New research suggests heavy Facebook users are more likely to believe other people have happier lives.

A looming government shutdown, faulty comet theories, clever transit alternatives, and women’s gaydar were among the top topics Miller-McCune readers flocked to in 2011.

New research finds predictions made in the late 1990s that women were nearing equality in pop music have failed to materialize.

“Khodorkovsky” and “Hipsters,” two wildly different films currently making rounds of U.S., suggest that each step forward in Russia is greeted with one step back.

The cloud may be a blessing to global business, but it remains a major headache for sovereign states determined to protect its citizens’ privacy.

As Brazil prepares to host two high-profile global events, filmmaker José Padilha suggests that while improving security is a worthy goal, its methods and rationale are deeply flawed.

A PBS documentary follows a group of friends before, during, and after their time in Afghanistan.

The fight over whether the Internet should have a meter has created some unexpected alliances in the groups lobbying the FCC.

We’re renaming ourselves, and we thought our loyal readers may have some ideas for a new moniker.

By analyzing tens of millions of news stories, a supercomputer in Tennessee may be able to predict future human events.

The U.S. intelligence community wants to mine lots and lots of the tidbits bopping around on the Internet to suss out trends before they make the news.

PBS looks at the radical environmentalists whose turn to terrorism discredited their quixotic campaign in “If a Tree Falls.”

OPINION: Discovering fun facts by graphing terms found among the 5 million volumes of the Google Books project sure is amusing — but this pursuit dubbed ‘culturomics’ is not the same as being an historian.

An analysis of Rolling Stone magazine covers finds female artists are increasingly sexualized and presented as sex objects.

In honor of the 10th annual Lebowski Fest in Louisville, Ky., Miller-McCune looks at the scholarly papers inspired by the Coen brothers’ 1998 film “The Big Lebowski.”

Opinion: Anything can happen when Google gets involved in digitizing national treasure troves of archived information, warns a frustrated scholar.

In his film review of “The Last Mountain,” Lewis Beale describes a horror flick about environmental degradation and predatory capitalism.

In the documentary film “Welcome to Shelbyville,” a small Tennessee town deals with an influx of residents from Somalia.

In the run-up to a debate on WikiLeaks, Julian Assange’s attorney discusses the uncomfortable relationship between the free flow of ideas and the inclination of governments to make everything a secret.

“State of Minds” scours the University of California for important research and then does something special: It makes it interesting.

How the print media in China and India are succeeding — and what America’s ailing journalism industry might learn from them.

Documentary film “Making the Boys” recounts the rise, fall and redemption of the groundbreaking and controversial play, “The Boys in the Band.”

New media inspires new generation to protest? It’s an old trope, argues a China scholar taking a practiced eye at the turmoil in the Arab world.

The director of Project on Information Technology and Political Islam argues both the dangers of overemphasizing and ignoring the role of digital media in political change in Egypt and Tunisia.

A new film documenting Finland’s effort to seal away nuclear waste for the next 100 millennia asks how one predicts 100,000 years into the future.

New research suggests watching local television news leads to fatalistic beliefs regarding cancer.

Trying to divine the mood of a group of people is hard and requires trust in their answers. A new method has researchers whistling a happier tune.

New research finds when a female news anchor’s sexual attractiveness is played up, male viewers retain less information.

Although it’s fun and science-y to know how the physical brain parses data, most of us really should be more interested in what the mind is doing.

The downside to the digital revolution, our readers remind us, can be funny. Or fearsome.

A new documentary finds that Robert E. Lee, the beau ideal of the Confederate officer and gentleman, also represented some of the less savory aspects of the Lost Cause.

Miller-McCune’s Web editor loves all of his progeny, especially these — and these, and those.

The murders, intrigues and expanses of Pakistan’s first female prime minister seem made for the big screen, and a new documentary is a game first step in that direction.

Participants in a study were far more likely to “remember” a fictional news event when a headline was accompanied by a tangentially relevant photograph.

