Today’s Engaged Reading Digest is all about the memes - but not in a fun way.
(Bonus Baby Yoda content, tho’)
A pretty brutal examination of cancel culture, the psychological motivators, and its inherently polarising nature. And it’s from Psychology Today.
Chilling tale of how an ordinary teenager can be progressively radicalised by… memes.
And people wonder why I devote an entire lecture to mimetic culture.
Compelling — and troubling — dive into the weaponisation of memes.
After school beach trips - not just for the summer!
Yesterday, the Reuters Institute published some research into podcasting and journalism. Here’s my thoughts on it: News podcasts: profitable and engaging — but have we got the format right?
Frost hit last night. I think autumn is done and winter is here. ❄️
Festive holly.
My Podcast playlist for Sundays has the best episode names.
Finally, the coveted micro.blog 30 day pin is mine.
There’s nothing better than a nice, fussy way of making your coffee…
Shoreham’s looking festive tonight.
I back the Contract for the Web because the vast potential of it for humanity is being undermined by corporate greed and irresponsibility, political inaction and personal negligence. It’s time to reclaim digital from the bad actors.
Join me to build the #WebWeWant.
Abstaining From Social Media Doesn’t Improve Well-Being, Experimental Study Finds - a relief for those of us who have to use it professionally.
Spam of the Beast
Now, that was a tiring couple of days.
Canary Wharf was starting to look festive earlier.
The mere existence of deepfakes is eroding our sense of shared reality - even if we’ve never encountered one in the wild.
The need for deliberative digital spaces
Digital democracy will face its greatest test in 2020 - Siva Vaidhyanathan, The Guardian:
Facebook, Twitter and Google are designed to motivate people to do things like shop or vote. They undermine efforts to deliberate or think deeply about problems. Democracies need both motivation and deliberation.
Social media has become an almost deliberation-free space.
(Country) walking to grow your subscriptions, radicalised on Reddit, and more good reads from the audience engagement mines.
Fascinating interview with a Mastadon founder.
A little glimpse of how the internet could have been if the social platforms had stuck to open web ideals.
There are many fine advantages to working from home. Dealing with my wife in her full-on procrastination mode is not one of them.
Autumn mist.
Lovely Autumn day in Shoreham-by-Sea - between the rain, at least.
