Can We Have Your Attention?

Is monoculture dead? Sam Fender and Olivia Dean's Rein Me In became the longest-running UK number one, yet plenty of people say they have never heard it. James and Claire ask Dr Chris Anderton, associate professor in cultural economy at Southampton Solent University, what has changed in how we find and share culture. They discuss how on-demand media and algorithms split our attention, why online communities replace third spaces for younger people, how social media drives music discovery, why radio leans on catalogue, whether the charts still matter, and why nostalgia tours and artists' public identities now carry so much weight. Read the Guardian article that prompted this episode, "Demise of the monoculture: why so many have never heard UK's record-breaking No 1 single": https://www.theguardian.com/music/2026/aug/05/demise-monoculture-why-have-so-many-never-heard-uk-record-breaking-no-1-single-sam-fender-olivia-dean Dr Chris Anderton's staff profile at Southampton Solent University: https://www.solent.ac.uk/staff/academic/chris-anderton Some of the songs mentioned in the episode: * Rein Me In, Sam Fender and Olivia Dean: https://open.spotify.com/track/1mMRddLLTQgjxVmgXQOYhT?si=5c981d4e3ffa4baf * Dai Dai, Shakira and Burna Boy: https://open.spotify.com/track/0kosUz0jePvjiz4ctmR6wL?si=7c81dbbb363f4dc5 * Baker Street, Gerry Rafferty: https://open.spotify.com/track/3V07f70cRjUDg4KqDzHhFg?si=780649742d0a481f * Dreams, Fleetwood Mac: https://open.spotify.com/track/0ofHAoxe9vBkTCp2UQIavz?si=336898c20c924779 Chris's listening picks * Tangerine Dream, the Berlin electronic group founded in 1967: https://www.tangerinedreammusic.com * Mike Keneally, former member of Frank Zappa's 1988 touring band: https://www.keneally.com * Ani DiFranco: https://www.anidifranco.com * Elina Duni, Swiss-Albanian jazz singer: https://www.elinaduni.com Can We Have Your Attention? is a podcast all about attention. Join hosts Claire Coady and James Wickham as they dive into how your attention is attracted, tracked, traded, and manipulated in the modern attention economy. * Hosted by: Claire Coady & James Wickham * Produced by: Phonogram https://www.phonogram.co.uk in conjunction with The Attention Practice https://www.theattentionpractice.com * Find out more on our website https://canwehaveyourattention.com * Got a story for us? Email us: [email protected] Like this episode? If you enjoyed this episode, please click subscribe. If you really liked it, please leave a rating - every rating helps this podcast reach more listeners like you.

Claire and James discuss Aaron Sorkin’s film, The Social Reckoning, a companion to The Social Network. The film follows former Facebook employee Frances Haugen and the period from 2018 to 2021, when she shared internal company documents with journalists and lawmakers. We also look at Facebook’s “meaningful social interactions” change, which shifted the feed to show more content from friends and family. Internal documents described how the algorithm favoured posts that prompted strong reactions and sharing, and how this could increase the reach of extreme content. Can We Have Your Attention? is a podcast all about attention. Join hosts Claire Coady and James Wickham as they dive into how your attention is attracted, tracked, traded, and manipulated in the modern attention economy. Hosted by: Claire Coady & James Wickham Produced by: Phonogram https://www.phonogram.co.uk in conjunction with The Attention Practice https://www.theattentionpractice.com Find out more on our website https://canwehaveyourattention.com Got a story for us? Email us: [email protected] Like this episode? If you enjoyed this episode, please click subscribe. If you really liked it, please leave a rating - every rating helps this podcast reach more listeners like you.

You can also watch this episode on our YouTube channel! https://www.youtube.com/@CanWeHaveYourAttention We all know what the news is. But how is it put together, and why? What makes the news news, and what can we learn from the decisions journalists make on a daily basis - and how do we apply those to brands? Join Claire and James this week as they talk tricks of the trade - live, in the same room, for only the second time in twenty years (and two weeks). Can We Have Your Attention? is a podcast all about attention. Join hosts Claire Coady and James Wickham as they dive into how your attention is attracted, tracked, traded, and manipulated in the modern attention economy. Hosted by: Claire Coady & James Wickham Produced by: Phonogram https://www.phonogram.co.uk in conjunction with The Attention Practice https://www.theattentionpractice.com Find out more on our website https://canwehaveyourattention.com Got a story for us? Email us: [email protected] Like this episode? If you enjoyed this episode, please click subscribe. If you really liked it, please leave a rating - every rating helps this podcast reach more listeners like you.

You can also watch this episode on YouTube! Anyone can buy an ad (well, almost anyone…). But what are some of the tricks of the trade? Are we really suckers for shiny things? And what does Gillian Anderson have to do with it? The answers to the above are yes, and everything, always. Join Claire and James this week as they talk tricks of the trade - live, in the same room, for the first time in twenty years. Can We Have Your Attention? is a podcast all about attention. Join hosts Claire Coady and James Wickham as they dive into how your attention is attracted, tracked, traded, and manipulated in the modern attention economy.  Hosted by: Claire Coady & James WickhamProduced by: Phonogram https://www.phonogram.co.uk in conjunction with The Attention Practice https://www.theattentionpractice.comFind out more on our website https://canwehaveyourattention.comGot a story for us? Email us: [email protected] Like this episode? If you enjoyed this episode, please click subscribe. If you really liked it, please leave a rating - every rating helps this podcast reach more listeners like you.

Ad tech, the backbone of digital advertising, is a lucrative business. But why? Who is profiting from it? And at what cost? Claire and James are joined this week by Claire Atkin, Co-founder and CEO of the Check My Ads Institute. They discuss ad tech: what it is, how it works, why it makes money, for whom it makes money - and what the consequences are. More about Check My Ads: Check My Ads - Public Policy Platform: https://checkmyads.org/policy/Real-Time Bidding explained: https://checkmyads.org/rtb-explained/Advertising Role in the Southport Riots: https://bit.ly/46ncAkJNational security challenges of ad tech: https://bit.ly/4zP1F0s Location data isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. This problem is known in the ad industry as ‘signal loss’. In short, location data is much more unreliable, it’s driving up digital ad buying costs, and nobody is entirely sure whether the data it returns is reliable anymore. It’s a problem the ad industry is frantically grappling with, but as silently as possible (because, you know, money). ‘IAB Finds Signal Loss Driving Higher Ad Cost, Shift To Contextual’ via Mediapost https://bit.ly/3T5zFoR This article describes how advertisers attempt to deal with the challenge. It generally relies on being able to sell stuff through a website, to a large number of people, for a reasonably long time. (via Forbes) https://bit.ly/4qZy54w  More Background Documentary about data brokers and surveillance (via Die Welt on YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y07j3hXAI-gData lakes and their role in ad tech, i.e. ‘The Dark Horses of Surveillance Capitalism’ - Helena Malikova (Harvard Kennedy School): https://bit.ly/4gz7QhM  Can We Have Your Attention? is a podcast all about attention. Join hosts Claire Coady and James Wickham as they dive into how your attention is attracted, tracked, traded, and manipulated in the modern attention economy.  Hosted by: Claire Coady & James WickhamProduced by: Phonogram https://www.phonogram.co.uk in conjunction with The Attention Practice https://www.theattentionpractice.comFind out more on our website https://canwehaveyourattention.comGot a story for us? Email us: [email protected] Like this episode? If you enjoyed this episode, please click subscribe. If you really liked it, please leave a rating - every rating helps this podcast reach more listeners like you.