presidential nominee all the way to the white house. do we believe in freedom? we're also going to hear about the practicalities of covering the olympics as paris 2024 gets under way. well, not for the first time and certainly not for the last on the media show, we will talk about us politics and the media because it's now looking very likely that kamala harris will be the democratic presidential nominee and since that has been the case, there has been a surge of interest in her online with thousands of memes and videos being shared and many of them centre around this clip. my mother used to — she would give us a hard time sometimes and she would say to us, "i don't know what's wrong with you young people. "you think you just fell

out of a coconut tree?" laughs. you exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you. # yeah, 360. # when you're in the mirror, do you like what you see? i you think you just fell out of a coconut tree? # i'm everywhere, i'm sojulia. # ah—ah, ah. you exist in the context... # 666 with a princess streak. # i'm everywhere, i'm sojulia. # ah—ah, ah. of all in which you live and what came before you. well, we started by speaking to v spehar, an american tiktokker and political advocate who posts to their 3 million follower on the profile underthedesknews. so, what's happening in that clip is kamala is using her standard way of communicating things to not just young people but everyone through metaphor. she often invokes stories of her mother or tries to make something complicated a little bit easier to understand through these viral clips and advice—giving, i guess i would call it? and is it something because my understanding of this is that previously, kamala's laugh, for example, has been turned

into a meme, there've been various things going viral, coming from the sort of of anti—democrat side and now, the democrat side seem to be embracing it. just talk us through that. so, i think what you are seeing is the separation of kamala from the biden administration and joe biden in particular. joe biden became a less popular figure, especially among young people, given his decisions and the way that things have been unfolding in the middle east and now that kamala is able to step outside of that a little bit and run her own campaign, i think people are feeling a bit more defensive of her up against maga and trump than they were when she was sort of couched in the joe biden world. so, yes, the conservatives here, the republican party, the maga party likes to make fun of her, likes to make these things, make her look like she doesn't know how to speak well, they tried to present her as a bimbo or an unintelligent person and now, we're seeing young people and the left taking those slings and arrows and turn them into memes and positives. and we often hear — i mean, we were talking a few

weeks ago when we had our election about this has being the tiktok election. it turned out not to be. yeah. we often hear about politicians trying to be popular online. there's a lot of reports about how she is. is she, and how new is it? i would say kamala's popularity online is extremely new — like, as early as two days new — and one thing to note is that she herself does not have a tiktok, it's not her trying to appeal to the tiktok caucus, if you will, by making her own content. this content is being made about her and she is sort of giving like a gentle funny nod to it but without completely diving in. i think it's actually a mistake that the biden committee made when theyjoined tiktok and started making their own memes. as soon as you start to meme yourself, it loses the fun. i was talking at the top of this item about your huge following, 3 million. yes. as a tiktokker, you clearly have access to a huge number of young voters — the kinds of people that politicians

are absolutely desperate to reach. are the politicians beating down your door to get their message out via your platforms? yes! during the last election, we saw this where we could say that gen 2 was a deciding factor on biden getting in and i think now that tiktok isn'tjust for gen 2 but rather, more of a citizen journalism place and an activism place, we're going to see that same enthusiasm for kamala. what is your assessment of what works? is it about appealing to them on the issues that you know they're interested in or how does it work? i think it's definitely about authenticity. i think anyone who comes on tiktok and is trying to be like, hello, fellow kids!" like, "look at what i am doing and i've always been here!," it totally flops, so i think if you are authentic online, you're presenting your message and your record in a way that respects the audience and appreciates that they are intelligent and can take in complicated concepts and you do not try to make everything like a dance or a joke because you think that's what they are interested in, you will do very well as a candidate. and i think that's what we will see from kamala harris a ton. i don't see her personally joining the platform but i do see her leaning into

acknowledging the memes about her or maybe even having more of her speeches go viral on the platform. a lot of people were saying they were going to sit out this election and now, we're seeing so many first—time donors, a surge in registration to vote and even excitement about wanting to go to the dnc — there are many creators on tiktok who are trying to get tickets to go to the democratic national convention to see her live. v, it's great having you on the media show. please stay with us. let's bring in mimi mihailescu, postdoctoral research fellow at the university of bath. and mimi, you research how memes impact politics, so it's great to have you on this particular item on the media show. i suppose before we go any further, given that you study them, how would you define a meme? so, the most understandable definition would be a unit - of culture that can . replicate and mutate. so, this has been coined i by richard dawkins in 1976,

so it's not a new concept. memes and satire and political satire existed for a long time i but i would say that - memes became very famous with the internet, - so as the internet started, we got the memes. and we've been hearing about how many memes are centred around kamala harris at the moment. you've looked at lots of different countries and different politicians. is it possible to see a pattern as to which politicians become the centre of many memes? yes, so we have recently seen something which is more - on the personality ofl the politicians, rather than the party. so, right now, we live in a spectacle. - so, memes are helping with that spectacle. - politics is notjust- a traditional form of getting your thoughts out there, creating policies. - now, you need to. become a celebrity.

