SMS Radio
17 episodes - English - Latest episode: almost 3 years ago -a show about internet culture, power and politics that airs on 2ser 107.3
radiosms.substack.com
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Episodes
Facing the Digital Cliff with Michelle Arrow
May 22, 2021 00:30 - 25 minutesMichelle Arrow is a Professor of Modern History at Macquarie University. She explains why the National Archive is heading towards a “digital cliff” if we can’t properly fund and support the digitisation of the literal trove of treasures inside the building. You can read more of Michelle’s work here or follow her on Twitter. Also we chat about media vs social media coverage of Palestine and the links between journalism, colonialism and the cult of objectivity. In this ep we mentioned this C...
"Future Champs", Milo and The Rise of Branded Self-Surveillance with Ben Lyall
May 15, 2021 00:20 - 33 minutesBen Lyall is Sociology Research Fellow at Monash University. He joins us to chat about the rise of self-tracking apps for kids, and how one corporation in particular are using branded self-surveillance to sell everyone’s favourite crunchy malted chocolate powder. Also this week, social media has been busted restricting and censoring eyewitness accounts from Sheikh Jarrah. We reflect on how far social media has come since the optimism of the Arab Spring. For more info on the Datafied Child, ...
The Market Power of Influence With Benedetta Crisafulli
May 10, 2021 03:19 - 28 minutesBenedetta Crisafulli is a Senior Lecturer in Marketing at Birkbeck University in London. Rafqa Touma chats to her about the growing and largely unregulated market power of influencers. Also writer Hannah Copestake on adopting a Cottagecore aesthetic to deal with the pandemic. Stuff we dig: This interview with Evelyn Douek about the crumbling idea of Free Speech on platforms This feature by Josh Taylor from The Guardian on how Cellebrite’s hack-ability will impact how much Australian pol...
Ankle Bracelets and the Colonial Project with Monish Bhatia
May 01, 2021 00:44 - 25 minutesDr Monish Bhatia is a Lecturer in Criminology at the Birkbeck University of London where he researches the use of electronic monitoring on refugees in the UK. Since a similar scheme has been proposed in Australia in lieu of indefinite detention, Miles chats to Monish about what happens when you turn society into a prison. Read more of Monish’s work here. And more on how Australia uses electronic monitoring here. Stuff we dig: This Conversation piece we referenced in the show about why NS...
Catch up: Reporting on Hate with Cam Wilson
April 24, 2021 00:30 - 21 minutesIn the wake of the Capitol Hill insurrection, Cam Wilson joined us to chat about the Australian media’s relationship to the far right ecosystem, and how to cover hate without giving a platform. Cam Wilson is an internet and tech reporter for Crikey News and previously Gizmodo. Among many other things, Cam has reported on Sky News’ digital reach; Australia’s role in Capitol Hill; and neo-Nazis. **Re-broadcast from January 2021** Stuff we dig: This WIRED long read about the hackers who tri...
Our Right to Mock Pollies Online with Senel Wanniarachchi
April 17, 2021 00:30 - 26 minutesSenel Wanniarachchi is a Sri Lankan based human rights activist and co-founder of Hashtag Generation. He chats to Josh about the growing politicisation of “fake news” in Sri Lanka following the government’s proposed criminalisation of false news to deal with their disinformation crisis. Also Miles, Josh & Rafqa unpack the story of right-wing Honduran President Hernandez…his unusual network of support on Facebook…and the Facebook whistleblower who was fired for calling it out. Stuff we dig:...
Why We Can't Have Nice Things with Meredith Nash
April 11, 2021 22:57 - 27 minutesLess than one third of the STEMM workforce in Australia are women. Meredith Nash researches why our institutions are so bad at fixing this, and how we ended up both unfortunate bind of “male allies” - both part of the problem and the solution. We also give a eulogy as the world mourns the loss of one of its most important figureheads: Yahoo Answers. Stuff we dig: This scathing essay on NFT’s by Vicky Osterwell for RealLife Researchers speaking out against censorship in academic journal...
Rescuing Art From the Algorithm with Hipworth
April 02, 2021 22:06 - 27 minutesRafqa Touma chats to artist Hipworth about the sudden popularity of cryptoart and what it’s like to be creating in digital spaces; and whether art on the blockchain can emancipate digital artists from the demands of Facebook and Instagram algorithms. Also Josh & Cheyne are not Amazon bots. Stuff we dig: The Intercept’s Ken Klippenstein and his reporting on the Amazon Ambassadors (also check out Bellingcat’s original investigation back in 2019) The news that Canada might also go for appr...
