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.
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?
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.
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.