Panic at the Porno-theque!

In spring 2025, Andrew Tate was linked to a shocking murder case in the UK. Just days later, Netflix released Adolescence, a drama about a young killer seemingly shaped by the online manosphere. In this episode, we explore the history of the men’s rights movement, the politics of the manosphere, and the difficulty of drawing clear lines of influence around figures like Tate, however toxic their public presence may be.  Show Notes:  Adams, L (2025). 'Murders show online misogyny can cause real harm' BBC https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5yr2yg58zjo  Botto, M., & Gottzén, L. (2024). Swallowing and spitting out the red pill: Young men, vulnerability, and radicalization pathways in the manosphere. Journal of Gender Studies, 33(5), 596–608.   Ging, D. (2019). Alphas, betas, and incels: Theorizing the masculinities of the manosphere. Men and Masculinities, 22(4), 638–657.   Haslop, C., Ringrose, J., Cambazoglu, I., & Milne, B. (2024). Mainstreaming the manosphere’s misogyny through affective homosocial currencies: Exploring how teen boys navigate the Andrew Tate effect. Social Media + Society, 10(1), 20563051241228811.   Ironwood, I. (2013). The manosphere: A new hope for masculinity. Londres: Red Pill.  Kennedy-Kollar, D. (2024). Extremism and radicalization in the manosphere: Beta uprising. Routledge.  Kimmel, M. S. (2018). The contemporary “crisis” of masculinity in historical perspective. In The making of masculinities Routledge.  King, J (2025). Tate and discovering Owen Cooper  GQ https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/stephen-graham-adolescence-interview-2025  Messner, M. A. (2016). Forks in the road of men's gender politics: Men's rights vs feminist allies. International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, 5(2), 6–20.   Mudde, C The real story isn’t young men supposedly voting far right. It’s what young women are up to The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/may/21/young-men-women-far-right-online-politics-centre-left  Payne, J (2025). No coincidence killer ‘turned to Andrew Tate’ night before murders, court told The Independent https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/andrew-tate-kyle-cambridge-crown-court-bbc-hmp-belmarsh-b2712870.html  Renström, E. A., & Bäck, H. (2024). Manfluencers and young men’s misogynistic attitudes: The role of perceived threats to men’s status. Sex Roles, 90(12), 1787–1806.   Rich, B Bujalka, E (2023). The draw of the manosphere: Understanding Andrew Tate’s appeal to lost men. The Conversation https://theconversation.com/the-draw-of-the-manosphere-understanding-andrew-tates-appeal-to-lost-men-199179  Roberts, S., Jones, C., Nicholas, L., Wescott, S., & Maloney, M. (2025). Beyond the clickbait: Analysing the masculinist ideology in Andrew Tate’s online written discourses. Cultural Sociology.   Shorrocks, Rosalind (2018). Young women are more left-wing than men, study reveals. The Conversation https://theconversation.com/young-women-are-more-left-wing-than-men-study-reveals-95624  Siegel, A. J. (n.d.). Facing my own misogyny: A content analysis of personal essays on the subreddit r/ExRedPill. RhetTech, 6(1), 2. https://rhettech.org/issues/facing-my-own-misogyny  Thomas-Parr, G., & Gilroy-Ware, M. (2025). ImPerceptible boyhood in a post-Andrew Tate world. Australian Feminist Studies, 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/08164649.2025.2320495  Thorburn, J. (2023). Exiting the manosphere: A gendered analysis of radicalization, diversion and deradicalization narratives from r/IncelExit and r/ExRedPill. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/1057610X.2023.2226593  YouTube. (n.d.). Andrew Tate Hustler's University full course part 1 [Video]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCoeJBdK36Q&t=140sBottom of Form  [Image via https://www.heute.at/i/ich-versklave-die-schlamn-die-tate-anklageschrift-100288002/doc-1h8hfqdbg0]  Note: Journal articles are often behind paywalls. If you don't have institutional access but would like a copy of these papers please email [email protected] and we will happily send you a copy   Credits:   Hosts – Rich McCulloch and Ben Litherland    Music by - Brutalust (Colin Frank and Maria Sappho), recorded and mixed by Joe Christman   Producer – Caroline Pringle  

