Join political scientist Hanna Sistek, media historian Sage Goodwin, and communication scholar Julius Freeman at the Center for American Political History, Media, and Technology as they dig into two big questions: What’s wrong with our information environment? And what can we do to make it right?
From disinformation and polarization to algorithmic news feeds and attention traps, we explore the forces reshaping how we understand the world and each other. We pick the brains of researchers, journalists, technologists, and other experts to unpack the major problems with our digital public sphere today, how we got here, and what we should do about it.
Along with their insights guests share their own “media diets,” the good, the guilty, and how they hit reset when the noise becomes too much. Join us to cut through the chaos, find the signal, and rethink how we engage with the media that shapes our lives.
In the last episode of CAPTivated’s first season, Sage and Julius hear from Jamelle Bouie opinion columnist at the New York Times and a TikTok creator with nearly 300,000 followers. about his experiences as a journalist working in today’s digital public sphere. Jamelle explains how historical thinking shapes his political analysis, how his short-form videos and his writing feed into each other, and why journalism may be returning to older forms. Jamelle also shares his thoughts on parasocial ...
28 Aug 2026
Ep 11 History Gives Us Agency with Bruce Schulman
In this episode, Hanna, Sage, and Julius sit down with historian Bruce Schulman to explore the relationship between history, media, journalism, and American politics. Bruce explains how mass media transformed political communication, why journalists need a stronger historical perspective, and what the history of Ralph Nader, consumer protection, and seat belt regulation can teach us about regulating Big Tech and AI. He also explores media fragmentation, historical thinking, and why studying t...
2 Jul 2026
EP 10 The Lost Art of Persuasion with Mary Kate Cary
In this episode, Hanna, Sage, and Julius sit down with Mary Kate Cary, former speechwriter for President George H.W. Bush and, until recently, Assistant Vice President, Deputy Chief of Staff to the President of the University of Virginia, and director of Think Again at UVA— a student-facing initiative built around freedom of expression, viewpoint diversity, intellectual humility, and critical thinking. She's now heading to the University of Denver to lead the new National Academy for Free Exp...
21 May 2026
EP 09 Selective Exposure and Motivated Reasoning with Josh Pasek
In this episode, Julius, Sage, and Hanna talk to University of Michigan professor of Communication and Media and Political Science Josh Pasek about how people process political information in today’s digital public sphere. The conversation breaks down selective exposure and motivated reasoning, why we seek confirming news, reject dissonant facts, and rely on mental shortcuts shaped by our social circles, prior beliefs, and media algorithms. Josh explains how fragmented online information envi...
8 May 2026
Ep 08 Battling Misinformation and AI Slop with Sree Sreenivasan
In this episode Julius, Sage, and Hanna talk to tech journalist, former Chief Digital Officer of New York City, Columbia University, and the Met, and founder of Digimentors, Sree Sreenivasan to discuss misinformation. The conversation traces the problem from email scams and WhatsApp forwards all the way to AI-generated "slop," it's global ramifications, and examines why Silicon Valley's tech moguls are to blame. Yet Sree remains a techno-optimist. He makes the case that improving your media l...
21 Apr 2026
EP 07 Digital Blackface and AI with Ryan Ken
In this episode Julius, Sage, and Hanna sit down with Emmy-winning writer, actor, and comedian Ryan Ken to discuss “digital Blackface,” the use of online Black images, expressions, and likenesses for non-Black self-expression or profit. The conversation dives deep into the complex history of Blackface, from its roots in 19th-century minstrelsy to its insidious modern evolution into reaction memes and a dangerous new era of AI deepfakes. Ryan explores how new technologies are being used to "su...
6 Apr 2026
EP 06 The Democrats and Big Tech with Lily Geismer
In this episode, Sage, Julius, and Hanna hear from political historian Lily Geismer about the Democratic Party’s decades-long relationship to the tech industry. From the Atari Democrats of the 1970s to Al Gore's dinner-party pipeline with Silicon Valley executives, Lily explains how market-based thinking gradually replaced the social safety net as the party's organizing logic. Lily digs into what that ideological shift produced: derulation that allowed companies like Amazon, Google, and Meta ...
19 Mar 2026
EP 05 The Quasi-Religion of Right-Wing Media with Marcus Mann
In this episode, Sage, Julius, and Hanna sit down with Purdue sociology professor Marcus Mann to discuss why polarization is the wrong framework for understanding our news media. Marcus explains that there are qualitative differences between right-wing and center-left news ecosystems. He argues that where center-left news reporting is largely focused on information dissemination, we can better understand right-wing media if we view it as a quasi-religious phenomenon marked by personality-cent...
5 Mar 2026
EP 04 AI is Not Inevitable with Alice Marwick
In this episode Hanna, Julius, and Sage talk to Dr. Alice Marwick, Director of Research at nonprofit research institute, Data & Society. Alice discusses the rapid expansion of AI. She explains how AI is dangerously concentrated in a handful of powerful companies whose interests are increasingly aligned with the current US administration, and how people are being pushed into using AI involuntarily in their workplaces, schools, and apps. She also raises concerns about people using chatbots ...
19 Feb 2026
EP 03 Why Local Journalism Still Matters with Dave Bangert
In this episode Sage, Hanna, and Julius sit down with Dave Bangert, a veteran local journalist who spent over three decades covering Lafayette, Indiana, first at the Lafayette Journal and Courier, and now through his independent Substack: Based in Lafayette, Indiana. Dave talks about what happens when newsrooms shrink from 45 people to seven, why those "boring" school board meetings actually matter, and how he's built a subscriber base of over 8,000 people who are hungry for local coverage. H...
5 Feb 2026
EP 02 The Personalized Public Sphere with Fred Turner
In this episode, Sage, Hanna and Julius hear from Stanford Professor Fred Turner about how personalization and commercial platforms have corrupted the “public sphere.” Fred traces the historical roots of the fantasy of a global connected conversation system back to post-WWII scientists, critiques the techno-utopianism of Silicon Valley, and underscores the importance of institutions and regulation for breaking up companies that would otherwise destroy public goods. He reminds us of the power ...
5 Feb 2026
EP 01 Unpacking Conservative Media with Nicole Hemmer
Welcome to the very first episode of the CAPTivated Podcast! Hosts Hanna, Julius and Sage sit down with Dr. Nicole Hemmer, Associate Professor of History and Director of the Rogers Center for the American Presidency at Vanderbilt University, to explore the history and power of conservative media in American politics. From William F. Buckley Jr. and Rush Limbaugh to Ben Shapiro and Charlie Kirk, this episode traces how and why right-wing media evolved into a dominant force in the digital age. ...
3 Feb 2026
Meet the Minds: Introducing the CAPTivated Podcast with Special Guest Kathryn Cramer Brownell
Welcome to CAPTivated! In this teaser episode hosts Hanna Sistek, Sage Goodwin, and Julius Freeman at Purdue University’s Center for American Political History, Media, and Technology (CAPT) are joined by CAPT Director Professor Kathryn Cramer Brownell, to introduce their new podcast. They chat briefly about who they are, what they do, and why they’re making this podcast: to help listeners understand what’s wrong with our media, how we got here, and what we can do about it. In upcoming episode...
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