Download or read book The Media The Mob Exploring the Mafia Mystique written by Ron Quartararo and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2012-10-31 with total page 62 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Media & the Mob: Exploring the Mafia Mystique is a fascinating look at the world of media stereotyping. Its a complex issue, shaped in large part my misperceptions, the need, at times, to hype stories for promotional purposes, and by some insensitivities incurred by writers in their haste to get stories completed. This book examines one of the most pervasive ethnic stereotypes – that of Italians and Italian Americans and organized crime. While ethnic stereotyping is certainly not the sole province of Italians, it has certainly been one of the most prevalent in both entertainment and news media alike. In this book Quartararo has given the reader an inside look into the mindset of a large news media organization and the process it used for vetting news stories, along with insights into the perceptions and misperceptions that can be created in how news stories are packaged and presented. While this meeting between Italian American representatives from academia, politics and the community at large and high level television broadcast news executives at took place 30 years ago, the discussion is as relevant today as it was then! Both sides came away with a better understanding and appreciation of the other. We hope the reader will do the same.
Download or read book The Mafia Mystique written by Dwight C. Smith and published by University Press of Amer. This book was released on 1990-02 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of the development of the imagery linked to the term mafia. The author aims to break down the mystique surrounding the word, attributing its buildup to sensational reporting, hidden agendas and the public's fascination with the idea of a secret criminal society.
Download or read book Mafia Mystique written by Julienne Smith and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 1975-02-02 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Mafia Mystique written by Dwight C. Smith and published by . This book was released on 1975 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text examines the imagery linked to the term "mafia". The author aims to break down the mystique surrounding the word, attributing its buildup to sensational reporting, hidden agendas and the public's fascination with the idea of a secret criminal society. In tracing this mystique through history, the author determines how much of that image comes from actual events.
Download or read book Screening Ethnicity written by Anna Camaiti Hostert and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Literary Nonfiction. Film Studies. Remarkable for the variety and sophistication of the approaches that it brings to its subject matter, SCREENING ETHNICITY makes a powerful argument for the validity, indeed the necessity, of Italian American cinema as an object of study. By including the concepts of race, gender, and social class along with the more obvious themes of identity and ethnicity, this collection sheds new light on the careers of Frank Capra, Francis Ford Coppola, Michael Cimino, Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, and the recently canonized David Chase, while calling attention to the achievements of such lesser known figures as Abel Ferrara, Stanley Tucci, Mariarosy Calleri, and Nancy Savoca. "It comes as no suprise that there is so much smart thinking and writing contained in this book" Bill Tonelli, Rolling Stone."
Download or read book Philadelphia s Black Mafia written by S.P. Griffin and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2003-07-31 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Philadelphia's 'Black Mafia' could be used as primary reading in deviance and organized crime courses. Academicians in the fields of criminology, sociology, history, political science and African-American Studies will find the book compelling and important. This book provides the first sociological analysis to date of Philadelphia's infamous "Black Mafia" which has organized crime (with varying degrees of success) in predominantly African-American sections of the city dating back to the late 1960's. Philadelphia's 'Black Mafia': -is a first step in developing both data and sophisticated theoretical propositions germane to the ongoing study of organized crime; -uses primary source documents, including confidential law enforcement files, court transcripts and interviews; -explores the group's activities in detail, depicting some of the most notorious crimes in Philadelphia's history; -thoroughly examines the organization of the Black Mafia and the group's alliances, conspiracies and conflicts; -challenges many of the current historical and theoretical assumptions regarding organized crime.
Download or read book The Mob and the City written by C. Alexander Hortis and published by Prometheus Books. This book was released on 2019-12-17 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Forget what you think you know about the Mafia. After reading this book, even life-long mob aficionados will have a new perspective on organized crime. Informative, authoritative, and eye-opening, this is the first full-length book devoted exclusively to uncovering the hidden history of how the Mafia came to dominate organized crime in New York City during the 1930s through 1950s. Based on exhaustive research of archives and secret files obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, author and attorney C. Alexander Hortis draws on the deepest collection of primary sources, many newly discovered, of any history of the modern mob. Shattering myths, Hortis reveals how Cosa Nostra actually obtained power at the inception. The author goes beyond conventional who-shot-who mob stories, providing answers to fresh questions such as- * Why did the Sicilian gangs come out on top of the criminal underworld? * Can economics explain how the Mafia families operated? * What was the Mafia's real role in the drug trade? * Why was Cosa Nostra involved in gay bars in New York since the 1930s? Drawing on an unprecedented array of primary sources, The Mob and the City is the most thorough and authentic history of the Mafia's rise to power in the early-to-mid twentieth century.
