Welcome to Media Whatever, the new podcast from the Centre for Cultural and Media Policy Studies at the University of Warwick.
The podcast is about research from the Media and Creative Industries, and each episode will feature guests from CCMPS and the wider research community.
Videos of our guests research seminars are available to view on our YouTube Channel - http://tinyurl.com/ccmpsresearchseminars
Translating Machines: AI, Translation and Creativity. Media Whatever podcast with Caroline Summers and David Orrego-Carmona
Hosts Chris Bilton and Carolina Bandinelli interview Dr. Caroline Summers and Dr. David Orrego-Carmona about how AI impacts translation and human creativity, exploring its potential to enhance or diminish linguistic artistry.
24 Jul 2026TRANSCRIPT
The Great Resignation: saying no to dead-end jobs. Media Whatever podcast with Francesca Coin
Sociologist Francesca Coin joins hosts Chris Bilton and Carolina Bandinelli to explore the motivations behind the Great Resignation and the evolving relationship between work and identity.
9 Jul 2026TRANSCRIPT
The Museum is the Message! How museums shape culture and identity. Media Whatever podcast with Melanie Stavrou
Heritage scholar Melanie Stavrou joins hosts Chris Bilton and Carolina Bandinelli to explore how museums shape culture and identity through acquisition, participation, and digital narratives.
2 Jul 2026TRANSCRIPT
All They Need is Love: Incel Culture and Toxic Masculinity. Media Whatever podcast with Francesco Barchiesi
Hosts Chris Bilton and Carolina Bandinelli interview researcher Francesco Barchiesi about the origins and impact of incel culture and toxic masculinity.
25 Jun 2026TRANSCRIPT
Screen Romance: Love and Sex through a digital lens. Media Whatever podcast with Mary Harrod
Host Chris Bilton interviews Professor Mary Harrod about how digital screens reshape romantic connections and portrayals of love, sex, and gender.
18 Jun 2026TRANSCRIPT
Into the Feminosphere: the new politics of online feminism. Media Whatever podcast with Akane Kanai
Hosts Chris Bilton and Carolina Bandinelli interview feminist cultural studies scholar Akane Kanai about the evolving politics and pressures within online feminism, offering insights into generational differences and safe online spaces.
25 Jul 2025TRANSCRIPT
Technology for good? AI, hubris and the environmental costs of big data - Media Whatever Podcast with Sebastián Lehuedé
In the final episode of this academic year, hosts Chris Bilton and Carolina Bandinelli talk to Sebastián Lehuedé about the environmental costs of AI. AI’s data centres generate carbon emissions and burn through rare minerals, but these hidden environmental costs are often ignored, offshored to remote locations. At the same time, hubristic claims that AI can solve environmental problems from Google and other big tech companies don’t quite measure up. Perhaps we need a more humble yet ambitious approach to AI, recognising its limitations and costs as well as its undoubted benefits.
Sebastián Lehuedé is a lecturer in Ethics, AI and Society at Kings College London. He examines AI from a social justice perspective and has published extensively on data colonialism, the ethics of data extraction and the relationship between AI, ‘technology for good’ and the environment.
You can watch our CMPS Seminar Series on our YouTube Channel - Link (https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-bF3vYoGKwH81t1WUvehjSAoDnmBpBRY&feature=shared)
17 Jul 2025TRANSCRIPT
Being post-digital: Work and Identity Online - Media Whatever Podcast with Alessandro Gandini
In a wide-ranging discussion of digital culture and the future of work, your hosts Chris Bilton and Carolina Bandinelli talk with sociologist Alessandro Gandini about how digital media have transformed our experience of work and our sense of self, especially in the years since the Covid-19 pandemic. Whilst this has led to some nostalgia for pre-digital communities of place, for most of us platformisation has been a process of adaptation and intensification as we seek to negotiate ‘a self that works’ in the online world.
Alessandro Gandini is an Associate Professor in the Sociology of Culture and Communication at the Department of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Milan. His research centres on digital labour, platformisation and digital culture. His books include Zeitgeist Nostalgia: on Populism, Work and the Good Life(2020) and The Reputation Economy: Understanding Knowledge Work in Digital Society (2016).
You can watch our CMPS Seminar Series on our YouTube Channel - Link (https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-bF3vYoGKwH81t1WUvehjSAoDnmBpBRY&feature=shared)
10 Jul 2025TRANSCRIPT
Is it Real or is it Cake? Exploring the Weird World of Web Culture and AI Art - Media Whatever Podcast with Valentina Tanni
n this episode your hosts Chris Bilton and Carolina Bandinelli talk with curator and author Valentina Tanni about how artists and creative technologists are subverting the tech logic of digital media by creating weird memes, vapour trails and remixes of online culture. Valentina guides us through the backrooms and counter-cultures of web culture and AI art, suggesting that the online world might not be as rational or logical as we thought.
