This week on the show we are debuting a new format we’re calling the Attention Economy Navigator. The goal of Block & Build has always been to help organizers figure out what’s happening, how people are responding, and get a sense for what’s working out there in the world. The Attention Economy Navigator came out of a conversation Cayden had at the Narrative Power Summit about Naomi Klein’s 2023 book, Doppelganger. An interesting takeaway from the book is that Klein suggests a new political spectrum in addition to left and right defining political division in our society, and the determining factor is how prominently conspiratorial thinking shapes our political views.
Joining to help build this month's Attention Economy Navigator in real time are Convergence Managing Editor, Akin Olla, and co-host of the Citations Needed podcast, Nima Shirazi.
Before diving in, we are joined by co-founder and co-director at Siembra NC, Nikki Marín Baena, to discuss what organizing's happening on the ground in North Carolina with ICE's recent mobilization in the region.
This month's navigator chart can be found here.
Stories we referenced in this episode:
- Corporate media refuses to report on racism from sitting GOP politicians against Zohran Mamdani at In These Times.
- Electronic Arts is taken private by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund and Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners, for some $55bn at PC Gamer.
- The AI bubble is bigger than you think at The American Prospect.
- Is the MAGA Era "over?" Some mainstream media seems to think so, like The Boston Globe.
- The US and Russia put together a "peace plan" based mainly on Ukrainian capitulation, at The Guardian.
- FAIR's roundup of corporate media's refusal to cover the Handala hack vs. Drop Site News's analysis of the data dump.
- This horrible Charlie Kirk memorial AI slop song, we're sorry. It's like Creed, but worse.
Jan 13 202655 mins
1 hr and 21 mins
Nov 17 20251 hr and 15 mins