William Cullerne Bown

The British Academy Public service media: funding and governance options An international comparison to inform BBC Charter review 2027

We’ve got a significant publication out today - a review of how 10 countries around the world organise their public service media, and what lessons can be drawn for the renewal of the BBC Charter
www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/programmes/g...

With the upcoming BBC Charter review we have a very interesting bit of work out tomorrow on public service broadcasting. Watch this space!

“The United States is no longer interested in Europe. Even more: This administration no longer views Europe - and specifically the EU - as a partner, but rather, in large part, as strategic ballast, as an economic adversary, and as a civilization in decline.”

🇺🇸 is hostile to Europe

What did he mean by "town"?

At some point, when I don't have to think so much, I'll get back to writing shorter ones.

I think that is in the article, sort of

Thanks James.

Britain's Big Tech problem The essence of a banana republic is that the state has the legal form of a republic but substantive power resides elsewhere, in the hands of American corporations backed by a US state that considers t...

@williamcb.bsky.social is always worth reading - as is Renewal. Probably the best observer of UK tech policy through a Labour lens. Well worth reading and fits quite nicely with the learned helpness approach to tech the govt often displays. Dodds speech was very accurate

"if universities are as crucial to regional development as everyone claims, why do we leave their geographical distribution to market forces"?

Good question

This is so perfect. No one have any doubts at this point about what Elon Musk really represents.

Coronation is Streeting’s only hope.

Also, this is basically the stuff that ordinary computers do reliably and AI doesn’t. If you actually did this, you’d be gambling your entire career.

Today it feels like it has taken BlueSky almost a year to notice what JD Vance said at Munich.

💯

You mean Streeting to you would be the continuity candidate?

So much in the framing though. Who chooses the categories of “establishment” and “soft left”? Why isn’t the soft left the establishment, for example?

Can the British state stop this obvious and easily solved scam? Let’s find out!

Content creation is self-expression and an important part of engaging. And Reform really aren’t some kind of paragon of coherence!

Absolutely not. They constantly exhort their members to generate original content, and they do.

And why does that mean their successful social media tactics cannot be learnt from?

That all sounds super plausible. Until you look at how the thing you’re saying is impossible works to great effect for MAGA or Reform.

Firmly convinced that Rio Ferdinand is the smartest footballer going now as he's the only guy they trust to explain in real time what the fuck is going on in the World Cup draw.

This, and the US National Security Strategy, also published today, both reflect exactly the position set out by JD Vance in Munich at the start of the year. Social media is the vector through which they want to attack the democracies *from within*.

To what extent to you think this is possible when consensus politics has evaporated?

But what historical scholarship shows is that modern journalistic norms, especially around balance and objectivity, actually arose as a defensive measure by powerful, private owners of media to stop increased public oversight and public alternatives to for-profit media.

Talking about tennis seems to put it into the general Trump-sees-everything-as-a-TV-show. Maybe that's right. But football on this side of the pond is a place where young men can be led to violence. If you're planning on political violence, you want that on-side, or at least neutered.

Hard to argue with that now.

While I do use Duolingo, this brings me joy tbh because it fucking sucks now

Yeah. But I suspect it has a real purpose for Trump. Football crowds are actually a site where you get young men together in a way that can easily become combative. If you're planning on political violence, then you want that on-side, or at least neutered as a source of opposition.

Right. So this was visible in JD Vance's Munich speech. What did he say we should do about it?