How do you like it so far?

Today is our first of three episodes [exploring why we all need] critics of color. Colin talks to Jeff Yang, an American writer, journalist, and business/media consultant who has written for The Wall Street Journal and CNN, and, Mauricio Mota, a producer of East Los High, an award-winning [Hulu] drama series that has earned five Emmy nominations for its realistic portrayal of Latinx high school students. We talk about the gatekeeping responsibility and power of the few critics of color when they are critiquing media coming from their own communities: They can break or make a show or movie. We [also] discuss their importance for unpacking the cultural context and nuance of movies such as Crazy Rich Asians and Coco [within their fan community and for those encountering these more inclusive representations for the first time]. We also discuss how globalization should, and can, [work in unexpected ways]: Coco did very well in China, for example. But, how do we move forward? “Everyone can be a critic” says Mota, but for a long time “we were not allowed to have taste in this town”.

To continue our thread on rumours and conspiracy theories, this week Colin discussed the 80th anniversary of the The War of the Worlds broadcast on CBS radio with media historian Nick Cull. Orson Welles' infamous radio drama showed the power of news media to convince populations about a fake event, but it also highlighted the rumours surrounding the broadcast: not everyone thought it was aliens invading, but Nazis, the Japanese etc. Cull explains how rumours reflect the underliying social and political tensions of the moment, and tying to the current moment, describes how rumours have always worked the same way: to explain, engage, undermine and entertain.

Why are younger people more likely to protest, and less likely to vote? This week, Henry talks with Naja Nielsen from Orb Media. They discuss how youth feels about their relationship with traditional politics, their tendency to focus on issues and not parties, and how they can often feel unwanted in current political systems. Nielsen also walks us through the shift - or need - to look at issues in a global perspective, and how news media needs to reflect it.

This week we talked about conspiracy theories with Wu Ming, the collective, whose books inspired one the main conspiracy theorists on the internet, and Benjamen Walker, whose podcast often focuses on conspiracy theories. We cover: The art of blurring fact and fiction, and non-fiction, discrediting gatekeepers, can we ever really debunk, the role of satire, the hunger for complexity, pizzagate, the “deep state,” QAnon, and of course, president Trump.

This week we explore the role of comedy in civic participation within the Indian context. Rohan Joshi is part of the sketch comedy group All India Backhod, which tackles political and social issues on their YouTube channel. A notable example was their viral video “It’s your fault” that dealt with the issue of rape, focusing on the irony of victim-blaming. Joshi recently spoke at the "The Past, Present and Future of Civic Entertainment in India" a day-long event in Mumbai. We bring you some of his insights (courtesy of Godrej India Culture Lab) that day, on what Indian audiences could learn from Captain America on “when to stop being a good citizen, and become a good person.”

In this episode, we get the chance to talk to Anushka Shah, who works as a researcher at the Center for Civic Media, MIT Media Lab. More recently, she has started a project called Civic Entertainment that explores the intersection of civic engagement with television, radio, and digital entertainment and film. This project researches the media effects of fiction on thought and behavior change, and explores how methods of social change available to citizens can be best represented in entertainment media. It also investigates the representation of protest and activism in current popular culture. She also runs a production studio in Mumbai called Civic Studios that creates civic entertainment content for Indian audiences. Shah tells us about the inspiration she, and other Indians, have gotten from popular media, and how she brought civic participation with entertainment together.

Henry is currently a visiting scholar at the Library of Congress, where he had the chance to speak about space with Margaret Weitekamp, curator of Space History department or the Air and Space museum. She curates the Museum's social and cultural dimensions of spaceflight collection, more than 4,000 artifacts that include space memorabilia and space science fiction objects. We talked about the relationship of imaginaries of science fiction with those of space planning, and the benefits of displaying them side by side in the museum. We also think of how to make the link between the fandom of Star Trek and contextualize it within larger socio-cultural contexts.

This week Henry Jenkins talks to Diane Winston, professor of Communication and Journalism at USC, about religion and reality television. Are young people getting how to live their lives from reality TV? Contrary of reality TV as being a guilty pleasure, Winston's latest book talks about reality TV as the "the lived religion of late capitalism". Reality television tells stories that people feel identified with, or see as cautionary tales. We talk about Survivor's latest season, (survival of the fittest, and its very "hyper individualism that is so embedded in capitalism"). The episode will make the unlikely link between religion studies and communication.

Our podcast returns after its summer hiatus with an episode focused on science fiction as a way of understanding and reimagining the world. We reassembled a panel of science fiction scholars fresh from the World Science Fiction Convention (in San Jose) and eager to dig deeper into the history of the genre, its social and political impact, and in particular, the forms of thought which were enabled and sustained by the emergence of speculative fiction. Our guests are: Michael Saler, author of As If: Modern Enchantment and the Literary Prehistory of Virtual Reality; Sherryl Vint, author of Science Fiction: A Guide for the Perplexed; and Minsoo Kang, author of Sublime Dreams of Living Machines: The Automaton in the European Imagination.

Critic Maureen Ryan, showrunner Emily Andras and professor Louisa Stein discuss GLBT representation on TV and the tricky relationship between fans and showrunners.

'How do you like it so far?' producer Andrea Alarcon and Annenberg Doctoral Candidate Rogelio Alejandro Lopez take over this week's episode for a trip to the [Define American Film Festival][1] in Chicago to host [Defining the American of 2060][2]. The pair talk to poet Yosimar Reyes and organizer Erika Andiola about identity, representation and political obstacles in the undocumented community.

USC professors Hye Jin Lee and Cristina Visperas join Colin and Henry to deliver a crash course on global K-pop fandoms.

University of California, Irvine professors Katie Salen Tekinbaş and Kurt Squire discuss Ready Player One and Game Based Learning.

Ann Pendleton-Jullian joins Henry and Colin for a wide-ranging discussion about worldbuilding, followed by a reflection from Henry and Colin.

Alex McDowell joins Henry to discuss "Ready Player One," production design for Steven Spielberg, and world building.