iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Prof Catherine Happer @catherinehapper.bsky.social · 08/01/2026

I was discussing the future of the BBC in Scotland at Holyrood today. It was a really rich discussion - so much at stake in respect of protecting our democracy and what role public service media can play. Our GUMG submission (w/ @catrionaforrest.bsky.social) here: www.parliament.scot/~/media/comm...

parliament.scot

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Glasgow University Media Group (GUMG) @gu-mg.bsky.social · 06/01/2026

On Thursday, Director of the GUMG @catherinehapper.bsky.social will give evidence to a Holyrood Committee Inquiry on Scottish broadcasting. The agenda and GUMG's written submission (with @catrionaforrester.bsky.social) can be accessed here: www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-...

parliament.scot

Constitution Europe External Affairs and Culture Committee 08 January 2026

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Sociological and Cultural Studies, University of Glasgow @uofgsociology.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

Here's a new special issue of Journalism Studies, edited by @dr-hm-mabweazara.bsky.social and @catherinehapper.bsky.social and dedicated to our former colleague Greg Philo. It revisits the core concerns of media sociology - power, ideology, bias - but broadens the focus beyond Europe and America.

tandfonline.com

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George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 09/04/2025

15. I cannot tell you how frustrating it has been, banging my head against this brick wall for so long. Despairing of better policy, I've now started stockpiling food. Though small compensation, it's good to know that industry insiders share my frustrations. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

theguardian.com

Britain’s food supply is precarious – and Trump’s chaos is spreading. I have a plan. Do you? | George Monbiot

I’ve started a stockpile, but that isn’t the answer. If crisis strikes, the government needs a strategy to protect us all, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

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Asheesh Kapur Siddique @asheeshks.org · 16/03/2025

Silicon Valley is coming for faculty governance. The vultures are circling the corpse of the neoliberal American university. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Screenshot from Heller’s article in latest New Yorker quoting donors targeting faculty

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Prof Catherine Happer @catherinehapper.bsky.social · 06/03/2025

On #WorldBookDay, and in the context of digital technologies slowly eroding our ability to source trusted information, here are two books I read recently which gave me a better insight into what is going on in the world right now than any media report.

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Lindsey Macmillan @lindseymacmillan.bsky.social · 06/03/2025

📢 New report out today! 📢 ➡️ Access the report here: repec-cepeo.ucl.ac.uk/cepeow/cepeo... 📊 What did we find? 🔸 Most of the socio-economic background (SEB) and ethnic inequalities in entry to professional occupations are driven by employer-side decisions made during the recruitment process

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Prof Catherine Happer @catherinehapper.bsky.social · 28/02/2025

Not sure if it's just me but when I hear government representatives repeatedly state that 'the NHS is not on the table', I immediately assume that the NHS is on the table. #trump-starmer #tradedeal

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Prof Catherine Happer @catherinehapper.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

I've been thinking this for a while now. Google actually restricts your access to information, and asks that you do no thinking. It no longer has any use value. The World's Largest Search Doesn't Want You to Search www.honest-broker.com/p/the-worlds...

honest-broker.com

The World's Largest Search Doesn't Want You to Search

Why is Google abandoning its core mission?

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Paul Reilly @pauljreilly.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

wp.me/p3V8m9-ul Fab interview with @cairsti.bsky.social on @freedomtorunfilm.bsky.social and her research on Israel-Palestine here cc @uofglasgow.bsky.social @uofgsocsci.bsky.social @docmediacentre.bsky.social

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Andrew Hoskins @andrewhoskins.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

NEW BOOK OUT TODAY!! SHARDED MEDIA Trump’s Rage Against the Mainstream @williammerrin.bsky.social Tech bros, Trump and trolls, have not toxified the Mainstream Media... they have replaced it. link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

link.springer.com

SHARDED MEDIA

This book shows how the election of Donald Trump in both 2016 and 2024 is not a fluke but rather a symptom of a deep crisis within representative democracy

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Prof Catherine Happer @catherinehapper.bsky.social · 18/02/2025

