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Access to education has been globalized and democratized to a certain extent through massive open online courses (MOOCs) and other open-access platforms and content databases. In a recent study by Inayatullah and Milojević (2014), the recommendations were to establish a pilot project, enhance digital pedagogy and learning, customize degrees, create a culture of change in higher education, enhance collaboration, support research activities, redefine frames of reference, and anticipate and prepare for futures trends. The need for democratization of education has been increasing to meet the need of individuals and groups to assert and highlight their identity and role in society. Education is the means to facilitate this through a practical and active approach through wider stakeholder participation. Religious belief was identified as the main cause of conflicts among multi-ethnic cohorts. Adding socio-cultural differences to the mix and uncontrolled access to various opinions through social media makes the task much more complex. Educational policies must consider mother-tongue learning to improve learning outcomes. However, making the vast learning content accessible in multiple languages could be daunting. This chapter explores these emerging challenges and changing stakeholder expectations from the formal education system. The policy implications, possible technology-driven solutions, and their effectiveness in addressing the growing challenges of a global learning village have been explored.

High levels of child obesity alongside rising stunting and the absence of a coherent food policy have deemed UK’s food system to be broken. The National Food Strategy (NFS) was debated intensely in media, with discussions on how and who should fix the food system.

Using a mixed methods approach, the authors conduct framing analysis on traditional media and sentiment analysis of twitter reactions to the NFS to identify frames used to shape food system policy interventions.

The study finds evidence that the media coverage of the NFS often utilised the tropes of “culture wars” shaping the debate of who is responsible to fix the food system – the government, the public or the industry. NFS recommendations were portrayed as issues of free choice to shift the debate away from government action correcting for market failure. In contrast, the industry was showcased as equipped to intervene on its own accord. Dietary recommendations made by the NFS were depicted as hurting the poor, painting a picture of helplessness and loss of control, while their voices were omitted and not represented in traditional media.

British media’s alignment with free market economic thinking has implications for food systems reform, as it deters the government from acting and relies on the invisible hand of the market to fix the system. Media firms should move beyond tropes of culture wars to discuss interventions that reform the structural causes of the UK’s broken food systems.

As traditional media coverage struggles to capture the diversity of public perception; the authors supplement framing analysis with sentiment analysis of Twitter data. To the best of our knowledge, no such media (and social media) analysis of the NFS has been conducted. The paper is also original as it extends our understanding of how media alignment with free market economic thinking has implications for food systems reform, as it deters the government from acting and relies on the invisible hand of the market to fix the system.