you need to be charismatic and you need to have a personalityl that backs you up. otherwise, you won't be able to do anything. - and, as we have said, - you need to be authentic. we, as a generation, l and as humanity itself, we are so fed up with being i taught a story and not having any substance so i think right| now, our politicians are trying to get their authenticity through the memes, i through appealing through i a new form of communication that steers away from the traditional formsi ofjournalism media and - creating their own form of it. but i am interested that you say there's frustration that more traditional forms of media don't contain sufficient substance because some people may have a perception of memes that are good fun and tell us things about how we perceive politicians or policies but that they don't contain

an awful lot of substance. yeah, so i interviewed meme creators for my research - and all of them said - the same thing — the meme isjust a beginning. you just have a little piecej of the image, a little piece of that story, and it'si yourjob to find more. so, through memes, you just get a little aspect _ of what has been discussed. it could be really humorous, it could be really amusing i but then, it contains a story, so it's up to you and up- to your media literacy - to find which is the truth. so, memes cannot educate people but they can steer l and influence their opinion towards something. - and some of the work that's underpinning the analysis that you were sharing with us is your focus on romania and i was surprised to learn earlier — i confess and apologise i did not know realise this before today — that romania has a particularly strong meme culture.

tell us about that and why you think romania particularly turns to memes when people want to pass comment or learn about politics? or learn about politics. so, romanian is a former communist country. - since '89, we had the most- gruesome communist revolution out of all of the former communist countries. i and there is a huge i disapprovement with the government, huge - disapprovement the politicians. so, by having the chance . to create your own political messages and having the power to meet up in a more — - not traditional form i of politics is what kind of grew this meme campaign — this need of the younger- generation to stand up for what they think, i because there is a huge disagreement betweenl

the mainstream political- section and the youth section within the mainstream politicians. _ so, we can see that— inside the mainstream political parties but on the internet, i you have the power to become your own form of political. actors and you can become the new, let's say, influencer, - you can become someone who can share their opinion and who can sway the opinion of others. - 0k, mimi, just stay there, please. thank you so much. i want to bring v spehar back in and your 3 million followers from underthenewsdesk butjust a question to you, v, about whether — it is right that memes traditionally have been something that have been successfully used more by the right than the left? yeah, i think memes are the new version of political cartoons, which were also, you know, used for good and used for propaganda. it's something that sort of you think, it's easy to digest, it'sjust

a clip of information. it's really top of the news funnel kind of stuff. i think often, political cartoons and memes are there to lightly bully people, in some cases. but what we are seeing in the kamala harris case is the uk artist, actually, charli xcx, calling her — saying kamala is brat, has spawned this whole meme culture of, kamala brat memes, which shows how much she has captured the culture and the youth here that they are taking something that may have been used historically to criticise or to satirise a political figure and they're using it to debunk myths about her, to make her cool, to show that she is included in their culture, so i think it is very interesting. and do you think they work? is there evidence? i think you worked with the democrats on the 2022 mid—term elections, you did a video with barack obama. did campaigning and memes make an impact there? absolutely, same as it does with any artform, like songs or back to the political cartoons. i think it's something that's relatable to people, they can immediately kind of get an idea of what it's about, they are entertained

by that, they enjoy them, and it's something that the public can also make for themselves. there is not like a professional authority on meme making — anyone can do it, and that's what's fun about it. it makes other people feel included and gives them a chance to go vital for their creativity or whatever fun thing they come up with and i think it is part of the fun of memes is not just their shareability but how democratised the process of making a meme can be. mimi mihailescu, what about you? is there evidence out there — hard evidence — that this works, that meme campaigning works in elections? it's hard to point it down - on specifics because you cannot really quantify votes and how they got from the memes - to the actual voting station . because we have seen memes are online but the numberl of the people are going out for votes is not good. like, we have seen a lot- of shares, we have seen a lot of people commenting -

