Archive for publications, 2023

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

Mon May 01 21:05:24 GMT 2023





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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