LEGACY PRINT MEDIA HATE THEM! Local tech company discovers one weird trick to gain positive press coverage FAST! We sit down with journalist Alexander Fanta to talk Google's place in the media landscape, how their funding of local news or grants for "innovation" may well have a more sinister purpose, and how other organisations are already using the unsteady revenue model of legacy print media to warp the media landscape to their liking. Links to Alex’s...

This week we're all about Tax, and kicking off we speak to Paul Hebden of Tax Justice UK about their recent survey of attitudes to tax in the UK. The results may surprise you. Suitably sprung from all the tax talk, the gang go on to talk Tax Day (it seems like it comes earlier each year.) Are the Tories actually doing something progressive about taxation? Why has the Labour response been so weak? And how do we channel public opinion into making a tax system that actually works for...

This week the gang are catching up with Ifeoma Ozoma again, to discuss her efforts to introduce legislation in California to address the muzzling of workers who have been pushed out of organisations due to discrimination. Ifeoma previously spoke with them in Episode 33 regarding her efforts to tackle disinformation on Pinterest's platform, and her decision to speak publicly about discrimination against her and others at the company. The gang follow this up with a discussion around the power...

The gang are talking environmental crisis this week, centred around Rowan's interview with Adrienne Buller of Common Wealth. Her recent paper explored the problems with "ESG" finance, and the issue of relying on private finance more generally to address pressing social and environmental needs. We then expand on just how much better we need to be doing, and why "WWII levels" of public sector intervention and investment may be very necessary. Adrienne is on Twitter here:...

People are FINALLY paying attention to the potential of health data - it just took a global pandemic to make it happen. It's kind of a no-brainer, when you dig into it, but governments apparently needed a push. Rowan interviewed Jess Morley, Policy Lead at the Evidence Based Medicine DataLab at the University of Oxford, about her recent paper on online disinformation and how our information environments impact our health. The guiding question was: Why can we quarantine people who are sick...

The gang return for the last one of the year, looking back across a year of pandemic, incompetence, and one more Brexit crisis. Ho Ho Ho. Rowan discusses how different countries across Europe and the world have responded to COVID, and how Britain compares. Warren takes us through the 19 U-Turns achieved in 8 months by UK's Tory Government, and the themes sitting behind these. And Raj brings the family round the bonfire for one last chat about the final failures of Brexit talks, before the...

This week it's an election double-header. First, Warren takes us through a Week In B******t on Trumpism: is the USA really so polarised? Will Trump supporters ever swing back to the centre? And how much is the media exaggerating the threat of the populist right? Moving on, we interview Jon Narcross of the Electoral Reform Society about their work, what a better system of voting might look like, and how change might come about here in the UK. See the ERS's work here:...

The gang return this week with a special episode devoted the issue of diversity in economics, specifically Black representation and the fields relative silence in the face of upheavals we've seen this summer Rowan talks us through some of the survey research around the state of the field, and Warren sits down with Fadekemi Abiru - a female black economist and data scientist working in the UK - to discuss the issues and effects of Black representation in economics, bringing to life her own...

This week the boys are responding to a listener request, and reviewing Starmer's performance so far. Will he continue Corbynism? Is he Blair Mk.2? Is Labour guaranteed to win under his leadership? Or will he destroy Labour from the inside? TL;DR - none of these things. Featuring a potted history of Starmers political background, a Totally Reliable reddit poll run by Rowan, and a combination of our defences and concerns about Starmers leadership. As well as recognising how, at this...

We've spoken about tech platforms failing to police their content several times before, but every so often we like to highlight successful examples. Back at the start of lockdown, we spoke about the amazing work being done at Pinterest to combat anti-vaxx misinformation. But it's since been revealed that the person spearheading all that work - Ifeoma Ozoma - was being underpaid and mistreated to the point that she was forced out of the company. It is reasonable to talk about the complexity...

We're joined by Michael Hobbes, podcasting brother and journalist for the Huffington Post, for a wide ranging episode centred on his recent article 'S**thole' Countries Have Handled The Coronavirus Better Than The United States. Covered: - Why are places like Vietnam objectively handling the Corona better than the US and UK? - Why do people get so racist when reminded about it? - What is it about modern authoritarians that makes them so bad at public health crises? Check out Mike's work at...

It's a social media double-header this week. First, Warren reports back from his adventures in Boomer-populated Facebook political discussion groups and the cesspool of hate he found within. After that we're joined by postdoc researcher of the University of Copenhagen Sille Obelitz Søe to talk about how just looking for "truth" in online posts isn't enough, how the distinctions between information, disinformation and misinformation make it nearly impossible for algorithms to detect them, and...

