Number of Posts: 150
Posts 121 - 130
For Millions of Immigrants, a Common Language: WhatsApp
Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 21.12.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | privacy, WhatsApp
Summary | WhatsApp is hugely popular in South America, Europe, India, Africa, and among the masses of refugees fleeing from the Middle East at the moment. It has transformed the refugee and immigrant experience, enabling people who are in a lonely, desperate situation in their lives to stay connected with their loved ones. Refugees use WhatsApp for strategic communication as well, to call for help or let their families know that they are safe, they can send photographs and make free calls provided they have access to WiFi. Their WhatsApp communication is also encrypted, making it safe for those moving through different countries without legal permission. Expats and immigrants can now partake in the daily lives of their friends and family back home by easily sending pictures back and forth and simply communicating more - something that was very expensive even a few years ago.
Image Description | GIF of a WhatsApp icon globe spinning around.
Image Tags | logo, WhatsApp
Finding Inspiration for Art in the Betrayal of Privacy
Newspaper | New York Magazine
Date | 27.12.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | privacy, threat
Summary | A collective of Berlin-based artists have opened an art exhibition in Manhattan reflecting present society's relationship with new technology and data privacy. Contemporary art concerned with technology is much more pessimistic than it used to be a decade or two ago. The initial optimism is gone and artists have begun to criticize the fact that what we base our sense of self on nowadays - social media - is owned by a handful of corporations and are geared towards mining our data and selling us products.
Image Description | Photo illustration by Adam Ferriss. Source photograph by Jean-Erick Pasquier/Gamma-Rapho, via Getty Images.
Image Tags | female(s)
YOLO flight: Why are dictionaries inhaling so much Internet slang?
Newspaper | Washington Post
Date | 13.12.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | emojis, language threat
Summary | Dictionaries, in trying to keep up with the rapidly changing language in this era of social media, keep adding more and more words spread online such as "fleek" or "yaaas". They do make sure not to add every meme whose use spikes for a moment but they make an effort to stay on top of adding relevant new words which are widespread and keep being used frequently. Many people are worried about this development and see in this the dacay of language as we know it, especially since the Oxford Dictionary word of 2015 is not even a traditional word but the laughing-tears emoji.
Image Description | N/A
It or not, emoji evolving as language to be taken seriously
Newspaper | Washington Post
Date | 28.2.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | emojis, law, misunderstanding, threat
Summary | Emojis as legal evidence crop up in court rooms more and more since people communicate much more on various social media. Two cases are known of students being questioned in court because they had posted something negative about school on social media accompanied with gun, bomb, or explosion emojis. Defendants text messages have been presented to the jury as evidence with the emojis because they can signal sarcasm or a joke. A general discussion has opened up about whether emojis should be regarded as evidence in court and if yes, how? Emojis do not have a set meaning, they are very context-dependent.
Image Description | N/A
New York Public Hospitals Use Emojis to Reach Young People About Sex
Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 17.7.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | emojis, social media, youth
Summary | New York City hospitals are now trying to get young people's attention on social media to inform them about free, confidential sexual health services. The advertisement campaign includes emojis, for instance the question "Need to talk to someone about 'it'?" accompanied by an eggplant emoji or bird and bee emojis. They talked to youths in focus groups and determined that this might be the best way to reach them. The campaign is particularly important because many youth report that they do not approach their parents with questions concerning sexual health. Critics of the campaign however say that the advertisements might be too ambiguous and difficult to understand for people who are only just learning English.
Image Description | Two advertisements of the question "Need to talk to someone about 'it'?" accompanied by an eggplant emoji and bird and bee emojis.
Image Tags | emojis
Judging Others by Their Email Tics
Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 29.10.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | email, research/study
Summary | Meaning in emails is not only conveyed by the content but also by the form: Whether we use 'hi', 'hey', or 'dear' and how witty our email signature is really determines our personal brand. People make an effort to go back to previous emails to see on what kind of greeting terms (hi or hey?) with their addressees, linguist Gretchen McColloch says. Whether we use proper spelling with capitalizations or whether we just use lower-case throughout can have implications about power relations. Emojis and GIFs have become commonplace even in emails now to help us quickly signal an emotion.
Image Description | Illustration of a paper plane with emojis and word snippets (hey, hi, cc, bcc) flying out of it.
Image Tags | emojis
Take a break from the election and read this story about emoji karaoke
Newspaper | Los Angeles Times
Date | 8.11.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | emojis
Summary | A convention for emojis (Emojicon) taking place in a San Francisco mall attracts lots of emoji professionals and afficionados. There they learn about the Unicode Consortium - the non-profit organization that introduces new emojis. Everybody can submit an emoji design to Unicode but only 70 emojis are accepted per year. Unicode also never deletes an already existing emoji, so they have to keep the number of new entries low. The convention is full of fun activities, 'emoji karaoke' being one of them. A room full of people listen to songs and try to transcribe them with emojis in real time.
Image Description | Photograph of a woman in a peach emoji costume. People with emoji balloons. An emoji caricature artist.
Image Tags | emojis, female(s), male(s)
Secrets of the Emoji World, Now With Its Own Convention
Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 7.11.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | emojis
Summary | An obscure committee called Unicode Consortium made up of various representatives of leading technological companies world-wide has the ultimate power over which content gets turned into emojis and which does not. An emoji convention (Emojicon) is organized in San Francisco, decorated with emoji-shaped balloons, beach balls, bean bags, emoji foods, people dressed up as emojis, and with many expert speakers from academia, the corporate world, as well as artists and designers. Many of them are unhappy with such a small unrepresentative group of a few (likely) middle-aged, white men should decide on which emojis are available to everyone around the world. The Unicode Consortium has too much power over the global visual language.
Image Description | A hand reaching into a pile of emoji cut-outs. A person dressed as the peach emoji being interviewed. Two people in costumes taking a selfie.
Image Tags | emojis, hand(s), selfie
This Divorced Dad Tried Sexting For The First Time And Had An Epiphany
Newspaper | Huffington Post
Date | 24.4.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | sexting
Summary | A 40+ year old father writes about being back in the dating world in the 21st century. Sexting seems to be an integral part of it, which he argues might just be humans' natural reaction to this new medium and that Shakespeare, had he been given a smartphone, may have used it quite similarly. It is surprising how quickly and how effectively one can bond with another person via messaging, both emotionally and intimately. This does however not mean that the same emotional or intimate momentum can be translated into face-to-face encounters.
Image Description | N/A
Tinder Makes More Genders!
Newspaper | Huffington Post
Date | 16.11.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | gender, online dating
Summary | Tinder is a popular dating app (or altenatively a casual sex app) widely used by millenials to find a partner. Tinder has recently announced that they now give users more options when chosing their gender identity. Until now, Tinder only accommodated gender identities of a binary conception, i.e. 'male' or 'female', and now they have expanded their repertoire to include, for instance, transgender men and women.
Image Description | A video which is however no longer available.
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