Ways of Knowing

An audio show about the humanities

Season 5: Media Objects

We’re surrounded by media objects: things that are working on our thoughts, shaping the way we communicate and ultimately think. Everything from tupperware and office plants, to buttons and smartphone apps, is exerting pressure on what we think, how we think, and what is even possible to think. Often we don’t even recognize that it’s happening. That’s because we think of media primarily in terms of content—what is in a book, video, or AI-generated piece of text—and rarely in terms of form: the way a particular medium dictates what content can be produced and how it is interpreted.

This is Media Objects, produced in collaboration with Media Studies at Cornell University We aren’t going to be talking at you in this season very much. Episodes will comprise a series of scenes, quotes, vignettes, and other fragments, all threaded together through sound. 

Here’s the trailer for the series. We’re working hard to get this done by the end of fall!