HuK Forum

This talk attempts to connect two strands of working and thinking. The session will introduce and recontextualise earlier work on Brexit and polarisation (Yates & MacRury, 2021; 2022) taking up the opportunity afforded by nearly a decade of retrospection and to integrate insights from changes in media ecologies and patterns of media use ( MacRury, 2024). It explores an interplay between psychosocial, cultural, and media dynamics in shaping the socio-political communications environments. Drawing on psychoanalytic and psychosocial perspectives, the talk examines how "failures of empathy" (Yates & MacRury, 2021) and the emotional dimensions of shame (Yates & MacRury, 2022) continue to influence political engagement/non engagement in a media landscape increasingly dominated by misinformation, programmatic advertising, and algorithmic curation. These structural shifts are framed as attacks on our capacity to "think", echoing conceptions from within the psychoanalytic work of Bion. Such attacks and evasions undermine deliberative everyday politics and contribute to the persistence of polarisation and a variety of forms of disengagement/retreat. The talk argues for renewed attention to fostering "recognition", "containment", and critical media/digital literacy as elements in engagement within an evolving communications environment.