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

＂The #MeToo movement created more opportunities for women to speak up about sexual assault. But we are also living in a time when ＂fake news＂ and ＂alternative facts＂ call into question the very nature of truth. This troubling paradox is at the heart of this compelling book. The convergence of #MeToo and the crisis of post-truth is used to explore the experience of women and people of color whose claims around issues of sexual violence are often held in doubt. Banet-Weiser and Higgins investigate how the gendered and racialized logics of ＂believability＂ are defined and contested within media culture, proposing that a mediated ＂economy of believability＂ is the context in which public bids for truth about sexual violence are made, negotiated, and authorized today. Believability is a provocative intervention that will appeal to scholars and students across the social sciences and humanities, as well as to general readers.＂--Provided by publisher.

Sarah Banet-Weiser is a joint Annenberg Professor at the Annenberg Schools for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Southern California, and is the Director of the Annenberg Center for Collaborative Communication.
Kathryn Claire Higgins is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.