How serious an issue is digital repression in Thailand? Who is behind it? And what effects does it have on Thai people? Listen to Janjira Sombatpoonsiri as she talks to Petra Alderman about this issue in the context of contemporary Thailand and the 2020-2021 student-led protests.
Janjira Sombatpoonsiri is an Assistant Professor and Project Leader at the Inst ... Show More
Jan 23
Betto van Waarden, "Politicians and Mass Media in the Age of Empire" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
How did politicians deal with mass communication in a rapidly changing society? And how did the performance of public politics both help and hinder democratization? In Politicians and Mass Media in the Age of Empire (Cambridge UP, 2025), Dr. Betto van Waarden explores the emergen ... Show More
1h 21m
Jan 19
Emily Hund, "The Influencer Industry: The Quest for Authenticity on Social Media" (Princeton UP, 2023)
Before there were Instagram likes, Twitter hashtags, or TikTok trends, there were bloggers who seemed to have the passion and authenticity that traditional media lacked. The Influencer Industry: The Quest for Authenticity on Social Media (Princeton UP, 2023) tells the story of ho ... Show More
49m 2s
Jan 14
Sonia Hazard, "Empire of Print: Evangelical Power in an Age of Mass Media" (Oxford UP, 2025)
Empire of Print: Evangelical Power in an Age of Mass Media (Oxford UP, 2025) offers a fresh account of evangelical power by uncovering how the American Tract Society (ATS) leveraged print media to spread its message across an expanding nation. One of the era's largest media corpo ... Show More
47m 26s
Apr 2023
Slum Tourism and Affective Economy in Delhi, India
In Delhi, former street children guide visiting tourists around the streets that they used to inhabit and show how the NGO they work for tries to resocialise the current street children. What social, cultural and economic structures are in the backdrop of slum tourism in Delhi? W ... Show More
28 m
Sep 2023
Tingting Hu, "Victims, Perpetrators and Professionals: The Representation of Women in Chinese Crime Films" (Liverpool UP, 2021)
How are women represented in Chinese crime films? In what ways do the representation reflect traditional Chinese values and contemporary Chinese social-cultural norms? How did boys’ love culture emerge in China? What is the role of the Chinese state in queer media production and ... Show More
33m 7s
Sep 2021
Camelia Dewan, "Misreading the Bengal Delta: Climate Change, Development, and Livelihoods in Coastal Bangladesh" (U Washington Press, 2021)
Climate change is one of the key challenges of our time and large amounts of development aid are allocated towards adaptation in the Global South. Yet, to what extent do such projects address local needs and concerns?
In this episode, Kenneth Bo Nielsen is joined by Camelia Dewan ... Show More
24m 16s
Oct 2023
India, Asia, and the Global South
How should we understand the emergence of the Global South as a political actor? What is the role of India within this framework? Which challenges and tensions arise from China’s assertiveness in Asia, and how is it reshaping regional dynamics? How is the Indo-Pacific region emer ... Show More
23m 58s
Mar 2023
Academic Chat: Reflecting on Hu Tai-li’s Indigenous Ethnographic Work in Taiwan
In this episode, our host, Niki Alsford, invites Prof Scott Simon, the Chair of Taiwan Studies at the University of Ottawa, to share his thoughts and reflections on Prof Hu Tai-li 胡台麗, who pioneered documentary ethnography in Taiwan. Prof Simon talks about how he considers Hu's c ... Show More
11m 49s
Jan 2022
Heidi Wang-Kaeding, "China's Environmental Foreign Relations" (Routledge, 2021)
Environmental protection and climate actions has embedded in China’s foreign policy and the Chinese government has recently pledged to make the Belt and Road Initiative “open, green, and clean”. How far is this an agenda designed primarily for international consumption? How do do ... Show More
18m 54s