Toby Bennett
@tgpb.bsky.social
Senior Lecturer in Media, Culture & Organisation at University of Westminster
Wrote a book on the mundane work that makes Big Music work; do editorial bits at Journal of Cultural Economy; some other stuff...
https://tgpbennett.wordpress.com
Wrote a book on the mundane work that makes Big Music work; do editorial bits at Journal of Cultural Economy; some other stuff...
https://tgpbennett.wordpress.com
Pinned
Toby Bennett
@tgpb.bsky.social
· Jul 12
Corporate Life in the Digital Music Industry: Remaking the Major Record Label from the Inside Out
Toby Bennett This is my first book, published by Bloomsbury in late 2024. This page contains some information, extracts, reviews, further listening and so on. From the Back Cover Drawing on a deep …
tgpbennett.wordpress.com
A page collecting stuff about my book so far - an extract from ch.1, other people's reactions, podcast appearances, a playlist of tracks to "listen along" with, etc.
Reviews welcome! If you'd like a review copy, let me know...
tgpbennett.wordpress.com/corporate-li...
Reviews welcome! If you'd like a review copy, let me know...
tgpbennett.wordpress.com/corporate-li...
Reposted by Toby Bennett
The podcast accompanies their Digital Eating Special Issue www.tandfonline.com/toc/rjce20/1... also feat @joedeville.bsky.social @evahaifa.bsky.social @christianfuentes.bsky.social among many untaggable others
February 9, 2026 at 11:09 AM
The podcast accompanies their Digital Eating Special Issue www.tandfonline.com/toc/rjce20/1... also feat @joedeville.bsky.social @evahaifa.bsky.social @christianfuentes.bsky.social among many untaggable others
Reposted by Toby Bennett
Cultural Trends is looking for new Editorial Board members. Interested in joining us? Apply by 2 March 2026.
📢 Cultural Trends | Editorial Board
Seeking new Editorial Board members from March 2026.
Welcoming scholars from under-represented regions and working on AI & culture, sustainability, CCIs, and cultural policy.
⏰ Deadline: 2 March 2026
🔗 www.tandfonline.com/journals/ccu...
Seeking new Editorial Board members from March 2026.
Welcoming scholars from under-represented regions and working on AI & culture, sustainability, CCIs, and cultural policy.
⏰ Deadline: 2 March 2026
🔗 www.tandfonline.com/journals/ccu...
Cultural Trends
Publishes timely investigations on issues in the arts, culture and creative sectors, and critically engages with policy debates from international perspectives.
www.tandfonline.com
February 9, 2026 at 11:20 AM
Cultural Trends is looking for new Editorial Board members. Interested in joining us? Apply by 2 March 2026.
Reposted by Toby Bennett
Ah, geez. This is sad:
"First Monday will cease publication, after 30 years, with the May 2026 issue, volume 31, number 6, scheduled for release around the first Monday of May, 4 May 2026."
firstmonday.org/ojs/index.ph...
"First Monday will cease publication, after 30 years, with the May 2026 issue, volume 31, number 6, scheduled for release around the first Monday of May, 4 May 2026."
firstmonday.org/ojs/index.ph...
First Monday @ 30
| First Monday
firstmonday.org
February 7, 2026 at 1:04 PM
Ah, geez. This is sad:
"First Monday will cease publication, after 30 years, with the May 2026 issue, volume 31, number 6, scheduled for release around the first Monday of May, 4 May 2026."
firstmonday.org/ojs/index.ph...
"First Monday will cease publication, after 30 years, with the May 2026 issue, volume 31, number 6, scheduled for release around the first Monday of May, 4 May 2026."
firstmonday.org/ojs/index.ph...
Reposted by Toby Bennett
Great overview (& essential reading) on the new science policy landscape in the U.K.
