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Global Media & Communication

New Books Network

Global Media & Communication podcast series is part of the multimodal project powered by the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication (CARGC) at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. At CARGC, we produce and promote critical, interdisciplinary, and multimodal research on global media and communication. We aim to bridge academic scholarship and public life, bringing the very best scholarship to bear on enduring global questions and pressing contemporary issues. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out through our email cargc@asc.upenn.edu, or follow us on Twitter @AnnenbergCARGC.

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  • 16 episodes
  • Updated Apr 28, 2025

Episodes16

Newest first
  • Jul 19, 2024 · 48 min

    Filmmaker, Artist, Writer: A Conversation with Paromita Vohra

    This is the Global Media & Communication podcast series. This podcast is a multimodal project powered by the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication (CARGC) at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. At CARGC, we produce and promote critical, interdisciplinary, and multimodal research on global media and communication. We aim to bridge academic scholarship and public life, bringing the best scholarship to bear on enduring global questions and pressing contemporary issues. In this episode, our host, Kinjal Dave, sits down with filmmaker, artist, and writer Paromita Vohra for a wide-ranging conversation about the artist’s career. As an artist, Vohra has worked across a variety of forms, including film, comics, digital media, installation art and writing to explore themes of feminism, desire, sexuality and popular culture. In this interview, she reflects on the provocations and practices that have shaped her approach as an artist, as well as the pedagogical possibilities that multimodal artworks provide in the classroom. Over the next forty-five minutes, you will hear about: What inspired Paromita Vohra to pick up a camera The challenges of building and sustaining a career as an independent filmmaker Social, political, and cultural shifts in the India during the 1990s that informed Vohra’s media production How digital media technologies and the Internet shaped Vohra’s work How Unlimited Girls sought to capture a particular moment within a globalizing feminist discourse, How Vohra has rejected certain aesthetic and narrative paradigms to craft her own style and voice as an artist, straddling comedy, irony, and politically incisive commentary Vohra’s digital platform Agents of Ishq and the sense of community the project has built How to cultivate and encourage complex conversations about gender, sex, desire, and politics in the classroom Building intimacy with audiences and being vulnerable to criticism Vohra’s upcoming projects …and more! Guest Biography Paromita Vohra is an artist who works with a range of forms, including film, comics, digital media, installation art and writing to explore themes of feminism, desire, sexuality and popular culture. Her extraordinary body of truth-telling, kinetic and intensely sensuous films, online videos, art installations, television programming and writing have made sense of feminism, love, sexuality, urban life and popular culture for a diverse and loving audience for over 25 years. Host Bio Kinjal Dave is a PhD Student at the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. She researches critical perspectives on gender, technology, and labor in the South Asian diaspora at the intersection of Media and Communication Studies and Science and Technology Studies (STS) and Diaspora Studies. She is a fellow with the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication (CARGC) and an affiliate of Data & Society Research Institute. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • Feb 4, 2023 · 1 hr 29 min

    Thomas Poell et al., "Platforms and Cultural Production" (Polity, 2022)

    Hello, world! This is the Global Media & Communication podcast series. In this episode, our co-hosts Aswin Punathambekar and Jing Wang discusses the book Platforms and Cultural Production (2021) by Thomas Poell, David B. Nieborg, and Brooke Erin Duffy. You’ll hear about: How this collaborative project came about, given each of the authors has distinct interests and disciplinary orientations; Given the two keywords of “platforms” and “cultural production,” how did the authors make sense of these keywords in relation to broader processes of digital infrastructures and imaginaries; How three key sections – social media, games, and journalism – were identified by the authors to explain the idea of “platformization”; How the platforms work as multi-sided markets and the approaches to account for the dynamism and lifecycles at work in platform economies; A discussion of Twitter as a useful case of platformization to grasp the challenges of platform governance; Why the authors chose to specifically focus on the role and agency of cultural producers; How to study cultural practices in various platforms across a wide variety of sociopolitical contexts in both Global North and South; The structural inequalities of platform economies, the precarity of the platform-dependent labor market, and the efforts of cultural producers to face insecurity; The cultural meanings of “creativity” and “authenticity” and the tension between the profit-driven platform logic and the individual search for belonging in social media such as TikTok; The relevance of cultural production and platforms to understanding the present and future of democratic governance and civic life in the post-truth era; The next collaborative project, such as a second volume, conferences, and research networks. About the book Poell, Nieborg, and Duffy explore both the processes and the implications of platformization across the cultural industries, identifying key changes in markets, infrastructures, and governance at play in this ongoing transformation, as well as pivotal shifts in the practices of labor, creativity, and democracy. The authors foreground three particular industries – news, gaming, and social media creation – and also draw upon examples from music, advertising, and more. Diverse in its geographic scope, Platforms and Cultural Production builds on the latest research and accounts from across North America, Western Europe, Southeast Asia, and China to reveal crucial differences and surprising parallels in the trajectories of platformization across the globe. You can find the book from Polity Press HERE. Authors: Thomas Poell is Professor of Data, Culture & Institutions at the University of Amsterdam, program director MA Media Studies, and director of the Research Priority Area on Global Digital Cultures. David B. Nieborg is Associate Professor of Media Studies at the University of Toronto Scarborough with a graduate appointment at the Faculty of Information. Brooke Erin Duffy is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at Cornell University, where she is also a member of the Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies faculty. Co-Hosts: Aswin Punathambekar is Professor of Communication and Director of the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania. Jing Wang is Senior Research Manager at CARGC at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania. Editor & Producer: Jing Wang Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices