Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 9
Posts 1 - 9

Das Vong zum Sonntag

(The vong for Sunday)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 27.8.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | anglicisms, language threat, social media, texting
Summary | The German internet and social media have produced a new language in the last two years: the "vong" language, its main feature being an attributive construction of "vong (noun) her" which roughly translates to and the English phrase (noun)-wise with "vong" replacing the "-wise". It is a language between English and German, uses numericals wherever possible as is known from texting language and is highly influenced by hip hop jargon. Now a German artist has translated the Bible into vong-language.
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Notwendiger Twitter-Protest oder Vandalismus?

(Necessary Twitter protest or vandalism?)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 8.8.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | cyberbullying, law, social media, threat, Twitter
Summary | A German artist protested Twitter's lax action upon hate comments on their platform by spraypainting hate comments from Twitter on the German Twitter headquarter building. Twitter only deletes 1% of user-reported hate comments. The German justice minister has also gone after social media companies and is threatening with very high financial sanctions if they do not comply with local laws that prohibit hate language.
Image Description | Image and tweets of the protester and of the justice minister.
Image Tags | male(s), Twitter

Vong diesem Mann her kommt 1 neue Sprache

(Fromg this man comes 1 new language)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 16.6.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | language threat, meme, social media, spelling
Summary | A meme is floating around in social media spaces. The "Vong" language is parodying serious language by incorporation orthographical and grammatical mistakes as well as tautology. It has become incredibly popular on social media and has even appeared in Germans' spoken language and advertisements. Common features of it are replacing the indefinite articles "eine/ein" ("a") with a "1" and adding the phrase "vong... her" usually including a redundant tautalogical statement and the misspelled preposition "von". An example would be: "The weather is really nice, sun-wise." Here, the "sun-wise" is the tautological statement and it would also include an orthographical error in "Vong" language.
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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)

Erwischt!

(Gotcha!)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 5.3.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | (mental) health, social media, threat
Summary | A marathon detective has been investigating multiple major marathons to make sure no one cheats. He shockingly realized that very many people take illegal shortcuts. He explains it with the social pressure to post about personal victories on social media. Social media seduces people to show off, even if they have to cheat to be able to show something off.
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Wie der Selfie-Wahn unseren Urlaub ruiniert

(How the selfie craze is ruining our vacation)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 28.3.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | addiction, selfie, smartphone, social media, threat
Summary | It has become more important to post on social media than to experience. We evaluate our life based on social media likes. This is very visible in holiday destinations, for instance in skiing destinations in Austria which have introduced free wifi on all slopes. People care more about their selfies than about the skiing. This fuels the addictive potential of social media and smartphones.
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So erobern Zahnspangen-Mädchen die Werbewelt

(This is how girls with braces are conquering the world of advertising)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 8.2.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | Instagram, law, marketing, Snapchat, social media, youth, YouTube
Summary | A new breed of celebrities has emerged: social media celebrities or 'influencers' as they are called in marketing. These ordinary youths have millions of followers on Instagram, Snapchat, Musical.ly, or YouTube and are attractive to advertisers, not only because of their large following but because their fans feel personally close to them and are more likely to accept advice from them than from a distant celebrity. It is however still illegal to covertly advertise a product without notifying viewers that they are viewing sponsored content.
Image Description | German Musical.ly stars Lisa and Lena.
Image Tags | female(s)

Hashtag Guide für die Wochentage

(Hashtag Guide for the week days)

Newspaper | Welt
Date | 22.11.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | Instagram, social media, Twitter
Summary | Instagram is a sphere of happiness. To be a good Instagrammer one has to post cheery content every day and every day of the week has an appropriate theme: MondayMotivation, TravelTuesday, WednesdayWisdom, ThrowbackThursday, FriYay, Caturday, and SundayFunday. For exhibiting cynicism users should go to Twitter.
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Was mit dem iPhone begann, wird mit gläsernen Menschen enden

(What started with the iPhone will end with glass humans)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 9.1.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | smartphone, social media, threat
Summary | Exactly ten years ago Steve Jobs presented the first iPhone - a pioneer among smartphones. In the past ten years we saw an unprecedented change in communication. With technological innovation our digital communication has become more and more multimodal. The general tone has become quicker, more informal, and contains emojis. Social media are taking over what used to be social hobbies like sports clubs and such. It remains to be seen whether future generations will consider the broad surveillance and big data as boon or bane.
Image Description | Getty image of Steve Jobs with the first iPhone.
Image Tags | smartphone

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