The biggest upheaval in UK science policy since the 1980s is currently underway, with the creation of a much more direct & explicit link between UK government priorities & £9bn/ yr of R&D funded by the agency UKRI
My attempt to explain & set in historical context
softmachines.org?p=3252
My attempt to explain & set in historical context
softmachines.org?p=3252
UK science policy in transition – Soft Machines, by Richard Jones
softmachines.org
February 7, 2026 at 10:11 AM
Great overview (& essential reading) on the new science policy landscape in the U.K.
I think I ended up in the same place. I agree "AI" is mostly playing the role of a utopian technosocial imaginary (a la flying cars or space travel), and demands a different political valence, but I think he is positing it as a material means of actualising cybernetic socialism (as well)?
I actually agree with a lot of stuff in @evgenymorozov.bsky.social's follow-up essay (which, despite the snark, I liked a lot more than the first one)! And yet, I vehemently disagree on the role of AI as sketched in the essay.
The Socialist Charcuterie Board - The Ideas Letter
Taking issue with Benanav’s institutional vision of a democratic political economy of technology, Morozov argues that generative AI exposes a deeper problem that socialism has yet to solve: how to…
www.theideasletter.org
February 7, 2026 at 10:07 AM
I think I ended up in the same place. I agree "AI" is mostly playing the role of a utopian technosocial imaginary (a la flying cars or space travel), and demands a different political valence, but I think he is positing it as a material means of actualising cybernetic socialism (as well)?
Reposted by Toby Bennett
I'll let this graph sit with me for a while, I especially think the distinction between Playful Productivism and Worldmaking is not something I had really thought through before, and it seems worth contemplating
February 7, 2026 at 12:34 AM
I'll let this graph sit with me for a while, I especially think the distinction between Playful Productivism and Worldmaking is not something I had really thought through before, and it seems worth contemplating
Reposted by Toby Bennett
I actually agree with a lot of stuff in @evgenymorozov.bsky.social's follow-up essay (which, despite the snark, I liked a lot more than the first one)! And yet, I vehemently disagree on the role of AI as sketched in the essay.
The Socialist Charcuterie Board - The Ideas Letter
Taking issue with Benanav’s institutional vision of a democratic political economy of technology, Morozov argues that generative AI exposes a deeper problem that socialism has yet to solve: how to…
www.theideasletter.org
February 7, 2026 at 12:34 AM
I actually agree with a lot of stuff in @evgenymorozov.bsky.social's follow-up essay (which, despite the snark, I liked a lot more than the first one)! And yet, I vehemently disagree on the role of AI as sketched in the essay.
Reposted by Toby Bennett
“no one who has witnessed over two years of genocide in Gaza is likely to disagree with either Hammad or Said that the intellectual class has utterly failed to fulfill its social function”
"What is the task of the intellectual at a time when, at the heart of liberal democracies, genocide is normalized and protest suppressed?"
Rebecca Ruth Gould revisits Edward Said: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/edward-said-representations-intellectual-gaza-crisis-israel-fitzcarraldo/
Rebecca Ruth Gould revisits Edward Said: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/edward-said-representations-intellectual-gaza-crisis-israel-fitzcarraldo/
February 7, 2026 at 8:12 AM
“no one who has witnessed over two years of genocide in Gaza is likely to disagree with either Hammad or Said that the intellectual class has utterly failed to fulfill its social function”
Reposted by Toby Bennett
if you're not following this stuff private credit sounds like its private investors' risk but in all sorts of ways through pensions mortgages and life insurance this is not private risk but public risk. what's happening is even less transparent than the run up to 2008 imvho
February 6, 2026 at 5:33 PM
if you're not following this stuff private credit sounds like its private investors' risk but in all sorts of ways through pensions mortgages and life insurance this is not private risk but public risk. what's happening is even less transparent than the run up to 2008 imvho
Friday evening food for thought maybe...
What's the future of AI? Who's the most attractive virtual boyfriend? Why is the venerable historian Quentin Skinner concerned about the gig economy? How do you study a database? What did I come away from a Beijing record store with?
Answers to all this and more here!
Answers to all this and more here!
Some things I read, listened to and thought about in January: AI's Economy of Scale; Chinese masculinity, music and Maoist discourse; and a few bits and pieces of intellectual history and so on.
