Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 32
Posts 21 - 30

Jewish woman in Montana sues over 'troll storm' of neo-Nazi harassment

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 18.4.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | (mental) health, cyberbullying, social media
Summary | A Jewish family in a Montana town is being terrorized by white supremacist groups. There have been no actual physical attacks but trolls on social media are harrassing them, they receive tons of hateful phone calls, and even their employers have been urged to fire them. Tanya Gersh, the mother of the household is struggling with sever anxiety because of the cyberbullying (to put it mildly).
Image Description | Images of the town of Whitefish, Montana, and of a protest against the white supremacist groups there.
Image Tags | text

My friend messages me on every platform. How do I politely say 'back off'?

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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.

Nextdoor broke the social network mold. Could political ads make it just like Facebook?

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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)

Welcome to Twitter city: is there no limit to Jakarta's social media obsession?

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 21.11.2016
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | Facebook, social media, Twitter
Summary | A Parisian study found that the city with the most active Twitter users is Jakarta. The city with 10 million residents is said to retain the mentality of a village through the extensive use of social media. Because of Indonesia's history of corrupt politicians and frequent natural as well as anthropogenic catastrophes, Indonesians have developed an unbreakable sense of humor in the face of terrifying news. Especially since the end of a dictatorship which censored free speech, Indonesians are excessively going to social media to post memes and otherwise poke fun at politicians.
Image Description | Getty image of many people on their smartphones in Jakarta, a satirical cartoon, as well as a few internet memes featuring politicians as well as Isis leaders.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), meme, smartphone

The rise and rise of emoji social networks

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 12.9.2014
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | emojis, language threat, social media, word/writing
Summary | The end of the word is close; three social media want to introduce 100% emoji conversations. Emojicate was the first network that tried to revolutionize our communication. Emojili is the real leader in terms of all-emoji network. The app creators state that Emojili started as a joke. Nowadays, more apps are image-oriented (e.g. focused on photo-sharing), and even Instagram posts are largely emojified.
Image Description | Image of an emoji.
Image Tags | emojis

‘We’ve grown up with some frightening events’: UK teenagers' hopes and fears

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 19.3.2016
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | addiction, smartphone, social media, youth
Summary | Five teenagers and young adults talk about the society they live in (jobs, school, alcohol, social media, etc.). They blame social media for being a waste of time and for favoring bullying. Moreover, social media are responsible for spreading certain norms that young people are expected to follow (e.g. ideals of beauty for men and women). One teenage girl claims that social media make people competitive. Even though she agrees that smartphones are addictive, it would be hard for her to live without it because she wouldn't want to miss out on things.
Image Description | Series of six photographs: two teenage girls on their smartphone are sitting back to back, and portraits of the five interviewees.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), smartphone

It may be shallow and salacious, but don’t blame Tinder for online misogyny

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 8.4.2016
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | gender, online dating, research/study, social media, threat
Summary | A new study revealed that the dating app Tinder spreads sexism and ideals of beauty; however, according to the author of the article, such behavior is not new. The media tends to portray new technologies and new apps as responsible for numerous societal ills, thus being dangerous. This new research follows a similar discourse while blaming the dating app Tinder of misogyny. However, sexism and beauty standards also existed before the age of social media. Thus, sexist comments are not the result of new technologies/apps; they go well beyond our digital devices.
Image Description | Photograph of a smartphone with the Tinder app open; we can see parts of a woman's face and a big LIKE in green.
Image Tags | female(s), smartphone, Tinder

'Everyone could know what I was doing': the millennials not using social media

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 17.3.2016
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | smartphone, social media, technology-free, youth
Summary | The majority of millenials are active on social media; those who are not explain why they decided not to have a social media account. Although the young interviewees admit that social network sites are useful to stay in touch with people far away and to organize parties and other events, they also think that they can be detrimental. For example, some of the interviewees feel uncomfortable with the fact that people share intimate details about their lives online, and with the fact that everyone knows everything about other people. Also, some people think that it is a waste of time and that it is useless.
Image Description | Series of five photographs representing the interviewees.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s)

How Silicon Valley's parents keep their children safe online

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 2.3.2016
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | childhood, smartphone, social media, technology-free, threat
Summary | Silicon Valley's parents explain how they deal with their children's use of internet. Since parents cannot control everything or spy on their kids, they talk to them and teach them how to use the internet. Some parents have more restrictions; for example, no screens from Friday night to Saturday night. As a result, parents and children spend more time together and do fun activities. Other parents only let ther children go online with an adult's supervision. A psychologist claims that social media have a negative impact on children; they drive them away from family and school.
Image Description | Photograph of a female child sitting on her bed and looking at a tablet.
Image Tags | female(s), tablet

Social media mimics the intimacy we yearn for - but fails to deliver

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 9.3.2016
Language | English
Topic Tags | social media, technology-free
Summary | Opinion piece- The author argues that humans are social, and that the great quantity of social media apps is there to satisfy our cravings for social relationships. When the author went to his hometown in Nigeria, he got to experience offline relationships. He thinks that social media companies know everything about their users and manipulate them. They also offer their users virtual communities that cannot provide deep relationships. There are some valuable everyday experiences that we can only live offline.
Image Description | Photograph of a group of women holding the "#bring back our girls" signs.
Image Tags | female(s)

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