Are You In A Social Media Echo Chamber? (Your Radical Questions with Louisa Munch)

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau. Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome to Your Radical Questions, where I put your questions to our magnificent radical guests.

0:49This is your chance to really, really connect with and really engage directly with these super smart, super interesting people that we have on this podcast and ask them about their ideas for the future, radical and otherwise. What a great way to kick off the new year with historian Tom Holland. Very, very large numbers of you listened to and enjoyed that episode. Thank you so much for all the feedback on social media and elsewhere. Thank you so much to everyone who sent in such thoughtful questions as well. And by the way, thank you to Tom Holland, who is very much a man in demand, but gave us a huge amount of his time, as has this week's very, very in demand guest.

1:24I don't want to sort of, it's almost dismissive to say, Louisa Munch social media phenomenon or superstar. You've only been doing this for six months. Actually, she's a critical theorist at the University of Warwick in the English department. But she's also now, you are a social media phenomenon. Are you comfortable about being described as that? I guess so, yeah. Yeah, you can live with it. And it all started, because we've got questions on this. It all started with this, was it on TikTok or Instagram, your first one about books? TikTok. TikTok. So you're an academic at the University of Warwick.

1:55You do a TikTok video about which critical theory books to read and it just kicks off. Yeah. Literally, I made one video because basically all my family were like, Louisa, stop moaning to us about all these issues. Why don't you go talk to the people? And I do a job where I talk to students and I teach and that's like so fulfilling. But I am sort of preaching converted, you know. And I just thought, you know, academia and these ideas and this privilege that I get to challenge ideas and talk about and things like that shouldn't just be reserved for this space in university. So this is stuff you do on your phone in 10 minutes.

2:36You've got hundreds of thousands of followers. You're on Britain's Most Exciting Podcast. And it's basically a way of communicating your ideas pretty much for free to a big audience and developing a real following. It's quite an exciting development in your life, isn't it? yeah I didn't think of it like that when I started I thought literally I thought no one would listen to it so it's very exciting well they're listening now because I put this out especially on Instagram I put this out and I said to people I've added it to my stories get in touch with the questions and they came flying in so I'm going to shut up and hand over to our questioners thank you so much to everyone who's been in touch I'm really really sorry if we can't get to your question but that's sort of the nature of it because there's so many people that want to hear from Louisa and not from me including Nick Hi, I'm all this is Nick Chowdhury.

3:21Thanks so much for the podcast. I'm listening to a lot. I really like it. Thanks for all the work you're doing on it. So my question for Louisa is around her accent. Actually, we've seen other public figures who've come to prominence on social media, such as Gary Stevenson, being challenged recently for having, you know, being too brash, having some sort of class hatred or having their very qualifications being called into question by certain political elites. So I'm wondering whether Louisa has experienced this already in her life with her incredible Manc accent and whether she's worried about potentially how that might affect her life going forwards in her career.

4:10Well, she's smiling, which is a good start. Thank you very much, Nick. Louisa? Not many people describe it as an incredible Manc accent. I quite like that. I think most of the problem that I get with my accent is my imposter syndrome. I didn't realise I had a strong accent until I started working, you know, in a place where not many people have an accent. And even my colleagues, like some of my best mates and stuff that are also doing PhDs, I have a friend from Newcastle, and you wouldn't know, because she's, like, ironed out her accent. I don't think it causes me an issue. I try and tell myself that it's not going to.

4:54But I do always feel like people, when they hear your voice, they think you're stupid or they think you're poor, you know. And, I mean, hopefully what I say sort of like proves them wrong about the stupid bit, you know. And I can sort of, I don't know, I don't carry like such an imposter syndrome about it as much. but when it is incredibly scary when you go to conferences and people think that you're from Australia because they've never heard a regional accent before in academia. I've got to be careful here because this is a subject so close to my heart and I know I've mentioned this in the past and I beg the pod squad to leave this in but just so people know for their reference there is a group of researchers at Queen Mary University in London who do something called Accent Bias Britain and I made a documentary where it's called How to Crack the Class Ceiling and I talked to lots and lots of people about accent bias.

5:45We have an awful lot of sociology behind this now. Accent bias is real. There is a hierarchy. There's a kind of status prestige. People from Wolverhampton and the black country come bottom and have done for the past 50 years. And I've spent so many years talking to people from outside of London, regional parts of Britain, who have this profound imposter syndrome, think they sound stupid. And when I did this documentary, I was absolutely, not just inundated, flooded with messages from people who'd seen this documentary who felt that their accent had held them back. Often people in their 50s and 60s.

