In this podcast I talk with Crispin Thurlow, Professor of Language and Communication at the University of Bern. Here, he argues why it matters to talk about waste as a cultural issue. As he says, by understanding the kind of language people use to make sense of waste, we can help develop strategies for changing how it is perceived, discussed, and handled. This is an important starting point for…
In today's podcast I talk with Ana Jorge from the Centre for Research in Applied Communication, Culture, and New Technologies about her book Atomospheres and Digital Media: Connection and Disconnection across Everyday Life. https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/atmospheres-and-digital-media
On the Geomedia podcast I talk with Professor Mette Mortensen on the way in which digital media reconfigure the way conflicts are played out, represented and perceived.
Two billion people around the world use Instagram, but so far social scientists have done little research on the platform. Despite Instagram's reputation for shallowness, the ongoing self-presentation it demands confronts users with profound dilemmas. Who are we? What do we want to show of ourselves? What do we aspire to be? On Display is a book about how people remake their worlds through social…
In the podcast I talk with Professor Bo Reimer from Malmö University about his current research project into imaginative futures and issues such as AI.
Adventure tourism gets no more extreme than mount Everest. Each year sees increasing numbers of trekkers, climbers, and tourists in the region. The evident dangers and risks are, in many ways, the essence of its attraction – an experience to find yourself, define yourself or even display yourself. The establishing of cellular and wifi coverage has meant that even more images are generated each…
When we think of processes such as diplomacy we usually think of receptions, dinners and heavily coded conversations between state representatives. Yet there is a way to think about the complexity of this relationship in terms of how it operates through a range of material and immaterial practices from the rise of paper records in the British Empire to the procedures for standardisation for…
As the climate crisis impacts on all of us, science and research is continuously expanding on the amount of data that describes what is happening. Yet, communicating this information can be challenging, especially if we are to avoid endless doom scenarios that seem to offer little in terms of how we can imagine a different future. Andrew Merrie of the Stockholm Resilience Centre has been at the…
The free exchange of opinion and argument in a shared space of a public sphere has been central to western democratic systems for over 150 years. The expansion of mobile communication technologies has introduced a number of key changes to this process and arguably raises the need for similarly new techniques for studying the very fluid and dynamic nature of these events. From protest to festivals,…