media

Jon, Arturo, and Chris are joined by Jose Marichal (of ThickCulture) and Alexandre Enkerli. A wide-ranging discussion ensues, and we tackle questions such as:

• Why haven’t we had any women on this podcast?
• Is there anything wrong with Berkeley taking DNA samples from incoming undergraduates?
• And when Eric Schmidt makes the distinction between privacy and anonymity, is he making any sense?

We also manage to start a discussion about pornography on the internet and end up talking about the failure of consensus in the Senate. Try to guess how we get from point A to point B on that one.

Various links referenced in the episode:

• Paula Priesse on Facebook (“Conservative comedy spoofing a well-meaning, young, progressive, and utterly hapless American woman”)
• Is Facebook bigger than porn?
• Facebook Privacy Settings: Who Cares?
• WEIRD biased Psychology studies
• Where People Position the Parties
• Class and location-based web services

Improv Number Ten!

This episode we talk about ourselves.

First, Jon and Arturo gaze at our podcasting navels. We discuss The Society Pages, our plans for Office Hours, and discuss what we’ve learned about producing podcasts and conducting interviews.

Second, at about 42 minutes in, Jesse and Chris join the mix and we navel-gaze as sociologists and academics about e-books, academic publishing, and the state of sociology.

So go grab a fuzzy navel, and listen to improv #9.

This episode, the usual Improv crew is joined by Chris Pappas. This Chris Pappas. Not this one. And not this one.

Two topics are on tap: first, we talk television. From The Wire and Mad Men, to Dexter, LOST, 24 and a bunch of British stuff Chris watches. After that, we talk World Cup.

So put down the vuvuzelas and download episode #7!

Jesse’s back and ready to tell Arturo and Jon what they got wrong last week about Arizona and right-wing media in the U.S.

The episode concludes with a tribute to the late great Ronnie James Dio and a live bootleg recording of the Dio classic Holy Diver performed by The Talcott Parsons Project in 2009. (That’s Jesse on vocals and Jon on guitar, by the way.)

\m/ DIO \m/

Episode #5…Go!

On tap this week is a discussion of anti-immigrant policy (well, policies) and public opinion, and Arturo offers a report on his extended voluntary exposure to Fox News.

In future episodes, we’d love to have guests sit in on the discussion! If this sounds like fun and you want to join in some time — or if you just want to give us feedback about how we’re doing — send us an email at podcast@contexts.org.

Download episode #4 now!