Download or read book Challenging the Mafia Mystique written by Rino Coluccello and published by Palgrave Macmillan. This book was released on 2015-12-20 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Sicilian Mafia, or Cosa Nostra, is one of the most intriguing criminal phenomena in the world. It is an unparalleled organised criminal grouping that over almost two centuries has been able not only to successfully permeate licit and illicit economy, politics and civil society, but also to influence and exercise authoritative power over both the underworld and the upper-world. This criminal phenomenon has been a captivating conundrum for scholars of different disciplines who have tried to explain with various paradigms the reasons behind the emergence and consolidation of the mafia. Challenging the Mafia Mystique provides an analysis of the changes the Sicilian mafia has undergone, from legitimisation to denunciation. Rino Coluccello highlights how, from the very emergence of the organised criminal groups in Sicily, a culture existed that was protective and tolerant of the mafia. He argues that the various conceptualisations of the mafia that dominated the public and scientific debate in the nineteenth and more than half of the twentieth century created a mystique, which legitimised the mafia and contributed to their success. This book will be of great interest to scholars and students of organised crime, Italian politics and Italian literature.
Download or read book Italian Pop Culture written by Fabio Corsini and published by Viella Libreria Editrice. This book was released on 2018-09-06T00:00:00+02:00 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does the expression pop culture mean today? And how does it contribute to understanding a Country and a cultural group? This collection of essays, diverse in content, approach and perspective, tries to answer these questions. It aims at describing and figuring out the texture of Italian pop culture – as a meaningful juxtaposition between high and low, mass and elite, artistic and consumerist – in relation to the Italian mediascape and cultural context. Through the mosaic of narratives produced by television, music, comics and novels, to name a few, and the mixture of genres and types of cultural products analyzed in every essay, the reader is allowed to further the knowledge of Italian pop culture and to get a glimpse of Italians and ‘Italian-ness’.
Download or read book Made Men written by Antonio Nicaso and published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. This book was released on 2013-07-05 with total page 183 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The novel The Godfather (1969) and the movie of the same name (1972) entrenched the myth of the Mafiosi as valiant knights, men of honor, and defenders of the traditional concept of family. As a result of this movie and other popular portrayals, the image of mobsters as “men of honor and tradition” has become iconic throughout America. Yet the truth of the matter belies this more noble image. The Mafia is a ruthless organization. Their concept of family is a twisted one. But viewed through the lens of popular culture, it is often difficult to separate the fiction from the reality. Made Men demystifies this image by dismantling the code of honor that Mafiosi live by, including its attendant symbols, rituals, and the lifestyle that it demands. Since the end of World War II, the Mafia in Italy and America has undergone major changes, which are charted by the authors through the present day. Nicaso and Danesi also consider all kinds of related organizations, not only the Italian ones, including the Yakuza, the Triads, and the Russian Mafia. The authors look at organized criminal culture in general, attempting to explain why its symbols, rituals, and practices continue to draw people in, both as literal members, or as consumers of the pop culture that glorifies them. This story traces and decodes the origins, history and success of the mafia in the U.S., bringing a better, and more accurate understanding of this ultimately brutal, violent, and corrupting “family business.” It is a story that has rarely been told in this way, but which is believed, nonetheless, important to tell.
Download or read book Mafia and Organized Crime written by James O. Finckenauer and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-12-01 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A compelling introduction to the global impact of organized crime Famous for being ruthless, cruel, and cool, the Mafia has always captured the darker side of the imagination. Here, James Finckenauer debunks the myths surrounding the Mafia to reveal the harsh realities of global organized crime from Japan to Russia to Colombia. Despite popular appeal, these incredibly complex organizations destabilize society on a global scale, perpetuating untold economic, physical, psychological, and societal damage. "Mafia and Organized Crime: A Beginner's Guide" provides vital insight into the real stories behind the world's richest and most successful criminals.