I'm doing an online seminar discussing my book, The Construction of Public Opinion in a Digital Age, next Wednesday (26th) at 2pm organised by the Centre for Science, Health & Data Comm Research @bournemouthuni.bsky.social All welcome: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-constr...

lnkd.in

This link will take you to a page that’s not on LinkedIn

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Prof Catherine Happer @catherinehapper.bsky.social · 16/02/2025

Makes a key point on combatting the far right – winning public consent has been a gradual process of shifting public thought and perception via mainstream & social media, cultural institutions & narratives capitalising on decades of political failure. 1/ www.greeneuropeanjournal.eu/metapolitics...

greeneuropeanjournal.eu

Metapolitics and the Battle for Europe’s Future

As the far right’s cultural influence grows, Sybren Kooistra dusts off Gramsci’s notes to shift the “climate of opinion”.

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Prof Catherine Happer @catherinehapper.bsky.social · 16/02/2025

Great thread from @georgemonbiot.bsky.social on the ideological inconsistency & the false promises of the far right. As much as taking on the outright dangerous elements, journalists, politicians & leftists need to think carefully how to expose promises that sound right & speak to a wide public 1/

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Marta Cambronero @martacambro.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

This event seems great www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-constr.... It revolves around this book manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526180223/ by @catherinehapper.bsky.social. I leave here the info in case someone might find it interesting.

eventbrite.co.uk

The Construction of Public Opinion in a Digital Age

A new mode on how media and comms interact with politics, culture, and daily experience to construct people’s ideas.

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Prof Catherine Happer @catherinehapper.bsky.social · 13/02/2025

Media outlets all reporting 'welcome news' for the government as GDP grows - actually most people don't care about this, and this is not going to change the current position in respect of declining approval and the challenge from Reform at all.

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Prof Catherine Happer @catherinehapper.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

@labourlewis.bsky.social is very right. This is a government stuck in the thinking of a decade ago when the public have moved on - totally disconnected from the broken promises of neoliberal 'growth'. My work shows empirically how this only benefits the right. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

theguardian.com

I’m a Labour MP – but the government’s ‘growth’ mission reeks of panic | Clive Lewis

The decision to expand Heathrow is just the latest evidence that my party is chasing policies that serve profit, not people, says Labour MP Clive Lewis

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Marc Owen Jones @marcowenjones.bsky.social · 01/02/2025

It's disturbing how legacy media outlets somehow normalise and legitimise the plausibility of DEI being a factor in the DC crash. Trump's sinister rhetoric should be seen as just that, not as a mantle on which to construct an illusion of "legitimate debate". It's horseshit, & should be seen as such

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Prof Catherine Happer @catherinehapper.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

Cuts at Cardiff University - up to 400 jobs - are absolutely horrifying. All sorts of potential impacts - reduction in trained nurses in Wales, in language scholarship, and the terrible human cost to individuals and communities. Where does Labour's obsession with growth fit with this? #cardiffUCU

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Prof Catherine Happer @catherinehapper.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

Looking forward to speaking about my new book at the Centre for Climate & Data Science, Exeter tomorrow c3ds.ex.ac.uk. Climate and environment are very present in the book and the new six filter model of opinion formation I present within it is informed in part by my research on climate.

c3ds.ex.ac.uk

c3ds

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Prof Catherine Happer @catherinehapper.bsky.social · 28/01/2025

I had been thinking that the unprecedented investment in AI had been a bit premature so not surprised to hear about #Deepseek. Good news for the planet, but my hope is it throws the whole agenda up in the air, or at least gives us pause to think - whose agenda? whose interests? - before we power on.

