Admissions statistics reveal the growing success of various access initiatives throughout Oxford.
Following the continuation of Lady Margaret Hall’s (LMH) Foundation Year, all students who began their foundation year studies in 2019 have received an offer to study at the University of Oxford, starting next academic year.
A free and fully-funded, year-long course, LMH Foundation Year is designed to “enable students from underrepresented backgrounds to reach their potential.”
The progression rate from LMH Foundation Year to Oxford Undergraduate has increased year on year. A spokesperson for LMH said: “We are delighted that all of our current cohort of Foundation Year students have been made a conditional offer for undergraduate study at LMH, University of Oxford.”
The teaching aims to prepare students to excel either at the University of Oxford or at any other “highly-selective” university.
Living and studying at LMH, students receive tuition in their chosen subject and take a ‘Preparation for Undergraduate Study’ course.
Nicole Roffey, a former Foundation Year student and current Oxford offer holder, said: “Getting into Oxford was a complete surprise, despite being on the Foundation Year, there was no sense of security that I had got in. The interviews were such a challenging process for all of us on the Foundation Year and we were [sic] all had doubts that we would get offers.
“Fortunately all of us did! What I love about the Foundation Year is the solidarity that forms between the 11 of us – in that we all would have really felt the loss if one of us hadn’t received an offer.
“I love the Foundation Year because of how well organised it is, arriving a week earlier than the undergrads, the team building tasks that we had at the beginning which really helped solidify us as a cohort, experiencing tutorials and mock interviews which really helped with the application process.
“The Foundation Year put me in the best position possible for the interview process. As well as this, being able to experience life at Oxford made receiving an offer feel even more fantastic.”
LMH Foundation Year was not the only scheme to improve access in this year’s intake.
More than 100 candidates received offers to study at the University as part of the Opportunity Oxford scheme, which launched at the end of Trinity 2019.
A new academic programme, Opportunity Oxford aims “to prepare talented offer-holders from underrepresented backgrounds for their time at Oxford”.
Students invited are made the standard offer for their chosen course, and then take part in a “bridging programme” in the runup to their first term at Oxford.
Dr Andrew Bell, Coordinator of Opportunity Oxford and University College Senior Tutor, said: “This year, more than 100 offers have been made under the scheme across 28 colleges. We anticipate making 200 offers per year under the scheme from 2022 onwards. We’re really excited to have launched Opportunity Oxford, and we very much look forward to welcoming our first cohort to Oxford later this year.”
St Anne’s College, one of the colleges which participates in UNIQ, announced its admissions statistics on Wednesday. Principal of St Anne’s, Helen King, said in a tweet: “We’re proud that St Anne’s College is contributing to making University of Oxford increasingly diverse. 73 per year of our UK offers went yesterday to state educated pupils & increasingly to students from the most [disadvantaged] backgrounds.”
UNIQ courses run in the Spring and Summer. Providing an insight into live at Oxford, students get a taste of the university experience. In the academic year of 2018-9, 40 per cent of UNIQ participants who applied for Oxford received an offer, compared to an average success rate of 20 per cent.
Anna Sharpe, a second-year historian at St Anne’s College, participated in UNIQ during sixth form.
Sharpe told Cherwell: “UNIQ convinced me that Oxford wasn’t as unattainable or inaccessible as I had previously thought it was. The helpers and other students showed me that not all stereotypes are true and really that was what gave me the confidence to apply.
“Going to UNIQ gave me an idea of what to expect during interviews and also when I started studying here at Oxford both socially and academically.”
UNIQ will celebrate its 10-year anniversary in April. UNIQ+, the equivalent research programme for postgraduates, will continue this summer.
UNIQ+ encourages undergraduates and recent graudates, who have experienced financial and socioeconomic disadvantage, to pursue further postgraduate study.
Anneliese Dodds, the Labour and Co-Operative MP for Oxford East, has nominated Keir Starmer for Leader of the Labour Party in the coming leadership election.
Announcing the decision on Twitter, Dodds said: “All candidates have a lot to offer. But Keir Starmer has [a] proven ability to communicate and empathise with people right across the UK. He’s determined to tackle our unfair, unsustainable economy.”
Starmer was the victor in the nominations contest, receiving the backing of 88 MPs. He is joined on the final ballot by his closest challengers, Rebecca Long-Bailey, with 33 nominations, and Lisa Nandy with 31. Jess Phillips and Emily Thornberry round out the candidates, both with 23 nominations apiece.
Explaining her reasoning for backing Starmer, Dodds said in an interview with TalkRadio: “Keir is somebody who, wherever you’re talking to people in the whole country, … people know and who many many people respect even if they haven’t agreed with every single position that he’s taken.”
She said Starmer “has a message that can resonate right across the country.”