What if your favourite cop show was really a recruitment ad in disguise? This week, Rich introduces Ben to the world of on-screen ‘copaganda’. From Brooklyn Nine-Nine and The Wire through to TikTok lip-syncs and even Paw Patrol, is it a problem that TV cops are always so brave, so funny, and so good at breaking the rules for the ‘right’ reasons? What do these stories quietly teach us about crime, justice and law enforcement? Is the badge a prop... or a PR strategy?  Show Notes:  Bayley, David H. (1994) Police for the Future. Oxford University Press.  [Video] Brooklyn Nine-Nine (2018) “Jake Makes the Criminals Sing I Want It That Way | Brooklyn Nine Nine”, YouTube, 12th April.  Color of Change and USC Annenberg Normal Lear Center (2020) “Normalizing Injustice: The Dangerous Misrepresentations That Define Television’s Scripted Crime Genre”, January.  Davis, Elizabeth, and Anthony Whyde (2018) “Contacts Between Police and the Public, 2015”, U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics. October.  Herman, Edward S., and Noam Chomsky (1988) Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of Mass Media. Penguin.  Karakatsanis, Alec (2019) The Punishment Bureaucracy: How to Think About 'Criminal Justice Reform’. Yale Law Journal, 128, 28th March.   Karakatsanis, Alec (2025) Copaganda: How Police and the Media Manipulate Our News. The New Press.  Karakatsanis, Alec (2025) “How to Sniff Out ‘Copaganda’: When the Police and the Media Manipulate Our News”, Teen Vogue, 8th May.  Kennedy, Liam (2020) “Whenever there’s trouble, just yelp for help”: Crime, conservation, and corporatization in Paw Patrol. Crime Media Culture, 17(2).   Makam, Palika (2020) “Copaganda: What It Is and How to Recognize It”, Teen Vogue, 5th August.  The Onion (2017) ‘Paw Patrol’ Writers Defend Episode Where German Shepherd Cop Shoots Unarmed Black Lab 17 Times In Back. 16th July.  [Video] Particelli, Henry (2020) “Henry Particelli - "Your Name” (Official Music Video) Surprise Ending!!!!!” YouTube, 25th June.   Reiner, Robert (2008) “Policing and the Media” in Tim Newburn (ed.) Handbook of Policing, 2nd ed. Routledge, pp.313-335.  [Cold open music] Renda, David, “Sleek Panther”. Fesliyan Studios. https://www.fesliyanstudios.com/royalty-free-music/download/sleek-panther/2195   Salmon, Caspar (2021) “Puppet pups: is PAW Patrol authoritarian propaganda in disguise?” Guardian, 11th August.  [Video, part of an excellent series on Copaganda] Skip Intro (2020) “The Wire, Police Reform, and Capitalism | Copaganda Episode 4”, YouTube, 12th November.  [Video] Smack Mango (2021) “Cool Cops on TikTok”, YouTube, 5th April.  Vitale, Alex S. (2017) The End of Policing. Verso.  Tape wind Sound effect: Sound Effect by freesound_community from Pixabay  Note: Journal articles are often behind paywalls. If you don't have institutional access but would like a copy of these papers please email [email protected] and we will happily send you a copy   Credits:   Hosts – Rich McCulloch and Ben Litherland    Music by - Brutalust (Colin Frank and Maria Sappho), recorded and mixed by Joe Christman   producer – Caroline Pringle  