Download or read book An Offer We Can t Refuse written by George De Stefano and published by Faber & Faber/Farrar, Straus, Giroux. This book was released on 2007-01-23 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Mafia has maintained an enduring hold on the American cultural imagination--even as it continues to wrongly color our real-life perception of Italian Americans. Journalist and cultural critic De Stefano takes a look at the origins and prevalence of the Mafia mythos in America. Beginning with a consideration of Italian emigration in the early twentieth century and the fear and prejudice--among both Americans and Italians--that informed our earliest conception of what was the largest immigrant group to enter the United States, De Stefano explores how these impressions laid the groundwork for the images so familiar to us today and uses them to illuminate and explore the variety and allure of Mafia stories. At the same time, he addresses the lingering power of the goodfella cliché, which makes it all but impossible to green-light a project about the Italian American experience not set in gangland.--From publisher description.
Download or read book Signs of Crime written by Marcel Danesi and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2013-11-27 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book will introduce the field of forensic semiotics as a tool for understanding crime and criminality. It will focus on how symbolism, ritual, and other sign-based activities play a crucial role in the constitution of criminal organizations and often in the enactment of individual crimes. It will present semiotic notions, methods, and techniques that can be applied to forensic science, such as the role of ritual and slang in criminal gangs.
Download or read book Hushabye written by Al Contrera and published by Balboa Press. This book was released on 2018-04-17 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An original founding member of the Mystics, author Al Contrera tells the true story of how five Brooklyn teenagers went from singing on street corners to fame in the fifties with their first hit song, “Hushabye.” Contrera, provides vivid and detailed accounts of the trials and adventures of forming a rock-‘n’-roll group in a neighborhood controlled by the mob. He narrates the story of the group’s formation, their recording and touring career, as well as their successes and heartbreaks, including the story of when the Mystics’ lead singer was arrested for being an innocent witness to a holdup and accidental shooting by a neighborhood gang and was mistakenly jailed for two years. Hushabye tells about walking the fine line between the music and the mob and how peer pressure and the temptations of fame changed their lives. Contrera offers keen insight and background into the sweet sound of the street corner doo-wop harmonies of the 1950s.
Download or read book Crime Shame and Reintegration written by John Braithwaite and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1989-03-23 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Crime, Shame and Reintegration is a contribution to general criminological theory. Its approach is as relevant to professional burglary as to episodic delinquency or white collar crime. Braithwaite argues that some societies have higher crime rates than others because of their different processes of shaming wrongdoing. Shaming can be counterproductive, making crime problems worse. But when shaming is done within a cultural context of respect for the offender, it can be an extraordinarily powerful, efficient and just form of social control. Braithwaite identifies the social conditions for such successful shaming. If his theory is right, radically different criminal justice policies are needed - a shift away from punitive social control toward greater emphasis on moralizing social control. This book will be of interest not only to criminologists and sociologists, but to those in law, public administration and politics who are concerned with social policy and social issues.