Raj and Rowan have watched internet Coronavirus conspiracy theory movie "Plandemic" and we're here to tell you all about it. Join us on a journey through the Coronaverse, taking in HIV vaccines, Ebola, Bill Gates, and why we should be opening the beaches ASAP. Needless to say this is all nonsense and you should read the...

The medical effects of the Coronavirus are already being felt around the world. But the economic effects might be more severe, and felt for long after the medical emergency is over. We take a dive into the effects of the lockdown on the economy, the steps that states are having to take to manage it, and what could be in store for the future. Review us on iTunes: t.co/tqQtW59NVM Support us on Pateron: www.patreon.com/connectedanddisaffected Twitter: twitter.com/CandDPodcast Facebook:...

This week we're looking at party politics. Why do so many people feel like parties no longer represent them? Can the current institutions keep up with the modern world, or do we need new ones? To help answer this we speak to Andrea Venzon and Colombe Cahen-Salvador of NOW!, a new organisation trying to build a global organisation to apply political pressure and achieve change outside of conventional national or party-political structures. Check out their work at www.now.world. Review us on...

This week is all about health, fake news, and the internet. With the Coronavirus in the headlines we look at how information about the virus has spread and how the Chinese government has reacted. Then it's on to the antivax movement. How has the internet allowed these beliefs to spread? And what are the platforms doing about it. Shout out to pitchfork economics, a great podcast we've been listening to this week. You can find them on https://pitchforkeconomics.com/ or wherever you get your...

It's an interview double header this week as we tackle the topic of social media and its regulation. First, part 2 of our interview with author Richard Seymour, this time focusing on the atomising and radicalising effect of social media and what we can do about it. Then, we speak to communications expert (and bodybuilder) Marco Ricorda about political advertising, fake news, and regulation. Follow Marco at twitter.com/marcoRecorder or on his website, https://marcorecorder.com/ You can...

We take a deeper look into the election result with Richard Seymour, author and writer of "Why Labour Lost — And Why We Must Press On" for Jacobin. We discuss what happened, what we can do about it, and why sadness and mourning is a necessary step in rebuilding. You can follow Richard on twitter at twitter.com/leninology. He also blogs at leninology.co.uk We then go through the data from the election. Are Northern voters all Tories now? Did Labour lose popularity among the young? And what...

It's been a depressing week at C&D headquarters. We review the general election: What happened? Why? Is Britain right wing now? We also discuss what politics looks like outside of election season, and hear from Aline Muylaert of CitizenLab about how they're trying to build citizen engagement in the democratic process. Find out more about Aline's work at www.citizenlab.co . In an effort to lift everyone's spirits Rowan deploys a long and detailed football analogy for youth politics....

Here we go again. Another election, another chance to weigh up the pros and cons of the major UK parties and bemoan the electoral system for forcing millions of people to settle for their second or third choices. Join us for a (relatively) even-handed look at the what we're voting on, broken down into the key battlegrounds: Environment, Education, Economy, Health and, yes, Brexit. For more information on the IFS cost analyses, take a look at this article:...

We regret to inform you that Corbyn has officially nationalized Connected & Disaffected. Everybody is wondering who will be next. Trains? The internet? What's next - the health service!!?1 We debunk some of the hysteria around these announcements while adding a note of caution around just how ambitious the Labour plans are. The big issue is figuring out if this push towards nationalizing public assets is just a throwback to simpler times or something that can actually solve modern...

It's general election time once again! Raj is back from the Peoples' Republic, and with Warren they sit down to talk through the strategies of the major parties so far. Many pundits have been complaining for the last two years that politics is becoming more "tribal", but what is tribalism and how is it affecting the real world? Rowan interviews Samantha North, a PhD student whose work has been focusing on this very topic. Check out Samantha on twitter: https://twitter.com/sjnrth You can...

40% of multinational profits are shifted to tax havens each year. Despite the Panama Papers, despite the Occupy movement, despite rising inequality and our annual outrage over Amazon's zero tax burden, we STILL don't talk about tax avoidance nearly enough. This week we spoke to Ludvig Wier, one of a team of researchers from the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Copenhagen who have mapped what the global tax regime really looks like about how it works, what went so...

This week it's Warren and Rowan returning to the subject C&D have successfully avoided for a while - Brexit. Warren reflects on sensationalist media coverage of Parliament undermining trust in parliamentary democracy, while Rowan contrasts with coverage in Europe (spoiler: it's a lot more pragmatic) and the absence of significant EU Commission news from UK headlines. To tie it up, both lay into the David Cameron revival tour and the extremely distasteful non-apology from the man to...