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Prof Catherine Happer @catherinehapper.bsky.social · 28/01/2025

The headline is right - COVID too showed governments can lockdown the whole of society overnight when they act decisively. But people are looking for radical changes to the system, not tweaks to how they get poorer and unhealthier (sadly they are getting Trump) www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

theguardian.com

Here’s what Labour should learn from Donald Trump: think bigger, think faster | Polly Toynbee

A hostile media will criticise it no matter what. So it should ignore the noise, harness its huge majority – and act decisively, says Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee

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Prof Catherine Happer @catherinehapper.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

Excellent article from @georgemonbiot.bsky.social on the totally wrongheaded approach from Labour to tackle the housing crisis by simply building more. The catastrophic impact of the financialisation of housing was exposed by the 2008 crash, but still it continues.

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Prof Catherine Happer @catherinehapper.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

Can you imagine the faceless, brutal experience of claimants when AI is rolled out for the benefits system? Ken Loach might have to come out of retirement to make I, Daniel Blake: The Sequel (and it's even worse). www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

theguardian.com

AI prototypes for UK welfare system dropped as officials lament ‘false starts’

Exclusive: Pilots for staff training, jobcentres and speeding up disability benefit payments not being taken up

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Prof Catherine Happer @catherinehapper.bsky.social · 25/01/2025

Fascinating podcast in which Prof Andy Smith makes a compelling argument – that the cultural barriers around/lack of access to poetry represent a double injustice in both the social consequences of not being ‘cultured’ and in being deprived of something with real value to those who read it.

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Prof Catherine Happer @catherinehapper.bsky.social · 25/01/2025

Just in time for #BurnsNight, this week, I got to see a manuscript of Auld Lang Syne - a truly global Scottish export! Housed in the grand Mitchell Library in Glasgow.

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George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 23/01/2025

1. The UK government’s pursuit of GDP growth at all costs is an assault on our natural wealth, which will impoverish us all. It might be able to massage the headline figures by converting the living world into money, but it does not improve our lives.🧵

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Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 22/01/2025

This sounds grimly plausible theconcernedbird.substack.com/p/elon-musks...

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Prof Catherine Happer @catherinehapper.bsky.social · 19/01/2025

Came out of #ACompleteUnknown with all those wonderful Dylan songs swimming around in my head - there might be some historical 'errors' (I don't care anyway) but the one thing the film got absolutely right was to put the music at the centre.

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Ewan Gibbs @ewangibbs.bsky.social · 17/01/2025

On Wednesday 22 January I'll be in conversation with Jim Phillips, author of Coalfield Justice, about his research with Scottish miners who were convicted of offences during the 1984-5 strike and their successful campaign for justice. Glasgow University, 3pm. Details 🔽

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Prof Catherine Happer @catherinehapper.bsky.social · 17/01/2025

Cost of living crisis and the climate crisis have the same roots, and the same solution: on how far out politicians are in predicting what is to come: 'they are precisely wrong, rather than being roughly right'. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

theguardian.com

Global economy could face 50% loss in GDP between 2070 and 2090 from climate shocks, say actuaries

Exclusive: Report by risk experts says previous assessments ignored severe effects of climate crisis

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Gillian Branstetter @gbbranstetter.bsky.social · 15/01/2025

Among the 19 million people who voted for Biden in 2020 but did not vote at all in 2024, a YouGov poll found 29% said they declined to vote for Harris over her support for Israel's assault on Gaza--more than any other issue including the economy (24%) and immigration (11%)

open.substack.com

Kamala Harris Paid the Price for Not Breaking With Biden on Gaza, New Poll Shows

Twenty-nine percent of non-voters who supported Biden in 2020 said U.S. support for the genocide was the top reason they sat the 2024 election, according to a survey by YouGov.

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Prof Catherine Happer @catherinehapper.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

Good points in this article about the importance of validation, listening to and feeling listened to by others which is central to the spread of information on Facebook, Whatsapp, etc - lots about this in my own book. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

theguardian.com

Fears for UK boomer radicalisation on Facebook after Meta drops factcheckers

For middle-aged users, it will be ‘even harder to discern the truth’ among extremist content, expert says

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Prof Catherine Happer @catherinehapper.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

After everything that’s happened this week to expose the dangers of letting Big Tech CEOs set the agenda, Labour announce this. If anything, AI is subject to even less oversight, and its development even less transparent than social media. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

theguardian.com

‘Mainlined into UK’s veins’: Labour announces huge public rollout of AI

Plans to make UK world leader in AI sector include opening access to NHS and other public data

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Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 11/01/2025

They’re not doing it on video with $900k watches, like Zuckerberg, but the way corporate US is running away from its climate commitments now Trump is in office is really significant. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

bloomberg.com

BlackRock Leaves Major Climate Group Amid Wall Street Exodus

BlackRock Inc. is parting ways with one of the world’s biggest climate-investor groups after being targeted by Republican politicians for its efforts on global warming.

