Number of Posts: 17
Posts 1 - 10
Wege aus der Peinlichkeit
(Exit ways out of embarrassment)
Newspaper | die Weltwoche
Date | 28.9.2017
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | emojis, gender, misunderstanding, online dating, politeness, research/study, texting, youth
Summary | Emojis have entered our communication with no turning back but using them is a minefield of misunderstanding. It is especially risky in the initial stages of texting with a love interest: studies show that people tend to imitate the communication patterns of their interlocutor if they are in love with them. Because women are more communicative than men, they tend to be the ones who are imitated in such a scenario. But men, beware! Do not go overboard with your heart emojis, it's too girly. One should however also refrain from making overly abrupt changes to ones emoji habits as it can seem distanced and elitist if one stops to use emojis altogether.
Image Description | N/A
«Aber wenn man einmal Schweizer Freunde hat, ist es super»
("But once you have Swiss friends, it's great")
Newspaper | Sonntagszeitung
Date | 30.7.2017
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | politeness, texting
Summary | Diccon Bewes, a Brit living in Switzerland has a lot to say about the cultural differences. One difference between the Swiss and the Brits is that while it may be perfectly acceptable to pop in anytime at your friend's house in Britain, the Swiss tend to appreciata a heads-up text message when one might want to pay a visit.
Image Description | N/A
Mein bester Freund ist jetzt ein SMS-Butler
(My new best friend is an SMS butler)
Newspaper | Welt
Date | 28.1.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | emojis, Google, marketing, politeness, texting
Summary | A new text messaging service is available: an SMS butler. It is an actual human who can be contacted via text message at all times to perform little tasks like find out some simple information (that one is too lazy to Google) or order pizza. The former taks is free, the latter one costs a little extra. The butler takes a provision on services that require payment. He is however always very happy to perform his task - whether he gets paid or not. This is indicated by the obligatory smiley face attached to every message.
Image Description | N/A
Heute: Anrede
(Today: form of adress)
Newspaper | Die Zeit
Date | 18.2.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | email, marketing, politeness, word/writing
Summary | The German distinction between two different registers for the secon person singular pronoun seems to have deteriorated online. The polite form is hardly ever used online, for instance in email communication as though the digital medium makes it okay to suspend all rules of politeness. Even online companies gear their their online marketing communication towards digital intimacy (using "Du" instead of "Sie") so that users/customers are more friendly and forgiving of their company.
Image Description | N/A
Erfolgreiches Netzwerken geht auch ohne Facebook
(Successful networking is possible even without Facebook)
Newspaper | Welt
Date | 6.3.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | Facebook, politeness
Summary | Facebook enabled event organizers to reach thousands of people. Because of these masses of invited people, accepting an invitation stopped being binding. Now the trend is towards smaller, more exclusive events for networking. Accepting an invitation to a smaller event is more binding and networking works better if the company is overviewable.
Image Description | A Getty image of a cocktail party and a portrait of two network specialists.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s)
Das Problem mit dem ;-)
(The problem with ;-))
Newspaper | Appenzeller Zeitung
Date | 3.2.2017
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | email, emojis, misunderstanding, politeness
Summary | First emojis have appeared in official writing: the Norwegien government included emojis in one of their letters. Norwegian linguists are critical of this saying that we need to establish rules about emoji use first because they are easily misunderstood. Emojis have entered our everyday communication so profoundly that we now read even workplace emails without emojis as rude.
Image Description | Getty image of a Macbook keyboard with emoji keys.
Image Tags | computer/laptop, emojis
Les talibans veulent en finir avec leurs «trolls»
(The Taliban want to get rid of their "trolls")
Newspaper | Le Monde
Date | 18.4.2017
Language | French
Country | France
Topic Tags | grammar, politeness, social media
Summary | The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is condemning certain abuses on social media. They are asking people to respect certain rules of decency and morality. They especially criticize online rudeness and poor linguistic and grammatical skills. The Taliban, who want to maintain a good level of communication, want to get rid of the "trolls"- those who do not respect an appropriate online behavior.
Image Description | N/A
My friend messages me on every platform. How do I politely say 'back off'?
Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 19.4.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | email, politeness, social media, texting
Summary | How does one deal with a pushy friends that is trying to reach one through all possible media channels? This discrepancy in how both people define the friendship and how often they feel the need to communicate can be quite tricky to maneuver. One can either be passive-aggressive about it (preferred in British culture) and train the friend by always taking your time to respond and choosing the media channel with the least likeliness of a quick response turning into a digital conversation: email. The alternative is to politely but explicitly mark your boundaries by telling the friend that you cannot respond to this many messages.
Image Description | Illustration with text message bubbles colliding and exploding.
People who swear a lot are more likely to be honest, study finds
Newspaper | Mirror
Date | 18.1.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | Facebook, politeness, research/study
Summary | Researchers found out that people who cuss more are more likely to be honest. If they do not filter their language to please other people, they are less likely to filter the content too. The study analysed thousands of Facebook posts and found that Facebook users in the north east of the US are more prone to use expletives in their posts while users from the south use less swear words. Those who cussed on Facebook also used a lexicon indicating honesty (such words as "I" and "me").
Image Description | Getty image of a woman crossing her fingers behind her back and a Reuters image of Donald Trump.
Image Tags | female(s), hand(s), male(s)
Nextdoor broke the social network mold. Could political ads make it just like Facebook?
Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 5.5.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | politeness, politics, social media
Summary | A small but growing social media platform called "Nextdoor" caters to neighborhood exchanges. Neighbors are encouraged to define their neighborhoods and exchange useful information like good dentists and other public services or police activity in the neighborhood. They have explicitly defined that the rapport on the platform is supposed to be civil and pragmatic so the general tone is very polite, also because users' identities and addresses are confirmed (no anonymity). The platform urges users to report rants defining them linguistically as "ALL CAPS, excessive punctuation, provocative language, judgmental accusations, or repetitive explanations."
Image Description | A portrait of Nextdoor's CEO.
Image Tags | male(s)
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