Screen People

Name: Screen People
Price: 55 AUD
Availability: PreOrder
ISBN: 9781035430451

How We Entertained Ourselves into a State of Emergency

Megan Garber

$55

Hardback

Forthcoming
Pre-Order now

QTY:

English

Wildfire
11 August 2026

Popular culture; Media, information & communication industries; Impact of science & technology on society

'Incisive' - PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

'A brilliant, funny, omnivorous excavation of how technology and entertainment have warped humanity '

SOPHIE GILBERT, PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST AND AUTHOR OF GIRL ON GIRL

From an award-winning staff writer for the Atlantic, Screen People is an eye-opening look at how the current media landscape conditions us to see everyone as characters in ongoing entertainment - and how we can fight back

Whether it's our expertly curated Instagram feeds or the reality-television-star US President, the line between what's real and what's fabricated for entertainment has never been more blurred. Screen People explores what happens when we cede our reality to spectacle and explains how today's internet-inflected culture incentivises us to see one another as characters in a show, and how some of our most chronic and harmful social conditions - loneliness, depression, mistrust, misinformation and cynicism - stem from our demand for diversion.

In ten chapters, each themed around an element of entertainment Garber argues that this comedy of our daily lives is quickly becoming tragedy. And we can't understand our politics without first understanding our culture.

Screen People shows why Garber is one of the most respected and widely read journalists of our day. This book is an urgent, dazzling look at how we entertained ourselves into our current predicament and shows how we might find our way out of the chaos.

By: Megan Garber
Imprint: Wildfire
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 238mm, Width: 158mm, Spine: 34mm
Weight: 520g
ISBN: 9781035430451
ISBN 10: 1035430452
Pages: 304
Publication Date: 11 August 2026
Audience: General/trade , Professional and scholarly , ELT Advanced , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

MEGAN GARBER is a staff writer at

Reviews for Screen People: How We Entertained Ourselves into a State of Emergency

A brilliant, funny, omnivorous excavation of how technology and entertainment have warped humanity, finding new meaning in everything from gender reveals and The Masked Singer to QAnon and Marshall McLuhan. Are we doomed? Not as long as Megan Garber is here to show us the light. * SOPHIE GILBERT, PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST AND AUTHOR OF GIRL ON GIRL * A timely study of the internet's toxic effects on American society . . . Anybody who spends time online will sympathise with Garber's insightful, well-curated consideration. * KIRKUS REVIEWS * A scathing . . . examination of how the radically shifting contemporary media environment has warped Americans' interactions with one another and the world . . . Incisive. * PUBLISHERS WEEKLY *