Starmer outlined his message to return Labour to power in a launch piece for The Sunday Mirror in early January.
He wrote: “We cannot bury our heads in the sand – Labour must rebuild and fast. We have to restore trust in our party as a force for change and a force for good. The millions of people who needed change at the last election still need change. The moral fight against poverty, inequality and injustice must continue.”
Positioning himself as the candidate best placed to unite the Party, Starmer wrote, “as we rebuild, we must not lose sight of our values or retreat from the radicalism of the past few years. We must be the party of anti-austerity and investment in our public services.”
Following Dodds’ endorsement, Starmer visited Oxford last Wednesday, touring sites including the Rose Hill Council Estate and the Council’s new homeless shelter on Floyds Row.
Dodds introduced Starmer in a meeting with activists that evening as “the best candidate not just to be the next Labour leader but the next Labour Prime Minister.”
Starmer said: “we have a mountain to climb. I want to climb that mountain.” Starmer, the Shadow Brexit Secretary, has been criticised in some quarters for his involvement in crafting Labour’s second referendum policy, which has been seen as a key reason for the Party’s election defeat last month.
Responding to this criticism, Dodds said the Party’s Brexit position was the “right way forward.”
“I don’t think we should tie what happened in the North of England just down to Brexit … Whatever attitude Labour took on that issue, we would have lost some people’s support.” Dodds was re-elected in Oxford East with a reduced majority of 17,832 over the Conservatives, down from 23,284 in 2017. She has served as a Shadow Minister for the Treasury since July 2017.
Starmer goes forward to a membership vote in the leadership contest. Labour members will rank the candidates in order of preference. The candidate with the least number of first placed votes will be eliminated in each round, with their votes redistributed to the candidate ranked second on each ballot. This process will continue until a candidate receives a majority of the vote.
Recent YouGov polling showed Starmer defeating Long-Bailey, the candidate of the Party’s Left, in the final round by 61-39%.
Raymond Duch, Fellow of Nuffield College and Director of the Centre for Experimental Social Sciences, is the latest academic to be implicated in the Cambridge Analytica data scandal.
Duch, a “prominent social scientist” was revealed to have worked for Cambridge Analytica parent company SCL Elections in a recent article by Dr Emma Briant, a propaganda academic and Senior Researcher for the Netflix film The Great Hack.
Duch’s work for the company reportedly involved “data analytics on public opinion surveys.” Briant cites the projects as concerning Argentine local elections and being “undertaken in two parts, between fall 2014 to February 2015.” Further work was proposed by SCL in May 2015 but did not go ahead.
Further to this, Dr Briant states: “I have seen an email from 6th June 2015, when Raymond Duch wrote to Alexander Nix [then CEO of Cambridge Analytica] saying Duch’s colleague ‘e-mailed yesterday and indicated you were waiting on something from me regarding Argentina. I must have dropped the ball on this — can you remind me what you need and I’ll get it to you asap.’”
The Oxford professor claims his work had “nothing to do with the Argentinian presidential elections” refusing to “comment on specific clients”.
Raymond Duch failed to respond to Cherwell’s request for comment, whilst the University and Nuffield college declined to make any statement.
Freedom of Information requests were also sent to the University of Oxford, but have since been declined as Duch’s work was conducted on behalf of his company D&K Analytics Services LTD, not Nuffield College. In response, Dr Briant has asserted that “there are clear links between Prof Duch’s projects and his work at Nuffield he could not have done the work for CA without drawing on his Nuffield work”.
Briant notes that the Centre for Experimental Social Sciences also operates in Santiago, Chile, potentially giving Duch Latin American expertise which would make him an attractive target for Cambridge Analytica.
In addition, Raymond Duch recently hosted a workshop at the College, on the subject of “Why I was not worried about Cambridge Analytica (and you should not have been either)”.
Dr Briant insists that “Oxford University can’t hide its role in the Cambridge Analytica scandal, nor can it hide its Argentine connection”.
She provided Cherwell with the following comment: “Academics hold a position of trust and command an authoritative voice in the most important debates of our time, that carries with it a public responsibility too, both for the academic and the university.”
Her statement went on to stress the importance of transparency from an academic institutions: “Students also have a right to know their teachers are gaining the experience underpinning their expertise – and therefore their teaching – in ethical ways.
“Importantly, similar could happen at any university, while Oxford University should be criticised for its lack of transparency here, how is anyone meant to evaluate involvement in influence companies when they remain so opaque – activities are often siloed, hidden with NDA’s, funded by dark money or using shell companies.
“The UK Parliament’s Fake News Inquiry highlighted my concerns about this and demands for transparency and regulation of strategic communications, but the government has so far failed to take this forward.
