Media Economies Design Lab at the University of Colorado Boulder

Episode archive

  • How did open social media platforms originate?

    In the aftermath of a chaotic Twitter takeover, many people have moved away from centralized social media platforms to a new set of social platforms that are open-source, decentralized, and user-centered—like Bluesky, Mastodon, and Nostr. But civic-minded social platforms are nothing new. This episode presents some of Open Social Media’s origin stories from three speakers…

  • What was the earliest social media like?

    Do social media networks have to be addictive, or polarizing, or advertising-funded? This conversation explores lessons from the past that could help us make social media better today. Our guest is University of Virginia media studies professor Kevin Driscoll, author most recently of “The Modem World: A Prehistory of Social Media.” He brings us stories…

  • What can the Internet learn from the past?

    When we design the future, we rely on history, whether we like it or not. In December 2021, the MEDLab and the United Nations Internet Governance Forum launched a virtual art exhibition called “Excavations: Governance Archaeology for the Future of the Internet.” This online exhibition is an interdisciplinary, artistic experience interrogating narratives of the past…

  • Where did public media come from?

    Where did public media come from?

    Long before our present day audio boom, public broadcasting in the United States flourished. Radio, a powerful way to connect people, underwent many transformations and federal regulatory shifts that impacted what it became. Where did public media come from? We explore these origins in the early 1900s with Dr. Josh Shepperd, assistant professor of Media…

  • What happened to hacktivism?

    The cultures of computer hacking have made their way from marginal subcultures to becoming driving forces in the world as we know it. Facebook’s headquarters is on a street called Hacker Way. A hack of the Democratic National Committee’s emails helped elect the current US president. Free Software produced by volunteer hackers around the world…

  • What’s New With Textiles?

    We might not think about textiles as advanced technology, but in fact it was textile looms that helped inspire the designs of the earliest computers. This month we hear from Steven Frost, is an artist and an instructor of Media Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder, who hosts the Colorado Sewing Rebellion at the…