The Left and the Limits of Social Media
Channel: StirToAction
Date: 17/11/2020

Labour's election defeat in 2019 brutally exposed the difference between success as measured by online engagement, and at the ballot box. As the tendency of social media to promote polarisation, echo chambers and antagonism becomes ever clearer, the question for the left becomes - can a medium constructed by corporations to harvest attention and sell advertising ever prove a truly effective route to positive change?

Speaker bio
Daniel Stanley is a specialist in strategic communications for values-driven organisations. He writes and lectures on Narrative & Framing, has a background in grassroots community organising, and an MSc from the Institute of Social Psychology at LSE. He founded and led movement-building digital agency Small Axe, working with a range of global NGOs & Campaigns, and is now Creative Director at Cohere Partners, a strategy consultancy for organisations creating a more positive future for business and society.

‍Harriet Kingaby is a Mozilla Fellow and Co-chair at The Conscious Advertising Network, a voluntary coalition of brands, agencies and tech providers on a mission to end ad abuse.  
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Carl Miller is Research Director of the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media (CASM) at Demos, a Visiting Research Fellow at King’s College London, and author of 'The Death of the Gods: The New Global Power'