Number of Posts: 24
Posts 1 - 10
Twitter founder: Trump presidency is product of short attention spans
Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 13.9.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | politics, social media, threat, Twitter
Summary | Evan Williams, one of Twitter's founders, claims that Donald Trump's online behavior is showing how social media platforms are making us dumber. Indeed, social networks are based on short attention spans, and they also undermine open-mindedness and our sense of truth. According to Williams, advertising models are to be blamed.
Image Description | Portrait of Donald Trump.
Image Tags | male(s)
How Hate Groups Forced Online Platforms to Reveal Their True Nature
Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 21.8.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | censorship, politics, social media, threat
Summary | Ever since the fatal Unite the Right protest in Charlotteville, social media and other internet companies seem to be washing their hands from any connection with far-right groups. Facebook has deleted such groups off of their platform, Reddit has done the same, Spotify is deleting white supremacist music from their libraries, and so on. Now far-right groups are building online alternatives for themselves and lamenting the censorship they have been victimized by.
Image Description | Illustration of hands around some crumpled-up paper.
Image Tags | hand(s)
The limits of instant activism
Newspaper | Washington Post
Date | 28.5.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | politics, social media
Summary | A new book titled "Twitter and Tear Gas" by Zeynep Tufekci is coming out. It discusses the infuence of social media on protest culture. The author has been present in many recent protest movement: Occupy Wall Street, the Gezi Park protests in Istanbul, the Tahrir Square protests, and many more. In her book, she concludes that social media help mobilize many people very quickly, as the anti-Trump marches have shown. However, this ease with which people are mobilized to attend a protest make the ties within the protest community looser making it difficult for the movements to overcome issues later on in the process.
Image Description | Image of the March on Washington in 1963.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), text
Chinese social media sites lit up with grief for dissident Liu Xiaobo, but not for long
Newspaper | Los Angeles Times
Date | 15.7.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | censorship, politics, social media
Summary | Liu Xiaobo, the Chinese dissident and Nobel Peace laureate, just died. Many Chinese people expressed their sympathy and grief online, but the government tried to censor those comments. Most Chinese citizens don't know the dissident's name. On Sina Weibo, China's version of Twitter, the government deleted pictures of Liu and his wife.
Image Description | N/A
What The Fuck
Newspaper | Die Zeit
Date | 16.3.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | cyberbullying, law, politics, social media, Twitter
Summary | The social media employee of the police department Mannheim tweeted out information about a seeming terror attack: a car had hit multiple people in a pedestrian only zone. She had tweeted that the suspect had been arrested. Other Twitter users however started aggressively demanding more information about the suspect, i.e. his race, heritage, religion, etc. The social media worker was shocked at how quickly people on Twitter made this a speculative far right-wing political issue and at somepoint even commented "WTF" in response to one of these tweets at her. Meanwhile people on Twitter were outraged that the police Twitter account would use such language.
Image Description | N/A
"Heute wird einfach gute Stimmung gemacht"
("Nowadays, it's all about creating a good mood")
Newspaper | Die Zeit
Date | 6.6.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | emojis, politics, selfie, Snapchat, social media
Summary | Selfies on social media can have huge currency. They serve celebrities and politicians to style themselves as down-to-earth. Taylor Swift further includes cats in her selfies for the additional cuteness factor. Angela Merkel's selfie with a refugee has served to send the message that refugees are welcome in Germany. Selfies can also be seen as inspired by emojis; people mimick the facial expressions or use a Snapchat filter to emulate emojis.
Image Description | Portrait of the interviewee holding a smiley balloon.
Image Tags | emojis, male(s)
«Der Hass in den sozialen Medien ist nicht neu. Er ist sichtbarer»
(«The hate in social media is not new. It's just more visible»)
Newspaper | Sonntagszeitung
Date | 12.3.2017
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | cyberbullying, politics, social media, youth
Summary | Pop-philosopher Richard David Precht talks about how hate comments are not a new development of the digital age. Back in the day people would call you on the phone and leave their hate comment or write letters. Today they are forever visible for everyone. Also the perception that young people are not as involved in politics and too preoccupied with social media is wrong, he says. The politically active in previous generations were just as much a minority.
Image Description | N/A
Ignoranz ist Stärke
(Ignorance is strength)
Newspaper | Tages-Anzeiger
Date | 3.2.2017
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | fake news, politics, privacy, smartphone, social media, threat
Summary | Kellyanne Conways term "alternative facts" remind of Orwell's fictional language Newspeak which also changes meanings by renaming. Many facts of contemporary life (especially under the Trump administration) remind of dystopian novels "1984" by G. Orwell and "Brave New World" by A. Huxley. We all carry smartphones with us at all times with which we can send information but which also receive and document information about us like our location, who else is in that location, our communications, purchases, and so on. Privacy has become impossible in the digital age.
Image Description | Images and videos of the film "1984" and George Orwell as well as the news clip where Kellyanne Conway mentions "alternative facts".
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), TV
Redes sociales en las primarias del PSOE: una competición desigual
(Social networks in the PSOE primaries: an uneven competition)
Newspaper | El País
Date | 21.5.2017
Language | Spanish
Country | Spain
Topic Tags | hashtags, politics, research/study, social media, Twitter
Summary | The PSOE candidates in Spain use social media differently in their campaign. Sánchez knows the language of social networks very well and knows how to use them. He is the most active candidate on social media. Lopez was the first one to have a Twitter account and uses the social network intensively. However, he doesn't use the network the same way Sanchez uses it. Díaz only posted 670 tweets and has 115000 followers. Moreover, her language is not actualized; she uses the at sign @ too much. A study analyzed the online community of the candidates. When Díaz started using the hashtag #100por100PSOE, some people started attacking and criticizing her using the same hashtag. There are also multiple analytical tools that show different statistics regarding the candidates and their online campaign.
Image Description | Screenshots of the three candidates' Twitter profiles, and five different charts/graphs related to the candidates and their online campaign
Image Tags | chart, female(s), male(s), Twitter
Big data’s power is terrifying. That could be good news for democracy
Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 6.3.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | fake news, politics, social media, threat
Summary | Big data makes big new innovations possible. It has already been assumed that recent elections were manipulated by fake news targeted to gullable individuals on social media. Other people are looking into options of how big data can be used to improve democracy, for instance the Pirate Party in Iceland.
Image Description | An illustration of hands 'cracking' a computer and an image of female Icelandic politicians from the Pirate Party.
Image Tags | female(s), hand(s), keyboard
Page 1 of 3
Back |
Next