Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 21
Posts 1 - 10

Weißt du, was diese Emojis wirklich bedeuten?

(Do you know what these emojis really mean?)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 30.9.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | emojis, misunderstanding, punctuation, texting
Summary | We cannot imagine texting nowadays without emojis. They have become as important to us as punctuation. They serve to add a specific tone to our messages or to present them in a specific light. They are however also very easy to misunderstand. Do we really know what the emojis stand for? Here is an emoji quiz to text your emoji literacy!
Image Description | Artsy photograph of women texting and using emojis, a GIF, and emojis.
Image Tags | emojis, female(s), gifs, smartphone

Darauf können sich auch alte iPhone-Nutzer jetzt freuen

(This is what even old iPhone users can look forward to)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 19.9.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | artificial intelligence, emojis, smartphone, texting, translation, WhatsApp
Summary | The new iPhone operational system has a couple of new updates. There will be a new control unit and user surface making the iPhone increasingly similar to a full Mac. The in-house messenger iMessage has a lot of new emojis and stickers and allows the users to be more creative with their texting. It is however still no threat to WhatsApp because only Apple users can use iMessage. Siri no also speaks a bunch of new languages: she will be able to translate English into German, Chinese, Spanish, French or Italian.
Image Description | A screenshot of iOS 11.
Image Tags | female(s), smartphone

Sie strengt sich nicht mal an

(She's not even trying)

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Newspaper | Die Zeit
Date | 16.8.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | emojis, politics, YouTube
Summary | Angela Merkel was interviewed by German YouTubers and she succeeded in not adapting the the speediness of the internet and keeping her calm, slow speaking voice. To the question what her favorite emoji is, she said that she likes the smiling one. She does not very much identify with the angry emoji.
Image Description | Photograph of Angela Merkel and a YouTuber.
Image Tags | female(s)

Liebesgeschichte, Heldenreise, Flachwitze, Kacke

(Love story, a hero's journey, flat jokes, poop)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 2.8.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | childhood, emojis, marketing, smartphone, texting, threat, youth
Summary | The new emoji movie for children is an animated film starring emojis as its main protagonists. Critics find it quite distasteful because it is full of casual advertising for major tech companies and because it does not address the danger of the internet at all. In Textopolis, the world in which emojis live, alphabetic letters are depicted as elderly with walking canes because the youth does not use letters anymore.
Image Description | Screenshots from the Emoji movie.
Image Tags | emojis, female(s), male(s)

Es postet, also bin ich

(It posts so I am)

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Newspaper | Die Zeit
Date | 19.7.2016
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | brain, emojis, language threat, selfie, social media
Summary | In his new book called "Facebook generation", Roberto Simanowski positions himself between the cultural pessimists and the digital euphorics. He does fear for our language competence and tied to it our memory. We tend to posts selfies and emojis rather than put our feelings into words. We tend to post a link to a song, a video, or an article rather than paraphrase that information make our point in an original sentence. This leads to the degeneration of our language ability and that inability to process information in our own words prevents the creation of memories. Instead we leave a huge digital data trail online.
Image Description | Woman's hands holding a smartphone while using a laptop.
Image Tags | computer/laptop, female(s), hand(s), smartphone

Die Frau, die ungewollt mit Emojis ein Haus mietete

(The woman who inadvertently rented a house with emojis)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 24.5.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | emojis, language threat, law, misunderstanding
Summary | The debate around whether emojis count as words or seriously meaningful content is very heated - not only in academics but also in law. The Oxford English dictionary only reheated that fire by choosing an emoji as word of the year. Multiple law cases have centered on misunderstandings around emoji use, most recently a case where a woman indicated interest in renting a house with emojis (flamenco dancer, dancer girls, squirrel, comet, a victory sign, and a bottle of Champagne). The house owner sued her for using misleading emojis after she decided not to rent the house after all.
Image Description | An image of a woman's hand holding a smartphone and picking out an emoji and a portrait of the Israely judge who worked on the emoji case.
Image Tags | emojis, female(s), hand(s), male(s), smartphone

Brauchen wir ein Emoji mit nicht-binärer Geschlechtsidentität?

(Do we need an emoji with a non-binary gender identity?)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 14.5.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | diversity, emojis, gender, research/study
Summary | A new package of emojis will be released soon. One of them represents a person who is neither entirely male nor female, i.e. of non-binary gender identity. It is questionable whether it is worthwhile to represent such a small minority, seeing that there is no redhead emoji either because only 2% of the global population are redheads. A linguist of the research project "What's Up, Germany?" however argues that having a gender inclusive emoji is sending a powerful sign and can affect society via language in the long-term.
Image Description | A Getty image of a woman vomiting a rainbow, a tweet about the gender inclusive emoji, and a few GIFs of celebrities.
Image Tags | emojis, female(s), gifs, male(s)

Muslimische Smileys

(Muslim smileys)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 18.3.2016
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | diversity, emojis
Summary | An app with muslim-themed emojis is now available. The emojis can however only be sent as image files and not integrated in the keyboard. They would have to be included by the Unicode Consortium for that to be possible and an Australian is already petitioning to Unicode to include muslim emojis. Meanwhile, Indonesia wants to force Unicode to block all emojis depicting homosexuality within the country because it clashes with their Islamic morals and values.
Image Description | The Muslim Emojis in use.
Image Tags | emojis, female(s), male(s)

Es flitzt der Rollstuhl

(The bolting wheelchair )

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Newspaper | Tages-Anzeiger
Date | 16.1.2017
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | (mental) health, diversity, emojis
Summary | A German organization for the inclusion of people with disabilities into public life is offering a set of Inklumojis: emojis that depict people with disabilities. These include a man in a wheelchair with fire shooting out of the back suggesting speed, athletes with leg prosthetics, a romantic couple holding hands, one of them with a prosthetic arm, and many more. Emojis can normalize people with disabilities much easier than big advertising campaigns which is why they will attempt to have their emojis included by the Unicode Consortium.
Image Description | Emojis of people with diabilities.
Image Tags | emojis, female(s), male(s)

Emoji-Verbot bei der Polizei

(Emoji prohibition for the police)

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Newspaper | Tagesspiegel
Date | 16.10.2016
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | emojis, law, Twitter
Summary | In a recent tweet by the Saxon local police, they used an emoji. That is inappropriate. The emoji was of a megaphone. That is distasteful because it depicts complicated matters as simple and light-hearted, almost humorous.
Image Description | Photograph of the author.
Image Tags | female(s)

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