Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 11
Posts 1 - 10

«Le mobile est le meilleur ami des Milléniums»

("Mobile phone is Millennials' best friend")

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Newspaper | 24 heures
Date | 16.3.2017
Language | French
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | addiction, pornography, smartphone, youth
Summary | Céline Cabourg and Boris Manenti answer some questions related to Millennials and their digital world. They say that today, the gap between teenagers and adults is getting more important. For instance, one teenager told Manenti that adults have different Facebook profiles; they only post pictures of their family and their vacation. In sum, they don't use social media the same way as young people. Moreover, teenagers view their smartphone as their best friend and not as a tool. What about "You Porn Generation"? It is true that children as young as 10 can have access to porn. Parents have an important role to play in their relationship with their children, and they should have open discussions with them.
Image Description | Photograph of three teenagers (one girl and two boys) on their smartphones
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), smartphone

Hilfe, wo sind meine Whatsapp-Freunde hin!

(Help, where did all of my WhatsApp friends go!)

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Newspaper | Der Bund
Date | 26.2.2014
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | Facebook, privacy, social media, WhatsApp
Summary | After Facebook has bought WhatsApp, many users are worried about their data privacy so waves of users are switching on to safer alternatives to WhatsApp such as Telegram, MyEnigma, or the Swiss app Threema. The large majority however is staying on WhatsApp, which causes more people to stay or return to WhatsApp. When Facebook replaced older social media platforms such as the German SchülerVZ, all users moved because a social media platform is only valuable when enough people use it.
Image Description | Photograph of a smartphone screen with social media different icons.
Image Tags | logo, smartphone, social media

Keine Chance für WhatsApp-Konkurrenz

(No chance for WhatsApp competition)

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Newspaper | Der Bund
Date | 16.2.2015
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | Facebook, privacy, WhatsApp
Summary | When Facebook bought WhatsApp for $22 mio in 2014, many users feared that their data privacy would be exploited. App store sales for secure messaging apps increased, particularly the Swiss app Threema. Now, Facebook and WhatsApp still have the highest user numbers which shows that people do not seem to care very much about their data privacy in the long run. While WhatsApp did introduce end-to-end encryption, Facebook also broke their promise of never connecting WhatsApp and Facebook user data.
Image Description | Photograph of a smartphone screen with different icons.
Image Tags | logo, smartphone

Das sind die neuen Funktionen von Whatsapp

(These are the newest functions of WhatsApp)

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Newspaper | Der Bund
Date | 7.7.2016
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | Snapchat, WhatsApp
Summary | New image editing and music features are supposed to be added to the messaging app WhatsApp. Funny filters, the possibility of adding stickers and drawing on pictures might be incorporated into WhatsApp – functions which are mainly known to be Snapchat features. Users will also be able to share music through the app and listen to it without having to download it. Further, it will be possible to join a group simply by clicking on a link.
Image Description | Photograph of a smartphone screen with different icons (WhatsApp, Skype, Viber) and a finger pointing to the WhatsApp icon. Screenshot of a Twitter account that mentions the new WhatsApp features.
Image Tags | hand(s), logo, Skype, smartphone, Twitter, Viber, WhatsApp

Government secretary tweets nude ‘selfies’

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Newspaper | The Local
Date | 7.8.2014
Language | English
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | pornography, selfie, sexting
Summary | A Bernese office employee had been tweeting nude images from her office to her 11'000 followers. She works for the Swiss government, whose employment policies ask employees to only post thing on social media that they would be comfortable sharing with their co-workers and supervisors as well and to keep the Swiss government's reputation in mind even when they are off the clock. The secretary in question, who has participated in several hundred amateur porn films as is now confirmed, claims that her private life does not interfere with her professional life in any way and that they should be kept seperate. It is unclear how her employers will handle the situation.
Image Description | Getty image of a woman taking a selfie.
Image Tags | female(s), hand(s), selfie, smartphone

Wegen WhatsApp – Jungen fehlt Gesprächsstoff

(Young people don’t have anything to talk about because of WhatsApp)

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Newspaper | 20 Minuten
Date | 3.8.2014
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | WhatsApp, youth
Summary | Young people in Britain and Switzerland spend more time using WhatsApp than actually meeting with their friends. Because all personal news can be shared on WhatsApp much more conveniently than face-to-face thanks to group chats, young people run out of things to talk about when they actually meet. Most young people however become critical of their new media use once they have spent a few years on social media and start optimizing their online activity.
Image Description | Photograph showing hands holding smartphones.
Image Tags | hand(s), smartphone

Versetzt Whatsapp dem E-Mail den Todesstoss?

(Is WhatsApp giving the e-mail the death blow?)

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Newspaper | Der Bund
Date | 23.10.2015
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | email, threat, WhatsApp
Summary | A rumor is going around that WhatsApp is planning to introduce a document sharing function into the app. This way, Word or PDF documents could be sent through WhatsApp rather than other channels. This might mean the death of emails, a media that already counts as old-fashioned.
Image Description | Photograph of a hand holding a smartphone where there are four social media icons.
Image Tags | hand(s), smartphone, social media

Statt Whatsapp bitte wieder den Telefonalarm

(Instead of WhatsApp please bring back the telephone chain)

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Newspaper | Der Bund
Date | 1.3.2016
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | WhatsApp
Summary | WhatsApp group chats are convenient to spread messages quickly. The only problem is that all members can contribute to a WhatsApp chat, and if everybody responds to an announcement, these group chats can get very annoying because one gets notified of everyone's contribution.
Image Description | Photograph of an adult male looking at his smartphone.
Image Tags | male(s), smartphone

Schriftliche Forschheiten: Vom Niedergang der Höflichkeit

(Written briskness: On the demise of politeness)

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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

Digitale Bilderflut: Raubt uns nicht die Phantasie!

(Digital image flood: Don’t rob us of our imagination!)

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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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