on politics, we have seen a lot of people creating and engaging with memes but yet, _ there is a disconnect between going to the actual votes. - so, memes can be there i to educate but at the same time, i believe that- through that education, you get more and more - dissatisfied with what you have to choose from. so, that's kind of creating i that disconnect, so you have the meme where you're . presenting all the politics, presenting all the information into shortened, concise - messages and people are just using them to educate - themselves and probably decide they won't go for a vote - because they havel no—one to vote for. 0k, well, that's a depressing note to end on! politicians clearly think they work or if not, they are hedging because they don't know if they do they don't but they will put some money into it. thank you so much for coming on the programme, both of you. well, the paris 2024 olympics are here and on the media show,

we're going to look at two elements of them. in a moment, we will get into the business deals that underpin the media coverage of the games but first of all, let's hear about the practicalities of covering them from one of the many, many journalists who are heading to france. nicole auerbach is from the athletic. it's going to be a grind. these are long days. just to peel back the curtain, i will probably be getting there and staying at the swimming venue just outside of paris for 10—14 hours per day to cover the preliminary heats in the morning, through the finals and all of the media availabilities at night. must be tempting just to stay there! i know! if they could put up a little cot or something, i would take a nap. and how do you prepare for those 10 or 11! days? how do you get your head sufficiently into the detail of all of the different competitors you are going to be watching? well, it is totally cramming — that's what i've been doing for the past few months.

the sport that i typically cover full—time at home is college football — american college football — so very different. even if you pop in on olympic sport — like, olympic swimming has been mine since london and rio, and covering national meets or even world championship meets, that's maybe once a year. but really, it's about going to trials and qualifying meets, checking up, comparing everything to the top times of all of the top competitors. i will be covering this event through an american lens but obviously, there are a lot of international storylines of interest for swim fans and for the broader sports fans out there, so it's reallyjust trying to get a sense of what has changed since tokyo, who are the emerging stars who we think would be breakout players and names coming out of this and then, just kind of those macro storylines — like for swimming, example, the americans and the aussies have been having a battle — a war of words about a battle for supremacy and whether or not this will be the first time since 1988 that the us do not have the most gold medals in the pool. so, it's going to be very

interesting and it's kind of balancing all of that cramming, looking up times, seeing how people have swum over the last four years and seeing who is coming in as favourites and who would be underdogs. i'm interested — you mentioned these stars of the pool. do you get access to them when you are reporting, doing this 10—14 hour days? can you actually speak to them? yes, you do. so again, peeling back the curtain, you are assigned — there are seating areas, called the press tribunal, and you can watch all of the events for swimming because it is a high—demand event. sometimes each outlet is limited on how many tickets they get to the finals. but basically, you are running back and forth. there is a mixed zone which is all of the athletes after they compete, they come through in area, they stop for a couple of minutes, maybe 2—3 minutes max, give you a couple of quotes and then, they go on and they do their post—race routines. if they medal — if they are gold, silver or bronze, they will have a press conference as well later into the evening. but that's pretty much what the access looks like. you could set up things with people, families

or coaches or talk to people on the phone as well. but really, it's about capturing the emotion, and that's what i try to do in these events and especially after swimming, i'll bounce around a little bit — beach volleyball and maybe tennis — and so, even on those, i'm maybe less prepared because i have not spent the past few months learning about all of these athletes. it's about the human interest angle, it's about the emotion and either achieving something that you've always dreamt of or falling just short and telling that story to the audience. well, nicole, i'm definitely going to be reading. thank you so much for speaking to me. as you're talking, you remind me of a british sports journalist. i always remember he said this a few years ago. he said covering the olympics is an extraordinary privilege because you are essentially seeing athletes having either the most important day of their life or one of the most important days of their life, so... or maybe one of the worst! maybe one of the worst but they are in a moment that matters an awful amount and every person you're interacting with is in that space. nicole, on a more mundane level, i would say good luck. i was in paris last weekend

and the whole of the centre of the city seemed to be blocked off by crash barriers, you cannot get anywhere, you can't get near the seine. most parisians seem have left, if they can, in a sort of grumpy way. but i'm sure as soon as that incredible opening ceremony starts going down the seine, everyone will change their minds. but we have, as we were hearing from a printjournalist there, important to also hear from the broadcasters and max miller is a sport and tech reporter at broadcast magazine and dade hayes is business editor at deadline. max, starting with you. talk to us about those broadcasting rights for the olympics. how does the international olympic committee sell them? yes, so, it's basically split up by region. the ioc will come out and say, "well, we're selling the rights "for europe or specifically forthe us orforthe uk "across the world." broadcasters come in and make their bids and generally, the person with a highest bid will win but it can also take into account things like the promotion that broadcaster will put into it

