Recommended: Podcast series on the impacts of COVID-19 on lifestyle

We’re excited to recommend a timely and lively podcast discussion by consumer culture scholars to examine the immediate disruptive impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak on lifestyles, wellbeing and society.

Now in its 12th episode, Quarantined Market Podcast series, brings to our attention key notions that can help understand the current conditions we are living in — including risk, social distancing, bureaucracy, dystopia, psychosis, preppers, virus & bacteria, among others.

The series is created and hosted by Profs Alan Bradshaw (Royal Holloway, University of London), and Joel Hietanen (University of Helsinki).

To cite but one of the many excellent examples in this series, episode 12 presents an intriguing discussion with Prof Craig Thompson highlighting how the COVID-19 impacts risk and risky scenarios. In this discussion, Ulrich Beck’s risk society is evoked, among other theories, to describe how risk is understood, calculated, and framed – differently – by different actors, including politicians, experts, researchers, consumers, marketers, etc. and how these understandings increasingly thus shape our lives and practices.

Enjoy!