Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 27
Posts 21 - 27

Mein Wort in Bots Ohr

(My word in bot's ear)

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Newspaper | Die Zeit
Date | 29.6.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | artificial intelligence, emojis, misunderstanding, research/study
Summary | Chatbots are currently exploding. Some say that by 2020 humans will communicate with chatbots more than with other humans. Chatbots are digital chat partners that help organize one's schedule, keep track of shopping lists, can help book holidays, and provide various other information from within a mesaging app. Polls show, however, that only one in four people would consider using a chatbot right now. That may be because they do not understand all questions yet and there is room for improvement. They are designed to be great digital conversationalists using a lot of emojis.
Image Description | An illustration visualizing the use of many chatbots while shopping at a grocery store.

"Heute wird einfach gute Stimmung gemacht"

("Nowadays, it's all about creating a good mood")

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Newspaper | Die Zeit
Date | 6.6.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | emojis, politics, selfie, Snapchat, social media
Summary | Selfies on social media can have huge currency. They serve celebrities and politicians to style themselves as down-to-earth. Taylor Swift further includes cats in her selfies for the additional cuteness factor. Angela Merkel's selfie with a refugee has served to send the message that refugees are welcome in Germany. Selfies can also be seen as inspired by emojis; people mimick the facial expressions or use a Snapchat filter to emulate emojis.
Image Description | Portrait of the interviewee holding a smiley balloon.
Image Tags | emojis, male(s)

Herz ist Trumpf

(Hearts are wild)

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Newspaper | Die Zeit
Date | 1.6.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | emojis, WhatsApp
Summary | The heart emoji is the most popularly used emoji on WhatsApp (after the smiling emoji). It appears to have some universal appeal. There are various heart emojis available on messaging apps and they all have different code meanings. Yellow or green hearts are friendly, pink hearts are seriously romantic, and red hearts signal strong sympathy or love.
Image Description | A piece of clothing with a heart on it.

Im Gefühlsextremismus

(In the middle of emotional extremism)

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Newspaper | Die Zeit
Date | 10.5.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | cyberbullying, pornography, privacy, sexting, social media, threat
Summary | Social media have messed with our sense of privacy. Celebrities can now address their fans from a seemingly private realm of self-orchestrated social media presence and regular people can become famous very quickly when they embarrass themselves enough on social media. Additionally, one can be made famous on social media by cyberbullies and previous partners by sharing "revenge porn" (nudes shared during a romantic relationship) after a breakup. The general tenor on all social media sites entails schadenfreude (rejoicing over other people's misfortune) - whether it be directed towards celebrities' faux-pas or normal people.
Image Description | The crying tears from laughter emoji.
Image Tags | emojis

Punkt: Am Ende

(Period: the end)

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Newspaper | Die Zeit
Date | 31.3.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | diversity, emojis, language threat, punctuation, research/study, texting
Summary | The neutral punctuation mark "." is disappearing from our written language. The most likely reason is that with text messages we no longer need a period to tell us when a sentence is finished. Linguists are not worried about the extinction of the period. Language is ever-changing, they say. It is quite sad though, that the period is being omitted more and more and hardly anyone cares. All debates now center around emojis: can Apple just replace the gun emoji with a water pistol one? Is it racist to use a black emoji as a White person?
Image Description | The sunset over the ocean.

Do you speak English? Hell yeah!

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Newspaper | Die Zeit
Date | 30.10.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | digitized education, game, school
Summary | Students are much more competent in English - and much more motivated to learn it. The digital era has them all caught up in a world online where the lingua franca is English. They watch movies and series in the original language (usually English), chat with their co-players of Minecraft in English, and follow English-speaking celebrities directly without the mediation of a German platform.
Image Description | N/A

Leben im Befehlston #

(Living in the commanding tone #)

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Newspaper | Die Zeit
Date | 16.3.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | digitized education, language threat, school
Summary | School children are supposed to learn how to program codes as early as grade three of primary school. There are many toys that help children learn how to write in code easily. Code may be the first foreign language future generations will learn as employers hugely value the ability to program a software.
Image Description | N/A

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