Episodes

For the past 25 years, claims on packets of crisps have been subject to more regulation than claims in election campaigns. But that could finally be about to change. Amendments to the Representation of the People Bill promise to apply some of the UK’s strenuous - and effective - advertising standards to election advertising. We are joined by Alex Tait, ad industry veteran and founder of the non-partisan campaign organisation Reform Political Advertising, one of the groups advocating these change...

We're told the news is an important part of a functioning society. But is our 24-hour, always-on news culture, with bad news to the fore, actually harming us and our institutions? In this episode, James Wickham and Claire Coady explore the nature of news, its impact on society, and how media practices influence public perception and trust. They discuss whether quality journalism has declined, the rise of social media, and whether regulation would foster a healthier media ecosystem. From the ep...

Is AI like steroids for disinformation? Claire Coady and James Wickham are joined by Sam Stockwell from The Alan Turing Institute to discuss their research into AI-generated disinformation – from AI songs and fake rappers, to fabricated forensic "evidence" and chatbots that repeat whatever is popular on social media. They discuss why the real problem isn't just deepfakes but sheer volume, and what governments and AI firms can do about it. And do brands and advertisers, who fund the whole ecosyst...

Has the Age of Attention Scarcity given way to the Attention Revolution? Recent data from Ofcom shows that over the past 12 months, discontent with online life is growing – and people’s behaviours are changing too, with major consequences for the media, advertisers, and communications. As more people avoid the ad-funded internet, and public support for restrictions and bans increases, what’s stopping industry and government from changing? Claire Coady and James Wickham discuss a year after Clai...

Trust in news is down, and news avoidance is up. Many people don’t know what to believe, or who to trust. How can legacy media convince audiences to trust them when they're under attack – but loathe to change? Rebecca Skippage, the former Global Disinformation Editor at BBC News, joins Claire and James this week to discuss misinformation, disinformation, legacy media, meeting people where they are, and how organisations like the BBC can rise to the challenge. Find out more about Rebecca Skippag...

Is Britain broken, or is everyone just tired? Steven Lacey from cultural research company The Outsiders and the think tank Resilience & Reconstruction joins Claire and James to talk about their fascinating research into the forces of life driving populism. What is driving discontent? Why hasn’t politics been able to meet this challenge? And does the answer lie in reviving communities and the high street? The Outsiders: The cultural insight agency founded by Steven Lacey https://outsidersinsigh...

How is your attention being exploited by people who deliberately make misinformation? Claire Coady and James Wickham are joined by Tom Garnett, the CEO of disinformation monitoring company Refute, to talk about misinformation and election interference. For more on Refute and the work they do to combat misinformation and disinformation, visit their website: https://refute.com/ Refute’s report on misinformation in the Romanian and Moldovan elections: https://tinyurl.com/3zwhehww BBC News on the M...

Do social media content creators make money? If so… how? Claire Coady and James Wickham discuss how content creators build their business: how they get started, build their audience, build businesses – or just make money. Why do they do it? What does it take to keep going? How do some make money on political content? And why haven’t we called them ‘influencers’? Mentioned in this episode: Research from HMRC and NatCen on the social media content creators as businesses (from Nov 2025) https://t...

Claire Coady and James Wickham discuss the Department of Defence/Department of War rebrand and its fights with partners and suppliers. In September, Pete Hegseth suggested the U.S. military was being weakened by forces within - forces the Department would fight. How far will it go in that fight? If the US public doesn't want a war overseas, then is the war on business as usual - and are suppliers exposed? Plus, if political campaigning is harder in an overheated attention economy, and picking ...

Claire Coady and James Wickham discuss what happens when brands become news. From the Kit Kat heist to Nutella in space to McDonald’s CEO attempting to eat a burger like a human, Claire breaks down what happens in the marketing teams, while James picks up what happens in the newsrooms. What goes through a brand teams’ minds? What do journalists think? And when is it ever really news? Mentioned in the show: McDonald’s CEO Went Viral. Now He Has to Win Back Customers | WSJ https://youtu.be/rZxnF...

In this episode Claire & James speak to D. Graham Burnett, the Henry Charles Lea Professor of History and History of Science at Princeton University and co-editor of Attensity! A Manifesto of the Attention Liberation Movement; and Peter Schmidt, the Program Director of the Strother School of Radical Attention. They form part of the The Friends of Attention; a loose network who share an interest in all things attention. Their book, Attensity! A Manifesto for the Attention Liberation Movement, ar...

Claire and James, with guest Andrew Cheatham, dive into the U.S. and Israel's attack on Iran, examining the flow of information in modern conflict and how AI has transformed it. The discussion focuses on the U.S. government's controversial decision to ban Anthropic's AI tool, Claude, labelling it a "supply chain risk." With OpenAI securing the same limits Anthropic requested, we ask: Is this ban about national security, or is it a political signal against "woke" ethics in technology? Wired: X i...

