Aug 21, 2019

Many news stories in recent years have referred to climate change and yet it isn’t yet clear how families are talking about the phenomenon or how that sort of discussion might matter for society. At least one team thinks that engagement with middle school students offers an important path forward. In this episode, we...

Aug 14, 2019

Popular culture has tended to depict bureaucracy in a negative light but social science research has suggested some opportunities to model well-functioning organizations. In this episode, Leisha DeHart-Davis of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill talks about innovations in improving how bureaucracies function.

Aug 7, 2019

Social media platforms like Twitter offer snapshots of comments that people post publicly and so they offer an impression of popular sentiment but not the whole story in terms of public opinion. How are journalists using such tools in their own reporting? On this episode, we talk with Shannon McGregor of the University...

Jul 24, 2019

Tools available for employers to monitor employee performance have evolved in recent decades. On this episode, we talk about employer surveillance from the perspective of employees with Dr. Julianne Payne of RTI International, a sociologist who studies workplaces.

Jul 17, 2019

We often think of popular music as the product of a single person or group. What if we understood music to be a much more collaborative effort than that? On this episode we talk with Thomas Brothers, professor of music at Duke University, about his latest book, Help!: The Beatles, Duke Ellington, and the Magic...