6:19One classic example being someone from Birmingham who went and worked for Somerset and Avon police but felt he would have risen to the top had it not been for his accent. And it convinced me, and this is something I really want to come back to, that accent paranoia is a much bigger part of being British than accent pride. It's just the media is dominated by people who have accent pride. The second half of Nick's question, which I really want you to address, is class hatred from political elites. So if you grew up working class in Rochdale, do you feel as you've ascended the ladder of social esteem and prestige, where you're now this university teacher at the University of Warwick, English department, teaching critical theory, do you feel you've ever been on the wrong end of class hatred, as Nick says?

7:02If I have, they've not said it to my face. so but I remember it it does all live in your head like I remember when I first started teaching and I thought I these kids are gonna be smarter than me like I'm not gonna be I remember asking them as like an icebreaker um what's your favorite book and oh my god I've never felt more humbled in all my life I was like oh my god you don't need me because they were like Ulysses, Paradise Lost, Macbeth and I was like you're 18 and so there is it's very much like you feel like such a fish out of water like you just feel like there is you're on your own and it is it is really scary I think it holds I've been quite lucky in terms of the people at Warwick are really really good and um I've had some great mentors and I've been really really supported but it is again it's that alienation it's like the class thing that I feel and you know going up and down the M6 and stuff that is written all over the way I sound and even not being able to fully understand you know what a lecturer is on about um is it's so you just you just feel inadequate and now I always ask my students um what did you think of the lecturer and the lecturer you know did you understand what he was on about and a lot of them look at me and go not really miss and I'm like so Nick is right to ask how does being a woman with a working class accent affect how you'll approach public life because being a woman and having your accent and your class heritage does it is at the forefront of your mind when you go about your business it's a load that you carry yeah definitely um like i'm going to canada tomorrow to do a talk on um how sleep is a privilege in capitalism and at toronto university and i'm like these i always have to sort of like um get myself ready for the fact that they are i'm gonna have to speak slowly because they're not going to be used to hearing people like me and i always thought when once i started in academia I mean, you go to conferences, you meet so many people.

9:20I think one day, one day I'm going to meet somebody else with an accent. And I've been at university for eight years and I am yet to meet one. And that is crazy to me. But the one thing is when you do go to these conferences and it's not just the accent, it's like the social coding, you know, there's certain things that are like okay to say and not okay to say. And when you don't know, you'll just say things and people actually think you're really funny. So, sometimes it works in my favour. They want to hang out with you more. You academics. Couldn't you just do it by Zoom? I mean, I know you would have a little...

9:56No, we've got to enjoy the elitism. Of course, you've got to luxuriate in the fact that you're part of this Brahmin class. Okay, this is a great... Nick, thank you very much indeed. I hope you found a very comprehensive answer. Thank you so much, Nick, for being in touch and also sending that to me on Instagram. Wayne says, Say we all voted an actual left-wing government in tomorrow. What policies would she love to see them enact first? and how would they protect the future from another rise in the far right? I really like this question. I would really like to see some sort of like UBI, so like universal basic income or like universal basic services.

10:31I think that's the first thing we should do. I think we should ensure that everybody has like all their needs met, including like shelter, you know, people have enough money to buy quality food, healthcare, things like that. I just think everybody's basic services should be publicly funded. What is UBI, universal basic income? Universal basic income is like you get paid to do nothing, essentially. So you get paid whether or not you work. And the argument that that destroys incentives to work and therefore is bad is one you disagree with because? Because I think what motivates us in life isn't just always buying more things.

11:14you know it's not just like accumulating more a bigger car whatever like a lot of people don't just do a job for the money because that is incredibly demoralizing and you know it's it's not enjoyable i think people would be more productive if they had more time like think of like the artists the musicians you know we when you were talking about why we're nostalgic for the 1970s and all these artists come out we had like things like squatters rights and you know People could, we had a better welfare state. So, you know, like Joy Division, they all came out of Manchester. Salford, yeah, yeah, yeah.

11:51When there was a better, like, you know, like a social safety net. So you could go and start a band if you wanted. I've got to say, I'm very nostalgic for the music of the 1960s, 70s and 80s. And indeed the 90s. Thank you very much indeed for that, Wayne. Let's take a question from, this is a voice note sent in by Fiona. Hello, Fiona McWilliam here from Brighton. I'd be really keen to know what Louisa thinks schools could or should be doing to encourage or develop critical thinking skills in young people. I'd also be keen to know what you think I'm all about this. Thank you. Oh, great question, Fiona.

