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We’ve published almost 50 articles in our long-term special series on the impact of social media on society, looking at the latest research in that rapidly moving field. One of the most recent took in interviews with teenagers and detailed some of the digital issues dominating their lives as they navigate platforms and networks. It’s important work, and well worth spending some time reading. We’ve also run a live event as part of the series and in the new year hope to produce some audio linked to it.
This week’s podcast, meanwhile, considers potatoes. China is the largest potato planting country in the world and yet traditionally potatoes are seen as a vegetable in Chinese cuisine, rather than a staple. But in 2015 the government decided to try and change that, introducing the tuber as the country’s fourth staple alongside rice, wheat and maize in an effort to improve food security. In the latest episode of The Conversation Weekly we find out why pressures on the global food system, combined with climate change are focusing minds on the need to shift national diets. Follow wherever you usually listen to your podcasts.
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timelineguru/Shutterstock
Emily Setty, University of Surrey
Most young people regard reining in the big social media platforms as only part of the solution to the ‘relentless stream’ of abuse and shaming they experience online
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China began promoting potatoes as a staple in 2015 in an effort to combat food insecurity.
chinahbzyg via Shutterstock
Gemma Ware, The Conversation; Daniel Merino, The Conversation
Why countries need to shift what their citizens eat, and what the optimum diet for our planet might be. Listen to The Conversation Weekly podcast.
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Descendants of the indigenous San people in the Kalahari Desert.
Eric Lafforgue/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Image
George Poulos, University of South Africa
The first speech sounds were uttered about 70,000 years ago and not hundreds of thousands of years ago as is sometimes claimed.
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Claire Burchett, King's College London
A group touting revisionist visions of German history wanted to install minor aristocrat Heinrich XIII as German leader.
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Sahar Maranlou, University of Essex
Iran may refuse entry to UN human rights inspectors following alleged abuses connected to the recent wave of protests.
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Wycliffe W. Njororai Simiyu, University of Texas at Tyler
Defences win championships - and Morocco has all that it takes to lift the trophy.
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Shady Cosgrove, University of Wollongong
A bear eats a teenager, and inherits his memories. An ageing woman writer buys a tower of her own – where she reimagines the crone from Rapunzel. Two inventive new books resonate with our reviewer.
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Terra Manca, Dalhousie University; Emmanuel Akwasi Marfo, University of Alberta; Laura Aylsworth, University of Alberta; Shannon E. MacDonald, University of Alberta; S. Michelle Driedger, University of Manitoba
Systemic social issues affect vaccine access and acceptability. Yet, the term ‘vaccine hesitancy’ overlooks this, reducing the multiple factors that affect vaccine uptake to individual-level choices.
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Laura Clancy, Lancaster University
An expert in contemporary British monarchy analyses the first three episodes of Harry + Meghan, the headline-grabbing Netflix show from the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
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