Institutions, innovations and ideas: Sir Geoff Mulgan on trusting government after AI

Institutions, innovations and ideas: Sir Geoff Mulgan on trusting government after AI

Why are companies racing to build dancing robots when human dancers are fighting harder than ever to earn a living? Why does it feel like technology is becoming rapidly more powerful, but so few people seem to actually gain anything from it?    Institutions large and small are central to all democracies, and they’re anything but simple. A great institution can protect and increase knowledge across generations, but the very thing that keeps them alive can also make them stagnant.     Sir Geoff Mulgan [https://profiles.ucl.ac.uk/76510-geoff-mulgan] knows institutions better than almost anyone. He’s Professor of Collective Intelligence, Public Policy and Social Innovation at University College London, and from 2011 to 2019 he was Chief Executive at the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts. He explains why our biggest and most important institutions so often seem averse to innovation, and outlines how groups of people can be more (and sometimes less) than the sum of their parts.     ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Rethinking the risks, rights, and regulation of young people on social media

As governments around the world move to restrict young people’s access to social media, a fundamental question emerges: do bans actually protect children or create new risks?     Growing concern about youth mental health and the power of tech companies has driven policies such as Australia’s under-16 ban, which is now being closely watched around the world.    But the evidence remains contested. Sonia Livingstone,  [https://digitalchild.org.au/team-members/professor-sonia-livingstone/]Director of Digital Futures for Children, argues there are limits to the ban approach. She suggests we rethink how digital environments are designed and governed so they are safer for young people. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

The parasocial power of podcasting – How podcasters are gaining trust

“Podcasting is the medium of the moment.”     But should we trust the creators and their content?    With more than 600 million global listeners, podcasting is now central to journalism, commentary, and public debate. Many audiences see podcasts as more authentic and more intimate than radio, television, or social media — but why?    When anyone can publish an episode, who deserves our trust? And how do we know when that trust is misplaced?    Broadcaster and academic Dominic Knight [https://www.domknight.com/about] – co-founder of The Chaser – shares his thoughts on trust, credibility, and misinformation in the podcast era.    Hear more from Dominic Knight on his podcast The Chaser Report [https://podfollow.com/1506693707].  ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

How Hollywood packages the truth – Is film undermining trust?

Is cinema a vehicle of truth or does it promote false beliefs?  Associate Professor of Film Studies Bruce Isaacs [https://profiles.sydney.edu.au/bruce.isaacs] doesn’t believe in historical truth in the film image.   “I don't think cinema looks for that. What it seeks to show is a kind of aesthetic truth. Films straddle this very interesting tension between being truthful to history and yet in some way intensifying that experience.”  Hollywood has a long and complicated relationship with trust, ideology, and reality. A relationship that has only intensified as the Trump administration polarises America and the world.  Professor Isaacs explores whether film is corrosive of trust, why movies are such fertile ground for conspiracies, and the political anxieties driving recent Hollywood films like Civil War, Eddington, and One Battle After Another.  Hear more from Professor Isaacs on his podcast Film Versus Film [https://podfollow.com/1677034651].  ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Dr TJ Thomson on how AI is making it harder to trust visual journalism

Dr T.J. Thomson is an associate professor and Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow at RMIT, where he co-leads The News, Technology, and Society Network. His research is united by its focus on visual communication. He’s the author of a number of books and edited colllections, including Everyday Visual News: Audience Expectations, Engagements, and Meanings (Routledge, 2026), The Routledge Companion to Visual Journalism (2025), and To See and Be Seen: The Environments, Interactions, and Identities Behind News Images (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019). He joins Terry to explore the evolution of visual journalism—from the days of specialist photojournalists to today’s multi-skilled reporters—and the growing role of generative AI in shaping news imagery, along with its impacts on trust, authenticity, and ethics in journalism. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.