Explore every episode of the podcast Critical Media Studies

In this episode Barry and Mike discuss Hans-Georg Moeller’s book, Luhmann Explained: From Souls To Systems.They explore the agents of change in communication systems as theorized by Luhmann.

In this episode Barry and Mike continue their discussion of Luhmann. They talk, specifically, about the “recursively stabilized functional mechanisms” of mass media and their relevance to our 2026 media ecology.

In this episode Barry and Mike discuss Niklas Luhmann’s 1996 book, “The Reality of the Mass Media”. After unpacking Luhmann’s model of modern media, they question the role of truth in media and ponder if our current understanding of mass media is compatible with Luhman’s model.

In the second part of their discussion Barry and Mike talk about Rose Horowitch’s ideas about reading and what it means to be post-literate in the digital world.

Barry and Mike begin a two-part discussion of Rose Horowitch’s investigation into post-literacy.In this episode we discuss her November 2024 article in The Atlantic Monthly, “The Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books.” Our next episode will discuss her more recent article from the July 2026 issue of The Atlantic, “The Age of Reading is Over.”

In this episode Barry and Mike discuss Ted Gioia’s “What You Won’t Learn About the Odyssey From the Movie.” They debate the significance of the “magical mystery song” at the heart of literature.

In this episode Barry and Mike discuss Daniel Roher’s 2026 documentary, The AI Doc: Or, How I Became An Apocaloptimist. They apply Bernard Stiegler’s concept of the pharmakon to understand the various positions on the development of artificial intelligence presented in the film.

Link to Lawrence Lessig’s 3/29/26 Substack review

In this episode Barry and Mike discuss Louis Theroux’s “Inside the Manosphere” (March, 2026) and address the question: What does the Manosphere tell us about our current media environment?

In this episode Barry and Mike discuss the idea of “frictionless” relationships in the age of artificial intimacy.

ErikaHayasaki – “What Would a Real Friendship With A.I. Look Like? Maybe Like Hers?

The New York Times Magazine

7/20/2025

TED Radio Hour -- How our relationships are changing in the age of “artificial intimacy"

Friday, August

2, 2024

In this episode Barry and Mike resume their discussion of Mark Fishers’s 2013 blog post, “Exiting the Vampire’s Castle”. They discuss the five laws that govern the castle and wonder if it is possible to exit the castle, as Fisher hoped.

In this episode Barry and Mike discuss writer/music critic/cultural theorist Mark Fisher’s 2013 blog post, “Exiting the Vampire Castle”. They look at the essay, 13 years after its posting, and provide context as to what the Castle is, how it came to be, and how it functions.

The next episode will focus on Fisher’s laws of the Vampire Castle.

In this episode Barry and Mike conclude their discussion of Althusser’s seminal essay, “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses”. They focus on Althusser’s concept of interpellation and discuss whether he believes it’s possible to get outside of ideology. The conclusion of the discussion asks how Simone Weil, who served as the genesis of this series, conceives of an outside to propaganda and politics.

This is the first of a two part discussion. In this episode Barry and Mike discuss Louis Althusser’s Essay “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses” in relation to Simone Weil. Here, they discuss the state apparatuses and place them in dialogue with Weil’s discussion of party politics and attention. They close this episode by investigating the tension between the individual’s imagined and real relation to existence.

In this episode Barry and Mike continue their discussion on Simone Weil’s essay, “On The Abolition of all Political Parties.” They discuss the opposition between the truth seeking individual and the party member, and then pivot to what this question looks like in the current day.

This is the first of two episodes on Simone Weil’s 1943 essay, “On the Abolition of all Political Parties. In this episode Barry and Mike discuss the distinction Weil draws between “truth” and “ideology”.

This is a repost of the Guy Debord episode that was originally posted on 3/15/23.

In This episode of the Critical Media Studies podcast we discuss Guy Debord’s The Society of the Spectacle. As the book is aphoristic, rather than trying to address the work as a whole, Barry and Mike look at what Debord means by Spectacle and hone in on a few particular sections (24-28). The focus of this episode settles around the question of whether or not there is a continuity between Debord's mediated society and our own digital mediasphere.

We hope you enjoy and welcome any feedback or suggestions.

