One of my biggest frustrations is that, even after the influence of Breitbart was made clear in 2016, the idea has persisted that left wing comms need to be handknitted by earnest George Orwell-types and should remain hobbyist, unfunded activities happening in the margins - ThreadSky

rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social • 6 days ago

One of my biggest frustrations is that, even after the influence of Breitbart was made clear in 2016, the idea has persisted that left wing comms need to be handknitted by earnest George Orwell-types and should remain hobbyist, unfunded activities happening in the margins

Reposted from ProfAFinlayson

The infrastructure of left-liberal politics was once large: union & party newspapers; journals and pamphlets; meetings to learn about this, that & the other; libraries; clubs etc. That's all been killed off as parties professionalised & centralised. The Radical Right has rebuilt all of that online.

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radiobeartime.com•6 days ago

It’s utterly baffling.

Labour are unspeakably shite at comms.

And the TUC is getting better but by and large the unions are pants at it.

sdp.bsky.social•6 days ago

Would welcome your thoughts on the below - not comms specifically, but independent media infrastructure and how it is funded…

https://bsky.app/profile/sdp.bsky.social/post/3ligppgoots2e

rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social•6 days ago

Oh this looks super interesting! I have to do some actual work now but will take a look later

sdp.bsky.social•6 days ago

🙏🏾

rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social•6 days ago

I'm sure that there are a bunch of culture warriors complaining somewhere that the left doesn't need more promotion because they're already, idk, making Pixar movies and running Netflix and manipulating all the algorithms, but the fact is that - these days - you can buy attention with money

hotgirlchristmas.bsky.social•6 days ago

Where you gonna buy the ads? Twitter, facebook, youtube, amazon prime?

Who gets the money? Who filters the ads? Who controls the algorithm?

rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social•6 days ago

Eg, as I posted earlier, the Collisons (Irish tech entrepreneurs who run Stripe, based out of SF) fund Works in Progress. Works in Progress is a great magazine - rigorous, interesting, esoteric - and it also promotes a libertarian, rationalist approach to technopolitics https://bsky.app/profile/rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social/post/3lijrajvask27

meeware.bsky.social•6 days ago

‘Libertarian, rationalist’ are words that look ok at first glance…

mariafarrell.bsky.social•6 days ago

the collisons’ Irish “think tank” just today scored a major agenda setting win as one of its regressive and anti-regulation ideas is now a government policy under consultation and front page positive news : https://bsky.app/profile/athenamediaie.bsky.social/post/3lijorne6qc2l

As you say, money buys attention.

athenamediaie.bsky.social•6 days ago

can you imagine the rubbish that will be done in 'tiny houses' without planning in back gardens -that will then be rented out for profit? The whole notion here is that somehow 'planning' is bad rather than good practice in urban design

rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social•6 days ago

... and that libertarian, rationalist approach is v popular among the tech policy class in the UK. Beyond personal blog posts and newsletter, there's no equivalent space - no LRB of tech, say - that could act as a centry of gravity for left-wing tech policy and help it to find a consistent audience

holgate.permanent.red•6 days ago

Mute / Metamute kind of filled that space for a while, and I wonder if it could be given new life.

rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social•6 days ago

Anyway, this might not seem to have anything to do with mass market comms, but these ideas *all start somewhere*. Good ideas don't fall out of the sky; they require investment in people. The lack of that investment means the Tony Blair Inst has a de facto monopoly on tech policy thinking.

loblaws-balrog.bsky.social•5 days ago

left politics don’t appeal to capitalists, and capitalists make the ad buys. hard to promote an ideology against endless growth and mindless consumerism when the people funding the airwaves need endless growth and mindless consumerism

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