Well, there we have it. Labour was riding high in the polls for weeks, eyeing a "supermajority" of potentially over 200 seats that would make Tony Blair blush. But on social media, it was a different story – perhaps more meh than super.
While Sir Keir was right to be measuring the curtains for Number 10, Nigel Farage and Reform cleaned up online and may cause some concern at the prospect of expanding the voting franchise at the next election. They outpaced Labour 7-to-1 on Facebook interactions, and Farage's personal TikToks got more views (with an average of 552,000 per video) than either the Labour Party's or the Tory's official accounts. There is evidence the social media first strategy cut through with future key demographics too, with pollsters JL Partners finding that Reform was second place with 16-17 year olds and tied for first place with male 16-17 year olds and the view that "migration is too high" was up 12 points in a month among 18-24 year olds to be the majority viewpoint in that voting age group. Perhaps giving some food for thought to Labour about introducing votes for younger age groups in the next Parliament.
This week, we took part in the second London Data Week and were incredibly proud to do so. We hosted Data Time TV, featuring Hannah Redler-Hawes (Director of the Data as Culture programme at the ODI) and Dr Denis Newman-Griffis (University of Sheffield) discussing the role of data in art and culture, Molly Hrudka (the FA), Adam Freeman-Pask (Fulham Reach Boat Club) and Andrew Newman (the ODI), while Gavin Freeguard donned his gold lamé jacket once again for the Data Game, with Miranda Sharp and Stefan Webb (TPXImpact). There were many other fantastic events across the capital, including Open UK’s launch of their Open Manifesto 2024, so check that out.
We were delighted to announce this week that Blast Theory will be artist in residence for the University of Sheffield’s Framing Responsible AI Implementation and Management (FRAIM) project. FRAIM aims to guide organisations planning to adopt responsible AI in practice and improve public understanding of the human aspects of AI in our everyday lives. As the embedded artist in residence, Blast Theory will engage in the different stages and dimensions of the research project, respond to and reflect on the ideas and perspectives surfacing, and create a publicly accessible artwork that can be exhibited or shared. The research project is a cross-sector partnership of four organisations – Sheffield City Council, the British Library, Eviden, and the ODI, through our Data as Culture programme.
And finally, join us next week as our focus on data-centric AI continues for a free webinar with Lee Tiedrich, a widely recognized leader in artificial intelligence, data, and emerging technologies, in conversation with the ODI’s Director of Research Professor Elena Simperl. They will discuss the current data scraping legal and policy landscape, including the mounting disputes. It takes place online on Thursday 11 July 16:00-17:00 BST, so get your free tickets now.
Until next time…
David and the Comms team