Part one of an effort to develop a reflective writing habit.
tgpbennett.wordpress.com/2026/02/03/h...
Part one of an effort to develop a reflective writing habit.
tgpbennett.wordpress.com/2026/02/03/h...
February 6, 2026 at 5:42 PM
Friday evening food for thought maybe...
Reposted by Toby Bennett
This is remarkably Stuart Hall-esque argumentation:
"many pages of intricate design [...] with a striking silence about political strategy. How does any of this become plausible? Contestable? Lovable? Winnable? [...] It cedes the terrain of technological imagination to the Thiels and the Musks"
"many pages of intricate design [...] with a striking silence about political strategy. How does any of this become plausible? Contestable? Lovable? Winnable? [...] It cedes the terrain of technological imagination to the Thiels and the Musks"
My essay on socialism after AI has triggered quite a debate - so much so that I wrote a much longer second essay. That same issue of The Ideas Letter also contains two lengthy responses to my original piece www.theideasletter.org/essay/the-so...
The Socialist Charcuterie Board - The Ideas Letter
Taking issue with Benanav’s institutional vision of a democratic political economy of technology, Morozov argues that generative AI exposes a deeper problem that socialism has yet to solve: how to…
www.theideasletter.org
February 5, 2026 at 10:19 PM
This is remarkably Stuart Hall-esque argumentation:
"many pages of intricate design [...] with a striking silence about political strategy. How does any of this become plausible? Contestable? Lovable? Winnable? [...] It cedes the terrain of technological imagination to the Thiels and the Musks"
"many pages of intricate design [...] with a striking silence about political strategy. How does any of this become plausible? Contestable? Lovable? Winnable? [...] It cedes the terrain of technological imagination to the Thiels and the Musks"
Reposted by Toby Bennett
What might we be able to build in the future that we can't build today? For the @TheIdeasLetter, I wrote about the political economy of technology and technological change in a world beyond capitalism.
www.theideasletter.org/essay/a-real...
www.theideasletter.org/essay/a-real...
A Real Political Economy of Technology - The Ideas Letter
Two technological futures are competing for political and material priority: generative AI and the green transition. Benanav argues that while AI is marketed as a world-reordering breakthrough, its pr...
www.theideasletter.org
February 6, 2026 at 3:33 AM
What might we be able to build in the future that we can't build today? For the @TheIdeasLetter, I wrote about the political economy of technology and technological change in a world beyond capitalism.
www.theideasletter.org/essay/a-real...
www.theideasletter.org/essay/a-real...
This is remarkably Stuart Hall-esque argumentation:
"many pages of intricate design [...] with a striking silence about political strategy. How does any of this become plausible? Contestable? Lovable? Winnable? [...] It cedes the terrain of technological imagination to the Thiels and the Musks"
"many pages of intricate design [...] with a striking silence about political strategy. How does any of this become plausible? Contestable? Lovable? Winnable? [...] It cedes the terrain of technological imagination to the Thiels and the Musks"
My essay on socialism after AI has triggered quite a debate - so much so that I wrote a much longer second essay. That same issue of The Ideas Letter also contains two lengthy responses to my original piece www.theideasletter.org/essay/the-so...
The Socialist Charcuterie Board - The Ideas Letter
Taking issue with Benanav’s institutional vision of a democratic political economy of technology, Morozov argues that generative AI exposes a deeper problem that socialism has yet to solve: how to…
www.theideasletter.org
February 5, 2026 at 10:19 PM
This is remarkably Stuart Hall-esque argumentation:
"many pages of intricate design [...] with a striking silence about political strategy. How does any of this become plausible? Contestable? Lovable? Winnable? [...] It cedes the terrain of technological imagination to the Thiels and the Musks"
"many pages of intricate design [...] with a striking silence about political strategy. How does any of this become plausible? Contestable? Lovable? Winnable? [...] It cedes the terrain of technological imagination to the Thiels and the Musks"
Finished. If this academia thing falls through, think a future career in set design awaits me. As long as it's exclusively for Where's Wally immersive experiences.
