@cleabourne
Reader, Dept of Media, Communications and Cultural Studies. Goldsmiths, University of London. Researcher at the intersection of markets, media and cultural studies. Editorial board, Economy and Society journal.
very, mind-blowing bad, and possibly the future given this Labour government is determined to run us into the ground:
if you're not REFable, you're precariously employed by a firm that subcontracts your teaching to the university.
two new facts from the files
1] Mandelson demanded compensation of er £547,201 for his dismissal
2] nearly half of the £75,000 he did get was discretionary, which will raise questions about Starmer's judgment
I have seen a lot of cursed stuff in my time in academia but this is among the *most* cursed.
Grammarly is generating miniature LLMs based on academic work so that users can have their writing ‘reviewed’ by experts like David Abulafia, who died less than two months ago.
Kemi Badenoch claimed at #pmqs that Rachel Reeves worked “in customer services” at the Bank of England when she was in fact an economist there
Listen! @mivich.bsky.social talks to @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social about the fantastic The Division of Rationalized Labor newbooksnetwork.com/the-division...
What I’m still searching for is a ‘duty of care’: First, by the broadcaster. Second, by the host organisation. Third, by creatives who kept referring to themselves as a ‘community’ throughout that awards ceremony. A real community openly and actively ‘cares’ for each other. Where is the ‘care’?
Screenshot of an X.com post by Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) saying Trump’s threatened new tariffs on wine imports could personally benefit him because he’s also in the wine business. Below the text is a photo of four bottles of wine with large “TRUMP” labels.
I'm old enough to remember when Carter had to sell his peanut farm to avoid the appearance of conflict of interest.
ICE has been verified on Bluesky, and quickly becomes one of the top most-blocked accounts.
Holy shit, this thread is incredible.
Call for proposals for workshop on '(post)neoliberal Authoritarianism' at @goldsmithsuol.bsky.social in June irgac.org/calls/post-n...
I think the disconnect between Atlantic elites is that Americans think Donald Trump is a kid getting to drive a monster truck for Make A Wish and Europeans and Canadians think Donald Trump is the president of the United States.
So I have only just discovered at some vague point in the next couple weeks Google is going to break the way my work email works, and the company has done nothing to alert people to it.
www.theregister.com/2026/01/05/g...
📣 Publication alert
Just before the break, a special issue co-edited with Malcolm Campbell-Verduyn on ‘(Post-)Growth Infrastructures’ was published in @econsocjournal.bsky.social. /1
👉 www.tandfonline.com/toc/reso20/5...
Apparently China has banned those stupid Tesla style car door handles, and all I can say is YES I WILL TAKE ALL THE GOOD NEWS I CAN GET
They've turned every press office into a groyper shitpost factory www.liberalcurrents.com/the-war-on-p...
A year of genocide, of unspeakable horrors, ends with Israel banning Medicines Sans Fronteres.
"Manufacturers of aeroderivative turbines — which are based on or made from jet engines — and diesel generators have reported increased demand because of data centres seeking to bypass the grid as they wait for larger gas turbines."
Attention northern word nerds: The very first Canadian Word of the Year is MAPLEWASHING!
Gonna keep posting about this until everyone acknowledges how bonkers it is that prediction markets, which are pitching themselves as information aggregators, cannot provide a consistent answer to "who was TIME's 2025 person of the year?", a question with an empirically straightforward answer.
Sainsbury's Your safety is our priority We're trialling facial recognition technology to protect colleagues and customers in this store. Your privacy is protected Don't worry, the technology is designed to only recognise known offenders who have committed acts of violence, aggression or theft. For everyone else any data generated by the software is deleted instantly. Scan the QR code below to learn how it works.
Facial recognition notification in the big supermarket. "Don't worry, the technology is designed to only recognise known offenders who have committed acts of violence, aggression or theft. For everyone else any data generated by the software is deleted instantly."
It certainly appears that the United States government is run by neo-Nazis.
No one should gloss over how appalling this is. A president who feels this comfortable demeaning women, and so many others, is nothing short of embarrassing and shameful.
Labour is handing more victories to the Far Right than the Far Right even thought was possible.
A piece I wrote about the manufactured ‘impartiality’ panics that greeted Tim Davie’s arrival just over 5 years ago, when GB News was still a glint in Robbie Gibbs’ eye www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Also, the gaslighting that followed. 🤷🏽♀️
Sorry. Don’t look. 🥺
Ask the President of Mexico. She had a normal day at the office last week, I believe?
i think about this way too much - how tech companies act vs. “legacy” companies that produce consumer goods, news, media or entertainment.
So it turns out... the US air travel system was incredibly, deeply dependent on federal funding to just run day-to-day all this time, to the benefit of private airline shareholders, when everyone thinks that state-run trains are leeching off the government. Weird!