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"The release this weekend of Beyonce's sixth studio album, "Lemonade," and accompanying hour-long movie - which is as much a part of the release as the audio album - is being hailed by reviewers as her most accomplished work yet. The album has been called complicated, eclectic, powerful and edgy, and boasts an impressive list of collaborators, including Kendrick Lamar, The Weeknd and Diplo."

"Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfactions, our ego satisfactions, in consumption. The measure of social status, of social acceptance, of prestige, is now to be found in our consumptive patterns. The very meaning and significance of our lives today expressed in consumptive terms. The greater the pressures upon the individual to conform to safe and accepted social standards, the more does he tend to express his aspirations and his individuality in terms of what he wears, drives, eats- his home, his car, his pattern of food serving, his hobbies. These commodities and services must be offered to the consumer with a special urgency. We require not only "forced draft" consumption, but "expensive" consumption as well. We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced, and discarded at an ever increasing pace. We need to have people eat, drink, dress, ride, live, with ever more complicated and, therefore, constantly more expensive consumption. The home power tools and the whole "do-it-yourself" movement are excellent examples of "expensive" consumption."

"However, when considering our current fixation on representation, I have to wonder if we have overlooked other meaningful ways of being represented, those that can be pinpointed only in life experiences and emotional phenomenon beyond the visible self. When I think of all the "black art" being ushered in by this new era, I feel conflicted. As a black person, I enjoy seeing artists whose careers are finally being given due praise and whose voices are at last being amplified. However, a question arises of what it means to be truly represented. Is it enough to look like the artist if you do not recognize yourself in the art? And yet there is nothing simple about it. Representation is such a complicated issue because on the surface it presents itself as a politically correct, objective good for all of society. For those being represented, it plays to a collective sense of pride and personal vanity. It feels good to see ourselves and know that people in our communities are being paid to craft their own narratives. Representation also presents the opportunity for other communities, which might have otherwise stereotyped or discriminated against us, to see our humanity and acknowledge our worth in the art we produce. However, while representation may be a praiseworthy standard for creative industries, it cannot be the bench mark against which we measure good art. Good art must do more than reflect our own images back at us. It must move us to a place beyond our obsession with identity, sense of tribalism and fear of others."

"THE CONCEPTS OF "safe spaces" and "trigger warnings," hotly debated on college campuses for years, are now reaching high schools too. It's easy enough to say that college students are supposed to have their assumptions challenged daily, even if that sometimes means experiencing discomfort. But the question of what high school students should be exposed to, and protected from, feels murkier in 2018. Today's high school students are more precocious, more politically engaged, more tuned in to their gender identities and nascent sexuality. They are already flooded with uncensored, unedited information, 24 hours a day: What would a safe space even look like for a 16-year-old with an iPhone? At exclusive private schools like Friends, the question is further complicated by the involvement of wealthy parents. As these schools have grown more expensive - Friends costs nearly $50,000 a year - administrators have found themselves trying to balance their own institutional values with the demands of parents who are in a sense high-paying customers. Teachers are increasingly caught between the two."

"Beyoncé's "Lemonade" album has sent pop culture critics and gossip columnists into overdrive. One line in particular, "Becky with the good hair," raised questions about infidelity and marital strife, but MTV's Rebecca Thomas says it's also a carefully coded lyric that says something much more complicated about black women in America."

"Social media star Danah Boyd's new book on teens, It's Complicated, argues that most adults misread and overreact to the online lives of young people. (This story originally aired on Feb. 25, 2014.)"

"Researcher danah boyd is obsessed with how teenagers use the Internet. For the legions of adults who are worried about them, that's a good thing. With a Ph.D from the University of California, Berkeley, and a masters from MIT, and as a senior researcher with Microsoft, boyd is something of a star in the world of social media. For her new book It's Complicated, she spent about eight years studying teenagers and how they interact online. She says she wrote the book in part to help parents, educators and journalists relax. "The kids are all right," she says."

"'Teens turn to, and are obsessed with, whichever environment allows them to connect to friends. Most teens aren't addicted to social media; if anything, they're addicted to each other.'"

"China's social credit system isn't a world first but when it's complete it will be unique. The system isn't just as simple as everyone being given a score though"