MediaBerkman

David Weinberger on What Information Was [Audio]

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 08:13:34 +0000

Berkman Fellow David Weinberger investigates the origin of modern “information”, trying to understand what about it led us to embrace it as the dominant–paradigmatic–way of understanding ourselves and our world. David Weinberger will present an informal sketch of a direction, suggesting that we leaped into information because it reflected a long-held but squirrely metaphysics. Download [...]

David Weinberger on What Information Was

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 08:11:45 +0000

Radio Berkman 136: The Garden and the Net

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:00:36 +0000

The “Walled Garden” is an oft-used metaphor to describe an area of the web that is somehow closed off – think AOL in the 90s, or any site that lives behind a paywall. To some, these areas of the net are exclusive avenues to brilliantly curated content. To others “Walled Gardens” are threats to the [...]

Ellen Goodman and Jake Shapiro on Redesigning public media for the 21st Century

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 19:01:57 +0000

Ellen Goodman of Rutgers University School of Law and Jake Shapiro, Executive Director of the Public Radio Exchange (PRX), discuss public media’s role in providing public discourses, advancing democratic capabilities, and empowering publics to communicate and organize. The two investigate whether the United States has a system of public media that is able to support [...]

Ellen Goodman and Jake Shapiro on Redesigning public media for the 21st Century [AUDIO]

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 19:00:58 +0000

Radio Berkman 135: The Quest for a Free Culture

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 10:00:57 +0000

There are few subjects more potentially divisive as the Free Culture Movement. Free Culture activists believe in a future in which people will be free to remix and distribute creative works like literature, movies, music, software, and images. These are the folks who can toss around phrases like ‘Free as in Speech versus Free as [...]

Elizabeth Goodman on Walled Gardens: Opening the Discussion [Audio]

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 01:11:40 +0000

“Walled gardens” is a common term for systems that limit the entrance and exit of certain kinds of data. It is a deceptively simple metaphor that relies on the existence of a shared set of assumptions about what gardens are, what walls are, and what it means to build and maintain them. In this talk, [...]

Elizabeth Goodman on Walled Gardens: Opening the Discussion

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:37:40 +0000

Viktor Mayer-Schönberger presents “Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age”

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:08:01 +0000

A book talk with professor Viktor Mayer-Schönberger who examines the technology that’s facilitating the end of forgetting in his book, “Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age”. Mayer-Schönberger argues that in our quest for perfect digital memories where we can store everything from recipes and family photographs to work emails and personal information, [...]

Viktor Mayer-Schönberger presents “Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age” [Audio]

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 03:28:04 +0000

Radio Berkman Recent Classics: What the Heck is a Commons?

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 10:00:12 +0000

It’s been a busy week at the Berkman Center, so we had to forgo a new podcast this week. But have no fear, we did not forget you! We dusted off a recent classic from our archive by popular demand: “Episode 124, What the Heck is a Commons?” David Bollier, author of Viral Spiral: How the [...]

Jesse Shapins and James Burns on Mapping Main Street [Audio]

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 01:51:22 +0000

Mapping Main Street is a collaborative documentary media project that creates a new map of the country through a dynamic visualization of stories, data, photos and videos recorded on actual Main Streets. The goal is to document all of the more than 10,000 streets named Main in the United States. Two of the project’s founders, [...]

Jesse Shapins and James Burns on Mapping Main Street

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 00:00:49 +0000

Radio Berkman 134: Small Medium at Large

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 10:00:58 +0000

Few dispute that the web will be the dominant medium of the 21st Century – swallowing whole newspapers, books, radio, television, and the cinema. And even as the web grows virtually – over a trillion unique urls and growing – it shrinks physically – from laptop, to netbook, from cell phone, to even tinier and [...]

Radio Berkman 133: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Inbox

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 10:00:12 +0000

Author and Professor of Public Policy Viktor Mayer-Schönberger believes that digital memory is a little too perfect. Every word you post on the web, every picture, every video, tweet, and email is set in stone, archived, permanently findable. Like the proverbial elephant, the digital world doesn’t forget. There are incredible benefits to this. And there might [...]