In the summer of 2024, pop star Chappell Roan publicly called out her fans for being “creepy” and “weird,” asking, “if you saw a random woman on the street, would you yell at her from the car window?” Media coverage quickly seized on a familiar term to make sense of the incident: parasocial. But what does it really mean to have a parasocial relationship with a celebrity, and is it even the right term for what’s going on here? In this episode, Ben walks Rich through the surprising history of a now-mainstream academic concept. So, loyal listeners, don’t pretend like you know us (sorry, Mum).  Show Notes: [Video] I Am Not Your Friend  ‘I wouldn’t dream of telling a stranger I hated their laugh’: how does it feel when your social media followers cross a line? | Social media | The Guardian  Bucy, A. (2024). Normalising Fan Parasociality within Pathologising Traces Fan discourses of ‘good’and ‘bad’parasocial behaviours. Persona Studies, 10(2), 40-54.  Chen, C. P. (2016). Forming digital self and parasocial relationships on YouTube. Journal of Consumer culture, 16(1), 232-254.  Gamson, J. (2023). Claims to fame: Celebrity in contemporary America. Univ of California Press.  Hills, M. (2015). From para‐social to multisocial interaction: theorizing material/digital fandom and celebrity. A companion to celebrity, 463-482.  Horton, D., & Richard Wohl, R. (1956). Mass communication and para-social interaction: Observations on intimacy at a distance. Psychiatry, 19(3), 215-229.  Liebers, N., & Schramm, H. (2019). Parasocial interactions and relationships with media characters–an inventory of 60 years of research. Communication Research Trends, 38(2), 4-31.  Reijnders, S., Spijkers, M., Roeland, J., & Boross, B. (2014). Close encounters: Ritualizing proximity in the age of celebrity. An ethnographic analysis of meet-and-greets with Dutch singer Marco Borsato. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 17(2), 149-169.  Rojek, C. (2015). Presumed intimacy: Parasocial interaction in media, society and celebrity culture. John Wiley & Sons.  Too close for comfort: the pitfalls of parasocial relationships | Social media | The Guardian  Tukachinsky, R., Walter, N., & Saucier, C. J. (2020). Antecedents and effects of parasocial relationships A meta-analysis. Journal of Communication, 70(6), 868-894  University study looks at YouTube and parasocial relationships - BBC News  Why are TikTok creators so good at making people buy things? - BBC Worklife  Why we feel so close: The science behind parasocial relationships with musicians  You are not that singer’s best friend!: The dangers of parasocial relationships in the music industry - The Boar  Note: Journal articles are often behind paywalls. If you don't have institutional access but would like a copy of these papers please email [email protected] and we will happily send you a copy   Credits:   Hosts – Rich McCulloch and Ben Litherland    Music by - Brutalust (Colin Frank and Maria Sappho), recorded and mixed by Joe Christman   producer – Caroline Pringle  

This week, Rich fires up the dial-up and drags Ben back to the '90s, when computer porn was “technology’s HIV” and the moral panic went full throttle. It’s ILL EFFECTS bingo: lurid headlines, laughable research, ominous documentary music, and a truly cursed TIME magazine cover of a man trying to get jiggy with his computer monitor.  Credits:   Hosts – Rich McCulloch and Ben Litherland    Music by -  Brutalust (Colin Frank and Maria Sappho), recorded and mixed by Joe Christman   Producer – Caroline Pringle  

Can television make you kinder? Can video games make you smarter? Can porn improve your maths skills? Wait, what? In this episode, Ben walks Rich through a curious set of popular claims circulating in online blogs: that pop culture might be having positive effects. But what’s the evidence behind these claims? And what does their popularity reveal about how we understand news, science, and ultimately our own anxieties about work and leisure?  Show Notes:  Litherland, B. (2025). Smarter, better, faster, kinder? The problems with claiming that media and popular culture has positive effects. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 13678779251337761.  Note: Journal articles are often behind paywalls. If you don't have institutional access but would like a copy of these papers please email [email protected] and we will happily send you a copy   Credits:   Hosts – Rich McCulloch and Ben Litherland    Music by -  Brutalust (Colin Frank and Maria Sappho), recorded and mixed by Joe Christman   Producer – Caroline Pringle  

Ill effects does Hot Ones! Ben and Rich talk about using hot sauce as a measure of aggression in lab-based experiments when studying the relationship between media and violence. They do this while unwisely eating increasingly hot hot sauces. Where did this research come from, why are their mouths burning? All this and more. “Hey, look at us. Who would have thought? Not me!”  Show Notes:  Krahé, B. (2014). Restoring the spirit of fair play in the debate about violent video games. European Psychologist.  Lieberman, J. D., Solomon, S., Greenberg, J., & McGregor, H. A. (1999). A hot new way to measure aggression: Hot sauce allocation. Aggressive Behavior: Official Journal of the International Society for Research on Aggression, 25(5), 331-348.  Markey, P. M., Markey, C. N., & French, J. E. (2015). Violent video games and real-world violence: Rhetoric versus data. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 4(4), 277.  McCarthy, R. J., & Elson, M. (2018). A conceptual review of lab-based aggression paradigms. Collabra: Psychology, 4(1).  Plante, C., Anderson, C. A., Allen, J. J., Groves, C. L., & Gentile, D. A. (2020). Game On!: Sensible Answers about Video Games and Media Violence. Zengen LLC.  Ritter, D., & Eslea, M. (2005). Hot sauce, toy guns, and graffiti: A critical account of current laboratory aggression paradigms. Aggressive Behavior: Official Journal of the International Society for Research on Aggression, 31(5), 407-419.  Tedeschi, J. T., & Quigley, B. M. (1996). Limitations of laboratory paradigms for studying aggression. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 1(2), 163-177.  Note: Journal articles are often behind paywalls. If you don't have institutional access but would like a copy of these papers please email [email protected] and we will happily send you a copy   Credits:   Hosts – Rich McCulloch and Ben Litherland    Title Music by -  Brutalust (Colin Frank and Maria Sappho), recorded and mixed by Joe Christman   Producer – Caroline Pringle   Dramatic Music by Dmitry Taras from Pixabay – dramatic 