Download or read book Gangsterismo written by Jack Colhoun and published by OR Books. This book was released on 2013-04-01 with total page 536 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gangsterismo is an extraordinary accomplishment, the most comprehensive history yet of the clash of epic forces over several decades in Cuba. It is a chronicle that touches upon deep and ongoing themes in the history of the Americas, and more specifically of the United States government, Cuba before and after the revolution, and the criminal networks known as the Mafia. The result of 18 years’ research at national archives and presidential libraries in Kansas, Maryland, Texas, and Massachusetts, here is the story of the making and unmaking of a gangster state in Cuba. In the early 1930s, mobster Meyer Lansky sowed the seeds of gangsterismo when he won Cuban strongman Fulgencio Batista’s support for a mutually beneficial arrangement: the North American Mafia were to share the profits from a future colony of casinos, hotels, and nightclubs with Batista, his inner circle, and senior Cuban Army and police officers. In return, Cuban authorities allowed the Mafia to operate its establishments without interference. Over the next twenty-five years, a gangster state took root in Cuba as Batista, other corrupt Cuban politicians, and senior Cuban army and police officers got rich. All was going swimmingly until a handful of revolutionaries upended the neat arrangement: and the CIA, Cuban counterrevolutionaries, and the Mafia joined forces to attempt the overthrow of Castro. Gangsterismo is unique in the literature on Cuba, and establishes for the first time the integral, extensive role of mobsters in the Cuban exile movement. The narrative unfolds against a broader historical backdrop of which it was a part: the confrontation between the United States and the Cuban revolution, which turned Cuba into one of the most perilous battlegrounds of the Cold War. ……………………………… “The anti-communist hysteria generated by the Cold War frequently unhinged the policy judgments of US government officials in many areas, but nowhere so completely as in our relations with Cuba. This conclusion is inescapable as Gangsterismo brilliantly unravels the bizarre tale of the Mafia army the Kennedy brothers recruited in their manic determination to rid Cuba of Castro, that vexing, seemingly indomitable Communist.” —Martin J. Sherwin, co-winner of the Pulitzer Prize (together with Kai Bird) for American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer “What is shocking is not what is new, but how much that is old – already on the record in presidential and other archives, CIA and FBI files, memoirs and histories – in Jack Colhoun’s Gangsterismo. Drawing on the National Security Archives, papers and books, public and private, he damningly documents the pathetic, incompetent and sometimes comic, but always inappropriate and anti-democratic, attempts by the CIA and/or its confederates, working in tandem with members of the mob, to assassinate Castro and overthrow the Cuban revolution.” —Victor S. Navasky, publisher emeritus, The Nation; professor, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism “Gangsterismo is an invaluable addition to our background knowledge about that small island nation that has incurred so much devotion and ire from U.S. Americans. Books about Cuba abound, but this one lays bare an often forgotten pre-revolutionary history of U.S.-based organized crime, and subsequent hidden U.S. government covert action. Colhoun has done his homework. This is a must-read.” —Margaret Randall, author of To Change the World: My Years in Cuba “Few aspects of Cuba-U.S. relations have so doggedly resisted serious inquiry as the subject of organized crime in Cuba. Much of what we know has reached us by way of popular culture, principally through film and fiction, to which the subject of the underworld in the tropics so aptly lends itself. Colhoun represents a breakthrough: serious scholarship on a serious subject. He casts light upon one of the darkest recesses of a dark history, calling attention to the convergence of interests between the underworld of criminal activity and nether world of covert operations – and reveals in the process that film and fiction have actually only scratched the surface of a sordid story.” —Louis A. Pérez, Jr.editor, Cuba Journal; professor of history, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Download or read book Codes of the Underworld written by Diego Gambetta and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2011-07-18 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The signs and signals of criminal communication How do criminals communicate with each other? Unlike the rest of us, people planning crimes can't freely advertise their goods and services, nor can they rely on formal institutions to settle disputes and certify quality. They face uniquely intense dilemmas as they grapple with the basic problems of whom to trust, how to make themselves trusted, and how to handle information without being detected by rivals or police. In this book, one of the world's leading scholars of the mafia ranges from ancient Rome to the gangs of modern Japan, from the prisons of Western countries to terrorist and pedophile rings, to explain how despite these constraints, many criminals successfully stay in business. Diego Gambetta shows that as villains balance the lure of criminal reward against the fear of dire punishment, they are inspired to unexpected feats of subtlety and ingenuity in communication. He uncovers the logic of the often bizarre ways in which inveterate and occasional criminals solve their dilemmas, such as why the tattoos and scars etched on a criminal's body function as lines on a professional résumé, why inmates resort to violence to establish their position in the prison pecking order, and why mobsters are partial to nicknames and imitate the behavior they see in mafia movies. Even deliberate self-harm and the disclosure of their crimes are strategically employed by criminals to convey important messages. By deciphering how criminals signal to each other in a lawless universe, this gruesomely entertaining and incisive book provides a quantum leap in our ability to make sense of their actions.