“We must remember the lessons of the Cambridge Analytica scandal were not just for Facebook, the scandal exposed vulnerabilities in our electoral laws, lobbying, and in a lawless and rapidly expanding industry seeking to exploit them.”
Research into SCL Elections and Cambridge Analytica has revealed that the companies sought links with multiple academics, most prominently, Dr Alexander Kogan. The Cambridge professor built the app “thisisyourdigitallife” which is employed to collect data on Facebook users.
Duch’s own research is also related to electoral data, focusing on social media election forecasting.
Recent projects have tried to predict Texas congressional district elections and the 2019 India Lok Sabha election.
The connections between big data and academic establishments continue to appear, with Freedom of Information requests revealing the University of Sheffield received “a proposal document” from Cambridge Analytica.
Dr Briant is researching Cambridge Analaytica for her upcoming book ‘Propaganda Machine: Inside Cambridge Analytica and the Digital Influence Industry’.
This article was amended on the afternoon of the 24th January 2020 to better reflect Alexander Nix’s comments on SCL Election’s involvement in Argentine elections. What was formerly termed an “admission” of involvement with an anti-Kirchner campaign, was in fact an acknowledgement of discussion of such a campaign being a possible undertaking. More on this can be read here:https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmcumeds/363/36309.htm
In chengyu: chinoiserie, Leung Rachel Ka Yin’s upcoming pamphlet with Hedgehog Press, words refuse to be held on the page. They shimmer with a gleam of mysticism, tremble with all the power of divine revelation, dazzling and surprising at turns with the poems’ neologisms, aphorisms and breathtaking images. In Leung’s tales of adolescence, of desire and longing, loss and language, it is clear that love is the “one most/ tender, /tongueless theme”. Words “become flesh” as poems are imbued with the earnest passion of lived history. Leung recreates the world, tales of love and birth and questioning, the “and who/and where…/and why…” of beginnings and endings: the “first falling”, the afterlife, and “elysium”.
The poems in the collection are each devoted to a separate Chinese idiom (‘chengyu’ means ‘idiom’ in Mandarin), translated in their titles to its single characters; ‘海誓山盟’, often translated to ‘to pledge everlasting love’, crystallises to ‘sea oath, mountain treaty’, as another is ‘paper drunk, gold bewitched’. Each idiom unfurls under Leung’s tender touch, with language coaxed into images that delight: a “year barefoot”, something that “sleeps glowing”, “your laughs” that “ring silvery as the morn”.
The language of chengyu: chinoiserie inhabits the world of magic and folktale, Leung’s tales of young love evoking the mythic beauty of ancient mysticism and Biblical narrative. Whilst the collection enacts ‘Genesis/upon Genesis’, amorous tropes, clichés and English aphorisms, such as “LOVE IS NOT A VICTORY MARCH” and ‘all that glitters is not gold’, are charged with new life and meaning, idioms imagined anew, language revivified. The poems themselves are ‘fresh and desperate’, summoning an intensity of emotion reserved for the pangs of adolescent love. However, the collection has an acute wisdom alongside its adolescent fervor, and avoids slipping sentimentality: even “lover boy,/my sharpest jealousy” will be forgotten, as “I will forget your name, too”. Leung equally maintains a constant sense of playfulness even in the poems’ darkest moments. The poem ‘a long night is fraught with many a dream: before morning comes 夜長夢多’ is set “in the dark”, in the realm of “the grave”, yet ends in a pun: the rush “before/mourning comes”. Just as Leung translates a coming-of-age, language encodes change with the metamorphic power of repetition; an isolated word or phrase in its second form alters, enhances, creates, sets the reader “spin, spin, spinning”. Form and rhythm are also deftly molded in Leung’s control: the reader traverses the nursery rhyme of ‘love, sing me a daisy’ in ‘paper drunk, gold bewitched: the new Americana 紙醉金迷, the breathless lust of ‘drunk on life, dreaming of death: living life as if befuddled 醉生夢死’ and the incantation of prayer in ‘feeling cavity opens for the first time: love awakens 情竇初開’. ‘The house of dried fish: dreaming and waterless 枯魚之肆’ is Moorian in its dreamlike iridescence, sparkling as ‘The Fish’ which brought Marianne Moore fame, its rich synesthesia a “terrible thrill”, the beautiful depiction of the desperate, primal struggle for life leaving the reader “dreaming/of quicksand”.
The possibility of pandering to Western audiences in the translation of Chinese idioms into English is not lost on Leung. The collection is highly self-aware: the Western currency of orientalist thought behind ‘exotic’ goods and styles is wryly articulated in the title of the collection, (with European ‘chinoiserie’). However, the collection ascends a form of exotic tourism. To read chengyu: chinoiserie is to wade blissfully through “dream-infested waters”, guided by Leung’s gentle hand.
