Geomedia Karlstad

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 developing more mindful, efficient, and sustainable ways to live with stuff. And often too much stuff. https://www.crispinthurlow.net/articulating-rubbish/

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 media. John D. Boy and Justus Uitermark provide an encompassing account of how a platform that is unfailingly polished and ruthlessly judgmental shapes us and our environments. They examine how personalities, relationships, social movements, urban subcultures, and city streets change as they are represented on Instagram. Interviews and ethnographic vignettes render an intimate account of the desires and anxieties that animate the platform. Just as importantly, Boy and Uitermark reveal how Instagram is implicated in social inequalities. John D. Boy, PhD, is an assistant professor of sociology (with tenure) at Leiden University.

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 season. How might the experience of Everest be studied from the perspective of anthropology and media? In this edition of the podcast I talk to Jolynna Sinanan from the University of Manchester who is working on just this project. https://research.manchester.ac.uk/en/persons/jolynna.sinanan

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 equipment between NATO countries. here I talk with Jason Dittmer, Professor of Political Geography at University College London about his book Diplomatic Material:Affect, Assemblage, and Foreign Policy. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/geography/jason-dittmer

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 forefront of developing science-based future scenarios that build on fictional models to challenge this. https://www.stockholmresilience.org/meet-our-team/staff/2011-11-18-merrie.html https://rethink.earth/author/andrew-merrie/ https://www.planethon.io/about-us

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, there are those who attempt to address the questions of movement of people and those excluded from or, indeed facilitated by systems of boundaries and entry points. https://www.shu.ac.uk/about-us/our-people/staff-profiles/joan-rodriguez-amat https://www.kau.se/forskare/cornelia-brantner

In the podcast I talk with Stijn Reijnders about his research into media tourism and the popular imagination.

In the podcast I talk with Emiliano Treré, Reader in Data Agency and Media Ecologies in the School of Journalism, Media and Culture at Cardiff University in the UK about how digital communication technologies has impacted on recent activism and the role it is playing in social movements.

The study of television covers a wide range of different processes from production, technologies of broadcast and circulation, to audience experience and involvement. There is no doubt that the streaming platforms and portals of recent years have had and continue to have a profound impact on the patterns of consumption of televisual media content. How much things have changed is always a contested point of view as media adjust and change in all sorts of significant ways. Myself and Professor Annette Hill discusses the state of television studies today and the impact of technological changes on audiences. https://portal.research.lu.se/en/persons/annette-hill https://www.routledge.com/Between-Habit-and-Thought-in-New-TV-Serial-Drama-Serial-Connections/Lynch/p/book/9780367186937

Media solidarities with which we are familiar with are a key part of the contemporary media landscape. Our question today, therefore, is how, and whether, the kinds of solidarity effected through the technologies of social media or television are part of any measurable process of social change or do they simply circulate within an increasingly complacent and self-righteous domain of individual consumerism. In the podcast today I talk with Professor Kaarina Nikunen about how the issue of the suffering of others is mediated today and how it has been shaped and altered by television and social media. https://www.tuni.fi/en/kaarina-nikunen

The discussion today centres on the concept of the technologies of sex, a phrase that derives from the work of Micheal Foucault. By 'technologies of sex' I am thinking of the ideas of the French philosopher Michel Foucault and his thinking about how the self and gender are the product of various social technologies such as cinema and institutionalized discourses and epistemologies of daily life. The term technology leads to a certain understanding of social systems as functioning a bit like machines to produce the things we see as material and real. I talk with Swedish journalist Kajsa Ekis Ekman about issues of gender theory today and her work on the subject. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kajsa_Ekis_Ekman

In the podcast I discuss with Professor Lee Humphries of Cornell University the themes and insights explored in her book: The Qualified Self: Social Media and the Accounting of Everyday Life. Drawing on a number of historical precursors from diaries to Kodak photography, Lee Humphries argues the case for approaching the practices of social media production of self as something less about narcissism and more about communication between ourselves and others through the ordinary things in life. https://communication.cals.cornell.edu/people/lee-humphreys/ https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/qualified-self

In the podcast I talk to Anthony McCosker and Rowan Wiken about their book Automating Vision : The Social Impact of the New Camera Consciousness. https://www.routledge.com/Automating-Vision-The-Social-Impact-of-the-New-Camera-Consciousness/McCosker-Wilken/p/book/9780367356774

