In this week’s episode, guest Curran Nault discusses his article “Documenting the Dead: Call Her Ganda and the Trans Activist Afterlife of Jennifer Laude,” which analyzes the production and circulation of the documentary that Nault co-produced about the murder of transpinay Jennifer Laude by a US marine. Informed by his roles as both producer and media scholar, Nault raises critical questions about the aesthetics and ethics of re-presenting trans death and, ultimately, reflects on the possibilities and limitations of documentary as a trans activist tool.
Refugee Selfies and the Media of Migration (with Eszter Zimanyi)
In this week’s episode, guest Eszter Zimanyi discusses her article “Digital Transience: Emplacement and Authorship in Refugee Selfies” which analyzes “refugee selfies” collected from Instagram’s Explore Places map feature as an alternative viewpoint on the so-called 2015 European refugee crisis. Zimanyi argues that that refugee selfies are best conceived as a form of digital transience that provide the refugee with a sense of emplacement in a particular location along with an archive of their movement across locations. At the same time, these digital posts also prompt a disruptive affective charge that forces other viewers of the image to contend with the precarity of the refugee’s existence in any location.
The Sounds of Politics in South Asia (with Aswin Punathambekar and Sriram Mohan)
In this week’s episode, guests Aswin Punathambekar and Sriram Mohan discuss their article “A Sound Bridge: Listening for the Political in a Digital Age” which analyzes how catchy sounds become sonic cues for political participation. In their analysis of the popular refrain “Why This Kolaveri” (“Why This Murderous Rage”), the authors demonstrate how a sound’s availability, performativity, and resonance enable it to be picked up by a variety of journalists, politicians, and citizens engaged in popular protest movements. Punathambekar and Mohan argue that understanding politics in the digital age requires attending more closely to sonic modes of participation.
The Weather after Fukushima (with Laura Beltz Imaoka)
In this week’s episode, guest Laura Beltz Imaoka discusses her chapter “Rain with a Chance of Radiation: Forecasting Local and Global Risk after Fukushima,” which traces the news coverage of the fallout of the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. Imaoka analyzes how the distinct organizations of the Japanese and U.S. news industries contributed to vastly different public perceptions of local risk and global atmospheric interconnections. She also notes an early moment when, in the absence of reliable data from official institutions, civilians turned to social media to obtain their information, often with disastrous effects.
Digital Cartography and the Promise of Interactivity (with Jason Farman)
In this week’s episode, guest Jason Farman discusses his article “Mapping the Digital Empire: Google Earth and the Process of Postmodern Cartography” which analyzes how the political and social implications of cartography take on new significance in the digital age, with the proliferation of interactive maps and geographic information systems (GIS). Farman argues that, by incorporating a social network that engages users as embodied interactors rather than disembodied voyeurs, Google Earth is able to present user-generated content spatially within the very object that such content critiques.
Welcome to the Global Media Cultures podcast!
In this short episode, I recount the origins of the series and explain what I hope listeners take away from these conversations over the next three months.
This is a public humanities project in that it aims to connect scholars of global media studies, particularly those early in their careers, to an audience beyond the academy. The podcast series is intended as a teaching resource for those in higher education and as an introduction to these topics for anyone interested in how media shapes our understanding of the world.
Episode Transcript (opens as PDF)
Show Notes
00:50 The article on luxury movie theaters in India: “A Global Cinematic Experience: Cinépolis, Film Exhibition, and Luxury Branding”
00:53 The article on digital technologies used at airports: “The Datalogical Drug Mule”
00:57 The article on Netflix original series in Mexico: “Luis Miguel: La serie, Class-Based Collective Memory, and Streaming Television in Mexico”
Global Media Cultures Podcast 