The collection concludes in a recognition of “my voice” which is “through and through and/through”. Chengyu: chinoiserie thus perfectly finishes its coming-of-age tale in a final realization and celebration of an identity, independence and selfhood that is cross-cultural, multilingual, devoutly modern and utterly new.
Oxford West and Abingdon MP Layla Moran pushed two amendments to the Withdrawal Agreement Bill to keep UK in Erasmus+ programme and to protect environmental standards and workers’ rights. In both cases MPs voted against the amendments being read a second time.
The Liberal Democrat amendment New Clause 10 called on the government to negotiate full membership to the EU’s Erasmus+ education and youth programme, and was defeated 344 votes to 254. New Clause 29 would have required the government to seek close alignment with the EU single market on key-level playing field provisions, but this was also voted down, 345 votes to 250.
Moran has expressed her strong belief in the importance of Erasmus, saying of the programme: “The benefits are huge: learning a new language, picking up skills and work experience, building lifelong friendships and providing a huge boost to your confidence and independence. Without Erasmus, the opportunity to study abroad is only available to a select few.”
The Erasmus scheme is an EU-funded programme which organises student exchanges across the continent and supports individuals while they are studying or working abroad. The financial support offered by the scheme allows students from a wide variety of backgrounds to benefit from its opportunities.
Many members of the public have taken to social media to express their outrage at the government’s lack of support for the programme, while petitions to save Erasmus are rapidly gaining signatures. Dr Mary McAuliffe of University College Dublin tweeted that she was “so sorry to see the British Government removing themselves from Erasmus – so many students, most recently two young cousins, have had positive, life-forming experiences on this. It’s a small minded, bad, Brexit-driven result.”
However, participation for 2020 is protected under the Withdrawal Agreement Bill and Universities Minister Chris Skidmore has stated that the vote “does not end or prevent the UK from participating in EU Erasmus+ after leaving the EU. We remain open to participation and this will be part of future negotiations with the EU.”
Skidmore says it is possible this will continue with the new Erasmus successor programme for 2021. In an article she wrote for the Guardian, Moran voices her mistrust of the current government to maintain the scheme.
Moran wrote: “The benefits of Erasmus are so obvious to the thousands of people who take part in the programme. Each year, more than 17,000 students at UK universities study or work abroad as part of their degree. They go because Erasmus has made studying abroad attractive and affordable.”
“By voting against the Liberal Democrats’ amendment last week, Conservative MPs showed they are at least prepared to throw away all these benefits. It is devastating.” “But there’s another reason to keep fighting. I don’t think the government has made up its mind about whether to stay in Erasmus or not.
“At prime minister’s questions on Wednesday, Boris Johnson downplayed fears. ‘There is no threat to the Erasmus scheme,’ he told MPs. ‘UK students will continue to be able to enjoy the benefits of exchanges with our European friends and partners.’”
Moran, who increased her majority from 816 to over 8,000 votes in December, is the education spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats.
Conan O’Brien, Governor Tom Wolfe, Tarana Burke and Paul Krugman are among names released on the Union’s Hilary term card.
Television host and comedian Conan O’Brien will speak in fifth week. O’Brien has featured in and hosted American late-night talk shows for over two decades, and currently hosts his self-styled show Conan on TBS.
The Union will host eight debates, including an ‘Empire’ debate in eighth week, and a debate on the United Nations and its role fuelling ‘An Illusion of Global Cooperation.’
Roger Hallam, co-founder of Extinction Rebellion, the high profile environmental action movement, will speak at the first week ‘Decade’ debate. The controversial figure has seen criticism for his advocacy of methods of civil disobedience; Hallam has himself been arrested and jailed as a result of protests.
The term card also features several events and panels. There will be panels on Finance, Mental Health, and Diversity & Fashion. In addition, there will be a panel for Holocaust Memorial Day on the 9th March.
Other speakers include designer Steve Madden, English national cricketer Jason Roy, actor Alfred Enoch, author Cassandra Clare, and Booker Prize-Winning author Bernadine Evaristo.
In a post announcing the term card, the Union said:
“We are also putting a particular focus on our special events this term, which both reflect on lessons from the past, as in our Holocaust Memorial Day panel, as well as look to the world we will be building over the next decade, from the perception of mental health in our society to the evolution of the financial services sector.”
“Later in term, we weigh the threat of ever-increasing technological development against its positive potential, examine, in the year of its 75th anniversary, the role that the UN plays in global cooperation, and, to end the term, take a hard look at the legacy of the British Empire.”
