Communications

Within a single generation, digital media and the World Wide Web have transformed virtually every aspect of modern culture, from the way we learn and work to the ways in which we socialize and even conduct war. But is the technology moving faster than we can adapt to it? And is our 24/7 wired world causing us to lose as much as we've gained? In Digital Nation: Life on the Virtual Frontier, FRONTLINE presents an in-depth exploration of what it means to be human in a 21st-century digital world.

Explores cultural differences in communications skills with regard to public behavior, taboo, power, stereotyping & prejudice, saving face, miscommunication, negotiation styles, practical accommodation, time and dress.

Despite the achievements of the women's movement over the past four decades, misogyny remains a persistent force in American culture. In this ... documentary, Thomas Keith, Professor of Philosophy at California State University, Long Beach, looks specifically at misogyny and sexism in mainstream American media, exploring how negative definitions of femininity and hateful attitudes toward women get constructed and perpetuated at the very heart of our popular culture. The film tracks the destructive dynamics of misogyny across a broad and disturbing range of media phenomena: including the hyper-sexualization of commercial products aimed at girls, the explosion of violence in video games aimed at boys, the near-hysterical sexist rants of hip-hop artists and talk radio shock jocks, and the harsh, patronizing caricatures of femininity and feminism that reverberate throughout the mainstream of American popular culture. Along the way, Generation M forces us to confront the dangerous real-life consequences of misogyny in all of its forms -- making a compelling case that when we devalue more than half the population based on gender, we harm boys and men as well as women and girls.

The film looks at the debates over the role of journalism; the relationship between the Bush administration and the press; the controversies surrounding the use of anonymous sources in reporting; and the unintended consequences of the Valerie Plame investigation -- a confusing, ugly affair that ultimately damaged the legal protections reporters' thought they enjoyed under the First Amendment.

The riveting true story of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Boston Globe investigation that would rock the city and cause a crisis in one of the world's oldest and most trusted institutions. When the newspaper's tenacious 'Spotlight' team of reporters delve into allegations of sexual abuse of children by clergy in the Catholic Church, their year-long investigation uncovers a decades-long cover-up at the highest levels of Boston's religious, legal, and government establishment.