Culture and media
Taking our cue from Raymond Williams’ ‘culture is ordinary’, we explore how politics works through old and new media, books, film, stage and screen, music and sport.
We cover a breadth of themes, from representations of class, race and gender in the arts, to progressive and reactionary uses of nostalgia, to the grassroots voices democratising the channels of communication.
Taking our cue from Raymond Williams’ ‘culture is ordinary’, we explore how politics works through old and new media, books, film, stage and screen, music and sport.
We cover a breadth of themes, from representations of class, race and gender in the arts, to progressive and reactionary uses of nostalgia, to the grassroots voices democratising the channels of communication.
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Is rave culture political?
Despite facing state repression, rave culture continues to be a space for political expression and collective action, writes Alex Carter
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Kenya’s youth-led revolution
Rasna Warah reports on how young people in and beyond Kenya are using social media to challenge corrupt, old-school politicians
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Behind the ‘Great Firewall of China’
Jiannan Shi reports on China’s internet censorship – and the creative ways people are finding to sidestep it
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Breaking up with my X
Tom Whyman traces a personal journey with Elon Musk’s social media platform: from a coming-of-age love story to Twittering off
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Twitch and the online left
Political livestreaming shows news consumption has become a form of community participation in which political ideology is reinforced, argues Samuel Rafanell-Williams
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The Truth About Empire – review
More than a mere rebuttal of colonial apologetics, The Truth About Empire is a vital tool against the rising tide of reactionary retellings of history, writes Peter Mitchell
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The Broken Promise of Infrastructure – review
Dominic Davies’s book is a much needed analysis of the role infrastructure relates to and informs our politics, writes Anubha Sarkar
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