and how they will cover it and the number of people who they can get to watch the sport as well. it's not just money— based. are they buying individual sports or packages for individual sports or all of the sports? with the ioc, you are buying the whole olympics, so you're getting the summer olympics, the winter olympics. the most recent cycle would have been 2018—2024, ending this year. when warner bros discovery — or it was discovery back then — bought the summer and winter olympics for those six years entirely for europe. in terms of the production around it, i mean, are there centralised camera crews who cover all of the events and then feed it out to everybody? how does it work? yes. the ioc has its own in—house broadcasting team, basically, called the olympic broadcasting services, and they will film all the live content, so all of the sport that you see is from them. it goes out to the broadcasters who add on their own studio shows and their own interviews and commentary and kind of the more creative side of it, i guess, on the end. right.

i would like to bring dade in — dade hayes from deadline in the us, just to give us the american perspective. dade, hello. who has bought the rights in the us and do we know how much they paid for them? yes — comcast, which owns nbcuniversal, renewed - their deal in 2021. they paid 7.7 billion, - and it runs through 2032. nbc actually goes back to barcelona in '92. - they have a long—standing - relationship with the olympics. even when comcast came| in and acquired the media company, they decided to kind of maintain the tradition - and so, they've made - a long—term commitment to the games. there's a lot of money but presumably, they think it is worth it. what are the risks and rewards for a broadcaster? it's so fascinating, honestly. that question gets more - complex, as max can probably attest to answer, because it isn't just down strictly - to ratings points. of course, prime time i and linear ratings aren't nearly what they used to be

and particularly coming offi of a couple of rough olympics due to covid and beijing had i a strange valence because of the chinese government — i it was essentially an off cycle, i think everybody could agree. so, the benchmarks are - different because they were in the pre—streaming era — london, rio. _ these were sort of- pre—streaming numbers and people did tune in. now, where can we get to compare to that? . it's hard to say. but if you speak to - nbcuniversal executives, they would say that they've monetised these rights - in a host of different ways. they're really using it. for hospitality, for brand activations, for talent deals. i mean, if you look around at who they are flying - into paris, it's major film. producers who have a deal at universal, it's, you know, saturday night live talent, i colinjost is in tahiti covering the surfing| competition. so, they use it as a kind of synergistic play, - as a kind of maypole to wrap

so many of their corporate . initiatives around and so, they insist it's worth - it, it's profitable. even as a discrete business, it's profitable, but if you - look at the entire portfolio, theyjust feel it's a good . look, it's in the dna of comcast. - dade, picking up a couple of thoughts you shared with us because as you and max will know, there are new sports in the olympics this year. breaking — or breakdancing, as some people call it — kayak cross and others. and notjust that — some of the broadcasters are bringing new talent as well. nbc has booked some interesting — surprising — commentators and this is one of them. # hands up let the beat go. # it's snoop dogg coming back with your rico. # gold medals on a gold coast. # usa all day. # what do people say? # the dogg is on the scene in paris. # but why? # from the lbc to nbc. # ooh, oui!

that's right — snoop dogg is, to quote him, on the scene in paris. that's a promo for the nbc olympic coverage. dade, help me. how did that happen? they are eager to connect across generations, - across cultures, gol as wide as they can. snoop has this remarkably. versatile and flexible persona where he does connect across generations and with various i audiences, so they are putting him to work, l i have to say. he has been part of the olympic trials coverage, participated - in a press call literallyj an hour ago that ijust concluded before coming online with you guys. - hold on — you were on a press call with snoop dogg before the media show? now we are really impressed! i know! i disconnected with them, don't worry. j what did he say? shockingly, he did not break a lot of news. . but he was quite passionate, i would say, about — - he even got quite emotional, which was a bit of a surprise, about representation, - the idea of kind of blazing a bit of a trail-

and introducing new — potentially new viewers - to the experience and kind of — he recalled watching _ muhammad ali carrying the torch in atlanta, a very moving moment, so, you know,| he's into it. so, it's partly about on—air talent but presumably, both dade and max, it's also partly about how the sport is bundled up for particularly younger audiences to consume because some of them are not going to watch hours and hours on the television. so, max, do they also — has the ioc also sold bundles of clips? who has the right to push out a clip on youtube or x or tiktok or whatever it may be? yes, in that situation — in europe, at least — warner bros discovery have the rights to it — entirelyjust for the clips as well — and so, they will share that out as they please basically. so, they've done a deal with youtube actually quite recently — in the last month or two — and as part of that, they are showing highlights on youtube, they are showing both the opening and closing ceremonies on youtube and got, kind of interestingly, a bunch of influencers

