Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 70
Posts 11 - 20

Quand le smartphone fait de l'ombre au bébé

(When smartphones eclipse babies)

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Newspaper | La Tribune de Genève
Date | 13.6.2017
Language | French
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | (mental) health, addiction, childhood, smartphone, technology-free, threat
Summary | More and more parents take a lot of pictures of their newborn before holding him/her for the first time. As a result, a hospital in the Swiss German part of Switzerland decided to impose a new rule: no screen during mother-baby nap. The problem especially affects the younger generation (under 30). Parents seem to pay more attention to their smartphone, which is alarming. For instance, mothers post pictures of themselves in labor. There are no special rules in Geneva, but doctors and midwives are thinking about alternatives. An excessive use of smartphones can also have a negative impact on children's development.
Image Description | Photograph of a hand taking a picture of a newborn with a smartphone
Image Tags | hand(s), smartphone

Le gardien du temple des émojis

(The guardian of the emoji temple)

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Newspaper | Le Temps
Date | 21.6.2017
Language | French
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | censorship, diversity, emojis
Summary | Mark Davis (President of the Unicode Consortium), who lives in Zurich, talks about emojis. Anyone can submit new emoji proposals; but the proposal needs to be convincing. The Consortium has been trying to be more progressive, which is why people can now use same-sex couple emojis, or a hijab emoji. The Consortium does not accept any brand emojis nor famous people emojis (although people would like to see Jesus and Justin Bieber). Keith Winstein claims that nobody should have the right to tell other people which images they can or cannot use.
Image Description | Photograph of Mark Davis
Image Tags | male(s)

«Les lettres d'amour sont toujours révolutionnaires»

("Love letters are still revolutionary")

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Newspaper | La Tribune de Genève
Date | 3.12.2016
Language | French
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | gender, texting, threat, word/writing
Summary | Philippe Brenot has been studying people's ways of sharing love for more than thirty years. He noticed some gender differences; for instance, women like to save love letters close to themselves whereas men save theirs in binders. Moreover, women don't write about their lover's body, whereas descriptions of female bodies are omnipresent in men's letters. However, in text messages, women are more likely to be straightforward. Brenot claims that love letters are not disappearing with new technologies. People still send each other love messages and save them.
Image Description | N/A

Après mourir de rire, on adore rire aux larmes...

(After laughing out loud we love laughing tears...)

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Newspaper | Le Matin
Date | 16.1.2016
Language | French
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | emojis
Summary | The acronyms "lol" and "mdr" are disppearing and are being replaced by emoticons. Moreover, The Oxford Dictionary decided to choose an emoticon as word of year (face with tears of joy emoji).
Image Description | N/A

Suivre Le Petit Robert sur Twitter, c'est trop lol mdr

(Follow Le Petit Robert on Twitter, it's lol mdr)

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Newspaper | 24 heures
Date | 5.2.2016
Language | French
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | spelling, texting, Twitter
Summary | When people first starting texting, they would use abbreviations such as "lol", "mdr", or "tkt". In order to promote French language and eradicate "text message language", Le Robert Dictionary uses its Twitter account to share jokes related to text message features.
Image Description | Photograph of an open dictionary and screenshots of Tweets.
Image Tags | dictionary, Twitter

Le portable: mangez-le si vous voulez!

(Cell phone: eat it if you want to!)

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Newspaper | 24 heures
Date | 19.3.2016
Language | French
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | smartphone
Summary | We all know that we should turn off our phone if we go see a play, for instance. Some people still pick up their phone in the middle of performances. However, for some shows, the audience can be asked to use their phone (e.g. send a text to choose the casting). Besides that, new technologies are not an integrated part of plays.
Image Description | N/A

L'écriture sous toutes ses formes

(Writing in all its forms)

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Newspaper | 24 heures
Date | 24.2.2017
Language | French
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | texting, word/writing, youth
Summary | Texting and abbreviations are more and more common. People, especially the youth, think less before they write. Sylvie Guggenheim claims that we need to get back to the basics and place writing at the center. Thus, she organized a showroom with workshops, conferences, and expositions in order to gather all the writing professionals.
Image Description | N/A

Décoder le langage Emoji

(Decoding the emoji language )

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Newspaper | Le Matin
Date | 22.1.2016
Language | French
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | emojis, misunderstanding
Summary | Emojis are everywhere. They are used to symbolize emotions, but their meaning is not always clear. In the game "The Great Emoji Challenge", people have to decode messages in emoji. They can win up to one million dollars.
Image Description | Smiling emoji, and money bag emoji
Image Tags | emojis

On oublie toujours une minorité

(We always forget a minority)

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Newspaper | Le Matin
Date | 14.5.2016
Language | French
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | emojis, gender
Summary | Today's emojis don't really represent women in a fair way (dancer, princess, or grandmother). Therefore, Google is going to include peasant women, teachers or doctors, for example. But since the idea is to better represent minorities, perhaps the Bogdanov brothers and Conchita Wurst will complain about the lack of "mutant" emojis.
Image Description | N/A

Apple se mouille

(Apple gets wet)

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Newspaper | Le Matin
Date | 15.9.2016
Language | French
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | emojis
Summary | With its iOS 10 update, Apple removed the gun emoji, and replaced it with a water gun. So now violence has of course been eradicated, no one has been killed by a gun, and everyone loves each other. Thanks to Apple, corpses have been replaced by wet T-shirt contests.
Image Description | Images of the gun emoji and the water gun emoji
Image Tags | emojis

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