Knife crime, hip hop, and... Vanessa Carlton?!? In 2018, drill music became known as the soundtrack to social collapse—accused of inciting violence, corrupting youth, and starting gang wars via YouTube beef. But Rich shows Ben that behind the panic lies a familiar story: bad data, racial scapegoating, and a government more comfortable censoring rap than tackling inequality. Hang on until the end for a bizarre cameo from a very confused young offenders’ playlist.   Credits:   Hosts – Rich McCulloch and Ben Litherland    Music by -  Brutalust (Colin Frank and Maria Sappho), recorded and mixed by Joe Christman   Producer – Caroline Pringle   Cover image: “Skengdo & AM backstage at Greener on the Other Side EP Launch, Ace Hotel, Shoreditch” (2018) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Skengdo_x_AM.jpg  Air Horn: Sound Effect by Waitwhatimsignedin from Pixabay Air Horn 2: Sound Effect by SonixFXSounds from Pixabay

[Eat popcorn!] In 1957, market researcher James Vicary promised he could flash split-second commands on movie screens and subconsciously influence audiences to buy things. He called it subliminal advertising. [Drink Coca-Cola!] Ben drags Rich through the riotous history of hidden persuasion, packed with hucksters, gimmicks, and shrinks. But as silly as these experiments were, what do they reveal about our relationships to advertising today? [Consume!]  Show Notes:  Acland, C. R. (2011). Swift viewing The popular life of subliminal influence. Duke University Press.  Crandall, K. B. (2006). Invisible commercials and hidden persuaders: James M. Vicary and the subliminal advertising controversy of 1957. Undergraduate Honors Thesis. University of Florida. Available at http://plaza. ufl. edu/cyllek/docs/KCrandall_Thesis2006. pdf.  Fullerton, Ronald A. "The Devil's Lure?: Motivation Research, 1934-1954." In Proceedings of the Conference on Historical Analysis and Research in Marketing, vol. 12, pp. 134-143. 2005.  Heffernan, K. (2002). The hypnosis horror films of the 1950s: Genre texts and industrial context. Journal of Film and Video, 54(2/3), 56-70.  Horowitz, D. (1994). Vance Packard & American Social Criticism. Univ of North Carolina Press.  Key, W. B. (1973). Subliminal seduction: Ad media’s manipulation of a not so innocent America. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.  Mackay, J., & Anonymous. (2023). Hypnosis and pornography: a cultural history. Porn Studies, 10(1), 82-98.  Parkin, K. (2004). The sex of food and Ernest Dichter: the illusion of inevitability. Advertising & Society Review, 5(2).  Samuel, L. R. (2010). Freud on Madison Avenue: motivation research and subliminal advertising in America. University of Pennsylvania Press.  [Video] Aldous Huxley interviewed by Mike Wallace  [Video] Daniels, Harold (1958) My World Dies Screaming  Note: Journal articles are often behind paywalls. If you don't have institutional access but would like a copy of these papers please email [email protected] and we will happily send you a copy   Credits:   Hosts – Rich McCulloch and Ben Litherland    Music by -  Brutalust (Colin Frank and Maria Sappho), recorded and mixed by Joe Christman   Producer – Caroline Pringle  

Depression. Anxiety. Sleep deprivation. Addiction. The headlines about "screen time" and today’s kids sound like the end of the world. But in the Season 2 opener of ILL EFFECTS, Rich walks Ben through the panic—and the patchy science propping it up. He argues it’s time to ditch the outdated idea of screen time altogether, and to replace it with a smarter, more nuanced conversation about how, when, and why we use modern media.  NOTE: The initial version of this episode (published 10th April 2025) had some sound issues, a new version was published 17th April 2025. Credits:   Hosts – Rich McCulloch and Ben Litherland    Music by -  Brutalust (Colin Frank and Maria Sappho), recorded and mixed by Joe Christman   Producer – Caroline Pringle     Sound Effect by Devrinta Rose Nataya from Pixabay  Sound Effect by Rasool Asaad from Pixabay  Cover art photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash 