In this episode Barry and Mike discuss Federica Merenda’s essay, “Reading Arendt to Rethink Truth, Science, and Politics in the Era of Fake News”. They discuss Arendt’s distinction between factual truths and rational truths and how they reveal of the interplay of truth and politics.

In this episode Barry and Mike discuss the uncanny ways that Sigfreid Kracauer’s 1927 essay, Photography, anticipates the modern media landscape.

Barry and Mike discuss Siegfried Kracauer's 1926 essay "Cult of Distraction: On Berlin's Picture Palaces." Written nearly 100 years ago, the essay is strangely relevant to our current political landscape. We pay special attention to Kracauer's unique notion of distraction, which contra Stiegler, Kracauer views as a stimulus to thought.

In this episode Barry and Mike discuss “If Anyone Builds it, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All” by Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares. They discuss the main arguments about the inevitability of our demise at the hands of superhuman intelligence and present a few alternatives to this doomsday scenario.

In this episode Barry and Mike discuss Rachel Bitecofer’s substack article, “The Whole World is Getting Dumber (And the Smartphone Did It.)” We question whether her solution of banning smart phones from the classroom will make much of a difference or if we just have to go “scorched earth” on technology to regain our attention and focus.

In this episode we discuss Alberto Romero’s Substack article on AI video.  While Romero argues that perhaps we should seek legal remedies to the problems of deepfake video, Barry and Mike consider an alternative.  They discuss the issues that deepfake video brings to the fore and wonder whether the problems caused by deepfake technologies can be resolved by law or if these technologies should be engaged pharmacologically.

In this episode Barry and Mike discuss “The Most Important Skill in the 21st Century,” Alberto Romero’s polemical defense of boredom in the media entertainment age. They discuss whether it’s possible to be bored today in the way that Romero seems to require.

This is part two of our discussion of Bernard Steigler's "Elements of Pharmacology". This time, Barry and Michael focus on Stiegler's discussion of the unique challenges posed by new digital 'pharmaka.' 

This week on Critical Media Studies, Barry and Michael discuss Bernard Stiegler's "Elements of Pharmacology," a transcription of an interview with the French philosopher from June 2020, just two months prior to Stiegler's passing.  This episode focuses on Stiegler's exposition of his key term "the pharmakon" and the defining role it plays in his media theory.  

In this episode Barry and Mike discuss “The Eye of God”, chapter 2 of Juan Fontcuberta’s book, Pandora’s Camera. They reflect upon the impacts that the shift from analogue to digital photography and consider whether the digital image “kills us just as much as it gives us life

In this episode Barry and Mike discuss Juan Fontcuberta’s “Pandora’s Camera” (2014).  They discuss his take on Barthes and Kracauer’s theories about the relations between photography, philosophy, modernity, and existence.

In the “Ontology of the Photographic Image,” Andre Bazin makes the provocative claim that the invention of photography is "clearly the most important event in the history of the plastic arts." At the same time, Bazin questions our naïve faith that the photographic image is just as real as the object that it depicts. He goes on to provide an alternative history of painting and photography, highlighting the ways we value mechanical agency over human creativity. In this episode, Barry and Mike discuss Bazin's essay and also consider how the digitization of images has further altered "the history of the plastic arts." We hope you enjoy it!

This is the second of two discussions of Martin Heideger’s essay “The Thing.”  Please see episode #100 for the first installment, which set the table (jug joke) for this discussion.  In this episode Barry and Mike focus on Heidegger’s notion of “nearness” and the “thingliness” of the jug/thing. 

In this episode Barry and Mike begin their two-part discussion of Martin Heidegger’s 1949 lecture, “The Thing.” They focus on his concept of distancenessless as a unique problem of modernity and discuss how what he calls nearness might serve as an antidote.  

In this episode Barry and Mike discuss the idea of “frictionless” relationships in the age of artificial intimacy. 

ErikaHayasaki –  “What Would a Real Friendship With A.I. Look Like? Maybe Like Hers?

The New York Times Magazine 

7/20/2025

TED Radio Hour -- How our relationships are changing in the age of “artificial intimacy"

Friday, August

2, 2024

In this episode Barry and Mike discuss Karl Ove Knausgaard’s article, “The Reenchanted World: On Finding Mystery in the Digital Age.”  They examine Knausgaard’s proposed solution to the problem of the separation of knowledge from experience in an increasingly technological world.

