Recalling that time earlier this same year that a gold-medallioned Zuckerberg said Meta would be "getting back to our roots around free expression ... to give people a voice." www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Jeff Hiller for Somebody Somewhere ❤️❤️❤️

If you haven’t had time to follow the Internet crackdown and subsequent violent upheaval of govt in Nepal, here’s a recap. In addition to being an awful story about real people’s lives, it’s also an amazing microcosm or synechdoche or something for the bigger picture.

A lot of you had questions so I wrote about what I think happened here! Behold: wiczipedia.substack.com/p/i-got-trap...

What do news organizations actually need to know about AI & journalism? A new briefing from @cnti.bsky.social's Global AI & Journalism Research Working Group synthesizes 80+ research studies. cnti.org/article/aij-...

When we rebuild our public media up from the ashes it will need to be much bigger, bolder, and better funded -- not so dependent on private capital and corporate sponsorships, but truly public. It will need to be more democratic, more independent, and capable of withstanding two-bit fascist regimes.

NEW: In new research, Marcel Preuss, Germán Reyes, Jason Somerville, and Joy Wu find that MBA students’ attitudes toward inequality and fairness vary from those of the average American.

Oh my god, I just learned of the passing of Brandi Collins-Dexter. What a profound loss. Rest in power. mailchi.mp/e831e915caff...

Shah Rukh Khan could easily do an F1, but can Brad Pitt do a Kuch Kuch Hota Hai?

Is the race between Andrew Cuomo and Zohran Mamdani a proxy for changes in our media environment? By @jonallsop.bsky.social www.cjr.org/the_media_to...

Ed Sheeran has released his new single, “Sapphire.”

Today’s episode of The Ezra Klein Show. Abundance and The Left. @saikatc.bsky.social and Zephyr Teachout offer their perspectives on why America struggles to build. open.spotify.com/episode/0Y1k... youtu.be/Ib1wzwbL7Is?...

The new Harry Potter store on Michigan Ave in Chicago has a line stretching more than a city block on Monday morning at 10:30. Either Potterheads are jobless or paying in Knuts, Sickles, and Galleons is immune to this economy!

The reason that Adolescence works so well is that by episode three, you’re barely thinking about how they did it in one take.

Part 2 by our wonderful #UICCommunication graduate students @gtroitman.bsky.social and @utsavpgandhi.bsky.social is out. American pop culture (Barbie, etc), body image, audiences, critiques, migration experiences, queer bodies...and more! henryjenkins.org/blog/2025/3/...

Part Two continues the conversation piece about THE SUBSTANCE for our OSCARS WATCH series by @gtroitman.bsky.social @utsavpgandhi.bsky.social and @doowndonnakim.bsky.social

Though this is the first Oscars in 3 years that I’m not in LA, I got to be in on the conversation with @utsavpgandhi.bsky.social and @doowndonnakim.bsky.social for our 2-part piece on The Substance.

Loved this opportunity to co-write a reflection on #TheSubstance with my colleagues @doowndonnakim.bsky.social and @gtroitman.bsky.social for the legendary Henry Jenkins' blog, Pop Junctions: henryjenkins.org/blog/2025/3/...

ProMarket's Special Interest newsletter is evolving to better support scholars in our community. The weekly update will now feature curated academic opportunities and highlight real-world impact of ProMarket contributors in news, research, and policy.

Guardian doesn't have a paywall. NPR: free. BBC: free. This isn't a partisan issue so much as a political economy issue.

I’m running for Governor of New Mexico. In Congress and as Secretary of the Department of the Interior, I've fought for our state. Now, it's time to tackle our toughest challenges with the fierceness only New Mexicans know. Join me. youtu.be/rYKORMUch5Y?...

NEW: David Hogg has won the vice chair DNC election.

Today's mood:

Happy to get this article up today for @promarket.bsky.social — always wonderful to work with the best editor, @andyshi.bsky.social. In the immortal words of Ke$ha, "TikTok, on the clock, but the party don't stop." 🫡🫡 www.promarket.org/2025/01/17/t...

