The sometimes surprising, often humorous story of the forces that came together to shape the central role Twitter now plays in contemporary politics and culture Is Twitter a place for sociability and conversation, a platform for public broadcasting, or a network for discussion? Digital platforms have become influential in every sphere of communication, from the intimate and everyday to the public, professional, and political. Since the scrappy startup days of social media in the mid-2000s, not only has the worldwide importance of platforms grown exponentially, but also their cultures have shifted dramatically, in a variety of directions. These changes have brought new opportunities for progressive communities to thrive online, as well as widespread problems with commercial exploitation, disinformation, and hate speech. Twitter’s growth over the past decade, like that of much social media, has far surpassed its creators’ vision. Twitter charts this trajectory in the format of a platform biography: a new, streamlined approach to understanding how platforms change over time. Through the often surprising, fast-moving story of Twitter, it illuminates the multiple forces—from politics and business to digital ideologies—that came together to shape the evolution of this revolutionary platform. Jean Burgess and Nancy K. Baym build a rich narrative of how Twitter has evolved as a technology, a company, and a culture, from its origins as a personal messaging service to its transformation into one of the most globally influential social media platforms, where history and culture is not only recorded but written in real time.

“F. Scott Fitzgerald said that there are no second acts in American lives. I have no idea what that means but I believe that in quoting him I appear far more intelligent than I am. I don’t know about second acts, but I do think we get second chances, fifth chances, eighteenth chances. Every day we get a fresh chance to live the way we want.” FINBAR DOLAN is lost and lonely. Except he doesn’t know it. Despite escaping his blue-collar Boston upbringing to carve out a mildly successful career at a Madison Avenue ad agency, he’s a bit of a mess and closing in on forty. He’s recently called off a wedding. Now, a few days before Christmas, he’s forced to cancel a long-postponed vacation in order to write, produce, and edit a Super Bowl commercial for his diaper account in record time. Fortunately, it gets worse. Fin learns that his long-estranged and once-abusive father has fallen ill. And that neither of his brothers or his sister intend to visit. It’s a wake-up call for Fin to reevaluate the choices he’s made, admit that he’s falling for his coworker Phoebe, question the importance of diapers in his life, and finally tell the truth about his past. Truth in Advertising is debut novelist John Kenney’s wickedly funny, honest, at times sardonic, and ultimately moving story about the absurdity of corporate life, the complications of love, and the meaning of family.

(Book). Making it in music has never been easy, but today it's harder than ever before. The digital age has dawned and, with it, the music biz has wholly merged with the entertainment industry. Up-and-comers are immediately faced with a dire choice: alter your art to appease the powers that be or learn to navigate the notoriously grimy underside of the most glamorous profession in the world. Whether you're a self-reliant DIY musician or an aspiring personal manager, Stephen Marcone and David Philp's Managing Your Band Artist Management: The Ultimate Responsibility can help you keep your shirt and maybe just maybe make a buck, all for less than the price of a decent dinner. Now in its sixth edition, Managing Your Band has long since been the standard bearer for aspirants and hardened vets alike. From dive bars to festivals, from branding and merchandising to marketing and publicity, from publishing and licensing to rights and contracts, Marcone and Philp leave no stone unturned in this comprehensive guide to artist management. A lofty claim, eh? No need to take our word for it luminaries in every corner of the industry are willing to testify. To put it mildly, the book has a reputation with record labels. John Butler, Vice President of Promotion at Curb, believes that "Marcone and Philp take on our ever-changing business with a fresh and complete approach. The breadth of information here is as important to veterans as it is to the new entrepreneurs that will power the current and next versions of the music industry." Paul Sinclair, the EVP of Digital Strategy & Innovation at Atlantic, attests that "the 6th edition of Managing Your Band provides an excellent blueprint to follow paths of flexibility and specificity toward a successful career in music. In this book, you find the framework. Implement it well and you have a better shot of finding success with your musical art." Joe Riccitelli, the EVP/GM of RCA, considers the book "a must for new and established managers who may need a brush-up on topics they have forgotten," as "Stephen's & David's vast experience pays off in the 6th edition." Hell, this is "the only book" music mogul Harvey Leeds "took to Israel to teach the Israelis about the international music and entertainment business!" In the end, we think Doc McGhee, the man who whisked Bon Jovi and Motley Crue to superstardom, says it best: "I wish I had something like this when I was starting out!" What more can we say? Pick up the latest edition of Managing Your Band and chase that wild dream!

