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Articles on Mass Entertainment

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Many films that address race end up lulling audiences into complacency. TriStar Pictures

How popular culture hobbles protest movements

Books, movies and records that seem to challenge racism also subtly advance the idea that progress shouldn’t happen too quickly.
Science is one thread of culture – and entertainment, including graphic books, can reflect that. 'The Dialogues,' by Clifford V. Johnson (MIT Press 2017)

New ways scientists can help put science back into popular culture

You might not think much about science topics as part of your everyday life. But science – like art, music, religion – is part of our culture, and scientists can help it reclaim its rightful place.
‘I don’t care what they say about me,’ P.T. Barnum once said, ‘as long as they spell my name correctly.’ Everett Historical/Shutterstock.com

How the ‘Greatest Showman’ paved the way for Donald Trump

The new movie about P.T. Barnum couldn’t come at a better time: It’s impossible not to see his ghost in our culture, in our advertisements and in our president.
Vladimir Putin appears on the Kremlin-backed news network Russia Today. The multi-platform channel has already garnered more than 2 billion views on YouTube, making it the most-watched news network on the video-sharing website. Kremlin.ru/Wikimedia Commons

Russia fighting information wars with borrowed weapons

The airwaves arms race is on, and the Kremlin has taken a page from the playbook of its Cold War nemesis.
Based on Eddie Huang’s bestselling memoir, ABC’s Fresh Off the Boat premiered last month. Bob D'Amico/ABC

Fresh Off the Boat and the rise of niche TV

Its ratings are worse. So why is Fresh Off the Boat considered a success, while All-American Girl was canceled?
Star Trek fans were especially drawn to Leonard Nimoy’s Mr. Spock – who showed many that it “was okay to be a nerd, that even in the future not everyone fit in, or needed to.” Sam Howzit/Flickr

One of the family: Leonard Nimoy’s impact on fandom

Star Trek fans were especially drawn to Leonard Nimoy’s Mr. Spock – who showed many that it “was okay to be a nerd, that even in the future not everyone fit in, or needed to.”
This may be the fight that started all the hoopla Library of Congress/Prints & Photographs Division

Entertaining the masses: sports spectacles of today began in the 20s

In the 1920s American sports became big business, a billion dollar industry with “stars” created by the media and represented by professional agents and promoters. One of the pioneers of this new industry…

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