TV, internet and other media

Wednesday, 06 February 2019 10:09

Facebook and why we should all own it

Written by Paul Victor Tims

Paul Tims, our regular Culture Punch columnist, sums up the problems with Facebook and calls for an end to private ownership of such an important means of human communication I think it’s fair to say that Facebook is now a ubiquitous means of communication. In the western world, it’s used…

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Wednesday, 05 December 2018 17:47

Culture Punch: The BBC's right-wing bias

Written by Paul Victor Tims

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Paul Tims lays into the BBC's right-wing bias. In this article, you’ll see that there are all sorts of valid political and cultural reasons for my personal distaste of the BBC. However, in the interests of full disclosure, I should also admit that I may have been soured by the…

Monday, 01 October 2018 15:47

Reds Behind the Sofa: The Radical Politics of Doctor Who

Written by Sean Ledwith

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As we get ready for the next series of Doctor Who, Sean Ledwith praises a show which regularly features forces of emancipation outwitting forces of oppression. This October Jodie Whittaker will make her debut in one of the most eagerly awaited British television seasons of the decade. For the first…

K2_PUBLISHED_ON Tuesday, 10 July 2018 18:25

Scandi Noir Comes of Age: The Best of European Television

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Written by Dennis Broe

Dennis Broe reviews some recent European TV series. The EU itself may be breaking apart over the question of refugees as the 28 – now 27 – try to hammer out an immigration policy essentially driven by the far right, which is making hay on exaggerating this issue, since Europe…

K2_PUBLISHED_ON Tuesday, 08 May 2018 19:03

It’s Netflix’s world: we just live in it

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Written by Dennis Broe

Dennis Broe hits the global television beat, reporting from the biggest and most prestigious television festival in the world, Series Mania, in Lille in Northern France. France is trying to establish itself as throwing the best TV party, attempting to create at Lille the equivalent in the television world of the…

K2_PUBLISHED_ON Friday, 04 May 2018 19:08

The media, manipulation, and democratic cultural policies

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Written by Martin Cloake

Martin Cloake discusses issues around media manipulation and self-censorship, ownership, and the questions for a progressive cultural policy on the media to address. On the morning after the last General Election, Channel 4’s Jon Snow introduced the channel’s post-election roundup with the following words: “I know nothing. We, the media,…

K2_PUBLISHED_ON Tuesday, 17 April 2018 09:55

A people's algorithm? Facebook and the rise of surveillance capitalism

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Written by Tom Walker

Tom Walker discusses how corporate profiteers are capturing a vital social resource - information about ourselves. How can we de-commodify our everyday lives and even our resistance? The above image is 'Instruction', by Alix Emery. ‘You don’t get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies,’ as Facebook movie…

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Wednesday, 14 February 2018 16:25

Peaky Blinders and the Real Jessie Eden

Written by Graham Stevenson

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Graham Stevenson reports on the recent Real Jessie Eden event in Birmingham, including Dave Puller's new poem on Jessie. Over 60 people crowded into the upstairs room at Cherry Reds café and bar in central Birmingham throughout the course of the Real Jessie Eden event, jointly organised by Culture Matters…

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Sunday, 10 December 2017 21:22

Let's think about bread: the internet moves from community forum to shopping mall

Written by Dennis Broe

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Dennis Broe compares the current attempts to overrule the principle of net neutrality with 18C French economists' rejection of bread price controls. The U.S. regulatory body the Federal Communications Commission is set to overrule the principle of net neutrality where all speed on the internet is roughly equal and instead…

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Monday, 10 July 2017 12:58

Lenin didn't have Facebook and never watched the telly

Written by Peter Frost

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Peter Frost discusses the uses and abuses of social media, and how its innately social character makes it a useful communications platform for socialists. Lenin died in January 1924. It was only later that very same year that in John Logie Baird’s laboratory the first ever flickering television pictures appeared…

Tuesday, 16 May 2017 18:19

How the media shapes our cultural ideals of body shape

Written by Melissa Oldham

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Melissa Oldham charts how media representation of ideal body shapes, driven by the need to maximise profits, leads to negative body images in women and men. Feminine beauty, particularly in the western world is synonymous with thinness, whilst the male cultural ideal is to be tall, broad and muscular. This…