Sebastian F. K. Svegaard 🏳️‍🌈

Today, under the cover of the Liberals tearing each other down, Labor has approved another coal mine extension.

Extending Middlemount to 2044 means Labor has now approved 35 fossil fuel projects.

In the middle of the climate crisis, they're approving more coal & gas.

The opposite of “just good friends”… and even more damaging.

I’ve said it before I’ll say it again

I’ve been genuinely astounded at how quickly & effectively RFK Jr & his allies—Drs Prasad, Bhattacharya, Makary, Høeg, Oz, & Kulldorff—have been able to dismantle the US vaccination system, including vaccine R&D

I thought guardrails might slow them, but nope

🚨CALL FOR CHAPTERS!🚨

@amaramarasingam.bsky.social and I are putting together an edited collection looking at the use of pseudoscientific ideas by extremist movements. If you are interested, please send us your abstracts at this link: forms.gle/mAUtpDGNEj9i...

‘A cultural icon’: axed Australian literary journal Meanjin finds new life in Queensland The 85-year-old magazine will return to the city for which it was named after a successful bid by Queensland University of Technology

Really delighted to see my university make this move. There could be no more appropriate place for the journal. 📔

Happy seventh annual Laura Dern Day, please be reminded that you are LEGALLY OBLIGATED to watch this masterpiece *at least* once today!

Best. Concept. Art. EVAR. :)

“Talk to Me as a Friend!”: How Teenagers Prefer Their Newsfluencers on Social Media This study investigates how Portuguese teenagers (aged 13–18) perceive and prefer the communication characteristics of so-called “newsfluencers” on social media platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Through 20 semi-structured interviews, the research explores how verbal and non-verbal traits shape adolescents’ engagement with news in a media ecosystem increasingly dominated by digital intermediaries. Drawing on literature on brand journalism, the study categorizes preferences into four key elements: character, tone, language, and purpose. The findings reveal that teenagers favor newsfluencers who are inspiring and friendly (character), are honest and direct (tone), use simple and fun speech (language), and aim to educate and inform (purpose). Participants express a desire for journalists who “talk to me as a friend”, emphasizing authenticity, emotional proximity, and conversational clarity over traditional, formal modes of reporting. These insights suggest that effective youth-oriented journalism on social media must balance factual accuracy and emotional engagement, blending education with entertainment. The research contributes to emerging scholarship on social media journalism and youth news consumption by highlighting how relational and affective communication strategies can enhance young audiences’ trust, understanding, and participation in news.

NEW PUBLICATION!

In a new article in Journalism and Media, the DMRC's Aljosha Karim Schapals and colleagues consider communicative traits young people prefer in a "newsfluencer".

Available to read in open access here:

QUT - Strengthening Public Opinion Formation Amid Digital Threats (PhD scholarship)

PhD scholarship applications are open for a project investigating how public opinion is formed in online spaces, with a focus on the deliberative quality of discussions, social influence dynamics, and platform affordances and governance across major digital platforms.

www.qut.edu.au/study/fees-a...

I don't know who needs to hear this but you need to listen to music (more).

I somehow forgot about music. The world is in major suck mode right now and I listen to news every free minute to make sense of the insanity.

If that's you, please listen to music more. It's good for your soul. Take care.

Two months into the social media ban and teenagers say it isn't working Australia's world-first social media ban for under-16s is two months old, but teenagers say they have found ways around it.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Played Ghost of Yōtei? Please check out my research study on character identification! Please click this link depaul.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...
to participate or find out more info!
@icagames.bsky.social @scmsfaas.bsky.social @scmsvideogames.bsky.social

Lars Erslev Andersen er gået bort Det er en stor sorg for alle os på DIIS, at seniorforsker Lars Erslev Andersen gik bort i går morges. Hans Lucht, enhedsleder for Lars Erslev, har skrevet dette mindeord.

Lars Erslev Andersen, 1956-2026. R.I.P.

And no animals needed either - just a farmer poking his head out going “yep, it’s cold!” ;)

An old Danish saying is that if Candlemas is cold then winter is over. “Ved Kyndelmisse knude er vinteren ude.” It continues that if it’s mild the winter will last. But I forgot the original rhyme for that :D (and my book of old almanak sayings is in another country.)

I had a chat with @pardisyarahmadi.bsky.social about the situation in Iran, and the horrors hidden behind and by the digital blackout. If you'd like to know more about the context and how you can help, have a listen.

