Best Birkbeck Podcasts (2026)

1
The Mediated City 10 (2025 New Release): Sentient Cities 33:05

Play Pause

10M ago33:05

33:05

Software and networked devices are highly pervasive in the city, perhaps more than we tend to realise, and their consequences as urban media are becoming more apparent. The relatively sudden arrival of new, easy-to-use tools and streamlined interfaces sold under the broad banner of ‘AI’ may may be novel but serve as a sharp reminder of the more lon…

1
The Mediated City 09 (2025 Re-release): Platform Urbanism 33:18

10M ago33:18

33:18

If you have been fortunate enough to travel to new cities, in countries other than your own, it is more than likely your travels in and through this new city was mediated. Not just in the myriad ways we’ve been discussing so far in this series, but increasingly through a specific kind of media form: ‘platforms’. Your accommodation and sightseeing a…

1
The Mediated City 08 (2025 Re-release): Networked Location 32:17

11M ago32:17

32:17

It’s an entirely banal and simple act for many contemporary Londoners: to type, or even dictate, an address or location into a service such as Google Maps, or Citymapper, and be presented with a series of route options: walking, cycling, public transport, driving. And not just these options, but their predicted duration, based on for instance real-…

1
Paula Bialski Good-Enoughing: Software Work Cultures 12 February 2025 1:36:31

11M ago1:36:31

1:36:31

Good-Enoughing: Software Work Cultures at a Middle Tech CompanyContrary to much of the popular discourse, not all technology is seamless and awesome; some of it is simply “good enough.” In this lecture, Prof. Paula Bialski (University of St. Galen) offers an ethnographic study of software developers at a non-flashy, non-start-up corporate tech comp…

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The Mediated City 07 (2025 Re-release): Urban Brandscapes 32:13

11M ago32:13

32:13

As you move about myriad city spaces, you will probably recognise the regularity and intensity with which you are being exposed to a whole plethora of brands. Perhaps most noticeable will be all manner of advertising display. Ads plastered across roadside billboards or building walls, integrated into street furniture, consuming an entire section of…

1
The Mediated City 06 (2025 Re-release): Street Arts 28:26

11M ago28:26

28:26

Arriving into a large city by train, metro or subway, it's very likely that the concrete or brick sidings you see out the window are covered in graffiti. As you make your way off the train, into the streets you might see all manner of stylised inscriptions and names, written in black permanent marker on buildings and street furniture; or murals pai…

1
The Mediated City 05 (2025 Re-release): Media Architectures 29:50

11M ago29:50

29:50

If you live in a city which is changing rapidly, construction sites might begin to seem like processes of erasing, copying and pasting, remixing or remediating the city. And it also may be that the new buildings being put in place have more and more forms of media or communication, such as illumination or interactive screens, built directly into th…

1
The Mediated City 04 (2025 Re-release): Urban Soundtracks 27:46

11M ago27:46

27:46

There is an old adage about cinema: that it may seem a principally visual medium; but in fact, its soundtrack and sound design are just as important. So it is with our more general encounter with the city. While it may seem that we are surrounded and even overwhelmed by an assemblage of visual inputs, our experience of the city is multi-sensory. An…

1
The Mediated City 03 (2025 Re-release): Suburban Screens 29:48

12M ago29:48

29:48

One way or another, you most likely watch television in some form. You might use a device explicitly called a ‘television’, sited in a room in which televisions tend to be, such as a lounge or family room. Or perhaps you use a remediated version of television: via a device such as a smartphone, a tablet, a laptop or even projector. And the content …

1
The Mediated City 02 (2025 Re-release): Print Urbanism 30:45

12M ago30:45

30:45

If you’ve ridden public transport over a number of years, you might think printed material is declining. You may have once been surrounded by people immersed in newspapers and books, but more and more people seem to be cradling smart phones, tablets or laptops. Playing video games, watching downloaded on-demand programmes, listening to music, using…

1
The Mediated City 01 (2025 Re-release): Surfaces, Depths, Fragments, Publics 31:13

12M ago31:13

31:13

When you move through the city, you move through mediation. This is because what we call media and what we call the city (or the urban) are in a nexus: they are intimately connected. On the one hand, the practices, the rhythms and the motilities of urban living compel certain uses, exposures and desires in relation to media technologies, forms and …

1
Publicly Sited Update: The Mediated City re-release with new Sentient Cities episode 2:18

12M ago2:18

2:18

In this short update, I'm announcing the re-release of The Mediated City podcast series, coming out today. And, on top of that, the new release of this series' missing its final, 10th episode on Sentient Cities. In that final episode I hope will we a timely contribution to all the talk, concern, and hype about AI, in which we’re seeing renewed deba…