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Martin Scott @martinscott2010.bsky.social · 10/01/2025

“As a floating signifier that has no clear cause identified, the COLC can be easily attached to different policy programmes… Consequently, the COLC… becomes the battleground within which the range of actors aiming to penetrate public debate wage a ‘war of positions’ to construct a ‘problem space’”

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Martin Scott @martinscott2010.bsky.social · 10/01/2025

What ideological work does the term ‘cost of living crisis’ do? And what does MoneySavingExpert Martin Lewis have to do with it? Really enjoyed this new article from Isaac Hoff and @catherinehapper.bsky.social Great example of critical (media) sociology journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

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Prof Catherine Happer @catherinehapper.bsky.social · 08/01/2025

New article from Isaac Hoff & I exploring the cost of living crisis (COLC) as an example of a media 'keyphrase' which obscures the longer term, systematic problems which produce the crisis, and which promotes short-term ineffectual solutions from politicians. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

journals.sagepub.com

Mediating the Cost-of-Living Crisis: The Meaning of a ‘Keyphrase’ in UK Contemporary Cultural Discourse - Isaac Hoff, Catherine Happer, 2025

In this article, we draw on Raymond Williams’ notion of ‘keywords’ and Neil Davidson’s conceptualisation of ‘crisis neoliberalism’ to understand how the ‘cost-o...

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Prof Catherine Happer @catherinehapper.bsky.social · 08/01/2025

A lot of people seem surprised, even disappointed, that Zuckerberg has capitulated so quickly - I recommend reading @jillian.bsky.social Silicon Values. The capitulation to state lobbying and pressure was simply hidden from view before.

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Prof Catherine Happer @catherinehapper.bsky.social · 07/01/2025

Big Tech/platforms owners are (and could never not be) intensively political players – in my book, I singled out Zuckerberg operating under the guise of ‘neutrality’ which is all fine and dandy until the point where his interests are threatened. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

theguardian.com

Meta to get rid of factcheckers and recommend more political content

Mark Zuckerberg says company will ‘dramatically reduce censorship’ across Facebook, Instagram and Threads

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Prof Catherine Happer @catherinehapper.bsky.social · 07/01/2025

Empty words from elites (politicians, mainstream journalists, even some academic experts) on urgent need to tackle #disinformation when they are consistently orientating around (and amplifying) social media talking points, most often because it is politically expedient to do so 1/2

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Prof Catherine Happer @catherinehapper.bsky.social · 06/01/2025

I’ve only ever read two graphic novels…maybe now I’ll read a third.

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The National @scotnational.bsky.social · 04/01/2025

A first look at tomorrow's front page of The National 📰 BBC is disastrously failing with its Gaza reporting

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Prof Catherine Happer @catherinehapper.bsky.social · 05/01/2025

Really enjoyed returning to the Communist Manifesto with this critical re-reading. Two points linger: the unresolved question of the uncontrollable nature of technologies as part of 'productive forces' & just how much was there that we now see as newer ideas (eg Mark Fisher’s capitalist realism).

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Will Bunch @willbunch.bsky.social · 04/01/2025

Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post cartoonist Ann Telnaes announces she's quit the paper because her editors wouldn't print a cartoon going after Big Tech and media oligarchs paying tribute to to Trump A new low in mainstream media's post-Trump meltdown anntelnaes.substack.com/p/why-im-qui...

anntelnaes.substack.com

Why I'm quitting the Washington Post

Democracy can't function without a free press

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