A common criticism of social media is that groups of people are creating echo chambers that exclude different perspectives, but these echo chambers are a goal encoded in these platforms’ software, not an accident.

Wendy Chun FBA unpacks the role of homophily – the idea that similarity breeds connection, that ‘birds of a feather flock together’ – in how social media networks are designed. What can at first appear as simple technical defaults are the result of social and culturally influenced decisions. What if we built social media platforms that are not based on homophily?

Speaker: Professor Wendy Chun FBA

This podcast is for informative and educational purposes.

10-Minute Talks are a series of pre-recorded talks from Fellows of the British Academy screened on YouTube and also available on all podcasting platforms. https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/10-minute-talks/id1530020476

This podcast was produced by https://www.haychdigital.com/

The British Academy convenes research insights from across the disciplines we represent. The views expressed in our videos are those of the contributors and do not reflect the views of the British Academy.

Comments are open to viewers and are governed by the policies of YouTube. We do not monitor or moderate comments and will not reply to them.

Find out more about the British Academy: https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/

For future events, visit our website: https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/events/

Subscribe to our email newsletter: https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/news-features/newsletter-sign-up/

The 19th century became the age of the first information revolution. Driven by colonial and imperial geopolitics, rapid technological innovation, and the rise of mass print culture, news began to travel faster and farther than ever before. And so did questions of truth, authenticity and reliability. So, what can Victorian writers teach us about navigating misinformation today?

How did they respond to this changing media landscape? And what role did literature play in the way we engage with different kinds of information? In this video, Professor Pablo Mukherjee FBA unpacks how their insights into misinformation, media trust, and the speed of communication can help us understand and navigate today’s digital information age.

Speaker: Professor Pablo Mukherjee FBA

This podcast is for informative and educational purposes.

10-Minute Talks are a series of pre-recorded talks from Fellows of the British Academy screened on YouTube and also available on all podcasting platforms. https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/10-minute-talks/id1530020476

This podcast was produced by https://www.haychdigital.com/

Find out more about the British Academy: https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/

For future events, visit our website: https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/events/

Subscribe to our email newsletter: https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/news-features/newsletter-sign-up/

Cervantes’ groundbreaking novel, Don Quixote, is a comic but profound meditation on dreams, disillusionment and the blurred line between illusion and reality Its legacy is less timeless than differently meaningful across time, from the tragic idealism identified by the Romantics ( the term “quixotic” originates from Cervantes’ protagonist) to the metafictional complexity engaged with by modern critics.

Professor Isabel Torres explores how the ancient root of poetry, ‘poiesis’, comes alive in the creative madness of Cervantes’s protagonist, and the power of lyric in early modern Spain.

Speaker: Professor Isabel Torres FBA

This podcast is for informative and educational purposes.

10-Minute Talks are a series of pre-recorded talks from Fellows of the British Academy screened on YouTube and also available on all podcasting platforms.

The British Academy convenes research insights from across the disciplines we represent. The views expressed in our videos are those of the contributors and do not reflect the views of the British Academy.

Find out more about the British Academy: https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/

For future events, visit our website: https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/events/

Subscribe to our email newsletter: https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/news-features/newsletter-sign-up/