1
Media, Technology & Culture 10 (3rd Edition): Extractive Technologies 33:26

1y ago33:26

33:26

As we come to the end of this series, we seem to be circling around an important contemporary theme: the emergent scepticism about digital platforms. This scepticism is not only about the murky decision-making power of digital platforms’ technical systems, discussed in our last episode. It’s also that there is increasing awareness about their opera…

1
Media, Technology & Culture 09 (3rd Edition): Predictive Technologies 35:44

1y ago35:44

35:44

There is now widespread awareness of, suspicion about, and even opposition to the notion that computers seem to think. Or if not think, at least can learn things and then make decisions without our intervention, or indeed without us even knowing about it. Mysterious entities with names like ‘algorithms’, ‘bots’ and increasingly ‘AI’ seem to be maki…

1
Media, Technology & Culture 08 (3rd Edition): Participatory Technologies 35:54

1y ago35:54

35:54

There seems to be widespread consensus that contemporary media is much more participatory. For some time, this was a point of celebration: anyone could, for example, set up a YouTube account, and with relatively low-cost or even free devices and software, generate and share their experiences or views with minimal censorious intervention. Recently, …

1
Media, Technology & Culture 07 (3rd Edition): Embodied Technologies 33:36

1y ago33:36

33:36

Media technologies today seem to be everywhere. Assisting us in – or invading – each and every corner of our daily existence. We have already discussed how this ubiquity is embedded into a huge range of physical infrastructures; environments where media technologies surround us. And yet, we also increasingly carry media around with us, in our pocke…

1
Yuk Hui Machine and Sovereignty Birkbeck 1 November 2024 1:53:19

1y ago1:53:19

1:53:19

Philosopher of technology Yuk Hui introduces ideas from his new book developing political thought to address today's planetary crises. Talk held at Birkbeck, University of London 1 Nov 2024. Talk followed by dialogue with Joel McKim, Director of the Vasari Research Centre for Art and Technology. Yuk Hui, professor of philosophy at Erasmus Universit…

1
Media, Technology & Culture 06 (3rd Edition): Infrastructural Technologies 35:48

1y ago35:48

35:48

We have already discussed the importance of paying attention to how media technologies are powerful when they are ordinary and relatively invisible. When they work like ‘appliances’ in daily life. This was the key message of McLuhan’s ‘medium theory’ as well as theories of media domestication. These perspectives tend to imagine media technologies i…

1
Media, Technology & Culture 05 (3rd Edition): Computational Technologies 31:59

1y ago31:59

31:59

Most people know very well that social and cultural transformations are complex. And yet, we often seem prepared to think of individual media as bringing change. We believe that there was a situation before this or that media, and then another situation after. Sometimes there are worries about this subsequent situation; or nostalgia for how things …

1
Media, Technology & Culture 04 (3rd Edition): Live Technologies 30:35

1y ago30:35

30:35

It is often said that media technologies provide us with a window on the world, beyond our own experience. A window not only connecting us to distant or past worlds, beyond our immediate reach, but also to worlds we feel can join into, and share simultaneously. One term for describing how media afford this latter window on the world is ‘liveness’. …

1
Media, Technology & Culture 03 (3rd Edition): Domesticated Technologies 29:37

1y ago29:37

29:37

By now, you will have noticed we are not spending much if any time trying to understand media technologies in isolation. Instead, we have been and will keep putting media technologies into the settings on which they depend as well as help shape. One prominent academic concept for scholars seeking to understand media technologies in such settings is…

1
Media, Technology and Culture 02 (3rd Edition): Located Technologies 34:35

1+ y ago34:35

34:35

A conventional narrative in many historical accounts about the arrival of new media technologies is that media technologies have oftentimes made possible forms of communication in which physical co-presence is less and less necessary. Early media technologies like print allowed for unprecedented communication across distance, albeit with a time lag…

1
Media, Technology and Culture 01 (3rd Edition): Cultural Technologies 33:05

1+ y ago33:05

33:05

Technological talk is everywhere nowadays. All manner of novel developments, good or ill, are associated with the supposed impact of technology. But when we invoke the term ‘technology’, whether in relation to media or in general, just what do we mean anyway? Do technologies drive human history? Or are technologies just tools, extending deeper soci…

1
Publicly Sited Update: New 3rd Edition of the Media, Technology and Culture podcast 2:28

1+ y ago2:28

2:28

In this short update, I'm announcing the new third edition of the Media, Technology and Culture podcast series coming out tomorrow. This is not a sequel of all new topics, but it is a complete re-recording with new elements and tweaks to go along with the new academic term. It also includes two refocused episodes: one on located technologies, and t…