Remember the 2015 Met Gala, when Rihanna wore that yellow dress, the fifty-five-pound empress’s cape which fluttered across the red carpet and left the Wintour congregation starry-eyed? Or perhaps you know of the domed golden gown, the Da Jing, that featured in the Metropolitan Museum of Arts’ ‘China: Through the Looking Glass’ exhibit. Well, this embroidered regal whirlpool pulsating with heritage and artisanship leaves one name on the lips of every onlooker: Guo Pei. Yet, despite her designs being shown at Paris Fashion Week, her creative army of 300 embroiderers and 200 designers in mainland China, and the generous spread of awards in her workshop, Rose Studio, Pei has had to overcome definite hurdles.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Pei recalls an international media interview that she gave twenty years ago, and how she was told not to introduce herself as a Chinese designer but ‘just a designer’. When she showcased her work alongside Chanel and Dior at Paris Fashion Week, she was only the second Chinese artist to do so. She also tells the Journal that while she was growing up around the time of the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, fashion designers were thought to be seamstresses in China, and that ‘no-one knew that clothes were supposed to be designed’.
Meanwhile, Pei has just showcased one of her most captivating collections: Fall 2019 ‘Alternate Universe’. Magically spun from a sustainable pineapple hemp fabric, the show doesn’t fail to show typical Pei opulence, with creations such as the Siamese-twin Marie Antoinette dress and the final piece, the sunburst flower-wall dress, which took seven years to complete.
We can see that in the face of adversity, Pei continues to flourish. Talking about the flurry of omelet memes of Rihanna’s dress, for instance, she smiles at the Wall Street Journal camera and laughs, glowing with admiration at ‘how these people can be so creative’. Essential to her work is preserving Chinese heritage; her embroidery has a strong link with the past Chinese royal family. To Pei, the inheritance of intangible cultural heritage is akin to blood lineage, and the strength of this reflection in her work is why she will only continue to power forward in the fashion world.
Green lights and West Egg parties are often the first things that spring to mind when you think of the ‘roaring 20s’. Fitzgerald’s beautiful and damned depictions of American life in that decade have swept through popular culture, imposing an image of decadent parties and luxurious life onto a period that is, as usual, infinitely more complex than it appears. The “années folles” are packed with stories of change, protest, and empowerment; as a decade they fundamentally altered the way in which wider audiences engage with media and paved the way for radical cultural shifts. As we enter a decade in which culture is set to be governed by activism and protest in the face of right-wing populism and the climate crisis, perhaps it is worth meditating on the lesser-known faces of Fitzgerald’s ‘Jazz Age’, through the eyes of one of his most well-known characters.
If Nick had driven into
Manhattan one day, taking the right turns, he might have found himself in the
eye of a creative storm. Jazz clubs would spring up around him, filled with
artists, musicians, and poets. He would be in Harlem at the zenith of its
renaissance. Of course, as a white man in the 1920s, I suspect his reaction
would fall short of the awe we would feel in his place, but that doesn’t change
the significance of this cultural explosion.
The Harlem Renaissance saw
the experimentation and development of almost every facet of African-American
culture: music, dance, theatre, prose, poetry, and the visual arts all boomed.
Artists working just miles from Gatsby’s orchestras were changing the face of
American music, as jazz artists made waves on the musical scene. Spend long
enough in one of the many jazz clubs and Nick might have found himself face to
face with Billy Holliday or Louis Armstrong at the start of their careers. But
this renaissance was more than just artistic: art was starting to find its
voice as a method of activism in an extremely oppressed community.
In his 1926 essay ‘The Negro and the Racial Mountain’, Hughes offers a powerful insight into the internal politics of the Harlem Renaissance. He laments the focus on pleasing the white community that, he argued, was a fundamental issue in previous artistic production. Nick might have been shocked to read Hughes’ poem ‘Remember’, in which he encourages the reader to “Go to the highest hill / And look down upon the town / Where you are yet a slave.’
The Harlem Renaissance did a great deal to emancipate African-American art from white constriction, and in doing so provided fertile ground for radical ideas, both artistic and political. Through figures like Hughes ideas rooted in pride were beginning to gain traction: some of the loudest roars of the 1920s came from separatists like Marcus Garvey and W.E.B du Bois.
If, however, Nick were to
look even closer at the clientele of some of the smaller speakeasies in Harlem,
he might have made a discovery that would have shocked him. Harlem was already
home to a nascent drag community, alongside a host of artists and patrons whose
sexuality and gender were seen in a much more fluid light. The Harlem
Renaissance gave performers like Gladys Bentley, a legendary Harlem singer, a
moment in the sun that would not be available to them again for a long time.
Saying that the 1920s were
free often suggests the freedom to cheat on one’s spouse or go out to a party
and drive home drunk. But the 1920s were artistically free outside of these
spheres as well. Surrealism saw artists break with traditional from in poetry
and art, while jazz became increasingly unrestrained by the rules that were
supposed to govern music. As we have seen above, sexuality and gender were
‘freer’ in this period, as were women like Josephine Baker and Mae West who
capitalised on their beauty and sexuality in a way that wouldn’t have been
possible years earlier.