Title: “They’re Eating the Pets”: From Participatory Propaganda to Policy in Trump 2.0 Slide contains a graphic with arrows moving clockwise, suggesting a circular process. At the top, are about ten large bubbles with the label “GOP Political Elites”. At the bottom are about a hundred small bubbles, with the label “Audiences”. Up the left side are a series of bubbles of increasing size, labeled “Influencers”. Arrow [1] runs from GOP Political Elites down to Audiences and has 2 labels: Political elites on the right set an “anti-immigration” frame during the 2024 election. JD Vance claims Springfield has been “overwhelmed” by Haitian immigrants [July 10, 2024] Arrow [2] runs up from Audiences to Elites and contains 3 labels: A Facebook user in Ohio shared her (false) suspicion that a neighbor’s daughter’s friend’s missing cat had been eaten by Haitian immigrants. [Sept 2024] The story percolated up through online influencers. Online activists created AI-generated images or “memes” of Trump saving pets. Arrow [3] runs down from Elites to Audiences and contains 2 labels: GOP political leaders repeated the claims and amplified the memes. Trump repeated the rumor from the debate stage. [Sept 10 2024] Arrow [4] runs up from Audiences to Elites and contains 2 labels: Online audiences continued to engage, cheering the rumors on, repeating and retweeting. “They’re eating the pets” became a meme and a jingle Arrow [5] runs down from Elites to Audiences and contains 2 labels, highlighted against a white background: Trump administration rescinds TPS status for Haitian immigrants (ending Feb 3 2026) [Nov 2025] Trump administration begins detaining and deporting Haitian immigrants? [Feb ?? 2026] There are two images on the side, screenshots from social media. The first is Donald Trump on a debate stage (from Sept 10, 2024). The second is a synthetic AI image of Donald Trump in a blue suit, carrying a cat, and running away from a group of brown-skinned men in the background.

I'm working on a single graphic that illustrates how participatory propaganda becomes policy in the second Trump administration, particularly around the case of "They're Eating the Pets".

Still hoping we'll get to take that last label away before those ?s resolve.

Why should renters like me have to trade away our privacy just to get a roof over our heads? | Samantha Floreani The rise in real estate tech means renters often hand over huge amounts of revealing information to digital third parties – at great risk * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Would you trade your data privacy and security for housing? Thanks to the rise in real estate technologies, renters often have no choice but to hand over huge amounts of revealing information to digital third parties just to have somewhere to live. All the while we are told: trust us, we take your privacy seriously. But recent Guardian reporting has revealed that seven popular “rent-tech” platforms have serious security vulnerabilities, leaving millions of documents containing personal information of renters exposed on the open web for years. When they were alerted to the risk, only two of the seven companies responded to say they would put additional security measures in place. Is this what taking renter privacy seriously looks like? Continue reading...

Why should renters like me have to trade away our privacy just to get a roof over our heads? | Samantha Floreani

I read the abstract and yeah, leave this one with me.

Sounds like she’s listening to a classic :) Smooth Criminal?

Sure send it my way. I’ll have a look at the abstract and see if I can do it - maybe recommend someone else if not.

What is happening in Iran is horrifying. And the silence is deafening. The people of Iran deserve to have their fight and plight seen and heard - at the very least.

Chris Rufo is so upset about the Minneapolis protests that he is resorting to anti-Nordic racism christopherrufo.com/p/the-curse-...

Just started doing new data analysis and I know I keep saying this, but: I really, really don't think people appreciate how much this moral panic was a deliberate and extremely expensive invention.

The day after Holocaust Memorial Day it does hit very hard.

It was clear during the first few hours after Alex Pretti’s killing that the government’s spin machine wasn’t gaining much traction in their efforts to blame the victim. Even on X, the most salient frames were critical of ICE/CBP and sympathetic towards Pretti.

We haven’t spoken in a while, but thrilled for you (and the kid!)

I came to Minneapolis to report on what's going on, and one of the main questions I showed up with is "just what is the scale of the resistance?" After all, we're all used to the news calling Portland a "war zone" or whatever when it's just some protests in one part of town.

Wtf google.
I use Fastmail - it’s for pay but damn it’s good service with loads of options.

It was a pleasure to write this piece for illiberalism.org on alternative news media - from bloggers to newsfluencers. I end with some thoughts on how legacy news media can learn from these developments.