Looking at the social media tsunami, academics and journalists opine on whether we should be doing a threat assessment or kissing our BlackBerries.

Eliot Spitzer, the shooting star of New York state politics, takes part in the documentary “Client 9,” which looks at the sex scandal that doused his light.

The Wesleyan Media Project has studied the glut of U.S. midterm congressional TV ads and determined we’ve set a new low in negativity — and perhaps a new high in information.

Like a kind of social Ponzi scheme, the secret of social media is attracting more and more friends — to leverage more and more friends.

Because of its message, the documentary “Bag It” required filmmakers to say both “Do what I do” and “Do what I show.” A shrink-wrapped DVD was out of the question.

PBS documentary “Deep Down” looks at a cordial, intense dispute over mountaintop-removal coal mining in Appalachia.

Generation S and the coming humanization of the digital revolution.

Microsoft, without a touch of irony, says that a healthy Internet is one that quarantines infected computers.

Northwestern University researchers look to link editorial talent with audience experiences to get an elusive Web-era result — loyal readers and viewers.

“The Social Network” is a film about Facebook’s founding, true, but in many ways it’s also a story of American meritocracy trumping European-style aristocracy.

New research compares coverage of overseas news on Edward R. Murrow’s CBS and modern-day NPR, and finds public radio superior in numerous ways.

Even with rocket ships and cuddly critters on the screen no one comes to federal movie night. But a privately run effort is flicking open the door to the movie trove.

Suggestions that the Internet is making mankind dumb (or smarter) founder on logical pitfalls and historical predecessors.

A new study of factors that contribute to a film’s popularity suggests the sex appeal of stars outweighs identification with the lead character.

New research finds people’s taste in entertainment remains remarkably consistent, regardless of whether they’re reading, watching or listening.

Nancy Baron’s new book is an excellent guide for academic researchers on how to effectively communicate with the press, public and policymakers.

A small sample of the overwhelming and varied response to a story on the labor market for scientists.

A stealthy flash drive attack emphasizes that hackers are toying with cyber warfare between sovereign states.

Ready for a close-up: The year in award-winning photojournalism presented by the World Press Photo Exhibition.

Paper reveals that players of a popular video game increase their performance when they’ve had a full night of rest.

“A Film Unfinished” shows the pains that Nazi documentarians took to ensure that their take on the “Jewish problem” came through.

After initially being denied an American visa due to journalistic ties to rebel fighters, Colombian journalist Hollman Morris is allowed entry into the U.S. to study at Harvard.

In Googling “search” and “gross national product,” the government intervention homepage doesn’t show up — so far.

New research suggests viewing the television drama ‘Lie to Me’ increases suspicion of others, but lessens one’s ability to detect lies.

Our readers wonder whether the primary blame for warfare rests with one hormone.

Researchers analyzing episodes of ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy” and Fox’s “House” determine the hospital dramas are “rife” with incidents that violate professional codes of conduct.

Author and now documentary filmmaker Sebastian Junger brings AfPak to the big screen with polish and pathos in “Restrepo.”

One observer suggests that efforts to rescue American journalism are generally more efforts to rescue American journalism companies.

As Pixar launches “Toy Story 3,” we look at research the innovative animation studio has inspired.

Using artificial intelligence and the graphics techniques behind “Avatar,” a USC institute creates “virtual humans” and interactive immersions that train American soldiers to win hearts and minds in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Assuming the role of a violent policeman in a video game softens one’s judgment of police brutality in real life.

Network news anchors and correspondents are a far more diverse group than they were two decades ago.

Letters to the Editor: From Beethoven to Zappa, new technology hasn’t been out of tune with beautiful music.

Scouring “Avatar,” “The X Files” and, yes, even “The Simpsons” for sociological subtext.

“DIRT! The Movie” links hope for the future with the earth beneath our feet. The documentary makes its national debut on PBS as an Earth Day special.

