Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 21
Posts 1 - 10

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)

"Für viele ist Politik wie Bärchenwurst"

("For many, politics is like bear deli meat")

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Newspaper | Die Zeit
Date | 6.9.2016
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | politics, social media, youth
Summary | It is very difficult to get young people today engaged in politics. Political parties operate with archaic patterns of communication and youths do not identify with them anymore. Some young politicians try to address young people on social media to animate them to at least go vote. The tried to imitate the Ice Bucket Challenge and tried to launch an "I'm voting" challenge where users nominate each other to vote.
Image Description | Image of a pro EU protest in the UK.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s)

Kopfschuss: Glatte Eins!

(Shot to the head: A+!)

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Newspaper | Die Zeit
Date | 18.5.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | game, gender, school, threat, youth
Summary | A school in Norway is offering a course in E-sport, i.e. playing online team sports in shooter video games like Counter:Strike. The course is very popular among the male students (only one female student has taken the course) and has shown that students at risk of failing the year tend to do better in school overall when they are in a video game class. They get boosts of self-confidence because they can hold presentations about something they are passionate about. The school wants to reflect their students' reality in their curriculum and video games are a passion of many students and a future job for some of them. Shooter games are less stigmatized in Norway than in Germany.
Image Description | Image of male students playing video games.
Image Tags | game, male(s), school

Hinter dem Hashtag #BlauerWal steckt eine verstörende Geschichte

(A disturbing story hides behind the hashtag #BlueWhale)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 18.5.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | (mental) health, hashtags, law, social media, threat, youth
Summary | Currently, a man is on trial in Russian courts for supposedly urging 15 teenagers to commit suicide. The case is connected to the #BlueWhale challenge that is said to circulate online on social media. It is a lethal game where one person gives another increasingly self-destructive tasks. Apparently, psychologically fragile teenagers are targeted online.
Image Description | Getty image of a blue whale and images of a man being arrested and in trial with his face pixellated.
Image Tags | male(s)

Generation Blödphone?

(Generation Dumbphone?)

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Newspaper | Der Bund
Date | 11.8.2017
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | addiction, research/study, smartphone, threat, youth
Summary | A US study has conducted surveys among teenagers asking them how often they go out without their parents, whether they date or have had sex, how much they sleep , etc. The results show that teenagers go out/date less, sleep less, and have sex later in life since the advent of smartphones. Swiss media psychologist Gregor Waller criticizes the study because it bases its conclusions on mere correlation. It leaves out other important developments in the US since 2007 like the financial crisis. An equivalent Swiss study does not show similar results. Most Swiss teenagers continue to have a rich social life despite smartphones. Only about 10% of Swiss teenagers are at risk of smartphone addiction.
Image Description | Graphs showing results of the US study and a portrait of the interviewee (Swiss psychologist Gregor Waller).
Image Tags | chart, male(s)

Dieser Chatbot reserviert den Tisch fürs Abendessen

(This chatbot makes dinner reservations)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 27.7.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | artificial intelligence, Facebook, language threat, youth
Summary | Facebook messenger now has the chatbot Botmio on offer which lets users make dinner reservations at restaurants. This is perfect for younger generations who are reluctant to pick up the phone to call a human to make a reservation - digital natives are "language lazy". They would rather just make a reservation online without interacting with another human.
Image Description | A hand holding a smartphone using a Facebook chatbot and a portrait of the Botmio inventer.
Image Tags | Facebook, hand(s), male(s), smartphone

Die Jungs von heute können einfach nicht mehr flirten

(The boys of today just can't flirt anymore)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 7.7.2016
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | online dating, research/study, smartphone, social media, youth
Summary | Young people nowadays cannot flirt anymore. They are constantly tied to their smartphones - 57 hours per week a recent study says - and do not pay attention to what is going on around them. They are more comfortable communicating via a medium than face-to-face. Many girls lament on social media how there are no available boys. Young boys should look up form their phones more often - the girls would be grateful.
Image Description | Getty images of young men and women with and without smartphones.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), smartphone

E-Mails für verzweifelte Teenager

(Emails for desperate teenagers)

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Newspaper | Appenzeller Zeitung
Date | 13.1.2017
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | (mental) health, email, Facebook, youth
Summary | The volunteer project U25 provides peer counseling for suicidal teenagers. All volunteers at U25 are between 17 and 25 years old and they get extensive training before they are given up to three cases at a time. They exchange emails with the suicidal peers trying to counsel them into psychological stability. The volunteer counselors are not allowed to give out their cell phone numbers or befriend clients on Facebook for their own protection.
Image Description | Image of one volunteer counselor with a laptop.
Image Tags | computer/laptop, male(s), TV

Die Putzfrau ist schuld

(It's the cleaning lady's fault)

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Newspaper | Tages-Anzeiger
Date | 15.2.2016
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | texting, youth
Summary | The visitors of the carneval in Basel carry around lanterns on which they traditionally write political statements which are significant to them. One observer remarks that those political messages on the lanterns have become shorter in the past years, especially with youths. They resemble texting language.
Image Description | Image of the interviewee.
Image Tags | male(s)

Nach Spielen im Internet kann man süchtig werden

(One can get addicted to games on the internet)

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Newspaper | General-Anzeiger
Date | 10.11.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | addiction, game, school, threat, youth
Summary | Internet games have a high addiction potential because one needs to spend a lot of time on it to succeed. Experts say that if one spends more than 4 hours a day on games, one has a problem and needs to seek professional help. Game addicts stop seeing their friends and let their school grades slide.
Image Description | Image of a boy sitting with his smartphone in his lap.
Image Tags | hand(s), male(s), smartphone

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