February 5, 2026 at 9:34 PM
Finished. If this academia thing falls through, think a future career in set design awaits me. As long as it's exclusively for Where's Wally immersive experiences.
Reposted by Toby Bennett
What's the future of AI? Who's the most attractive virtual boyfriend? Why is the venerable historian Quentin Skinner concerned about the gig economy? How do you study a database? What did I come away from a Beijing record store with?
Answers to all this and more here!
Answers to all this and more here!
Some things I read, listened to and thought about in January: AI's Economy of Scale; Chinese masculinity, music and Maoist discourse; and a few bits and pieces of intellectual history and so on.
Part one of an effort to develop a reflective writing habit.
tgpbennett.wordpress.com/2026/02/03/h...
Part one of an effort to develop a reflective writing habit.
tgpbennett.wordpress.com/2026/02/03/h...
Hypomnemata: January 2026
Hypomnemata: “a material record of things read, heard, or thought […] a kind of accumulated treasure for subsequent rereading and meditation […] a regular and deliberate prac…
tgpbennett.wordpress.com
February 4, 2026 at 6:04 PM
What's the future of AI? Who's the most attractive virtual boyfriend? Why is the venerable historian Quentin Skinner concerned about the gig economy? How do you study a database? What did I come away from a Beijing record store with?
Answers to all this and more here!
Answers to all this and more here!
When I used to hang around music people, and music questions were how you said hi, I'd ask not "what music are you into" but "what music do you hate". They'd look at me like the deliberately contrarian nob I definitely was but it really was a good way of quickly finding out what makes people tick.
Fuck your favourite song. Tell me your least favourite song. The one that makes you die inside the moment you hear the first 3 seconds.
February 4, 2026 at 10:00 PM
When I used to hang around music people, and music questions were how you said hi, I'd ask not "what music are you into" but "what music do you hate". They'd look at me like the deliberately contrarian nob I definitely was but it really was a good way of quickly finding out what makes people tick.
What's the future of AI? Who's the most attractive virtual boyfriend? Why is the venerable historian Quentin Skinner concerned about the gig economy? How do you study a database? What did I come away from a Beijing record store with?
Answers to all this and more here!
Answers to all this and more here!
Some things I read, listened to and thought about in January: AI's Economy of Scale; Chinese masculinity, music and Maoist discourse; and a few bits and pieces of intellectual history and so on.
Part one of an effort to develop a reflective writing habit.
tgpbennett.wordpress.com/2026/02/03/h...
Part one of an effort to develop a reflective writing habit.
tgpbennett.wordpress.com/2026/02/03/h...
Hypomnemata: January 2026
Hypomnemata: “a material record of things read, heard, or thought […] a kind of accumulated treasure for subsequent rereading and meditation […] a regular and deliberate prac…
tgpbennett.wordpress.com
February 4, 2026 at 6:04 PM
What's the future of AI? Who's the most attractive virtual boyfriend? Why is the venerable historian Quentin Skinner concerned about the gig economy? How do you study a database? What did I come away from a Beijing record store with?
Answers to all this and more here!
Answers to all this and more here!
Reposted by Toby Bennett
Funny (telling) quote about ERPs from 1998: "“We plan to use SAP as a battering ram to make our culture less autonomous.” hbr.org/1998/07/putt...
February 4, 2026 at 4:34 PM
Funny (telling) quote about ERPs from 1998: "“We plan to use SAP as a battering ram to make our culture less autonomous.” hbr.org/1998/07/putt...
Reposted by Toby Bennett
Some things I read, listened to and thought about in January: AI's Economy of Scale; Chinese masculinity, music and Maoist discourse; and a few bits and pieces of intellectual history and so on.
Part one of an effort to develop a reflective writing habit.
tgpbennett.wordpress.com/2026/02/03/h...
Part one of an effort to develop a reflective writing habit.
tgpbennett.wordpress.com/2026/02/03/h...
