Episode description

'Webcam' - the use of webcam, especially through Skype, has recently become established as one more standard media technology, but one with profound implications for many facets of human life, from self-consciousness and intimacy to the sustaining of long-distance relationships and the place of the visual within social communications. Daniel Miller, Professor of Anthropology at University College London, talks to Laurie Taylor about a study which took him from London to Trinidad.

Also, the 'Generational' divide: Today's social problems are the problems of generations, according to much public debate. Terms such as the 'baby boomers' and the 'jilted generation' are a common feature of discussions about debts, access to higher education, housing or pensions. Jonathan White, Associate Professor of European Politics at the LSE, talks to Laurie Taylor about his sociological investigation of contemporary uses of the generational concept: where did this form of thinking originate and does it disguise more than it illuminates in terms of inequality in modern Britain? He's joined by Mary Dejevsky, Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Buckingham and the chief editorial writer at The Independent.

Producer: Jayne Egerton.