The blandly titled Journalist’s Resource sits on the Web, ready — with a little help from Harvard’s Kennedy School — to throw substantive story ideas onto reporters’ desks.

A good day in court for Internet providers may lead regulators to a nuclear option those providers dread.

The emergence of a video showing pedestrians mowed down in Baghdad by U.S. gunships illustrates how traditional media’s watchdog role is being usurped.

Our little project to expand the number of offerings on the home page grew into an elegant new setting for the same great Miller-McCune stories.

It feels good to pat yourself on the back: Miller-McCune has been twice nominated at the 2010 Utne Independent Press Awards

A newly published meta-analytic review states emphatically that players of violent video games are at greater risk of engaging in aggressive behavior.

High quality doesn’t ensure longevity in the tumultuous print magazine industry.

The Obama administration’s stated push for more government openness hasn’t fully manifested itself in the Freedom of Information arena.

Even if you do have a mostly private Facebook profile, others can glean vital information about you — just by looking at your friend list.

A documentary examining the life of Veit Harlan, a film director responsible for films favored by Nazis, provides back story for a new and controversial feature film.

Globally, moviegoers’ tastes are becoming increasingly homogeneous, which is a very good sign for Hollywood.

Oscar winners may live longer lives than their peers. Or perhaps shorter ones.

University of Oregon academic predicts Academy Awards will go to Jeff Bridges, Sandra Bullock and Kathryn Bigelow.

Studies come to conflicting conclusions as to whether Academy Awards are a genuine measure of artistry.

Never has the world historical and cultural record been more accessible — or more fragile.

… And how not to. The rules are changing, just as the human memory of Nazism fades.

What do gombo, hidden cameras and advertorials have in common? Hint: Each is a part of mainstream journalism somewhere in the world.

The first comprehensive analysis of its type finds food and beverage products appear in more than two-thirds of popular movies.

A new study finds that people watch the news more for affirmation than for information.

Why do bloggers blog? It sounds like a trick question, but a study of top political bloggers finds their motivations evolve over time.

The question of ‘net neutrality’ will impact how you visit Miller-McCune.com in the future, but it’s a hot topic of debate today.

Big Bird meets big bands: PBS President Paula Kerger is renewing the network’s commitment to arts programming and arts education.

Full cliché ahead! At least this year-end list connects to good journalism.

A host of meaningful stories from Miller-McCune.com’s second full year on the Web.

Cristi Hegranes, a Miller-McCune Wonking Class Hero, expands the Global Press Institute to Kenya, where women will become the eyes and ears of the developing nation.

Armed with mobile phones and the Internet, trusted networks of family and friends spread the news of electoral fraud and escalating tensions in Iran, transfixing the world with photos and videos of demonstrations against the regime.

A little self-awareness, and a lot of illustration, breathes some life into the justifiably maligned segment of entertainment education.

In a troubling corollary to the truism that a picture is worth 1,000 words, a new study suggests stereotypical imagery can largely negate the central point of a lengthy text.

Western filmgoers increasingly like to see it all come down as apocalypse become hot box office.

A new analysis of five years of box-office data finds nudity and sexuality do not, on average, increase a film’s profitability or prestige.

The documentary “The End of Poverty?” takes an impassioned if clunky look at international capitalism over the last half millennium. Guess what it finds?

In tandem with the news aggregator NewsTrust, Miller-McCune.com is searching for the best journalism on psychology, especially the psychology of the culture wars, out there. Give us a hand.

A European study shows that, over time, even the most sophisticated readers can be manipulated.

The fries children see on TV may determine their weight as much as the ones they’re eating.

Graphic representations of how movie stars and their critics rate, according to Metacritic.com.

AVMA president responds in the debate on the use of extra-label antibiotics in poultry.

The founder of pioneering Internet musical-taste-diviner Pandora sees his service as unlocking hidden potentials in the moribund music biz.

Members of the music industry reflect on making their green good intentions a marketable proposition.