1
Data Materiality Episode 6: Aylish Wood on Animation and the Materialities of Generative Algorithms 44:03

2+ y ago44:03

44:03

In this episode we speak with Aylish Wood, Professor Emerita in Animation and Film Studies at the University of Kent. Aylish is a pioneering figure in the study of digital animation and 3D imaging software. She is the author of Software, Animation and the Moving Image: What’s in the Box?, a study of how animation and visualization artists enter int…

1
The Mediated City 09 (Re-release): Platform Urbanism 33:18

3y ago33:18

33:18

If you have been fortunate enough to travel to new cities, in countries other than your own, it is more than likely your travels in and through this new city was mediated. Not just in the myriad ways we’ve been discussing so far in this series, but increasingly through a specific kind of media form: ‘platforms’. Your accommodation and sightseeing a…

1
The Mediated City 08 (Re-release): Networked Location 32:17

3y ago32:17

32:17

It’s an entirely banal and simple act for many contemporary Londoners: to type, or even dictate, an address or location into a service such as Google Maps, or Citymapper, and be presented with a series of route options: walking, cycling, public transport, driving. And not just these options, but their predicted duration, based on for instance real-…

1
The Mediated City 07: Urban Brandscapes 32:13

3y ago32:13

32:13

As you move about myriad city spaces, you will probably recognise the regularity and intensity with which you are being exposed to a whole plethora of brands. Perhaps most noticeable will be all manner of advertising display. Ads plastered across roadside billboards or building walls, integrated into street furniture, consuming an entire section of…

1
The Mediated City 06: Street Arts 28:26

3y ago28:26

28:26

Arriving into a large city by train, metro or subway, it's very likely that the concrete or brick sidings you see out the window are covered in graffiti. As you make your way off the train, into the streets you might see all manner of stylised inscriptions and names, written in black permanent marker on buildings and street furniture; or murals pai…

1
The Mediated City 05 (Re-release): Media Architectures 29:50

3y ago29:50

29:50

If you live in a city which is changing rapidly, construction sites might begin to seem like processes of erasing, copying and pasting, remixing or remediating the city. And it also may be that the new buildings being put in place have more and more forms of media or communication, such as illumination or interactive screens, built directly into th…

1
The Mediated City 04 (Re-release): Urban Soundtracks 27:46

3y ago27:46

27:46

There is an old adage about cinema: that it may seem a principally visual medium; but in fact, its soundtrack and sound design are just as important. So it is with our more general encounter with the city. While it may seem that we are surrounded and even overwhelmed by an assemblage of visual inputs, our experience of the city is multi-sensory. An…

1
The Mediated City 03 (Re-release): Suburban Screens 29:48

3y ago29:48

29:48

One way or another, you most likely watch television in some form. You might use a device explicitly called a ‘television’, sited in a room in which televisions tend to be, such as a lounge or family room. Or perhaps you use a remediated version of television: via a device such as a smartphone, a tablet, a laptop or even projector. And the content …

1
The Mediated City 02 (Re-release): Print Urbanism 30:45

3y ago30:45

30:45

If you’ve ridden public transport over a number of years, you might think printed material is declining. You may have once been surrounded by people immersed in newspapers and books, but more and more people seem to be cradling smart phones, tablets or laptops. Playing video games, watching downloaded on-demand programmes, listening to music, using…

1
The Mediated City 01 (Re-release): Surfaces, Depths, Fragments, Publics 31:13

3y ago31:13

31:13

When you move through the city, you move through mediation. This is because what we call media and what we call the city (or the urban) are in a nexus: they are intimately connected. On the one hand, the practices, the rhythms and the motilities of urban living compel certain uses, exposures and desires in relation to media technologies, forms and …

1
Birkbeck Politics Roundtable on the Truss Premiership 55:16

3+ y ago55:16

55:16

On 6 September 2022, Liz Truss became the third women in history to occupy the UK's highest political office and the UK’s ninth ‘takeover' Prime Minister since the Second World War. Truss inherits a Parliamentary Conservative Party which remains scarred by Brexit and divided over how to handle the cost-of-living crisis and worsening outlook for eco…

1
Westminster Watch Episode 62 20:30

3+ y ago20:30

20:30

Westminster Watch is a podcast in which members of the Department of Politics at Birkbeck, University of London discuss current issues in British politics. In Episode 62, Professor Dermot Hodson and Dr Ben Worthy discuss the Conservative leadership election. For more information about research on politics at Birkbeck, the range of events run by the…

1
Westminster Watch Episode 61 24:02

3+ y ago24:02

24:02

Westminster Watch is a podcast in which members of the Department of Politics at Birkbeck, University of London discuss current issues in British politics. In Episode 61, Professor Dermot Hodson and Dr Ben Worthy discuss Boris Johnson’s resignation as leader of the Conservative Party and his legacy as Prime Minister. For more information about rese…