So why are we constantly
confronted with this idealised depiction of America in the 1920s when the
alternatives are, frankly, far more interesting? ‘The Great Gatsby’, which
received poor reviews on publication, was given out to soldiers in WW2. Since
then it has enjoyed its status as a contender for the ‘Great American Novel’,
and fundamentally informed our image of the 1920s through its multiple
retellings. Popular culture seems to have latched on to a glittering mirage of
opulence and freedom in America, erasing any alternative narratives as it went.
The 1920s were more than parties and affairs. They were more than the straight, white, American image that has been created around them by popular culture. Culturally, it was important both in itself and as a springboard for other critical movements, whether it was civil rights or state oppression. Of course, no one could paint a picture of any decade in the space of an article, indeed it’s clear that that task is impossible in the space of a novel. However, the further we are distanced from the decade, the easier it is to reduce it to a single face. This makes it easier for us to conceive the decade without involving ourselves with its complexity, but it erases people from the narrative. Harlem is simply an important example of omission; the same process has erased artists across the world from the popular conception of the roaring 20s.
Is it time to wave radio goodbye in the
2020s? Broadcasting audio across the airwaves seems antiquated. Do we not live in
a world of virtual reality and TikTok videos, our eyes continuously glued to a
screen? The 2020s are going to be hard on radio. All the secular trends are
moving against it, are they not?
In fact, radio consumption is still high
today. According to the industry research body RAJAR, radio reaches 88% of the
UK population in a given week. The average daily listening time is also high at
2.5 hours. What bodes well for radio is that these numbers have only budged
slightly over the past five years. According to consultancy Deloitte, it is actually
TV consumption that is dwindling, decreasing three times faster than radio.
So, how is radio consumed? It is usually
listened to in cars and in the home. We are all very familiar with radio
playing during commutes or while tending to the chores at home. It is a diverse
medium. We sing along, barely notice it playing in the background or are
intensely focussed on the analysis and discussion it provides.
And radio is not just an old habit that dies
hard. There have been remarkable recent successes in radio broadcasting. The
Financial Times ran a fascinating feature on how LBC has grown its audience
from 1.2m to 2.6m weekly listeners over the past five years. It has achieved
this remarkable feat by tapping into the contentious debates of our times and engaging
with its listeners along the way.
Radio’s ongoing strength, however, should
not be overinterpreted. It will be reshaped – and indeed it already is – by the
same fundamental trends that have reshaped the TV landscape. Listeners and viewers
increasingly discover that they need not be bound by the schedule and
programming of their local broadcasters. Accessing streaming services opens up
a world of variety, and the flexibility it provides will eat into traditional
radio’s market.
The question is not whether video has
killed the radio star. On-demand content is making traditional programming
redundant. Both video and audio as media will thrive, it is the way we consume them
that is going to change.
Streaming services have already taken over
our music libraries. As they get better at implementing discovery and radio
features, they provide for a much more tailored listening experiences than most
traditional radio stations can offer.
As the technology we use to consume these
will be more seamless, people will start trading their FM for their own
programming. ‘Smart technology’ such as voice activated speakers, headphones
and home technology and the integration of internet into cars will do their
part.
But it is podcasts that I am personally
most bullish on. Podcasts have been gaining traction for a while now and the
2010s have seen the medium go mainstream. We have seen blockbusters such as the
‘Serial’ podcast or the New York Times’ ‘The Daily’ that draw in millions of
listeners. At the same time, podcasting remains creative and quirky with much
content coming from talented independent creators.
However, professionalization seems to be underway. Spotify, the Swedish streaming company, has vowed to double down on the medium. It has redesigned its app to feature podcasts prominently next to music. The company sees itself as transitioning to being an ‘all-audio company’. And it is putting its money where its mouth is. In 2019 alone, it has spent 400m USD on acquiring three podcasting houses. A smart business move, me thinks. The medium fills a gap. It democratises access to quality content and connects creators with consumers. It is repeating with radio what streaming did to TV.
It’s December 2019, and temperatures lie below freezing in the North. As I sit cosily sipping hot cocoa in front of the fire, Breaking News flashes onto the TV. Today’s headlines are, as usual, tediously bleak; half a million Whirlpool washing machines have been recalled, National Rail ticket prices have increased yet again, and Boris is making plans for Brexit. Yet, the fourth headline is the bleakest of all: Australia is ablaze.
After the
hottest year on record, accompanied by continuous drought and relentless bush
fires since September, Australia is currently seeing some of the worst impacts
of climate change. Whilst its highest historical temperature still remains at
50.7 degrees, as recorded in January 1960, in early December north-west
Victoria saw over a week of plus-forty degrees Celsius, and Australia’s
north-eastern coastal areas were hardly any better. Needless to say, the inland
‘bush’ quickly became a lost cause.
