Number of Posts: 7
Posts 1 - 7
Nachwehen zu den Nackt-Selfies aus dem Bundeshaus
(Aftermath of the nude selfies from the Federal Palace)
Newspaper | Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ)
Date | 6.6.2014
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | pornography, selfie, sexting
Summary | The secretary who posted nude selfies taken at her workplace, which is the parlamentarian offices of the Swiss Federal Palace, on Twitter also has a career in porn next to her office job. Her supervisors claim that they had no previous knowledge of her pornographic Twitter account. The employee in question still answers her office phone meaning that she has not lost her job yet.
Image Description | N/A
Freizügige Sekretärin: Nackt-Selfies aus dem Bundeshaus
(Revealing secretary: nude selfies from the Federal Palace)
Newspaper | Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ)
Date | 6.8.2014
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | politics, pornography, sexting
Summary | A secretary working in the Swiss Federal Palace in Bern has been regularly tweeting nude images of herself from the workplace. Experts now discuss whether this is reason enough to dismiss her. Although she has not crossed an explicitly defined line, the secretary's actions can be argued to be a threat to the security of of her workplace. Had she been a higher official, this misconduct would have certainly qualified for her dismissal.
Image Description | N/A
Schreiben: Die Handschrift verkümmert
(Writing: Handwriting is hampered)
Newspaper | Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ)
Date | 1.3.2015
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | language threat, research/study, texting, word/writing
Summary | We are living in an age writing renaissance; no generation before us has written this profusely. We are always texting someone or updating our social media statuses and yet, ironically, we are losing a staple of writing culture: our handwriting. Researchers are debating whether this is a problem or not, but the fact is that many neuroscientific studies show that humans learn better while writing by hand rather than typing. The abbreviated, informal, emoticon-filled writing style of WhatsApp and co. may be corrupting writing culture at large.
Image Description | Photograph of a young child (girl) typing on a laptop.
Image Tags | computer/laptop, female(s)
Interview: «Vor dem Schreiben sollte man überlegen»
(Interview: «One should think before writing»)
Newspaper | Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ)
Date | 1.9.2014
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | email, language threat, politeness
Summary | Language researcher Christa Dürscheid explains how new communication channels influence communication style and register. While omission of formal salutation lines has become frequent, it is usually only after a few messages in a dialog thread. Most people still use a proper salutation for first-contact messages. The general relaxation of formality in written communication does not mean that our language is decaying but that we adapt the social situation to the medium.
Image Description | N/A
Schriftliche Forschheiten: Vom Niedergang der Höflichkeit
(Written briskness: On the demise of politeness)
Newspaper | Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ)
Date | 1.9.2014
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | email, language threat, politeness, school, texting, WhatsApp, word/writing
Summary | Communication researchers agree that politeness in professional writing has decreased with the rise of digital communication. Rules of formal writing are omitted: what was“Honored Professor So-and-so” is now a simple “Hello”. Both students and also professors are reported to have a relaxed level of formality in email exchanges. This is usually seen as an influence of texting, where traditional messages of respect are omitted, but it can also be argued that the new brief communication style is a form of respecting the addressee’s time by writing efficiently.
Image Description | Photograph of a female texting; the shot does not show the person's face but emphasizes the phone.
Image Tags | female(s), hand(s), smartphone, text
Schreiben statt streicheln: Die neue kalte Liebesordnung
(Writing instead of stroking: The new cold order of love)
Newspaper | Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ)
Date | 20.6.2014
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | Facebook, smartphone, threat, WhatsApp, youth
Summary | Youth nowadays do not get to know their love interests face-to-face but rather through digital channels. A typical digital encounter would be a Facebook friend request, message exchanges and possibly the exchange of seductive images. Now intimacy means something different; people open up to each other in letter form rather than with actual physical contact. Cultural pessimists fear that while it is convenient that all of our interactions can be done online, this convenience may turn into a huge problem because people could virtually stay at home all the time and become lonely.
Image Description | Photograph in back and white of a couple (male and female), sleeping entwined.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s)
Digitale Bilderflut: Raubt uns nicht die Phantasie!
(Digital image flood: Don’t rob us of our imagination!)
Newspaper | Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ)
Date | 9.7.2016
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | language threat, WhatsApp
Summary | New messaging apps make it really easy to send snapshots and users have increasingly conventionalized the inclusion of image material in their messages. The image material is usually a quick snap of the situation the sender is in (morning coffee, etc.) or of something the sender is messaging about (herb garden, etc.), as if to provide evidence of their actually experiencing/doing something. Some voices now proclaim the replacement of language by images but the same prognosis was made in the mid-19th century when postcards were invented. What might suffer by our inflationary sharing of photographs is our imagination.
Image Description | Photograph of adults taking pictures of the Mona Lisa; the shot mostly shows hands and three smartphones.
Image Tags | hand(s), smartphone
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