Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 5
Posts 1 - 5

Can't find the right emoji? AI app analyses your message to suggest the perfect memes, emoticons and gifs while you type

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Newspaper | Mail Online
Date | 14.6.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | artificial intelligence, emojis, GIFs, meme, texting
Summary | A new app called Dango uses artificial intelligence to suggest the most appropriate emojis, GIFs, or memes you can use. Thanks to AI, the app analyzes the meaning of your text messages.
Image Description | Screenshot of Dango's chat bubble, photograph of a series of emojis on a screen, and chart explaining how Dango's neural system works.
Image Tags | chart, emojis, smartphone, text

Images Worth a Thousand Tweets

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 7.1.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | GIFs, politics
Summary | Pieces of technology sometimes alter political campaigns (e.g. Calvin Coolidge with the radio, or JFK with the first TV debate). During the 2016 Presidential election, GIFs may have influenced the election. How so? If you think about memorable events from the campaign, those that seem to stick have been reduced to GIFs (e.g. Trump Faces GIF). GIFs show us another (more human) side of politicians.
Image Description | N/A

Apple Opens the iMessage Door, and the Ephemera Rushes In

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 22.9.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | emojis, GIFs, word/writing
Summary | An Apple user of iMessage can now use different "tchotchkees" (e.g. GIFs, stickers, emojis) which dominate text messages whereas words are just "afterthought". Users can also throw confetti and balloons. Apple is trying to mimic what is out there on the internet.
Image Description | Screenshots of iMessage chats with words and stickers/emojis/GIFs/confetti, and screenshot of a tweet
Image Tags | emojis, gifs, text, Twitter

One Small Step for NASA, One Giant Leap for GIFs

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 14.12.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | GIFs, social media
Summary | NASA is now providing GIFs of their video footage on giphy.com in order to meet the contemporary public on their channels: social media.GIFs are a poetically fitting medium to depict the movement of celestial objects - they are infinitely repetitive. GIFs have become central to online communication as a means to express strong emotions or stances. Some linguists say that GIFs are a more extreme version of emojis which are thought to replace body language in the digital realm.
Image Description | GIFs of a rocket taking off, an explosion in space, and some NASA employees cheering.
Image Tags | gifs

GIF Rapt

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Newspaper | The Independent
Date | 6.4.2016
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | GIFs, language threat, smartphone, threat
Summary | According to the author of the article, GIFs are becoming a new language. We don't need words to communicate; in today's society, people prefer sending short clips. Why are GIFs so popular? Smartphones may be the reason. We don't use smartphones to think and spend too much time reading/writing long texts. We use them to get to the point, and GIFs are convenient if we want to communicate quickly. People don't need words anymore; they can type a word and choose the relevant GIFs they want to attach to their messages. Every generation considers each new medium as a threat to humanity (e.g. writing, TV, Twitter, etc.). Still, the author claims that we seem to be heading towards a word-less culture.
Image Description | N/A

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