The People VS Consumer Electronics with Jesse Adams Stein
March 28, 2021 21:04 - 25 minutesAll our electronics are designed to break, and when they do, they’re designed to be impossible to fix. Jesse Adams Stein is post-doctoral research fellow at UTS and co-leader of Repair Design. Josh chats to Stein about alternative repair movements and what the current Productivity Commission into the Right to Repair is doing to help this. Stuff we dig: The absolute shitshow of Trump attempting to build his own social media platform The news that Uber/Lyft have to reclassify its drivers ...
Australia's FOSTA-SESTA with Dean Lim
March 13, 2021 22:00 - 27 minutesListen now | Dean Lim is co-host of 3CR’s Behind Closed Doors - Australia’s only sex worker radio show. He joins us to talk through the government’s proposed Online Safety Bill and how it could push sex workers off the internet plus set some worrying precedents around who gets to decide what stays online. Subscribe at radiosms.substack.com
The Battle for Wikipedia with Heather Ford
March 06, 2021 01:53 - 27 minutesListen now | Heather Ford researches Wikipedia and digital politics at the School of Communication at the University of Technology Sydney. Miles chats to Heather about Wikipedia’s role in the information ecosystem after some sneaky edits to a Cabinet Minister’s page fuelled speculation around historical rape allegations. Subscribe at radiosms.substack.com
How news is made on WeChat with Fan Yang
February 27, 2021 01:02 - 29 minutesListen now (29 min) | Fan Yang is a PhD candidate at Deakin University researching news production on WeChat Official Accounts based in Australia. Fan talks about how the “African gang” narrative played out on Chinese social media; what WeChat’s news cycle can teach us about the business of journalism; and how techno-orientalism fuels reporting on Chinese apps. Subscribe at radiosms.substack.com
Catch up: Crystal Abidin on Influencer Wars
February 23, 2021 00:59 - 18 minutesOriginally aired August 2020: Dr Crystal Abidin, Senior Research Fellow and ARC DECRA Fellow at Curtin University, unpacks the phenomenon of Influencer Wars, and explains why we should generally be taking influencers more seriously. This was a chat about Crystal’s upcoming chapter “L8r H8r: Commoditized Privacy, Influencer Wars, and Productive Disorder in the Influencer Industry”. Check out the pre-print here. For further reading: Abidin, Crystal, and Mart Ots. 2016. “Influencers Tell Al...
Facts Get Zucc'd
February 21, 2021 07:44 - 26 minutesJosh, Cheyne and Miles break down the great Zucc’ing of Australian news from Facebook just days after Google agrees to hand over millions to news media (but mostly Murdoch). Stuff we dig (non-Facebook edition): This tweet thread from The Nod’s and former Gimlet producer Eric Eddings challenging the hypocrisy of the Reply All Test Kitchen series This Monthly piece by Martin McKenzie-Murray on Dave Grohl’s AIDS denialism and celebrity misinformation This surreal interview with Craig Kelly ...
Internet shutdowns with Simon Angus
February 15, 2021 03:02 - 29 minutesSimon Angus is Associate Professor at Department of Economics at Monash University, and co runs the IP Observatory. Simon and the IP Observatory are the ones monitoring global internet activity and are usually the first to find out about events like the recent internet shutdowns in Myanmar. Josh speaks to Simon about how these observatories work and what we can learn from them. In the news: Facebook finally takes a stance against anti vaxxers and we learn more about the role they played in ...
Feminism, consent and social media research with Minoli Wijetunga
February 10, 2021 23:00 - 29 minutesMinoli Wijetunga is an academic, a trainer, and a researcher currently studying at the University of Oxford, previously attached to the Digital Humanities Lab at University of Colombo in Sri Lanka. Her studies focus on education and its many intersections such as gender and class. This episode, Cheyne speaks to Minoli about how academia can do better when it comes to consent in social media research. And in the news this week: Microsoft and the Bargaining Code battle, Craig Kelly’s wikipedi...
Should Google and Facebook pay for news?
February 10, 2021 22:57 - 23 minutes"The Government is trying to force media companies and the platforms to talk….” Subscribe at radiosms.substack.com