In today’s podcast I talk to Professors Trine Syvertsen and Brita Ytre-Arne about issues arising from concerns of overuse of digital media and the strategies by which individuals seek to withdraw from the demands of ever present technologies. https://www.uib.no/en/persons/Brita.Ytre-Arne https://www.hf.uio.no/imk/english/people/aca/trinesy/

On the podcast today I talk with James Ash from Newcastle University about his research in smart technologies and the ways in which these devices change the relationship of users to objects and what implications this has in terms of agency and autonomy. Due to the corona virus situation this interview was done via computer and the sound is less than that we would have in the studio. https://www.ncl.ac.uk/sacs/staff/profile/jamesash.html

In this podcast I talk with the Swedish journalist Po Tidholm about the issues facing the countryside today and how issues of neglect and the loss of cultural influence in relation to cities is having an impact on towns and villages. http://www.potidholm.se/

Today I talk to Professor Henrik Örnebring of Karlstad University about the state of journalism studies today and the challenges faced by the profession.

In this podcast I talk to Professor Sven Anders Johansson of Mid Sweden University about his research and publications in relation to climate change, political activism, and the effects of communication technologies on human relationships. https://www.miun.se/en/personnel/anders-johansson/

In this podcast, I talk to Dr Ross Abbinnett about his book (The Thought of Bernard Stiegler: Capitalism, Technology and the Politics of Spirit)on the work of Bernard Stiegler and the important questions it address about the dangers and potentials of new media technologies. https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/staff/profiles/social-policy/abbinnett-ross.aspx

In this episode I talk to some of the Geomedia researchers from Karlstad University: Professor André Jansson, Professor Mekonnen Tesfahuny, Karin Fast, Lena Grip. We discuss how and why Geomedia came to be established, the theme of home and migration, and the Masters level programme in Geomedia Studies. https://www.kau.se/en/researchers/andre-jansson https://www.kau.se/en/about-university/about-karlstad-university/ceremonies/akademisk-hogtid/akademisk-hogtid-2017-2 https://www.kau.se/forskare/karin-fast https://www.kau.se/en/researchers/lena-grip

In this episode, John Lynch talks with Gillian Rose of Oxford University about the central role of geography in understanding the world today and the changes in the discipline over the last few decades as new ideas have impacted its conceptual approaches. In her work, Rose is centrally concerned with the question of how the world is visualised through various media, each of which articulates something about the relationships between people and the environment. https://www.geog.ox.ac.uk/staff/grose.html

Les Roberts from Liverpool University was a speaker at the plenary session at the Geomedia 2019 conference (http://geomedia.se/conference/2019/). Here he discusses his work in this area and how he came to be part of the project to gather early amateur film recordings of the city of Liverpool in England. https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/communication-and-media/staff/les-roberts/

Maren Hartmann was a keynote speaker at the Geomedia 2019 conference (http://geomedia.se/conference/2019/). Here she discusses some of the key ideas that relate to the theme of home and her research in this area. https://udk-berlin.academia.edu/MarenHartmann

In this podcast I talk to the London-based Irish filmmaker Christine Molloy. Along with her partner Joe Lawlor, as the production company Desperate Optimists, they have written, directed and produced a series of short films under the name of Civic Life, two feature films, Helen (2008) and Mister John (2013) and the documentary Further Beyond (2016). They are currently working on the final stages of their new film Rose Plays Julie. Christine was invited as a plenary speaker to the Geomedia 2019 conference and a recording of this can be found via the Geomedia website (geomedia.se/conference/2019/) as well as the Q&A session after the screening of Further Beyond. The following links provide details of the films that we discussed. Moore Street 2004 Short Film: vimeo.com/27145510 Leisure Center 2005 Short film: vimeo.com/17215802 Joy 2008 Short Film: vimeo.com/185302603 Helen 2008 Trailer: vimeo.com/17214414 Mister John 2013 Trailer: www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyt7JSOs6dI Further Beyond 2016 Trailer: www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQUwhzHZ5xs Rose Plays Julie, 2019 Clips: vimeo.com/334409463 Elephant (Gus van Sant, 2003) Trailer: www.youtube.com/watch?v=htlsOf3PnGY Elephant (Alan Clarke, 1989) Film: www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OzEbS-ukyk