Scott Rodgers

Join us Nov 25 for Engaging Publics in Media, Cities & Space -free online conference on research impact in media and urban studies. Talks on monographs, journals, podcasts, walking tours + networking, incl. a special session for ECRs.
👉 Full programme & register: docs.google.com/document/d/e...

Two very late nights in a row keeping up with the Jays, and now I’m exhausted

YouTube video by Birkbeck, University of London Birkbeck Explains: How do we lay the dead to rest today?

Apropos of this Halloween day, Roger Luckhurst - a colleague in Birkbeck’s School of Creative Arts, Culture and Communication - discusses how we lay the dead to rest today, drawing on his new book Graveyards: A History of Living with the Dead (Thames and Hudson 2025): youtu.be/ZPuNR9J9LGI?...

2/ We welcome short essays, provocations, and creative-critical reflections that examine how synthetic urbanism is produced, experienced, and theorized across media, design, and everyday life.

#UrbanMedia #SyntheticCity #SyntheticData #Synthesis #Cities #Space #Media #ML #GenAI #AI #Mediapolis

CFP: ‘The Synthetic City’ Dossier for Mediapolis Journal The Synthetic City A Dossier for Mediapolis: A Journal of Cities and Culture Guest Editors: Scott Rodgers, Helena Atteneder, Lou Therese Brandner, Marcos Dias, Diogo Pereira Henriques and Sara Tren…

1/ CFP Dossier for @mediapolis.bsky.social:
The synthetic city as an alternative, multivalent provocation to examine, interpret and forecast the emerging implications of AI and related digital technologies for urban living.
🗓️ Deadline: 30 Nov 2025
🔗 Link: mediacitytwg.wordpress.com/2025/10/16/c...

Savoured and then ruined

Wait that'll ruin the moment

Camera on the ready

CFP: ‘The Synthetic City’ Dossier for Mediapolis Journal The Synthetic City A Dossier for Mediapolis: A Journal of Cities and Culture Guest Editors: Scott Rodgers, Helena Atteneder, Lou Therese Brandner, Marcos Dias, Diogo Pereira Henriques and Sara Tren…

Great to see this CfP "The Synthetic City" #urbanAI for @mediapolis.bsky.social w/ guest editors @scott-rodgers.bsky.social @marcospdias.bsky.social & colleagues.

mediacitytwg.wordpress.com/2025/10/16/c...

Abstract deadline 30 November 2025.

Today’s the day I take the two-stop Waterloo & City line for the first time. It’s gonna be a good one.

CFP: ‘The Synthetic City’ Dossier for Mediapolis Journal The Synthetic City A Dossier for Mediapolis: A Journal of Cities and Culture Guest Editors: Scott Rodgers, Helena Atteneder, Lou Therese Brandner, Marcos Dias, Diogo Pereira Henriques and Sara Tren…

Call for Papers: The Synthetic City

We’re putting together a special issue dossier for @mediapolis.bsky.social on 'urban AI' and seek short essays, provocations, creative-critical reflections on synthetic urbanism.

📅 Abstracts due: Nov 30
🔗 Details: mediacitytwg.wordpress.com/2025/10/16/c...

Laura Mulvey to receive a BFI Fellowship The BFI’s highest honour recognises the huge global impact of Mulvey’s work through her groundbreaking writing and filmmaking, including her seminal essay ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’.

Laura Mulvey, who recently retired from Birkbeck, to refeive a BFI Fellowship. www.bfi.org.uk/news/laura-m...

Some snaps from the @birmac.bsky.social / Media & Democracy / Qualitative Methods Group workshop 'Exploring Quali-Quantitative Approaches in Social Media Research', where me, @robtoes.bsky.social & participants explored methods for approaching the messy, contradictory phenomena that is social media

I’d like to see some mainstream journalists put a question like this to Labour ministers. It the logical question to follow.

Finally something to cheer

As part of the deal, I’ll stop saying please in my prompts

I’ve been increasingly using ChatGPT/copilot for various little things here and there. But you know what I’d like? For it not to be so complementary. I mean, be a bit rude and tell me my prompts are terrible, if they are, please.

So sad to hear about the passing of my friend and former colleague Mark Saunders. Some thoughts and memories here: www.publiclysited.com/memories-of-...

The Amiel & Melburn Annual lecture is happening this Wednesday!

A stellar lineup discussing how the Left can resist the Rise of the Radical Right, hosted at Birkbeck.

@kojokoram.bsky.social, @irrnews.bsky.social @afoggyplace.bsky.social @bethanyrielly.bsky.social @robtoes.bsky.social

cc. @mediacity-ecrea.bsky.social

With Yu-Shan Tseng, I am co-editing a Special Issue (for Urban Studies, subject to full proposal acceptance) on 'Ordinary Democracy and Digital Cities'. Read the CFP details here: docs.google.com/document/d/e...

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

New article out in Urban Studies! I examine Google’s urban-tech power from Fiber to Sidewalk Labs and argue that the company is less a cohesive strategist and more a shapeshifter, driven by the speculative ethos of Silicon Valley journals.sagepub.com/eprint/JIJUW...

If you want to live in the UK, you should speak English. That's common sense. So we're raising English language requirements across every main immigration route.

Spain, you could do the funniest thing right now...

The worst happened. We were DOGE’d. Our NSF funding is gone.

So now there’s nothing stopping me from sharing Expert Voices Together, a crisis response system for US-based researchers and journalists facing harassment.

It's a true passion project. 🧵 1/

expertvoicestogether.org

I'm not 100% sure, but I was just on the phone with a UK bank and it seemed like I was speaking with some kind of automated agent. Either that, or I spoke with a human being who doesn't really seem to listen to what you are saying, and then asks generic questions as it they're a rudimentary chatbot.

I wonder if I should actually take that book for safekeeping.

Tempting

Mini Conference: How can SSH researchers use LLMs in their research Are you curious about how AI is transforming digital literature and research practices? Join us for an engaging mini-conference where Malthe Stavning Erslev will present his pioneering research on bot mimicry and machine mimesis. Dive into exciting discussions and hands-on activities where you'll reflect on AI's use, explore its pitfalls and potential, and critically assess its role in research.

Sadly this is just before I will be in Copenhagen, so I can't go, but looks very useful www.ssh.aau.dk/mini-confere...

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

CFP ‘Authoritarianism in the Digital Age’ for SI of @dialoguesdigsoc.bsky.social Seeking commentaries (<2,000 words) that reflect on role of digital tech in building & challenging authoritarian rule. Abstracts May 16. Details: journals.sagepub.com/page/dds/cal...

The regional launch of this major new report is tonight in Leeds!