12:26Well, she wants to hear from you first and foremost. Okay. I think we should change the curriculum a bit. I don't think we should have like, I think the testing system is just so old fashioned. the way we sit people is so old-fashioned like I refuse in my classrooms to to get them to sit in rows like we have to sit in a circle because it's a conversation you know uh it can't be about like an authority figure is teaching you this because it's right you know there should be questions involved and I think a lot of subjects like philosophy and politics and things like that are really helpful for you know things that don't necessarily have an end question you know a right answer it's your ability to think critically English you know English is about that the humanities um I think there should be better funding for things like humanities but just generally I think there's a lot of things that um could be done in schools like you know the way you set out children and the way that we you know we sit together and the way discussion making discussion exactly making discussion and critical engagement with ideas maybe debating society is a way of doing it.

13:36I've got to, if you only ask me, so I feel duty bound to, um, to answer. I've got to be a bit careful about advocating particular things. But the one thing I would say is that the kind of the great, as it were, intellectual regret of my life is that I didn't, I came to philosophy very late. Philosophy is my great, great love, particularly the philosophy of ethics, which is different to morality. Morality is, uh, what's the right thing to do. Ethics, I think, is more, how should we live? And I kind of discovered it so late. And I don't think, going back to the early noughties when I did my A-levels, that philosophy was an A-level option of mine.

14:08And who knows, had I done it, maybe I'd have ended up doing a very different life and I've quite enjoyed my life. But I just think allowing kids to study philosophy earlier and inviting them into that tradition would be so beneficial. Philosophy is kind of broadly thinking about thinking. It comes from the Greek philosophos, which is a love of wisdom. And I just wish that I'd had the chance to really interrogate ideas and be equipped with the tools to do that at a much younger age because I would have definitely studied philosophy at university because I only discovered it in my third year and fell in love with it a bit like you had in the main episode you were talking about your awakening when you read about capitalism and markets I looked at philosophy and I was just like god this this is me well you know in France like they have to study philosophy in primary school students have to study philosophy and I think it's so indicative of the society that they have I had a friend who I used to work with when we worked in a bar together and she was from France and grew up there and she was like, one of the main reasons people go out and protest is because we're asked fundamental questions from a really early age and I think that's really, really important.

15:07Well, I didn't know that. Is that really true in France? I'm pretty sure, yeah. Wow, okay. It's a question. Thank you very much, dear Fiona. Hope Life is Beautiful in Brighton. Got a question here from Nicola who says, social media is often touted as a way to reach the masses, quote unquote, but how helpful does she think, as in do you think, Louisa, that accounts like yours are at reaching people who otherwise wouldn't be engaging with these issues and questions. Is there a possibility that she, Louisa, and others like her are preaching to the converted thanks to how the algorithms work? You know, I don't think it's such an issue of preaching to the converted because I'm not preaching.

15:48I'm just trying to give people tools to question ideas. So like, even if it just reaches people that sort of already know what the problem is, but can't quite give a language to the sort of like the oppression or the feeling that they have that something's not quite right. Then when somebody else says something and, you know, they're like, well, that's not quite right. Like, have you thought about it this way? It's like a tree, you know, it's like it branches out and branches out. And I think that's one of the important tools that social media have. And also, if you look at some of the comments on my TikTok of like, vote reform, vote reform.

16:23Like, it doesn't just reach, you know, unfortunately for me, sometimes it doesn't just reach, you know, the converted. But you do want to persuade people who are either not aware of your positions or are against your positions, of your positions, don't you? Yeah. and I think you know that is a there is a problem with social media is that it is very much like you know a tunnel for a lot of people especially this whole like rage bait thing um I think rage bait actually helps my content because you know the far right might look at it and get annoyed yeah and I think like one of the biggest opportunities before the next election is preaching to people that aren't that bothered, you know, and making them bothered.

17:09I think that's, there is probably people on the far right that are never going to change their minds. But if you've got all these people that are in the middle, that don't like banana, don't know, well, not like banana, but people who don't really know who to vote for now, then those are the kind of people the left should be focusing on. Well, on that, I want to make sure we get Titus' voice noting because it's a cracker. Just before we do that, we've got a question on that very thing, which I just want to quickly put to you from Jack. Jack, thank you for sending this in. Jack said, given your rise in popularity, do you feel a pressure to bend your politics to suit a more mainstream line of argument or discussion?

17:46No. Does it seem like it? I feel like not at all. I don't even... What is mainstream now anyway? Centrist. Whatever that means. Yeah. No, because it's an emergency. That's why I always say I'm not messing around. Like we need to do something, you know, we need radical change. We need to imagine something better. I want to be everything but mainstream, really, because mainstream isn't working for anyone. That is the kind of central fact of our politics today, isn't it? Do you know who you sound like when you say that word for word, although he's got a very different accent to you? That's exactly what Dominic Cummings says.

