Twenty essays, each pairing one classical idea — Castells, McLuhan, Bourdieu, Goffman — with the specific, practical problem an AI-mediated newsroom, classroom or creator faces this year.
Every technology discussed in this series gets the same interrogation. Not "is it good or bad," but who answers for it, who still has a choice, whose dignity is at stake, and whether the person stays the point.
Who, by name, answers for this — before something goes wrong, not after?
Does the person keep a genuine choice, or has the system quietly made it for them?
Can the arrangement be explained to the person it affects without shame on either side?
In this exchange, does the human being remain the point — or become the input?
A theory old enough to trust, a problem new enough to matter, and one thing to do about it this week.
Find your own threshold before someone finds it for you.
Castells gave us mass self-communication. AI-mediated communication puts a ghostwriter inside all three of its freedoms. Three thresholds and one test that keeps your voice yours.
Read the essayStop asking whether it understands. Start asking who answers for it.
Elena Esposito’s idea of artificial communication cuts through the parrot debate. Judge the effect, not the interior, and name the human who answers for it.
Read the essayYour reach is going up. Check what it is costing you.
A 2025 audit found engagement-based ranking amplifies hostile content users say they do not prefer. Why the metric is the ethics, and four numbers to track instead.
Read the essayThe click is disappearing. Build something it cannot take with it.
Gatekeeping became gatewatching, and answer engines now replace the destination entirely. What the BBC and EBU found, and three moves that survive the change.
Read the essayDecide what may speak in your name. Do it before someone else decides.
Goffman’s backstage has been automated. Why synthetic identity changes how you see yourself, and the one-page identity card that takes an hour to write.
Read the essayStop exporting files. Start building an archive.
Nieborg and Poell called platform content a contingent commodity. Five archive decisions that keep your material usable when the rules change again.
Read the essayThe essays run in sequence, from the classical apparatus reframed for 2026 to the single question that closes the series.
Ten essays where the old conceptual toolkit — Castells, McLuhan, Bourdieu, Goffman — is pointed at today's very specific problem.
IIThree essays on source protection, media literacy without a footnote, and why AI arguments talk past each other.
IIIFour essays built on the freshest 2025-26 industry reports: AI assistants, echo chambers, synthetic newsrooms, voice cloning.
IVThree closing essays — the digital divide, children already online, and the philosophical question underneath every AI policy.
Every essay ends the same way it starts: a real problem, a theory that explains it, and a solution you can put to work before Friday.
Browse the full series