This is my first time in years experiencing a major local breaking news event from outside a newsroom, and it’s awful. mattdpearce.substack.com/p/fires-and-...

India is requiring VPNs to track and keep detailed records on those who use their service. Anonymity online has a target on its back. Age-verification, digital IDs, VPN bans are all ways of closing off the internet and increasing surveillance. www.pcmag.com/news/apple-g...

Meta literally created a LGBTQ exception for calling someone mentally ill as an insult. You can't do it for any other group except LGBTQ people.

I talked to 10 current and former Meta employees about the company's surrender to the right on speech issues. All were upset. One person called the changes "a precursor to genocide" www.platformer.news/meta-fact-ch...

still laughing at "The Bear, the Penguin, Baby Reindeer — those aren't just things in RFK Jr's freezer”

As ever, the loss of something good and useful for Americans is framed as a loss for Democrats — in the mass media, everything becomes just a political football to be kicked back and forth instead of examined for its impact on everyday citizens regardless of political party.

Did anybody ask why though

Manmohan Singh uncaged the Indian Tiger -- I write in Foreign Policy. foreignpolicy.com/2024/12/26/i...

"We used to look up at the sky and wonder at our place in the stars. Now we just look down, and worry about our place in the dirt." So amazing to revisit #Interstellar 10 (!) years later

For an assignment my students had to analyze from a communication lens an event that happened this fall (2024). One of them wrote about "Taylor Swift's concert in Chicago" not realizing that their TA is a Swiftie who was *at* the actual concert....and it occurred in summer 2023.

Parkland shooting survivor and gun control activist David Hogg is running for vice chair of the Democratic National Committee. newrepublic.com/post/189418/...

It's cute that Helen and Jason used WhatsApp to talk secretly but shouldn't they be using Signal?!! #BlackDoves

Zakir Hussain in critical condition "but very much breathing" — yet nearly every news outlet *and* the Indian Ministry of Info & Broadcasting sharing the "news" without so much as an official statement from the family. Why? www.altnews.in/critically-i...

First it is important to constantly repeat to anyone hand-wringing about the loss of a "public sphere" that the concept, as first articulated by Jurgen Habermas, was and always has been a normative ideal and not a reality. Conditions have *never* existed for a healthy public sphere as it is imagined

I misread this as ‘Hawk Tuah Girl’ It’s too early I need coffee.

Grateful for everyone who does NOT post their Spotify Wrapped this year

Napoleon, December 3, 1812

"Oh look! You're geo-strategy Barbie!" is my favorite line of television all year. #TheDiplomat

"Bluesky has decided to quadruple the size of its contract workforce of content moderators from 25 to 100" “For a 20-person company with no marketing and no revenue to get this many users, we must be doing something right. Or somebody else must be doing something very wrong.”

Our special Issue on platforms, power & friction is officially out with shiny volume and issue numbers in @icsjournal.bsky.social, just in time for thinking about the interplay between platform power and authoritarianism www.tandfonline.com/toc/rics20/2...

Today's snowstorm in #Chicago isn't unusual in intensity but did feel more unexpected by also being the season's first snow. Incredible moment on the #CTA transit bus as riders *helped* the driver navigate by wiping the windshield and telling her if she was in the clear. Not all heroes wear capes!

Excellent reporting by the Harvard Crimson: about 9% of Harvard students come from just 21 high schools (out of 27k total high schools in the US) interactives.thecrimson.com/2024/news/fe...

So cool to hear from these leaders of the robust local #journalism scene in #Chicago, about serving the community front-and-center as the next four years loom ahead. Conversations like these are a bit preaching to the choir, but sometimes the choir likes being preached to — and learns so much!

Bluesky gaining 700,000 new members is a good day for me to be turning in my philosophy essay on decentralized social media as a public interest technology