It seems odd to
me that such climate crises can still be advertised as Breaking News. In a
world which has well-understood the issue of climate change since the 1960s,
after sixty years it is painful, in fact excruciating, that there is no better
method of informing the public. Yet, the media, alongside its ‘Breaking News’,
presents the climate crisis exactly as it is viewed by the majority; as a
short-term, solvable dilemma, only in need of a few quick-fire solutions and
there’s the job done. Dusted. Business as usual, collect your pay-cheque.
However, as the
likes of Extinction Rebellion force us to focus less on the word ‘climate’ and
more on ‘crisis’, it has become increasingly clear that the global reactionary
approach to the climate crisis desperately needs to evolve. We have no time to
sit and mourn the collapse of a single ice cap or, more brutally, the death of
a few Arctic polar bears; we are now facing a human crisis, with human impacts.
To stop large-scale death and destruction in the world’s poorest areas, we must
act now.
This is no
Breaking News, and I won’t pretend that anything I’ve said so far is
revolutionary. Yet, such realisations must prompt action, not only within the
respective frameworks of individual and governmental action, but also within
the framework of the media. The year 2019 saw a tidal-wave of over 170 global
media outlets, such as The Guardian, CBS News and The Huffington Post,
all agreeing to the ‘Covering Climate Now’ pledge to actively cover climate
crisis-related incidents.
Whilst this
pledge was only intended as a week-long agreement surrounding the September UN Climate Action
Summit in New York, the majority of media outlets involved have kept this
initiative as part of their framework, with The Guardian taking their
role in public engagement with climate change particularly seriously.
Yet, even in the year
following the apocalyptic prophecies of Extinction Rebellion’s co-founder Roger
Hallam, both public and governmental engagement with the climate crisis is far
from where it needs to be. At this stage, the majority of us have heard
enough to understand the unrivalled level of suffering that is about to ensue,
and we know enough about the crippling complications climate change
could bring. The issue is, rather, that we cannot see.
To my disheartenment, a
quick Google search of the words ‘climate change’ will bring up an influx in
imagery of falling ice-caps, desiccated and desertified land, and raw-boned
polar bears. The worst of climate-crisis visuals will merely display an image of
the globe, perhaps half-inundated with fire, or even simply fill-coloured red. A
number of charred chimneys appear, a few wildfires, and a lone burning tree.
Whilst none of these images
could be termed factually inaccurate, the unfortunate truth is that current
climate visuals are not only unsatisfactory in conveying the urgency of this
crisis, but they are also dangerously far from reality. With a recent
prediction of 529,000 adult deaths by 2050 due to climate-change related food
shortages alone, we will not only be mourning the struggling polar bears, or
the dying endemic species of Kangaroo Island. We will be mourning human loss of
life, resulting from some of the most inhumane suffering the world has ever
seen.
Hence, current climate imagery is vastly inadequate. By
presenting such soft, ‘family-friendly’ and western-specific visuals, media
platforms are not only diluting the reality of climate change, but they also
run the risk of reducing support. In a world where two of the largest
polluter-nations are governed by climate-deniers, Australia’s Scott Morrison
and America’s Donald Trump, the G7 countries are already on a slippery slope.
As one of the wealthiest and most resource-rich nations in the world, with a great power to implement mitigation and
adaptation methods, we cannot risk such a dampening of the climate narrative.
Media platforms must provide imagery which matches, or even exceeds, the
aggressive and urgent tone of Extinction Rebellion.
The Guardian newspaper were, in a bold yet
heroic decision, the first to realise and implement such a change. In October
2019, journalist Fiona Shields published a piece explaining the need for such
fresh imagery, which begins by stating, ‘we want to ensure that the images we
publish accurately and appropriately convey the climate crisis we face.’
Accompanying this piece were numerous vaguely distressing images, including one
of a Portuguese villager shouting for help as a wildfire approaches, one of a
man and his child wearing smog-masks in Waltan, and another of a young boy
drinking water in a toxic slag-heap in Zambia.
Yet, scrolling further through the article, a number of
surprising images appeared. In a rather wholesome feature, a father pushed his
son on a slow-sled in the Cotswolds, and a woman played with her dog in the
snow of Moscow. Other visuals included a ram-packed Bournemouth beach on a bank
holiday, slightly more suggestive of the traditional, tabloid representation of
global-warming we have seen before.
