Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 38
Posts 1 - 10

Hashtag turns 10: Seven facts you didn't know about the trending symbol

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Newspaper | Telegraph
Date | 23.8.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | hashtags
Summary | The Hashtag symbol is ten years old. The article lists seven facts about the hashtag (e.g. what was the first hashtag used on Twitter, what was the most used hashtag during the first year).
Image Description | N/A

I can't be trusted with Google's texting app

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Newspaper | Telegraph
Date | 19.5.2016
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | Google, language threat, texting, word/writing, youth
Summary | Google's new Allo app is supposed to make you save time while you're texing, but it can sometimes lead to misunderstandings. The author of the article doesn't really like emojis and doesn't know how to use them well. She doesn't follow young people's digital habits. Their generation favors brevity, which can have a negative impact on language.
Image Description | Photograph of two young girls on their smartphones, two smartphones displaying chat conversations, and a man standing in front of a screen displaying "Allo" and "Duo".
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), smartphone, text

30 minutes a day on screen 'delays speech in toddlers'

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Newspaper | Daily Mail (UK)
Date | 5.5.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | childhood, language threat, research/study, smartphone
Summary | If toddlers spend too much time on screens, it can delay their language skills. According to a study, children who are given screens at a young age struggle more with language; even educational games can hinder toddler's linguistic and cognitive development.
Image Description | N/A

Under-5s glued to screens 4 hours each day

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Newspaper | Daily Mail (UK)
Date | 16.11.2016
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | (mental) health, addiction, childhood, language threat, threat
Summary | Children are spending more than 4 hours a day on screens and are becoming addicted to screens. We should be worried about that. It seems that spending time online prevents children from developping vital social, motor, and communication skills.
Image Description | N/A

Tablets and smartphones damage toddlers' speech development

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Newspaper | Telegraph
Date | 4.5.2017
Language | English
Topic Tags | addiction, childhood, language threat, research/study, smartphone, technology-free, threat
Summary | According to a study, giving toddlers digital devices before the age of two can hinder their speech development. In Britain toddlers spend about 44 minutes a day using digital devices, and it can impact their language skills.
Image Description | Two photographs of toddlers using and looking at a tablet.
Image Tags | female(s), tablet

Donald Trump Threatens Ted Cruz’s Wife, Eliciting Angry Retort

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 23.3.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | hashtags, misunderstanding, politics, Twitter
Summary | Donald Trump and Ted Cruz have started a public feud on Twitter over their spouses. Trump thinks that Cruz has used footage of Melania Trump modeling nude for GQ magazine in a commercial against Trump. Trump then threatened to reveal secrets about Heidi Cruz. It turned out the anti-Trump advertisement was not made or paid for by Cruz and Cruz shamed Trump via Twitter for threatening his wife with the hashtag #classless.
Image Description | Image of Ted Cruz speaking with his wife Heidi in the background.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s)

Emojis to grace Pepsi products in summer campaign

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Newspaper | USA Today
Date | 19.2.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | emojis, hashtags, marketing, social media
Summary | Pepsi is using emojis to market their product because it is the "language of today" that transcends cultures and is intellegible for everyone. The new campaign also includes the two hasthags #PepsiMoji and #SayItWithPepsi to encourage consumers to post about their purchase on social media. Coca Cola recently had a similar campaign with first names on their bottles. They had been very successful with making consumers engage with the company through social media. Consumers basically did free marketing for them by posting pictures of Coke bottles with their names on their private accounts.
Image Description | Pepsi bottles with emojis and Coca Cola bottles with first names.
Image Tags | emojis, logo

What Happened to Who?

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 8.4.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | abbreviations, grammar, language threat, politics, Twitter
Summary | More and more politicians have begun replacing the relative pronoun "who" with "that" in sentences like ''people that come with a legal visa and overstay''. Although some dictionaries say this is an acceptable for, the New York Times' style sheet does not condone using "that" instead of "who". It denies the mentioned persons their humanity. This trend is unsurprising considering that our communication is increasingly happening on platforms like Twitter that only allow 140 characters so that we invent loads of abbreviations like "LOL" and "TTYL".
Image Description | Artwork copying Edvard Munch's "The Scream" and a few high-profile Tweets with spelling mistakes.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), Twitter

So, Is That a Thing?

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 16.4.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | language threat, smartphone
Summary | The smartphone keeps us on the running at all times up to the point that we are overflooded with information on a daily basis. No wonder that the phrase "is that a thing?" makes sense to most people today. It is a lazy way to express that something is a significant state of affairs.
Image Description | Collage art abstractly illustrating "a thing" versus "not a thing".
Image Tags | text

President @realdonaldtrump

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Newspaper | Washington Post
Date | 3.5.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | emojis, hashtags, politics, smartphone, Twitter
Summary | During his first 100 days, Trump tweeted a lot. His most used word in Twitter was "Great" (then: very, today, fake, news). His most common hashtag was "MAGA", the topic he most tweeted about was the media, and his favorite interjection is "Enojy!". Trump does not use a lot of emojis in his tweets, but his most common emoji is the American flag. Also, his most common hour for tweeting is 8am, and he mostly uses his iPhone.
Image Description | N/A

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