from different countries across europe who will go to the games and film content both from the sport and culturally around paris. thanks to all of our guests who spoke to us about the paris olympics. are you going to be watching, katie? i'm quite keen on the athletics — i'm a bit of a traditionalist. are you? so, i'm going to go athletics. i'm not sure i'm going to get into the breakdancing. no? i watch everything at the olympics. i watch lots of sports that i normally wouldn't watch. yeah, it is exciting. part of the pleasure of it is just seeing all of these sports you may not know playing out with the best people in the world. you don't have any time, ros — how are you doing that? that's true, but time allowing, i'm doing to watch as much as i can. that's it. thank you very much indeed for watching. from both of us, bye—bye. goodbye. if you's like to hear a longer version of today's show, search bbc the media show wherever you get your bbc podcasts. hello there! the weekend started with some more showers around, but those showers have moved away

now, and for the next few days at least we can look forward to some dry weather and some sunshine. temperatures are going to be rising, particularly across england and wales. the reason for the change in the weather? well, high pressure that's building across the uk, giving us the clear skies overnight. it will be a little chilly first thing on sunday morning. it'll warm up quickly though in the sunshine. some cloud will affect the far north—west of scotland, otherwise it's just a bit of fair weather cloud bubbling up. not much of that really. lots of sunshine to come and the winds will be quite light. a gentle southerly breeze developing. some sea breezes are possible, but it's going to be a warmer day on sunday than it was on saturday. two degrees warmer generally for scotland and northern ireland, and for many parts of england and wales. of england and wales temperatures will be four degrees higher than they were on saturday. the high pressure is still around as we move into monday, particularly across england and wales. there is this weather front now approaching the north west. it does mean the sunnier skies will be for england and wales. the far north of england, more especially scotland and northern ireland, will see more cloud and breeze.

that weather front bringing a little bit of rain. but many places will be dry, some sunshine coming through. temperatures in scotland and northern ireland aren't going to change too much. it's across england and wales that the heat will be building. we could be getting close to 30 degrees in the south east on monday afternoon, and generally across western parts of europe, temperatures are on the rise. that heat is pushing up from iberia into paris for the olympics as well, and also across the uk. those temperatures rising quickly again for england and wales on tuesday. could be over 30 degrees across the south east of england. now temperatures aren't going to be as high for scotland and northern ireland 20—21 degrees quite widely. there will be a bit more cloud around here, but still some sunshine. it looks like being dry. plenty of sunshine for england and wales. there is more cloud though, threatening to move from northern france across the channel, maybe bringing i across the channel, maybe bringing one or two showers. and this is where things start to change, really, because the pressure is going to be falling as we head into wednesday, some heavy showers

moving up from the south, heading northwards overnight. and then this is when the weather changes. we've got showers and more cloud and slightly lower temperatures i think through thursday and friday, but the start of the week is going to be very warm and hot in places.

live from washington, this is bbc news. dozens of projectiles are fired towards northern israel. at least 11 people are killed in a town in the israeli—occupied golan heights. donald trump says he'll carry on holding outdoor rallies, despite advice not to from the us secret service. and france takes its first gold on day one of the paris olympics — winning the men's rugby sevens.

hello, i'm carl nasman. tensions are high on israel's northern boundary after a rocket attack in the israeli—occupied golan heights. at least 12 people were killed, and many others injured, when a rocket hit a soccer field in the town of majdal shams. many of the casualties are thought to have been children who were playing at the time. the israeli military described the attack as the deadliest in the area since october seventh, and blames hezbollah, a lebanese armed group. hezbollah has denied responsibility. israel's foreign affairs minister, israel katz, said the country is 'approaching a moment of all—out war�* with hezbollah. israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu is flying back early from his trip to the us, and has warned that hezbollah will pay a heavy price. translation: since i was u dated translation: since i was updated by _ translation: since i was updated by the _ translation: since i was updated by the disaster, l translation: since i was updated by the disaster, i | translation: since l was - updated by the disaster, i have been holding continuous security consultations and i have directed that are returned to israel be brought forward, soon as i arrive i will immediately convene the

security cabinet. i can say that the state of israel will