Medea Vox
An Academic Podcast on Media and Design
Episodes
April 24, 2023 • 24 mins
The internet is filled with stories of ghosts, ghouls and monsters, as well as stories that claim to be authentic evidence of hauntings, curses and possessions. In this episode (recorded in 2022), internet horror researchers Erika Kvistad (University of South-Eastern Norway) and Line Henriksen (Malmö University) talk about the ghosts that haunt our digital technologies, and what happens when a horror hoax ages.
Mark as Played
June 3, 2021 • 27 mins
Today, we meet three people who have gone from passion for sustainability – to action for sustainability. The guests are all alumni from the Leadership for Sustainability master's program at Malmö University: Kevalin Saksiamkul, Chinomnso Onwunta and Paolo Nardi Fernandez. Together they have started the company Futurely, a consultancy that works with organizations to assess and co-envision how businesses can be sustainability pione...
Mark as Played
February 27, 2020 • 20 mins
In this Medea Vox episode, we talk about sex, intimacy and robots. The basis of the discussion are so-called Real Dolls, which are hyper-realistic sex dolls. Professor Jeffrey Bardzell has studied how people describe their interactions with these dolls and their motivations for using them. This research can help us understand how to design for intimacy, sexuality and self-care.
Mark as Played
December 5, 2019 • 65 mins
Dance is more than physical exercise. Dance is learning about cultures and getting to know yourself. Dance educator and Afro-diasporic dance expert Moncell Durden says that "Teaching dance is teaching empathy – dance is everywhere, it comes from everyone." In this Medea Vox episode, we talk about hip-hop, cultural appropriation and being h-u-e-m-a-n.
Mark as Played
October 29, 2019 • 30 mins
New research shows that data centers are not the jackpot that local politicians and energy companies claim they are: They don't create many jobs, they are a burden to the environment and the electricity networks, and they provide little benefit to local communities. So why all the hype when there's a new data center coming to town? In this Medea Vox episode, media researcher Julia Velkova shares her research on data centers.
Mark as Played
September 2, 2019 • 30 mins
Would you rather starve next week when the economy crashes, or in 50 years when the ecosystem collapses? In this Medea Vox episode, we discuss the graphic novel The Beast: Making a Living on a Dying Planet, which has been described as a unique combination of scholarly research and creative writing with the comics medium. With scholars Patrick McCurdy and Temi Odumosu.
Mark as Played
February 19, 2019 • 37 mins
Scholars Simon Niedenthal and Michelle Westerlaken talk about our sense of smell. Can practicing smelling things delay dementia? Why is it so hard to use odors in video games? And what do zombies really smell like?
Mark as Played
January 17, 2019 • 29 mins
Scholars Daniela K. Rosner and Per Linde discuss why women’s design contributions are often excluded in the history of engineering and innovation. They then move on to discuss a project where menstrual product dispensers are placed in public settings – a project that explores collective responsibility for public Internet of Things applications.
Mark as Played
December 6, 2018 • 38 mins
Eating animals is outdated. In this episode, designers and PhD students Michelle Westerlaken and Erik Sandelin discuss how to move towards a society that does not treat other animals as lesser beings. Underlying the discussion is the notion of speciesism, which is the oppression or exploitation of animals on the grounds of belonging to another species – similar to racism and sexism.
Mark as Played
November 23, 2018 • 57 mins
Pille Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt is professor in media and communication studies, but she is also the mother of a child with CHARGE syndrome. In this episode, we discuss digital parenting and how social media platforms can be spaces for pushing the boundaries of being normal.
Mark as Played
November 5, 2018 • 40 mins
Oxford Dictionary’s word of the year 2016 was post-truth. Together with “fake news”, this is one of the most widely discussed digital phenomena in recent years. Why should we care, and can we do anything about it? In this episode, media scholars Pille Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt and Johan Farkas discuss fake news and post-truth in relation to democracy.
Mark as Played
September 27, 2018 • 31 mins
Comics have been around for more than a hundred years. For a long time, comics were mainly viewed as light entertainment for kids, but today they can also be seen as an aesthetically ambitious art form. But are comics also a politically significant medium? In this episode, comics artist Daria Bogdanska and professor Magnus Nilsson talk about comics and politics.
Mark as Played
September 4, 2018 • 45 mins
In this episode we discuss degrowth. How can we build societies where economic growth is no longer important? With Miriam Lang, Ruth Kinna and Alicia Smedberg.
Mark as Played
June 14, 2018 • 41 mins
In this Medea Vox episode, Hugo Boothby and Erin Cory discuss the project “Music for Universities.” The project is based around generative music, which is music that is produced by a system in which degrees of randomization are defined by the composer. Central issues that are explored include audio imperfections and the narrative of technological sonic progress.
Mark as Played
September 29, 2017 • 42 mins
Fiction holds the ability of imagining alternative futures. Through comics, novels and videogames, we can explore social and technical “What If’s.” In this Medea Vox episode, we discuss how fiction can contribute to our thinking about the future in ways which other schools of thought – such as the scientific – cannot.
Mark as Played
June 22, 2017 • 37 mins
In recent years, the effects of digitalization are starting to appear. Sensor data and algorithms recognize who you are and then open the apartment door and turn on the lights. Data-driven AI helps you find what you want on Google, Amazon and Netflix. Datafication is everywhere. In this Medea Vox episode, Sarah Pink and Maria Engberg discuss the pitfalls of data-driven decision making, ethical data futures, and how people – of cour...
Mark as Played
June 1, 2017 • 51 mins
Sustainability is a wicked problem. The wickedness lies in that the problems related to sustainability can't be solved in isolation from one another—and not with toolkits that take little consideration of the context in which the problem occurs. In this Medea Vox episode, Tim May and Magnus Johansson discuss sustainability from the viewpoint of learning, co-production, and how "knowing" things not always solve everything.
Mark as Played
May 3, 2017 • 45 mins
Nigeria is a nation of paradoxes. Crime and corruption, Boko Haram and Niger Delta militants. But Nigeria also has one of the largest movie-producing industries in the world, Nollywood, and Nigerian culture is spreading all over the world. Nigeria's glass is half empty, half full, as today's guest Eromo Egbejule describes it. In this Medea Vox episode, senior lecturer Tobias Denskus and Nigerian journalist Eromo Egbejule discuss co...
Mark as Played
April 25, 2017 • 57 mins
The idea of commons describes practices that rely on sharing and collaboration. But how do you make commons work in practice, and not just in theory? A discussion between design researchers Anna Seravalli and Bianca Elzenbaumer.
Mark as Played
March 14, 2017 • 77 mins
This Medea Vox episode is about the connections between media and medicine. What do movies, TV dramas, and social media have to do with real-life doctor-patient relationships? And how can new media technologies enhance patient-centered care?
Mark as Played
Popular Podcasts
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
Anna Sale explores the big questions and hard choices that are often left out of polite conversation.
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people.
A straightforward look at the day's top news in 20 minutes. Powered by ABC News. Hosted by Brad Mielke.