Create a plan to connect with every family! There’s no doubt that family engagement makes a world of difference for teachers and students—but connecting with parents of various ethnic, socioeconomic, or cultural backgrounds can be challenging for educators. Calvalyn Day’s groundbreaking book offers clear instructions for building strong relationships, beginning effective dialogues, strategizing, and monitoring progress. Through the author’s perspective as a parent, counselor, and advisor to families at risk, readers will discover A step-by-step approach to family engagement developed for K-12 educators, including teachers, counselors, administrators and others Complete how-to’s for creating and carrying out a family engagement plan based on the author’s Vision, Plan, Action model Tools including a Parent Meeting Agenda, a Parent Empathy Map, an Educator Needs Assessment, and more Whether you work at a small rural school, in a large urban district, or anywhere in between, this invaluable book offers wisdom—and smart strategies—that will transform the experience for your students and their families, and lead to sustainable success. "Authentically Engaging Families is a wonderful guide for all those interested in engaging parents in the educational process in a variety of essential and creative ways." Nina Orellana, MTSS Coordinator Palm Bay Academy Charter School "This book presents a much-needed illustration of why educators MUST improve family engagement and how educators can put these evidence-based approaches into practice." Denise Michelle Voelker, Coordinator of Education and Training Programs University of Florida

The inspiring story of an unlikely Buckeye legend, in his own words In the days before college football's first four-team playoff field was announced in 2014, there were doubts that Ohio State would even make the cut. The Buckeyes entered the Big Ten Championship ranked No. 5, and they were starting their seldom-used backup at quarterback. But by mid-January, the Buckeyes were hoisting the National Championship Trophy, led by that unlikely hero behind center: Cardale Jones. Growing up in inner-city Cleveland as part of a large, athletic family, Jones saw sports as a pathway out. The ecstatic joy Ohio State's 2002 national championship brought to his community made his goal clear: he would play for his home-state Buckeyes. In this revealing memoir, Jones takes reflects on his the path to Columbus, to the pinnacle of college football, and beyond. He shares the selflessness of his guardian, Michelle Nash, as life at home got rough during his high school years. He recalls meeting assistant coach Tom Herman for the first time while at Fork Union, cramming two years of recruiting into an hour-long meeting. Readers will go behind the scenes into the Ohio State locker room as head coach Urban Meyer's tough love served as a wakeup call, and into the huddles, meeting rooms, and celebrations as Ohio State made their improbable run to a title. And Jones, who has returned to Columbus to help run an NIL fund for OSU student-athletes, shares his thoughts on college football's future and his new mission. Jones' story is an essential read for Ohio State fans and anyone who cheers for unexpected heroes.

