Topic: Collective action

Digital platforms generate unprecedented traces of human behaviour, offering new methodological approaches to understanding collective action, polarisation, and social dynamics. Through analysis of millions of digital traces across multiple studies, we demonstrate how online behaviours predict offline action: Brexit-related tribal discourse responds to real-world events, machine learning models achieve 80% accuracy in predicting real-world protest attendance from digital signals, and social validation through "likes" emerges as a key driver of mobilization. Extending this approach to conspirac

Amitav Ghosh considers why societies have struggled to imagine and respond to global warming. He argues that fiction has helped shape the priorities and consumption patterns of the modern world while often failing to confront the realities of climate change. The lecture connects stories of ordinary people and imperial histories with the cultural conditions of the climate crisis. Ghosh questions approaches that place responsibility only on individual conscience, arguing that the scale of the problem demands a collective response. His account asks how literature, public imagination and historic