Think the fallacies in America’s health care debate are slippery? Try catching the red herring that’s fouling up U.S. press coverage of the Honduran coup.

New research suggests a ban on alcohol ads aimed at minors reduces drunken driving among teens.

Even if you’re agnostic on the matter of death panels, why is it OK to off grandma and not gramps?

The media are belatedly acknowledging a racial subtext to many anti-Obama protests, thanks to what one scholar calls the ‘drip’ factor.

A pioneering nonprofit Chicago news source has gone the way of many old-fashioned for-profit predecessors, but wants to resurrect itself as for-profit.

Researchers have a new way of tracking where disease hot spots are occurring, and, once again, it concerns an Apple a day …

Readers are impressed and distressed by the idea that racism ages blacks before their time.

A ‘virtual census’ finds that, in the fictional universe of video games, white males still rule.

"If this document is forged, then they all are," concluded one probe into a fertile ground of conspiracy fans, about whether Barack Obama was born in the U.S.

It’s been said that the so-called new media are driving a stake into the heart of the traditional dead-tree model. A recent Project for Excellence in Journalism report shows that while new media are growing in popularity, old-school reportage is still important and relevant.

Although it says rumors of the death of traditional news media are exaggerated, the Project for Excellence in Journalism catalogs some methods for staving off the demise.

In the wake of some devastating blazes, Sam Kornell asks why few major media properties have explored the connection between the changing complexion of wildfires and climate change.

An upcoming PBS documentary shows how the International Criminal Court is changing the world’s approach to crimes against humanity.

Close to the border, local papers serve up what they think their readers want — a hefty dose of crime-laden, anti-immigrant news and views.

Our correspondents illustrate the difficulty of bringing left and right together.

An electronic survey launched at the height of media coverage about swine flu — but by no means at the height of the current pandemic — puts data to public perceptions.

As workers in an ailing industry look for new ways to peddle their skills, piecework paid for directly by the public becomes an option.

Letters to the editor: OK, bucko, step outside and say we’re afraid of population growth. Go ahead. See what happens.

… Is in the eyes of the beholder, who, it turns out, sees what the beholder wants its eyes to see.

Can journalism schools oversee the public-interest news organizations of the future? Yes, with caveats.

Letters to the Editor: A guide to political funding across the country, courtesy of the National Institute on Money in State Politics.

As print newspapers listen nervously to the tolling of the bell, the fine arts and cultural journalism they once hosted searches desperately for a new place to chime.

What’s it like to have your work misinterpreted by the mainstream media? Two psychologists, who asked whether a popular politician would be hurt by media coverage focused on her appearance, tell their story.

Copyright law wrestles with the artistic realities of age where copying is creative, not plagiarism.

In the nick of time, the digital revolution comes to democracy’s rescue. And, perhaps, journalism’s.

Study finds that not all self-help books are created equal — some are pretty good.

The best of Miller-McCune magazine’s first year of publication, as chosen by Editor-in-Chief John Mecklin.

A host of meaningful stories from Miller-McCune.com’s first full year on the Web.

A new analysis suggests adolescents get a distorted view of romantic relationships from viewing Hollywood movies, one that may give them unrealistic expectations for their own love lives.

Professor says today’s media are more willing to explore reasons behind the demonstrations.

A Miller-McCune interview with Bethany Klein of the University of Leeds, who’s researching the increasingly close relationship between pop music and Madison Avenue.

Here’s 10 examples of songs turned into ads, all influential, some successful.

Or how a documentary film makes the attempt to verify the existence of an atomic particle as fascinating as it really is.

A reader wonders whether Port of Anchorage project has earmarks of a boondoggle.

When the killers are kids, a media that treats it more like a tragedy than a crime may be better for all, a new book argues.

Coffee can be good for you. But what about monkey spit?

Soldiers of Conscience, a PBS documentary, examines the ethics and emotional cost of killing on the battlefield.