I could not possibly deny that climate change will increase
the frequency of extreme weather events, such as heavier snowfalls in the winter
and soaring temperatures in the summer. Such phenomena are already occurring;
Cambridge University Botanical Garden recorded a temperature of 38.7 degrees-Celsius
in 2019, beating the highest-temperature record set in Southampton in 1976. To
deny such a reality would be to argue against scientific fact. Furthermore, I
could not deny that some of these altered weather events may be, well,
enjoyable. For the fortunate few escaping the suffering caused by drought,
wildfire and flooding, I’m certain a hot day at the beach would be more than welcomed.
Yet, in the UK, where compulsory Climate Change Education
was only enforced in 2008, I wonder whether such positive climate imagery is
useful. It is safe to say that the majority of our nation do not recognise the
term thermal expansion, nor understand the complex feedback mechanisms of
greenhouse gases such as methane. Without a basic education of climate change,
how could readers of The Guardian possibly understand that a happy image
of a boy playing in the thick snow is supposed to represent emergency, and
indeed crisis? By confusingly paralleling images of deadly destruction with
those of happy childhood experiences, we run the risk of further alienating the
masses away from supporting the climate crisis. Even Donald Trump, the most
powerful politician of our current world, seems to believe that the increased
frequency of cold weather events is grounds for global-warming and climate denial.
Despite the positive changes made by media organisations
such as The Guardian, we are still far from realistic, honest climate
representation. To expose the true reality of climate change via the means of
visual representation, we need to first of all recognise, and be held accountable
for, our own historical actions. Whilst Britain may not currently be the
largest polluter, it unequivocally led the industrial revolution of the 18th
century, which caused a 260% rise in conglomerate greenhouse gases, as recorded
in 2012.
The UK have, in fact, pledged net-zero carbon emissions by
2050, but we are still far off this target. With the likes of Boris Johnson
leading our country, such a task may be even more challenging still. Although
British climate imagery has often depicted smoking chimneys reminiscent of our
industrial days, such an admittance is not enough; we must depict and accept
responsibility for the deaths and suffering that have been caused by our
pollution, not only during the era of the Industrial Revolution itself but
within our modern world. Such an acceptance cannot be conveyed by polar-bear,
glacial-melt imagery.
Yet, the question still remains as to whether more brutal
imagery will successfully stimulate climate action. The success of the Band Aid
& ‘Feed the World’ campaign fills me with a sense of optimism; despite utilising
highly distressing imagery of the Ethiopian famine, the campaign raised over
£127 million in 1984, and increased widespread awareness of an issue that had
previously received little support. As the world will see 1.7 times more demand
for food by 2050 due to uncontrollable population expansion, it is not
unrealistic to say that food security will soon be threatened across every
continent. With this reality in mind, we should not limit ourselves to images
of desertified land, failed crop harvests and biblical swarms of locusts; like
the Band Aid campaign, climate crisis imagery is well within its right to illustrate
human suffering, famine, or even death. Dark and drastic as this may be, it
could be the only answer to saving our planet before its own self-combustion.
As those sitting at home watching Live Aid picked up the phone to donate in
1985, perhaps such heavy imagery may be a wake-up call to our modern viewers
today. The brutal reality is that the majority of us don’t give a fig about
polar bears or ice caps; people care about people.
However, rebranding the imagery of climate change cannot
solely be focussed on imagery of death and destruction, the implications of
climate change are much more complex than that. In 2018, the UN recognised
climate change as a driver of migration for the first time, when citizens of
the Pacific island Kiribati fled their homes due to flooding. Migration will,
in fact, be one of the most significant consequences of climate change. With
the strengthening of El Niño and La Niña events, and the increased frequency of
‘freak’ weather increasingly making more areas of the world’s land inhabitable,
the influx of climate migrants will inevitably multiply year-by-year.
Even some of the world’s wealthiest countries such as
Australia, which is still being ravaged by bushfires, do not have the resources
to cope with this impending migration crisis. When depicting climate change in
the media, we are once again well within our right to depict imagery of migrants,
borders, and migrant detention centres. Again, these are all realistic results
of the climate crisis, and, to combat this crisis effectively, we need to
accept these realities as soon as possible.
I have only skimmed the surface of the brutal realities that
the climate crisis will bring with it, and, thanks to the compulsory inclusion
of climate change within school curricula since 2008, I am sure most of you
reading this will be well aware of this fact. I am hopeful, in fact confident,
you will all agree that the time is now for climate rebranding. With the
urgency and immediacy of this crisis, we can no longer play it safe with pretty
polar bears and imposing ice caps. To ensure greenhouse gases do not exceed the
1.5 degree ‘tipping point’, we need both a governmental and individual
wake-up-call to action, and such action needs to happen now. In accordance with the immediate
nature of the crisis, we require not only aggressive words in the media, but
also urgent and aggressive climate visuals. The narrative can no longer be one
of delay; at this point, any delay is costing not only livelihoods but lives,
and the survival of the human race needs to be our priority.
