You know what, Miro? I do not need a 2025 recap of my use of your fine platform. No, no thank you.

We’ve extended the deadline by a week! More time to send in your abstract for potential inclusion in a special @mediapolis.bsky.social dossier on ‘The Synthetic City’!

REMINDER! CfP: 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...

Jimmy Cliff, Jamaican reggae singer, actor and cultural icon, dies aged 81

Birkbeck, University of London is seeking an Associate Lecturer in Digital Video and Editing. Part-time, contractual – perfect for creatives who want to share their skills while continuing their practice. 👉 Details & apply: cis7.bbk.ac.uk/vacancy/asso...

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

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

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...

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.

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, 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

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

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...

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...

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.

Tempting

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...

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!

✨Very excited to share details of our British Academy-funded one-day symposium at Lancaster University in July: SPECULATIVE MACHINES AND US: HISTORIES AND FUTURES OF AI. ✨💥Featuring @ohalpern.bsky.social @mbfazi.bsky.social @aleenachia.bsky.social and more💥 tinyurl.com/bde6x7ub Please share widely!

Near Copenhagen 20/05/25? Interested in digital placemaking and related research methods? Come to this FREE panel where I join Anders Koed Madsen, Marie Stender, Ate Poorthuis, Andrea Ballatore and Tuuli Toivonen to discuss how digital practices are shaping urban life. www.ssh.aau.dk/mini-confere...

I had a great time chatting with @scott-rodgers.bsky.social about Google’s expanding presence in cities and my forthcoming book on the politics of test-bed urbanism. Thanks for the thoughtful questions and fun conversation!

In the latest podcast, @baykurt.bsky.social discusses with @scott-rodgers.bsky.social her longstanding interests in Google as an increasingly influential agent in urban affairs, and her efforts to rethink ‘test-bed urbanism’ through the local. www.mediapolisjournal.com/2025/04/voic...

My second book, MOTHER MEDIA, is out in just a few weeks from @mitpress.bsky.social. The book is about the 20th century crisis of the family, and how, from the prison to the commune to the suburban home, psychology and media each transformed our ideas of mothering. mitpress.mit.edu/978026204955...

I was coming to Heathrow with fears, terrible fears, of the aftereffects from Friday. And then my tube journey went horribly wrong, with the train needing to reverse after waiting 45 minutes in the tunnel. I thought surely I’d miss my flight. managed to get a cab. And I arrived to this utter chaos.

Sad news to hear of the passing of Jonathan Sterne, whose work I’ve always greatly admired. A truly pathbreaking scholar.

This is infuriating. "The Trump administration is, by its words, its deeds, and by the people who comprise it, a white supremacist regime ... At what point does someone in a position to stop this do something? Where is the bottom?" www.cupofcoffeenews.com/cup-of-coffe...

I've asked Major League Baseball's Vice President of Communications if Major League Baseball has any comment on the DoD erasing Jackie Robinson's page from the site and changing the URL to "DEI Sports." I'll update this story if and when the league weighs in. www.cupofcoffeenews.com/cup-of-coffe...

Rest in Peace, Roy Ayers www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Here I react to the shameful encounter between American leaders and media and the Ukrainian president. No doubt there were more, but I saw five failures on our side: of hospitality, decency, democracy, strategy, and independence. Please watch and share. snyder.substack.com/p/five-failu...

Wait these emails I've been getting from people 'reaching out' about joining editorial boards for unknown journals, presenting at conferences, discussing my university's procurement, and so on haven't been authored towards little old me specifically?

“It's a neat way to stumble upon interesting information randomly, learn new things, and spend spare moments of boredom without reaching for an algorithmically addictive social media” arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025...

This matters. Not because I think Trump is capable of mercy or empathy towards these vulnerable groups. But because it is a public act of defiance. Contrast that with all these other powerful people in this country signaling nothing but appeasement and obedience.

This looks like a good event! Post- and decolonial perspectives on the platformed city / London / 16-17 January at Goldsmiths, University of London. See: www.instagram.com/p/DEiFVUrJKND/

What in the wide world

The @mediacity-ecrea.bsky.social has got an initial starter pack going! go.bsky.app/LuPffFt

Wise insights as always from @leelum.bsky.social www.politicshome.com/thehouse/art...

One guy used a Zuck product to plan his attack and the other guy used a Musk vehicle to make a car bomb and we're gonna be talking about the border

Venus and the Moon, seen from Walthamstow, East London