In this episode, James & Claire - who host the show - talk about... the show. We have not, promise, completely vaulted over our own collective shark. Instead we are looking at the barriers to entering the creative attention economy; setup costs, technical issues, avoiding view farms, excessive editing time - through the prism of this very podcast. We also explain why we're going fortnightly - it's related to all this stuff above. Remember if you would like to feed back on anything we mention ...

In this episode of the Can We Have Your Attention? podcast, hosts Claire Coady and James Wickham get overexcited about the upcoming Super Bowl between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots. We speak to veteran sports business journalist Dan Kaplan to explore how the NFL has developed its product to prioritise growth & reach, and is constantly innovating in an effort to retain eyeballs and attention. We look at its international expansion plans, how the future might involve flags, and...

Has President Trump’s foreign policy become the ultimate celebrity beef? Claire and James unpack how Trump uses international relations to flex his strongman image. They explore the collision of geopolitics and Stan culture, asking whether algorithms reward this spectacle and what world leaders can learn about dealing with Donald Trump from the Kendrick Lamar vs Drake feud. Plus analysis on how devoted fanbases are cultivated online and how algorithms have accidentally changed politics. What h...

In this episode of the Can We Have Your Attention? podcast, hosts Claire Coady and James Wickham dive into the escalating crisis around algorithms, free speech, and corporate responsibility in the attention economy. We explore how platforms like X and its AI, Grok, promote "complete freedom of speech" as a core product feature, and the disruption it creates - how does a business like X versus a business like Meta weigh up the reward of influence and attention against risks of public backlash, o...

In this episode, James & Claire are joined by Dr Katherine Albertson, a senior lecturer in Criminology at Sheffield Hallam University. Following on from our previous episode on radicalisation, we look at what happens to those people who are in the criminal justice system - those who by the very nature of where they are can't place their attention in the same way, and who often don't have attention placed on them. We hear how many feel isolated from the rest of society, and how peer mentors can h...

In this special episode of Can We Have Your Attention? for Christmas, James & Claire talk about the things that have taken their attention in 2025 - from books to films, games to music. All links available via the website: canwehaveyourattention.com About The Show: Can We Have Your Attention? is a podcast exploring the unseen forces that shape what we see, what we buy, and who we become. Hosted by Claire Coady and James Wickham, we dive into the mechanics of the Attention Economy to understan...

A recent surge in ISIS activity has reminded the world that Islamist extremism remains a potent and active threat. For many, the recent attack by ISIS felt like a shock - a ghost returning from the past. But as we discuss in this episode, these groups never went away; they just became harder to see. In the fragmented, siloed landscape of modern social media, extremism of all kinds - from ISIS to the Far Right- exists side-by-side, competing for the same scarce commodity we are: Attention. ...

This week Claire & James explore uncertainty with Katherine Templar-Lewis, an expert in neuroscience and the science of uncertainty. Katherine has done brilliant work on how to build resilience through increasing our tolerance to uncertainty. The reason attention scarcity is so, well, scary is because it increases feelings of uncertainty - with which humans are profoundly bad at coping. Uncertainty usually means change, and throughout human history, uncertainty means potential danger (an exampl...

Episode 4 of the Attention Economy podcast, Can We Have Your Attention? hosted by Claire Coady, the founder of The Attention Practice, and journalist & broadcaster James Wickham. This episode is about ADHD. Claire and our guest, award-winning BBC Radio 5 live journalist Dan Maudsley, share their experiences of realising they have ADHD, seeking diagnosis in the UK, and how understanding their ADHD helped them better understand attention. Visit our website for more: www.canwehaveyourattention.co...

Claire Coady, the Founder of the Attention Practice, and journalist and broadcaster James Wickham discuss how teenagers are coping with the social media age, and the affect it’s having on their attention spans. Included are references to 90s lads and girls mags, prohibition and Mean Girls. Show notes: From 02:00-ish: BBC News: Australia is banning social media for teens. How will it work? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwyp9d3ddqyo CORRECTION: YouTube is included in the ban, as is Twitc...

In this episode the founder of the Attention Practice, Claire Coady, and broadcaster & journalist James Wickham consider who is selling your attention, who's buying it - and why. We also cover the important topics of haberdashery, video games, MTV and jazz. Show notes: How Brands Grow by Byron Sharp https://uk.bookshop.org/a/16591/9780195573565 The Sirens’ Call by Chris Hayes https://uk.bookshop.org/a/16591/9781914484940 Internet Matters research on understanding online news on children’s and y...

Claire Coady and James Wickham explore the concept of attention, its significance in the modern world, and the challenges posed by the attention economy. They discuss how information overload affects decision-making, societal implications of attention fragmentation, and the stressors that contribute to mental fatigue. Show notes: Age of Attention Scarcity whitepaper: https://open.substack.com/pub/attentionscarcity/p/the-age-of-attention-scarcity 700-1200 ads per day: https://www.eskimi.com/blo...