A Podcast About Technology, Media, AI, and the Internet
Network Issues is a podcast about the systems shaping our digital lives—and what those systems are doing to our culture, careers, relationships, politics, and sense of reality.
Hosted by media scholar Jamie Cohen and marketing strategist Destinee Day, the show brings academic insight and real-world industry experience to the internet’s most urgent questions. Each episode explores how artificial intelligence, social media algorithms, online communities, digital advertising, influencer culture, misinformation, surveillance, and emerging technologies are changing the way we communicate and make decisions.
Network Issues goes beyond headlines and surface-level technology news. Jamie and Destinee examine the power structures, business models, cultural forces, and human behaviors behind the platforms we use every day. Their conversations make complex topics accessible without oversimplifying them—helping listeners better understand how the internet works, who benefits from it, and how to navigate it with greater agency.
Whether you work in media, marketing, education, technology, or simply want to understand the forces shaping life online, Network Issues offers thoughtful, candid conversations about the internet as it exists today—and where it may be taking us next.
Watch, listen, and explore every episode of Network Issues below.
Can Social Media Companies Be Liable for Addictive Design?
A landmark jury verdict found Meta and YouTube responsible for harms linked to compulsive social-media use. Jamie Cohen and Destinee Day examine infinite scroll, autoplay, internet fame, creator-economy incentives, Section 230, youth privacy, and whether platforms, brands, or creators should bear responsibility.
Why Social Media Feels Like One Endless Advertisement
Destinee Day takes a two-week break from social media and discovers that much of what felt like entertainment was actually advertising. She and Jamie Cohen examine influencer marketing, AI slop, personalized recommendations, product placement, and why paid ad-free entertainment is losing attention to the commercial feed in our hands.
How to Practice Media Literacy in the Age of Algorithms and AI
Traditional media literacy taught people to examine the author, source, ownership, and message. Today, audiences must also understand algorithms, clipping, context collapse, memes, synthetic media, and the business models determining what appears in their feeds.
What Is Looksmaxxing—and Why Is It Suddenly Everywhere?
Looksmaxxing is often presented as skincare, fitness, and self-improvement for men. Its deeper history leads through incel forums, pickup artistry, black-pill ideology, pseudoscience, body-image pressure, and influencers selling dangerous shortcuts. Jamie Cohen and Destinee Day explain how the term entered mainstream culture—and why context matters.
Who Is Paying Influencers to Promote AI?
A polished pro-AI video from a soccer-mom influencer leads Jamie Cohen and Destinee Day into a larger investigation of dark-money campaigns, hidden sponsors, political messaging, and why an #ad label may still leave audiences without the information they need.