numerous advertising examples to demonstrate two central points: 1) consumer goods are parity items only distinguished only by signs and images and 2) culture itself is being driven by economic competition and has become treated as merely a commodity. Sign wars are both a cause and consequence of a media culture that appears cynical, skeptical and jaded but striving for authenticity.

TCKs grow up world-wise in a global society

TCKs are young people who have spent their formative years outside their passport country--U.S. or otherwise. They gradually develop a cultural identity different from that of their parents and different from that of the country in which they live. Lewis & Clark College has formed a support group for these students.