The room hears
everything.
We tell you what matters.
Aware is a media intelligence platform and a consultancy. We monitor every signal that names you, score it for sentiment and threat, and translate the noise into decisions you can defend in a board meeting at 3am.
- sources monitored
- 11.2M
- languages
- 104
- median response
- 14 min
- retainer clients
- under NDA
Five disciplines.
One operating picture.
Each line of work runs on the same telemetry. The platform watches. The team reads. You get one brief, not five dashboards.
-
01
Media monitoring
Continuous coverage across news, broadcast, podcasts, regulatory filings, court records, and social. We index what's said about you, your competitors, and the categories that move your stock.
scope a monitoring brief → -
02
Crisis consulting
A senior team on retainer for the bad week. Statement drafting, journalist triage, internal comms, legal-adjacent positioning, and the calls you don't want to make alone. On the phone in under fifteen minutes.
retain a crisis lead → -
03
Media research
Bespoke research products: reporter dossiers, outlet bias maps, narrative provenance, and longitudinal coverage audits. Built for general counsel, IR, and the comms team that has to brief the CEO before the call.
commission a study → -
04
Threat analysis
We surface coordinated narratives, executive doxxing precursors, activist mobilization, and reputational adjacency to bad actors. Findings come with a containment plan, not just a heatmap.
request a threat read → -
05
Sentiment analysis
Sentiment that holds up under scrutiny. Models tuned per industry, calibrated against human raters, with provenance on every score. We tell you when the model isn't sure, and why.
benchmark your coverage → -
06
Engagements start at one call.
No procurement gauntlet. We scope the brief, agree the price, start the work. If the platform helps, we turn it on. If it doesn't, we don't.
start the conversation →
The picture
under the noise.
The platform is how our analysts work. Clients on retainer get a seat. Everything below is real surface from current builds.
- recall filing surfaces · FT
- Aware analyst on call · J. Park
- holding statement drafted · v2
- regulator outreach window opens
- internal all-hands · script delivered
- tier 1 reporter calls scheduled
$ cat statement.md # Acme · holding statement · 2026-04-30 We are aware of the regulatory filing made earlier today. The safety of the people who use our products is the first test of any decision we make. We are cooperating fully and will share specifics once we can do so accurately. # next steps - briefing for affected customers by 12:00 local - on-record Q&A window for tier 1, 14:00–16:00 - internal note to staff before any external press
The platform is included with retainer engagements. It is not sold standalone — software without judgement is just another inbox.
talk to us about a retainer →How an
engagement runs.
-
step_01
Briefing
Ninety minutes with a partner. We map your exposure, your adjacencies, the reporters who already have your number, and the topics that would cost you a board seat.
-
step_02
Instrumentation
We stand up monitoring, sentiment baselines, and threat watchlists inside the platform. Most clients are live inside a week. Crisis clients are live the same day.
-
step_03
Operating cadence
A weekly written brief. A monthly partner call. A 24/7 line for retainer clients. Everything in writing, everything dated, nothing vibes-based.
-
step_04
The bad week
When the bad week happens, you are not buying us in a panic. We already know your business, your people, and your priors. We just go.
Selected work.
Names withheld.
Most of our work is covered by NDAs that outlast the engagement. The shape is what we can share.
-
A regulatory leak, contained in 36 hours.
Detected a draft enforcement memo circulating in two trade forums before it surfaced in tier 1. Drafted the holding statement, briefed three reporters off the record, and gave the board a written read by the next morning.
-
A coordinated narrative, mapped to its origin.
Traced a "they knew" narrative to a single newsletter and three downstream amplifiers. Recommended containment at the source rather than rebuttal. Sentiment recovered inside ten days.
-
An executive surface-area audit, before the IPO.
Reviewed twelve years of public statements, podcast appearances, and forum activity for the incoming C-suite. Surfaced four exposures, drafted the response packs, and briefed IR before the roadshow.
-
A longitudinal coverage audit for a head-of-state office.
Five years of coverage across four languages and eleven outlets, scored for sentiment and framing drift, delivered as a single 22-page document and a working session.
What we believe
about this work.
- 01
A dashboard is not a decision. We write the brief.
- 02
Sentiment without provenance is astrology with charts.
- 03
Most crises are loud versions of signals you already had.
- 04
The first sentence in public sets the next thirty days.
- 05
Speed is a virtue. Accuracy is the price of admission.
- 06
If we can't say it on the record to you, we won't say it at all.
Built by
Studio Self.
Studio Self is a design and engineering studio building brands, interfaces, and editorial products for founders who want a point of view on the page. Aware was designed and shipped end to end by the studio.
Joan Westenberg founded Studio Self and writes about technology, culture, and the businesses that bend them. She leads the work on Aware, from the operating picture to the words on the page.
Start with
a conversation.
We work with a small number of clients at a time. Tell us what the next ninety days look like. A partner will reply, usually the same day.