In this bumper Very Special Episode ahead of this week’s UK General Election, we take it in turns to examine whether “the media” can “sway” election results. First, Ben examines the always-silly and sometimes-sinister British tabloid press and their (in)famous claim that it was “The Sun Wot Won It” for John Major in 1992. Rich then looks at Cambridge Analytica, and the claims that its Facebook quizzes helped make Brexit happen. Politics podcasts deserve better: vote for ILL EFFECTS!  WE NEED YOU: Click HERE to complete our listener survey and help shape future episodes!  Show Notes:  SOURCES AND LINKS:  Afriat, H., et al. (2021) “This is capitalism. It is not illegal”: Users’ attitudes toward institutional privacy following the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The Information Society, 37(2).  BBC (2018) “Cambridge Analytica: The data firm's global influence,” BBC News, 22nd March.  BBC (2020) “Cambridge Analytica 'not involved' in Brexit referendum, says watchdog,” BBC News, 7th October.  Berghel, H. (2018) “Malice Domestic: The Cambridge Analytica Dystopia,” Computer, 51(5), May.  Bruns, A. (2019) Are Filter Bubbles Real? Polity Press.  Cadwalladr, C., and Graham-Harrison, E. (2018) “Revealed: 50 million Facebook profiles harvested for Cambridge Analytica in major data breach,” The Guardian, 17th March.  Curtice, J. "Was it The Sun wot won it again? The influence of newspapers in the 1997 election campaign." Centre for research into elections and social trends working papers 75 (1999).  De Vany, A. (2004) Hollywood Economics: How extreme uncertainty shapes the film industry. Routledge.  Druckman, J. N. (2005). Media matter: How newspapers and television news cover campaigns and influence voters. Political communication, 22(4), 463-481.  Fuchs, C. (2013) Social Media: A Critical Introduction. Sage.   Gunther, A. C., Perloff, R. M., & Tsfati, Y. (2008). Public opinion and the third-person effect. The SAGE handbook of public opinion research, 184-191.  Heawood, J. (2018) “Pseudo-public political speech: Democratic implications of the Cambridge Analytica scandal,” Information Polity, 23.  Hern, A. (2018) "Cambridge Analytica: how did it turn clicks into votes?” The Guardian, 6th May.  Linton, M. (1996). Maybe The Sun won it after all. British Journalism Review, 7(2), 20-26.  Parliament.UK (2018) “The issue of data targeting, based around the Facebook, GSR and Cambridge Analytica allegations.” Disinformation and ‘fake news’: Interim Report. 29th July.  Price, V., & Feldman, L. (2009). News and politics. The Sage Handbook of Media Processes and Effects. Los Angeles: Sage Publications, 113-129.  Rathi, R. (2019) “Effect of Cambridge Analytica’s Facebook ads on the 2016 US Presidential Election,” Towards Data Science, 13th January.  Reeves, A., McKee, M., & Stuckler, D. (2016). ‘It's The Sun Wot Won It’: Evidence of media influence on political attitudes and voting from a UK quasi-natural experiment. Social science research, 56, 44-57.  Risso, L. (2018) ‘Harvesting Your Soul? Cambridge Analytica and Brexit’ in Jansohn, C. (ed.) Brexit Means Brexit? The Selected Proceedings of the Symposium, Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur -- Mainz 6–8 December 2017. Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, Mainz.  Strömbäck, J. (2011). Mediatization and perceptions of the media's political influence. Journalism studies, 12(4), 423-439.  Thomas, J. (2007). Popular newspapers, the Labour Party and British politics. Routledge.  Wong, J. C., et al. (2018) “How academic at centre of Facebook scandal tried – and failed – to spin personal data into gold,” The Guardian, 24th April.  Note: Journal articles are often behind paywalls. If you don't have institutional access but would like a copy of these papers please email [email protected] and we will happily send you a copy   Episode artwork photo by Simon Dawson / No 10 Downing Street. Used under Creative Commons license (ATTRIBUTION-NONCOMMERCIAL-NODERIVS 2.0 GENERIC).  Credits:   Hosts – Rich McCulloch and Ben Litherland    Music by -  Brutalust (Colin Frank and Maria Sappho), recorded and mixed by Joe Christman   Creative producer – Rachel Wood   Technical producer – Caroline Pringle   Technical production – Colin Frank