Ben O'Loughlin
Prof. of IR. Director, New Political Communication Unit, Royal Holloway | Co-Editor Media, War and Conflict journal | Co-author: Strategic Narratives | AI and political agency
- Very happy to be visiting @willyou.bsky.social in September at @nuqatar.bsky.social in Doha, and talking about Morality, Ontology, Strategy. Builds on my paper with @adamblerner.bsky.social and our ongoing Q of "what matters": academic.oup.com/isq/article/...
- Useful analysis of how Trump handles things when empirical realities refute what he says, by James Phelan. Must #performativity relate to evidence to have effects on audiences? No... Donald J. Trump's Storytelling, May 12–June 7, 2020; or, Can His Saying Make Things So? #narrative #genre #autocracy
- New by @lizhallgren.bsky.social - The symbiotic relationship between Volodymyr Zelensky and Western news: Authenticity and performance in Ukraine’s fight against Russia journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....
- Strategic narratives between global influence and local appropriation: China’s COVID-19 vaccine diplomacy in Serbia New study by Ana Stojiljković & @sabinamihelj.bsky.social here: www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1...
- Useful explanation of how disordered discourse is produced in today's politics to further regression of democracy, but some steps @bellingcat.com and others take to try to create alternative discourse that would be needed to move politics towards democratic ideals. Education = key:
- I've just come back from the Cambridge Disinformation Summit where I gave the opening keynote, titled "Demanufacturing Consent - How Disordered Discourse is Destroying Democracy", featuring everything from Fake Hooves to Jackson Hinkle being the worst. www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-FV...
- New by Steven Livingston and @babak9.bsky.social on why narrative and rituals matter more than truth in US politics. Propaganda feedback loops as communication rituals: Hate speech on talk radio journals.sagepub.com/eprint/P6FHA...
- Where does international criminal law come from? A new intellectual history tracing how agents act politically to make it happen, by Jessie Barton Hronešová and @adamblerner.bsky.social www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
- Discussing national security now, a question just emerged: Should we seek to undermine and even destroy the #softpower held by our enemies and adversaries? If far right networks spend decades trying to destroy the BBC World Service, what should the UK try to destroy, and should it?
- Examining the Dirt Under Your Fingernails: Exploring the Role of Ethnographic Research in Political Communication Join this online seminar by @jameswilldennis.bsky.social 20th May at 2pm on Zoom. Register here: bournemouth-ac-uk.zoom.us/meeting/regi... #methods
- Amid recognition social media is long over and digital is being used for terrible things, how can we ourselves rebuild our media ecologies to our own values? @moyazb.bsky.social offers an example and some future goals: just-tech.ssrc.org/articles/an-... h/t @sjjphd.bsky.social
- Invitation to potential authors - AI Politics: new book series by @intellectbooks.bsky.social / @uchicagopress.bsky.social edited by @andrewhoskins.bsky.social & I. View the full call here>> www.intellectbooks.com/asset/2536/a...
- I found a book of my handwritten notes on digital politics from 2016 under a table. Notes on talks by @andrewchadwick.com, @profvaccari.bsky.social, @paologerbaudo.bsky.social and, er, Angelina Jolie. Thank you for a lovely notebook @billuraslanozgul.bsky.social! Happy memories of Istanbul!
- Spending an afternoon analysing Donald Trump transcripts is a test. Beneath the flamboyance and swashbuckling there is his own logic running through what he says.
- Very happy to get notification I can present at @europeanisa.bsky.social this summer in lovely Bologna, with @profmiskimmon.bsky.social. Lots of storytelling to talk about.
- New in Media, War and Conflict by @apavliuc.bsky.social: Gender and narrative in digital political communication during Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine - read here: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....
- Notes, July 2019.
- Is truth relevant for shaping outcomes in world politics today? Where to even begin? I'll discuss this at University of Edinburgh on 29 April. Register here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/i-mean-let...
- Noticing my dissertation students are writing about #deepfakes, #mistrust, #illiberalism, I'm telling them to read at least the first chapters of Sharded Media by @andrewhoskins.bsky.social & @williammerrin.bsky.social, as the book is about more than just Trump: link.springer.com/book/10.1007...
- We ran an AI crisis simulation workshop with security, commerce and communication professionals. Our short write up of how they think about and use AI: (Thanks to @petergeoghegan.bsky.social for making this happen) journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....
- Happy that @profmiskimmon.bsky.social and I are cited in the UK-Ukraine 100 Year Partnership Agreement. Trust, solidarity, and a quiet role for #softpower: publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld5901/ld...
- What is going on with #AI, #publicdiplomacy and #strategicnarrative? @profmiskimmon.bsky.social and I were quizzed by Sean Aday @gwu1821.bsky.social - watch here and comments welcome: www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJYQ...
- I'm delighted to be talking on Ouroboros: The Infinite Loop of Media, Democracy, and Diplomacy, Vienna 8-10 April. Should be quite a lot to discuss. ➰ www.newpolcom.rhul.ac.uk/npcu-blog/20...
