Rahul Mukherjee
@rahmuk.bsky.social
Associate Professor, Penn CIMS. Wrote "Radiant Infrastructures" (DUP, 2020). Just completed "Unlimited: Aspirational Politics and Mobile Media Distribution (MIT, 2026)." Platforms, Energy, Environment
Please join us on Wed. April 22 for a conversation with Sarah Murray and @rahmuk.bsky.social about Dr. Murray's new book, POWERED BY SMART: A PREHISTORY OF EVERYDAY AI, a critical feminist history of the techno-cultural evolutions that make AI possible
"Unlimited: Aspirational Politics and Mobile Media Distribution" (MIT Press) is available on 20% discount with this code "READMIT20" at the Penguin Random House link: www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/814367...
Unlimited by Rahul Mukherjee: 9780262552714 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books
How telecom companies in India have added a whole new group of mobile phone users—and the tremendous impact of this new reach. Around 2016, buoyed by affordable data plans of telecom companies,...
penguinrandomhouse.com
Looking forward to conversing with Sarah Murray about her remarkable new book "Powered by Smart: A Prehistory of Everyday AI" as part of the Humanities Center event at Penn on April 22: wolfhumanities.upenn.edu/events/murray
Powered by Smart: A Prehistory of Everyday AI
Author of Powered by Smart: A Prehistory of Everyday AI (NYU Press, March 2026) Sarah Murray reveals an alternative feminist pathway that seeded hospitable ideas about AI by showing how smartness was ...
wolfhumanities.upenn.edu
"Unlimited: Aspirational Politics and Mobile Media Distribution" is published today. Readers with US mailing address can get a 30% discounted copy with this discount code "MITP30" for orders made today (Mar 31) on this PenguinRandomHouse link: www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/814367...
Unlimited by Rahul Mukherjee: 9780262552714 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books
How telecom companies in India have added a whole new group of mobile phone users—and the tremendous impact of this new reach. Around 2016, buoyed by affordable data plans of telecom companies,...
penguinrandomhouse.com
A new piece in Rest of World by Daniela Dib and Rina Chandran discusses the uneven global geographies of AI, its appearance as infrastructures, and its human foundations: restofworld.org/2026/ai-push...
From Chile to the Philippines, meet the people pushing back on AI
Individuals and communities are resisting the demands and practices of Big Tech's AI infrastructure — such as data centers and digital labor — due to their environmental and social costs.
restofworld.org
My CIMS department at Penn is hiring for a Visiting Assistant Professor position in Media Studies: apply.interfolio.com/180872
Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio
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"When a 65-year-old tree in Parker’s front yard died of oak wilt, he cut the trunk into “wood cookies” + transformed them into playable records, each encoded with migratory birdsong... The project emerged from Parker’s recognition that his grief for the tree echoed the loss of his father to cancer"
FUNERAL FOR A TREE
YouTube video by Steve Parker
youtube.com
Few pre-book copies of "Unlimited: Aspirational Politics and Mobile Media Distribution" arrived in package, and some kind endorsements from scholars whom I deeply respect. The book is going to be published in late March through MIT Press.
The Media, Science and Technology (MST) SIG is in Spotlight, thanks to an insightful piece by Gary Kafer and Patrick Brian Smith, explaining the relationship between the three constitutive terms, each of which as we all know can mean a lot of different things: quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/i...
Super excited to announce a new piece out in the world: States and platform capitalisms: A conversation. This is a collaboration with some amazing thinkers and friends- led by @sayshatim.bsky.social Joe Khalil @linzhang.bsky.social & @rahmuk.bsky.social journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
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Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.
journals.sagepub.com
A latergram about a wonderful visit to Concordia University to deliver a talk related to my forthcoming book. Many thanks to Marc, Josh, and Ishita for the invitation and their hospitality. It was amazing to engage in conversations with Montreal's vibrant media and communication studies community.
I wrote a fresh paper on financial intermediaries in the loan app ecosystem based on interviews with data analysts, lending platform professionals, consumer rights groups, and financial journalists for Platforms & Society journal: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
Sage Journals: Discover world-class research
Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.
journals.sagepub.com
“Whatever the cause, the energy industry’s crystal balls often produce overcooked figures.” www.reuters.com/breakingview...
AI power demand is generating hallucinations
Chatbot-running data centers are expected to guzzle 12% of US electricity by 2030. Yet tech giants and utilities are best served by over-estimating demand. Disconnects between, say, Microsoft’s project cancellations and its astonishing growth may worsen, shaking the supply chain.
reuters.com
How is the fungibility of money<->data in #credit relations intermediated? Writing about #India, in a recent paper Rahul Mukherjee traces the #platform #intermediation processes in the loan app ecosystem. Read more here journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
