Can We Have Your Attention?

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 stopp...

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...

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 h...

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 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...

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...

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...

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 interes...

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 a...

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 -...

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 eyeb...

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 de...

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...

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 atten...

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. Hoste...

This episode was recorded at the start of December 2025. 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 mod...

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. Uncert...

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 A...

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://...

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.boo...

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...

In this trailer for the upcoming series, Claire Coady, Founder of The Attention Practice ( https://www.theattentionpractice.com/ ) and broadcaster & journalist James Wickham ( https://phonogram.co.uk/ ) introduce the podcast in which they'll explore the concept of attention, its significance in the modern world, and the challenges posed by the attention economy.