Hypomnemata: January 2026
Hypomnemata: “a material record of things read, heard, or thought […] a kind of accumulated treasure for subsequent rereading and meditation […] a regular and deliberate prac…
tgpbennett.wordpress.com
February 3, 2026 at 7:32 PM
Some things I read, listened to and thought about in January: AI's Economy of Scale; Chinese masculinity, music and Maoist discourse; and a few bits and pieces of intellectual history and so on.
Part one of an effort to develop a reflective writing habit.
tgpbennett.wordpress.com/2026/02/03/h...
Part one of an effort to develop a reflective writing habit.
tgpbennett.wordpress.com/2026/02/03/h...
Reposted by Toby Bennett
To mark and memorialize the passing of Graeme Turner, the 2015 special issue of Cultural Studies on Turner’s scholarship and impact—“What’s Become of Australian Cultural Studies?: The Legacies of Graeme Turner”—is available to read by all through the end of April: www.tandfonline.com/toc/rcus20/2...
February 3, 2026 at 9:17 PM
To mark and memorialize the passing of Graeme Turner, the 2015 special issue of Cultural Studies on Turner’s scholarship and impact—“What’s Become of Australian Cultural Studies?: The Legacies of Graeme Turner”—is available to read by all through the end of April: www.tandfonline.com/toc/rcus20/2...
I always wondered if this really was what Gramsci meant. But it's true anyway.
“Gramsci used to say 'Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will'. What he meant is: understand how the bloody system works.” - Stuart Hall, born Feb. 3, 1932
February 3, 2026 at 8:43 PM
I always wondered if this really was what Gramsci meant. But it's true anyway.
Reposted by Toby Bennett
This is a must-read, but I can't help thinking that more emphasis needs to be placed on the resonance between the pursuit of scientific scale for AI and the underlying and explicit pursuit of business scale at all costs for platforms and investors
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Donald MacKenzie · AI’s Scale
AI’s scale doesn’t matter just to specialists. The rest of us are being taken on a ride along the logarithmic curve...
www.lrb.co.uk
February 3, 2026 at 7:38 PM
This is a must-read, but I can't help thinking that more emphasis needs to be placed on the resonance between the pursuit of scientific scale for AI and the underlying and explicit pursuit of business scale at all costs for platforms and investors
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Some things I read, listened to and thought about in January: AI's Economy of Scale; Chinese masculinity, music and Maoist discourse; and a few bits and pieces of intellectual history and so on.
Part one of an effort to develop a reflective writing habit.
tgpbennett.wordpress.com/2026/02/03/h...
Part one of an effort to develop a reflective writing habit.
tgpbennett.wordpress.com/2026/02/03/h...
Hypomnemata: January 2026
Hypomnemata: “a material record of things read, heard, or thought […] a kind of accumulated treasure for subsequent rereading and meditation […] a regular and deliberate prac…
tgpbennett.wordpress.com
February 3, 2026 at 7:32 PM
Some things I read, listened to and thought about in January: AI's Economy of Scale; Chinese masculinity, music and Maoist discourse; and a few bits and pieces of intellectual history and so on.
Part one of an effort to develop a reflective writing habit.
tgpbennett.wordpress.com/2026/02/03/h...
Part one of an effort to develop a reflective writing habit.
tgpbennett.wordpress.com/2026/02/03/h...
Bit the bullet and bought a car for the first time in over two decades. Don't feel great about it but the only saving grace is that I now have this going round my head constantly.
youtu.be/7MqMZ6XqMfc?...
youtu.be/7MqMZ6XqMfc?...
Alexei Sayle Ullo John Gotta New Motor
YouTube video by Barry Ryder
youtu.be
February 1, 2026 at 8:17 PM
Bit the bullet and bought a car for the first time in over two decades. Don't feel great about it but the only saving grace is that I now have this going round my head constantly.
youtu.be/7MqMZ6XqMfc?...
youtu.be/7MqMZ6XqMfc?...