At the end of the fossil fuel era, America’s premier journalism schools have staked out their place in the Digital Age. It’s called News21, and it provides what may be the best multimedia coverage of the election season.

Letters to the editor: Decompartmentalizing right whales, vinclozolin, bisphenol A, krill and a few other things.

A greater percentage of TV characters are female, a new study notes, but it’s still mostly guys offstage.

Our writer in Wilmington, N.C., continues his examination of the digital TV switchover being tested there.

Analysis: In movies, popular books and TV, the end of the world makes for an unsettling season.

Wilmington, N.C., is inundated in information as a test case for having all TV broadcasts in digital.

An essay collection makes the case that, in the digital age, community is more a matter of ideas than of geography. Even if the idea is a Nigerian e-mail scam.

A film on a health care system that impoverishes and kills people, just because they lose their jobs.

American documentary makers bring Martin Luther King to Beijing — and back.

The racial chasm between professional athletes and the people who write about them feels like a historical anomaly. Yet it isn’t.

We Get Letters: Somehow, we doubt it.

Years of sensational coverage haven’t rescued TV news from ratings freefalls, and a new study suggests a quick application of quality might help patch things up.

Celebrity worship might not be an unalloyed bad thing, says one researcher, although it’s important to be a little finicky about who to emulate.

Even when a group is well represented behind the camera, Hollywood finds it’s hard to add nuance to ethnic characterizations.

A new British book, “Flat Earth News,” provides a well-researched answer to the age-old question: Why are the news media so dumb?

Cristi Hegranes and her nonprofit train women around the world so they can help their communities — through journalism.

The Library of Congress’ country home provides a nuclear blast-proof refuge for America’s celluloid and audio treasures.

While watching home movies may be one definition of tedium, all those birthday parties and graduations are the history the books left out.

These 10 ephemeral works from the last century provide a fascinating window into our culture of the past — for better or, oftentimes, for worse.

Celluloid archaeologists are striving to preserve a fast-decaying historical resource and, at the same time, show the world what they’ve got.

Analysis: In the second part of an examination of “A Prejudice for the Thinking Classes,” two professors argue that liberal-leaning outlets harp on religious conservatives’ ties to GOP.

In the first of two parts, two political science professors examine how otherwise sophisticated observers find it OK to disparage Christian fundamentalists, a prejudice, the writers assert, of the thinking classes.

Recent high-profile instances of plagiarism reflect — and possibly are a cause of — a rise in such activity among college students. The cut-and-paste culture of the Internet is also a factor.

Documentary journalism takes on a new multimedia format at its extraordinary new home, MediaStorm.org.

Noted journalist James Fallows helps us explain our new magazine and Web site.

Across America, nonprofit Web sites are trying to keep public interest journalism alive at the local level. But to provide what print newspapers increasingly do not, these digitized nonprofits must overcome the challenge facing every startup: Eventually, they have to break even.

TV weathercasts will be taking on a scientific bent for the better, a journalism lecturer forecasts.

Scientist Lisa Haverty boasts Budweiser’s mock wine and cheese party at the top of her list, which judges commercials on a cognitive scale.

Cognitive scientist Lisa Haverty has developed a method to test the effectiveness of TV ads that run during the Super Bowl, judging them by measuring viewers’ brand recognition.

Research suggests entertainment programming on television can and does influence viewers’ opinions on public policy issues.

A study of Academy Award-eligible films spanning 78 years points to predictable recipients of the coveted Oscar nod.

A Shorenstein Center Fellow sheds light on what’s working in the booming area of citizen journalism.

Whether it’s flubbing or dubbing, here’s a quick look at two recent media year-end lists that might have escaped your notice.

The link between violent media imagery and aggressive behavior is only slightly less strong than the connection between cigarette smoking and lung cancer, according to one University of Michigan psychologist.

Father and son researchers studying violence in video games find that the cumulative aggression seen in the current study reflects a low-grade social violence that’s ultimately more indious than headline-grabbing meltdowns.