18:23Oh, no, don't say that. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. And you got, you know, let me be very clear. I think you and Dominic Cummings don't necessarily share the same worldview. But on this point about the old, okay, here's what I mean by that. The idea that the old order is crumbling, that we're living in this kind of zombie politics, the aftermath of something which ended probably in 2008, except it didn't end and it's still sort of crawling around this graveyard that we call modern politics. And massive change is coming, whether towards fascism, which you fear, or regime change, which he advocates.

18:57Maybe it's not just you and Dominic Cummings, maybe there's other bees in this pod. It sounds, yeah, sounds similar. Anyway, Jack, I hope that's an answer to your question. Let's take a voice note from Titus. Hi, Amol. I love the programme and have a question for Louisa Munch. I share her enthusiasm for learning and its importance for democracy, but the myth of meritocracy and role of universities in accrediting people who run society, including the advocates on all sides of public debate, mean that universities have a major role in political polarisation and the rise of the populist right. Why don't you campaign for free adult and community education, which has been almost completely wiped out in England, instead of university education, which increases political and social polarisation?

19:49What a fantastic question. I should say that Titus is in fact Titus Alexander and he's Honorary Fellow at the Crick Centre for the Public Understanding of Politics at the University of Sheffield, why don't you, Louisa, campaign for free adult and community education, which has been almost completely wiped out in England instead of university education, which increases political and social polarisation? Just before I let you answer that question, I should say, we talked in the main episode, which came out last Thursday, which people can listen back to on the Radical Feed. But you kind of started out really with your view that education should be free and that more people should go to university.

20:25Almost everyone should go to university, not because, not for instrumental reasons that it helps them get X or Y job, but because it equips them with the kind of intellectual furniture to go about the world and have agency, the tools to think critically. and one of the things that we discussed in the episode which I hope Titus and lots of other people have heard is whether or not meritocracy which was invented as a kind of warning by a guy called Michael Young meritocracy which is a way of splitting up society between the clevers and the not so clevers has actually been rather damaging and I think Titus might have that view given he says that universities increase political and social polarisation what's your answer to Titus?

21:03um i'm definitely not against like any kind of education but i think the reason i advocate for university so much is it's the university needs to change you know i don't i absolutely don't think that the university is some you know like great place that's just like free from all problems absolutely not like it has so many issues it completely needs to be reformed and to speak to that point, it does need to be seen as a place that you can come and go from throughout your life. Exactly. It doesn't sound like a radical idea, but when you look at the way we structure education and the proportion of education money that goes into people under the age of 18 as opposed to goes into people retraining later in their life, which, by the way, guys, you're going to have to do because there's a thing called AI, which is going to affect your job or take it.

21:56it's amazing how few people retrain right now and how much little how little money goes into retraining or upskilling whatever you want to call it given the fact that that is going to be fundamental to our future the thing is as well like obviously my dad's danish half my family's danish in you know like people have like four degrees in their mark because you can come and go you know i have i have family members that have spent 20 years in the care industry gone back to university because you get paid to go so who pays them the government but presumably would you then have to go back and work for the government in some capacity?

22:29No. They just invest in the people. So you get paid to go to university in Denmark in midlife, even if you then don't go back to work for the state in some capacity? Yeah. That's a radical idea. Is it? I just think like... Well, I mean, I don't think... I can't think of anyone's... Put it this way. It's outside of the over... If one definition of radical is outside the Overton window of British politics, that is I haven't heard anyone suggest that here in my lifetime. Well I think it should just be normal. I think you know like the pursuit of knowledge and the pursuit of challenging and questioning things like should always be something highly accessible to everybody and to the question where does the money come from for all these things that you want?

23:15The government? Tax the rich? Tax wealth not work? Yeah. Not sure if Titus would be on side with that i'm not sure maybe we have to get another voice note uh from you on that subject um but you'd campaign for free adult and community community education as well which is what titus is keen on yeah and i think you know i wouldn't if i just thought the university was the only place that you can go and get education i wouldn't be doing what i'm doing on social media you know i think everywhere is a space to be educated and i think you know that's what we should be thinking about reframing the way that we think about education so you know you constantly are doing Are you ever going to make money out of your social media?

23:54Probably not. I don't know. It seems mad. It's bonkers. You're educating literally millions of people. I didn't start it because I wanted to make money out of it. I started it because I want people to feel empowered and have a language in which they can challenge things and stuff. So it doesn't bother me. Obviously, it's not great out here when you don't have a lot of money. But, yeah, I don't know. They're going to feel empowered by listening to this podcast, which is the reason we set it up. Louisa, thank you so much for coming in. It's been such a joy and a delight. Have you vaguely enjoyed it?

24:26Yeah, I've loved it. It's been great. I've loved it too. Thank you, Titus. Thank you for answering our questions from listeners. Louisa, I'm going to be back on Thursday. And from Louisa and me, goodbye. Bye.

24:43If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. you