New York, the city. New York, the magazine. A celebration. The great story of New York City in the past half-century has been its near collapse and miraculous rebirth. A battered town left for dead, one that almost a million people abandoned and where those who remained had to live behind triple deadbolt locks, was reinvigorated by the twinned energies of starving artists and financial white knights. Over the next generation, the city was utterly transformed. It again became the capital of wealth and innovation, an engine of cultural vibrancy, a magnet for immigrants, and a city of endless possibility. It was the place to be—if you could afford it. Since its founding in 1968, New York Magazine has told the story of that city’s constant morphing, week after week. Covering culture high and low, the drama and scandal of politics and finance, through jubilant moments and immense tragedies, the magazine has hit readers where they live, with a sensibility as fast and funny and urbane as New York itself. From its early days publishing writers like Tom Wolfe, Jimmy Breslin, and Gloria Steinem to its modern incarnation as a laboratory of inventive magazine-making, New York has had an extraordinary knack for catching the Zeitgeist and getting it on the page. It was among the originators of the New Journalism, publishing legendary stories whose authors infiltrated a Black Panther party in Leonard Bernstein’s apartment, introduced us to the mother-daughter hermits living in the dilapidated estate known as Grey Gardens, launched Ms. Magazine, branded a group of up-and-coming teen stars “the Brat Pack,” and effectively ended the career of Roger Ailes. Again and again, it introduced new words into the conversation—from “foodie” to “normcore”—and spotted fresh talent before just about anyone. Along the way, those writers and their colleagues revealed what was most interesting at the forward edge of American culture—from the old Brooklyn of Saturday Night Fever to the new Brooklyn of artisanal food trucks, from the Wall Street crashes to the hedge-fund spoils, from The Godfather to Girls—in ways that were knowing, witty, sometimes weird, occasionally vulgar, and often unforgettable. On “The Approval Matrix,” the magazine’s beloved back-page feature, New York itself would fall at the crossroads of highbrow and lowbrow, and more brilliant than despicable. (Most of the time.) Marking the magazine’s fiftieth birthday, Highbrow, Lowbrow, Brilliant, Despicable: 50 Years of New York draws from all that coverage to present an enormous, sweeping, idiosyncratic picture of a half-century at the center of the world. Through stories and images of power and money, movies and food, crises and family life, it constitutes an unparalleled history of that city’s transformation, and of a New York City institution as well. It is packed with behind-the-scenes stories from New York’s writers, editors, designers, and journalistic subjects—and frequently overflows its own pages onto spectacular foldouts. It’s a big book for a big town.

Among the Trump era’s savviest insiders, one name stands especially tall: Kellyanne. As a highly respected pollster for corporate and Republican clients and a frequent television talk show guest, Kellyanne Conway had already established herself as one of the brightest lights on the national political scene when Donald Trump asked her to run his presidential campaign. She agreed, delivering him to the White House, becoming the first woman in American history to manage a winning presidential campaign, and changing the American landscape forever. Who she is, how she did it, and who tried to stop her is a fascinating story of personal triumph and political intrigue that has never been told…until now. In Here’s The Deal, Kellyanne takes you on a journey all the way to the White House and beyond with her trademark sharp wit, raw honesty, and level eye. It’s all here: what it’s like to be dissected on national television. How to outsmart the media mob. How to outclass the crazy critics. How to survive and succeed male-dominated industries. What happens when the perils of social media really hit home. And what happens when the divisions across the country start playing out in one’s own family. In this open and vulnerable account, Kellyanne turns the camera on herself. What she has to share—about our politics, about the media, about her time in the White House, and about her personal journey—is an astonishing glimpse of visibility and vulnerability, of professional and personal highs and lows, and ultimately, of triumph.

Politics and the Twitter Revolution: How Tweets Influence the Relationship between Political Leaders and the Public, by John H. Parmelee and Shannon L. Bichard, is the first comprehensive examination of how Twitter is used politically. Surveys and in-depth interviews with political Twitter users answer several important questions, including: Who follows the political leaders on Twitter, and why? How persuasive are political tweets? Is political Twitter use good for democracy? These and other questions are answered from theoretical perspectives, such as uses and gratifications, word-of-mouth communication, selective exposure, innovation characteristics, and the continuity-discontinuity framework. In addition, content analysis and frame analysis illustrate how political leaders' tweets frame their policies and personalities. The findings in Politics and the Twitter Revolution show Twitter to be surprisingly influential on political discourse. Twitter has caused major changes in how people engage politically. Followers regularly take actions that are requested in leaders' tweets, and, in many cases, leaders' tweets shape followers' political views more than friends and family. Other findings raise concerns. For some, Twitter use contributes to political polarization, and there is frequently a disconnect between what followers expect from leaders on Twitter and what those leaders are giving them.