- #projection! Survey shows people project their own identity onto those they think might be reasonable people. And they think superheroes align with their views, and supervillains don't. Where to begin with this? @turnbulldugarte.com sums it up: theconversation.com/who-does-spi...
- We're hosting the Society for Terrorism research annual conference on 7-8 July. Abstract deadline 11 April. Do submit! Any questions: STR2025@rhul.ac.uk. Further information here: societyforterrorismresearch.org/conferences/... Thanks to @lizzypearson.bsky.social for organising it!
- Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Talents Or, life in 2025.
- Arte.tv did a short film about Trump's handshakes based on one of my book chapters. I am in the second half, quiet and disheveled. www.arte.tv/fr/videos/12...
- What: Me & @profmiskimmon.bsky.social talk #AI, #publicdiplomacy + #strategicnarrative with @adaystew.bsky.social When: 25 March 12 PM EST Link to register and join: form.jotform.com/250565460458...
- Good discussion with my MSc students about what kind of movie #Oppenheimer would have been if Germany lost in 1941 and nuclear weapons use didn't become an urgent choice. Then about how technology and war drive each other today. #counterfactuals @rhulpir.bsky.social
- The Left and Digital Politics, Marco Guglielmo Tuesday 11 March, 17.00-19.00 Moore Annex Lecture Theatre @rhulpir.bsky.social - come along! www.newpolcom.rhul.ac.uk/npcu-blog/2025/3/3/the-left-and-digital-politics-marco-guglielmo-tuesday-11-march-1700-1900-moore-annex-lecture-theatre-come-along
- Is it just the US population that lives in 'sharded', splintered realities, or is it a general trend in other places? New book by William Merrin and @andrewhoskins.bsky.social gets at the stakes: link.springer.com/book/10.1007...
- Do #platforms have a lock on our future? I reviewed four books looking at how they can be challenged, just out in the International Journal of Press/Politics. Read here: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... Comments welcome, as this could not be a more live issue!
- How are Israel's strategic narratives received and reported in German media? New study in Media, War & Conflict by Tereza Plíštilová and Zuzana Lizcová: scholar.google.co.uk/scholar_url?...
- Teaching the old classics this morning.
- A new issue of our journal Media, War and Conflict is out. Read here: journals.sagepub.com/toc/mwca/18/1
- How is AI shaping how states tell their stories? @profmiskimmon.bsky.social & I explore this in our chapter of this great new handbook, edited by Sean Aday. DM if you can't access it. www.e-elgar.com/shop/usd/han...
- Some people experience life as a #narrative, some try to find a narrative, and some people don't. They experience "bits and pieces ... in life's "great shambles"": aeon.co/essays/let-s...
- Long morning chat on my corridor with colleagues. Some have no childhood memories, no association to their child-selves, and have no life #narrative. "Things just happen". Others the opposite. All try to explain their position. Teaching on this today, will find out students' life (non?)stories.
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View full threadOther interesting cog science finding is that (mostly for people over 30) we have a ‘memory bump’ - an incredibly vivid memory of a time/period really formative to our development (usually between 15-25).
- So our students might have just had, or are about to have, that experience that will become their memory bump.
- But today's generation have a digital record of their childhood, findable, usable, manipulable, mineable. There's virtually no record in the world of just how awful I was as a kid, other than in a few fading human memories of people who knew me then.
- I now found two people near the photocopier who have no childhood memories, cannot visualise in their heads (Me: Let's go to Paris this weekend? Them: I cannot "see" Paris in my head, its just a word), and have no inner monologue. Both aged 30 or under. Seems memory is not related to digital?
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- The reframing, and reflection it takes, seems like good mental health.
- I did ask them about trauma but apparently they had a nice childhood. Just no memories. One had memories based on photos. And not everyone has an inner monologue in their heads.
- JP Singh et al with a provocation to the narratives in IR field. This ISQ paper is worth reading: academic.oup.com/isq/article/...
- And on the uses of theory...
- Three stages of a liberal public sphere being replaced by an #illiberal one. Very useful framework from @vstetka.bsky.social & @sabinamihelj.bsky.social - all we see happening in the US fits. Q = how to win the struggle against it? Needs creativity and will: www.ssoar.info/ssoar/bitstr...
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- Its worth sharing!
- V.useful breakdown of the frames AI firms use in a #strategy to control public understanding and use of #AI, by Fenwick McKelvey, @lukestark.bsky.social, @jredden.bsky.social , and Jonathan Roberg. Its more than just a #strategicnarrative: publicera.kb.se/jdsr/article...
- My colleague Ibrahim Halawi is new editor of the Routledge Studies in Global and Transnational Politics. If you have a book idea you'd like to pitch them, message me. www.routledge.com/Routledge-St...
- My #narratives class today, students seemed in consensus that war will continue as long as humanity exists. Other animals got mentioned too. Very 2025 @rhulpir.bsky.social.
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- That's precisely it. The causes won't disappear. Bleak.