In this episode Barry and Mike continue their discussion of the place of AI in art. They experiment with Suno and discuss the results. You can listen to those results at the links below. 

Barry's Tomatoes

Barry's Tomatoes as Rock and Roll

In this episode Barry and Mike discuss Rob Horning’s Substack essay, “No One’s Version” and whether the world needs an AI generated song about Barry growing tomatoes in the style of “Sympathy for the Devil” with the horns from Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire” and a guitar line to be determined (we think it does).

In this episode Barry and Mike continue their discussion of Jenny Odell’s book, “How To Do Nothing,” focusing on the importance of attention in producing critical thought. They then connect these ideas to previous discussions on the Taste Economy. 

This is the first of two episodes on Jenny Odell’s book (and talk) “How to Do Nothing:  Resisting the Attention Economy.”  Barry and Mike discuss the broad outlines of Odell’s project and attempt to connect it to Daisy Alioto’s understanding of the Taste Economy.

In/Visible Talks 2018: Jenny Odell - How To Do Nothing

In this episode Barry and Mike continue their discussion on

the “Taste Economy” and the evolution of the internet from 2.0 to 3.0. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUnYbLoyplo

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/11/style/dirt-newsletter-daisy-alioto.html

In this episode Barry and Mike discuss Kyle Chayka’s essays and offer a primer on the new  online “Taste Economy.”

How to Cultivate Taste in the Age of Algorithms

The New Generation of Online Culture Curators

In this episode Barry and Mike talk about Heidegger and what comes after philosophy and how that helps us to think about the role of the contemporary university.

In this episode Barry and Mike take a different approach to Heidegger's The Question Concerning Technology. Rather than a traditional "what does all this mean" approach grounded in historical context, they look at the essay with a specific eye towards understanding what Heidegger can teach us about our current digital media culture and the essay's relevance for our interactions in the age of the internet and near total interconnection.

This episode focuses on Harold Innis’ 1947 presidential

address to the Royal Society of Canada, “Minerva’s Owl” and his appendix to the

address. Barry and Mike discuss how Innis charts the relationships among power,

knowledge, and technologies and their relations to the durability of imperial

systems.

In this episode Barry and Mike revisit Gilles Deleuze’s essay “Postscript on the Society of Control.”  They attempt to reframe the central arguments of the essay in terms of our current digital culture.

In this episode Barry and Mike discuss Alan Turing’s 1950 essay, “Computer Machinery and Intelligence” and discuss whether or not Turing’s concept of machine intelligence is a contradiction in terms.

In this episode Barry and Mike discuss “The Indoor Plumbing Test” by cultural critic Freddie deBoer and ponder the question:  Is AI only hype?

In this episode Barry and Mike discuss Derek Thompson’s Atlantic essay, “The Anti-Social Century.”  They discuss how the evolution of media technologies over the last 50 years, culminating in the development of AI  have produced our current state of technologically enhanced solitude.

The Anti-Social Century

I'm In Love With Chat GPT

In this episode Barry and Mike discuss Wai Chee Dimock’s PMLA editor’s column, AI in the Humanities.  After a brief summary of her argument they focus on the practicality of a humanistic approach to designing AI and its possible impacts.

In this episode Barry and Mike discuss Matteo Wong’s Dec. 9th article in The Atlantic, “The GPT Era Is Already Ending.”  They trace the algorithmic shift from Chat GPT to 01 and discuss whether this transition gets any closer to genuine intelligence.   

We encourage you to listen to the previous episode on Benjamin Labatut’s “The Gods of Reason” as a primer for this one.

In this episode Barry and Mike discuss Benjamin Labatut’s essay, “The Gods of Logic: Before and After Artificial Intelligence. In tracing his historical approach to the development of AI, Barry and Mike highlight the unpredictability of language as opposed to the certainty of mathematics.

Link to article.

In this episode Barry and Mike discuss Jodi Dean’s book, “Blog Theory.” They focus on her notion of “communicative capitalism,” treating the book as a time capsule of sorts.  They take her arguments from 2010 and suggest their relevance to our current situation in 2024. 

In this episode Barry and Mike discuss chapter one of Bolter and Grusin’s book and attempt to define their foundational term, remediation.