[Commlist] New Book: Believability: Sexual Violence, Media, and the Politics of Doubt

New Book: Believability: Sexual Violence, Media, and the Politics of Doubt

We are pleased to announce the UK/EU publication of Believability: 
Sexual Violence, Media, and the Politics of Doubt, 
<https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=believability-sexual-violence-media-and-the-politics-of-doubt--9781509553815> a 
new book by Sarah Banet-Weiser 
<https://www.asc.upenn.edu/people/faculty/sarah-banet-weiser-phd> (University 
of Pennsylvania; University of Southern California) and Kathryn Claire 
Higgins 
<https://www.asc.upenn.edu/people/faculty/kathryn-claire-higgins-phd> (University 
of Pennsylvania). The book is available now through Polity via the link 
above, and through other leading booksellers.

       About Believability:

The #MeToo movement has created more opportunities for women to speak up 
about sexual assault and harassment. But we are also living in a time 
when debates about “fake news” and “alternative facts” call into 
question the very nature of truth. For questions about sexual violence, 
who do we believe and why? And how do the answers change when the very 
idea of “truth” is in question?

This troubling paradox is at the heart of this book. The convergence of 
the #MeToo movement and the crisis of post-truth is used to explore the 
experiences of women and people of color whose credibility around issues 
of sexual violence is often in doubt. Offering a feminist re-thinking of 
“post-truth,” Banet-Weiser and Higgins shift the lens from truth to 
“believability” to investigate how the gendered and racialized logics of 
this concept are defined and contested within media culture. Drawing on 
analysis of a wide variety of media texts and products including film, 
news articles, social media campaigns, and wearable technologies, the 
authors propose that an “economy of believability’” is a necessary 
framework for understanding the context in which public bids for truth 
about sexual violence are made, negotiated, and 
authorized. Believability interrogates this economy as one in which 
powerful white men have historically wielded disproportionate influence 
– and so, an economy which is deeply structured by gender and race.

Timely and compelling, this book makes a provocative intervention into 
scholarly and popular debates about the character of believability when 
women speak up about sexual assault. It will appeal to scholars and 
students across the social sciences and humanities as well as general 
readers.

To learn more about the book, you can read this short blog post on the 
Polity website 
<https://www.politybooks.com/blog-detail/believability> as well as this 
column in the Los Angeles Review of Books. 
<https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-labor-of-being-believed/>

       Praise for Believability:

“In this stunning new book, Banet-Weiser and Higgins demonstrate that if 
we want to understand how sexual violence operates in the contemporary 
moment, we need to radically change our analytic frame--from truth to 
believability.  Providing groundbreaking insights into the so-called 
crisis of post-truth and #MeToo, this book will undoubtedly completely 
transform how we understand, approach, and analyze questions of sexual 
violence and gender justice.”

Catherine Rottenberg, Professor of Feminist Thought and Culture, 
University of Nottingham. Author of The Rise of Neoliberal Feminism.

“Banet-Weiser and Higgins shift our collective focus from the 
over-valorization of truth, to the central role that believability plays 
in the search for justice for sexual assault 
survivors. Believability provides readers with a new vantage point on 
misinformation and truth, making clear through well-sourced research 
that the truth matters far less than whether people believe it.”

Moya Bailey, Associate Professor, Department of Communication Studies, 
Northwestern University. Author of Misogynoir Transformed.

“What happens when a social media phenomenon rooted in believability 
erupts in a post-truth environment? Sarah Banet-Weiser and Kathryn 
Claire Higgins answer that the "economies of believability" begin to 
shift, offering a new perspective on #MeToo as an ongoing struggle over 
how to generate believability.”

Leigh Gilmore, Professor Emerita of English, Ohio State University. 
Author of Tainted Witness: Why We Doubt What Women Say About Their 
Lives and The #MeToo Effect: What Happens When We Believe Women.

      Table of Contents:

Introduction: (Post)Truth, Belief, Media, and Sexual Violence

1. Construction: #MeToo Media and Representations of Believability

2. Commodification: Buying and Selling Belief in the #MeToo Marketplace

3. Contest: Media, ‘Mob Justice,’ and the Digitization of Doubt

4. Conditional: Kavanaughs, Karens, and the Struggle for Victimhood

Conclusion: #BelieveWomen, Revisited

For more information about the book or to arrange a review copy, please 
contact Kathryn Claire Higgins on (kchiggins /at/ asc.upenn.edu) 
<mailto:(kchiggins /at/ asc.upenn.edu)>


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