Valentina Tanni is an art historian, curator and academic, interested in the hidden corners of web cultures. She is the author of multiple books and articles exploring memes and AI art, including Exit Reality (Nero, 2024).
You can watch our CMPS Seminar Series on our YouTube Channel - Link (https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-bF3vYoGKwH81t1WUvehjSAoDnmBpBRY&feature=shared)
3 Jul 2025TRANSCRIPT
Troubling AI - Probing the Algorithm - Media Whatever Podcast with Tommy Shaffer Shane
AI policy advisor Tommy Shaefer Shane discusses AI's architecture and biases with hosts Chris Bilton and Carolina Bandinelli, exploring how it reinforces norms and assumptions about intelligence in this interview.
26 Jun 2025TRANSCRIPT
Counterfeit Sneakers and Instagram Queens - Media Whatever Podcast with Adam Arvidsson
Professor Adam Arvidsson discusses the industrious nature of digital economies, examining entrepreneurial content creators and their motivations in an interview with Chris Bilton and Carolina Bandinelli.
12 Jun 2025TRANSCRIPT
Museums Get Social! - Media Whatever Podcast with Ellen Charlesworth
Ellen Charlesworth from Durham University explores how museums utilize social media and online collections to engage audiences, highlighting potential pitfalls and offering strategies for more effective engagement in this interview with Chris Bilton and Cecilia Ghidotti.
5 Jun 2025TRANSCRIPT
The Politics of Graphic Design - Media Whatever Podcast with Marco Ugolin
Graphic designer Marco Ugolini discusses with hosts Chris Bilton and Carolina Bandinelli the politics of visual communication and how designers can apply ethical decisions to projects in this interview.
22 Apr 2024TRANSCRIPT
Resisting Algorithm - Media Whatever Podcast with Emiliano Treré
Our hosts Chris Bilton and Carolina Bandinelli are joined by guest Emiliano Treré (Cardiff University) to talk about everyday forms of resistance against platform power. Emiliano will draw on his new book Algorithms of Resistance (MIT, 2024) co-authored with Tiziano Bonini.
15 Apr 2024TRANSCRIPT
Nudging the Internet - Media Whatever Podcast with Elif Buse Doyuran
Our hosts Chris Bilton and Carolina Bandinelli are joined by guest Elif Buse Doyuran (University of Edinburgh) to discuss how online platforms use ‘nudge theory’ to challenge and channel our habitual behaviour.
22 Jan 2024TRANSCRIPT
Platforms' Moods and Vibes - Media Whatever Podcast with Ludmila Lupinacci
Our hosts Chris Bilton and Carolina Bandinelli are joined by guest Ludmila Lupinacci (University of Leeds) to talk about how platforms are not anymore concerned with thoughts and opinion but rather with the (re)production of moods and vibes.
22 Jan 2024TRANSCRIPT
Influencers and the Wellness Realm - Media Whatever Podcast with Rachel O'Neill
Our hosts Chris Bilton and Carolina Bandinelli are joined by guest Rachel O'Neill (London Shool of Economics) to talk about the rise of medical influencers and the wellness culture on social media
22 Jan 2024TRANSCRIPT
Quitting the Creative Industries - Media Whatever Podcast with Cecilia Ghidotti
Our hosts Chris Bilton and Carolina Bandinelli are joined by guest Cecilia Ghidotti (University fo Warwick) to talk about how and why creative workers may well quit their jobs.
22 Jan 2024TRANSCRIPT
Media Whatever Podcast Trailer
Welcome to Media Whatever, the new podcast from the Centre for Cultural and Media Policy Studies at the University of Warwick.
The podcast is about research from the Media and Creative Industries, and each episode will feature guests from CCMPS and the wider research community.
Inside a recent episode
Translating Machines: AI, Translation and Creativity. Media Whatever podcast with Caroline Summers and David Orrego-Carmona
Published 6 Aug 2026 · Transcript excerpt
[…] And then the response from another scientist saying language is too complex. There's a lot attached in terms of meaning and other connotations that cannot be automatically processed. That tension has been there since the 50s. So we have been working through these discussions for many, many years. And we have seen many waves of development in technologies that have led to different developments of tools. So we started with trying to give all the examples available in a language or just vocabulary to a system. So we have example-based machine translation, rule-based machine translation. Then we moved on to statistical machine translation that had access to corpora. […]
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