1
The Mediated City 09: Platform Urbanism 33:18

4y ago33:18

33:18

If you have been fortunate enough to travel to new cities, in countries other than your own, it is more than likely your travels in and through this new city was mediated. Not just in the myriad ways we’ve been discussing so far in this series, but increasingly through a specific kind of media form: ‘platforms’. Your accommodation and sightseeing a…

1
The Mediated City 08: Networked Location 32:17

4y ago32:17

32:17

It’s an entirely banal and simple act for many contemporary Londoners: to type, or even dictate, an address or location into a service such as Google Maps, or Citymapper, and be presented with a series of route options: walking, cycling, public transport, driving. And not just these options, but their predicted duration, based on for instance real-…

1
The Mediated City: Observing the Digital Picket 3:28

4y ago3:28

3:28

This is a short message to listeners of The Mediated City podcast series. UK listeners, and certainly my students, will know that the University and College Union (UCU) is currently taking industrial action. This action centres on two disputes. The first is focused on pensions: a typical member of the USS pension scheme is set to suffer a dramatic …

1
The Mediated City 05: Media Architectures 29:50

4y ago29:50

29:50

If you live in a city which is changing rapidly, construction sites might begin to seem like processes of erasing, copying and pasting, remixing or remediating the city. And it also may be that the new buildings being put in place have more and more forms of media or communication, such as illumination or interactive screens, built directly into th…

1
The Mediated City 04: Urban Soundtracks 27:46

4y ago27:46

27:46

There is an old adage about cinema: that it may seem a principally visual medium; but in fact, its soundtrack and sound design are just as important. So it is with our more general encounter with the city. While it may seem that we are surrounded and even overwhelmed by an assemblage of visual inputs, our experience of the city is multi-sensory. An…

1
The Mediated City 03: Suburban Screens 29:48

4y ago29:48

29:48

One way or another, you most likely watch television in some form. You might use a device explicitly called a ‘television’, sited in a room in which televisions tend to be, such as a lounge or family room. Or perhaps you use a remediated version of television: via a device such as a smartphone, a tablet, a laptop or even projector. And the content …

1
The Mediated City 02: Print Urbanism 30:45

4y ago30:45

30:45

If you’ve ridden public transport over a number of years, you might think printed material is declining. You may have once been surrounded by people immersed in newspapers and books, but more and more people seem to be cradling smart phones, tablets or laptops. Playing video games, watching downloaded on-demand programmes, listening to music, using…

1
The Mediated City 01: Surfaces, Depths, Fragments, Publics 31:13

4y ago31:13

31:13

When you move through the city, you move through mediation. This is because what we call media and what we call the city (or the urban) are in a nexus: they are intimately connected. On the one hand, the practices, the rhythms and the motilities of urban living compel certain uses, exposures and desires in relation to media technologies, forms and …

1
Birkbeck Politics Interviews: Ben Wood 7:51

4y ago7:51

7:51

‘Studying Politics at Birkbeck prepared me for this campaign'. Listen to current Birkbeck Politics student Ben Wood talking about his experience of running for Parliament in the recent North Shropshire by-election. For more information about Birkbeck’s undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in Politics, please visit www.bbk.ac.uk/politics…

1
Westminster Watch Episode 60 19:44

4y ago19:44

19:44

Westminster Watch is a podcast in which members of the Department of Politics at Birkbeck, University of London discuss current issues in British politics. In episode 60, Professor Dermot Hodson and Dr Ben Worthy discuss Boris Johnson’s troubled premiership and Dominic Raab’s review of the Human Rights Act. For more information about research on po…

1
Media, Technology and Culture 10 (2nd Edition): Extractive Technologies 28:16

4y ago28:16

28:16

Policymakers, politicians, activists, businesspeople and even ordinary people are more and more sceptical of digital platforms like Facebook (or shall we say, Meta). This scepticism is not just about the murky decision-making power of algorithms. It’s also that there is increasing awareness about the operation of digital platforms as private entiti…

1
Media, Technology and Culture 09 (2nd Edition): Algorithmic Technologies 29:14

4y ago29:14

29:14

There is now widespread awareness of, suspicion about, and even opposition to 'algorithms'. As widespread as the multiplicity of situations and domains in which these mysterious entities seem to be making more and more decisions: around welfare payments; university places; travel routes; and police patrol routes. Algorithms are also pervasive in me…

1
Data Materiality Episode 5: Sam Kinsley on Data, Technicity and the Industrialisation of Memory 39:50

4y ago39:50

39:50

In this episode, we speak with Sam Kinsley, Senior Lecturer in Human Geographies at the University of Exeter, in Devon, England, and the inaugural Co-Editor-in-Chief of the open access journal Digital Geography & Society. Sam is interested in spatialities and geographical imaginations of technology and the future; about how our situated existence i…