Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 56
Posts 11 - 20

Muslim Teenager Proposes Emoji of Woman Wearing a Head Scarf

Hyperlink

Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 14.9.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | diversity, emojis
Summary | A muslim teenager from Germany didn't think she could fully express herself with the emojis available on her phone; she wanted to use a hijab emoji. She emailed her proposal to the Unicode Consortium, and her proposal caught the eye of Unicode employees. Since there are about 550 million women who wear a hijab, she thought it was a good reason to propose a hijab emoji. Women want to be better represented on their keyboard, this is why there has been various requests to add more diverse female emojis.
Image Description | Pictures of potential hijab emojis
Image Tags | emojis

Le gardien du temple des émojis

(The guardian of the emoji temple)

Hyperlink

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)

Brauchen wir ein Emoji mit nicht-binärer Geschlechtsidentität?

(Do we need an emoji with a non-binary gender identity?)

Hyperlink

Newspaper | Welt
Date | 14.5.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | diversity, emojis, gender, research/study
Summary | A new package of emojis will be released soon. One of them represents a person who is neither entirely male nor female, i.e. of non-binary gender identity. It is questionable whether it is worthwhile to represent such a small minority, seeing that there is no redhead emoji either because only 2% of the global population are redheads. A linguist of the research project "What's Up, Germany?" however argues that having a gender inclusive emoji is sending a powerful sign and can affect society via language in the long-term.
Image Description | A Getty image of a woman vomiting a rainbow, a tweet about the gender inclusive emoji, and a few GIFs of celebrities.
Image Tags | emojis, female(s), gifs, male(s)

Punkt: Am Ende

(Period: the end)

Hyperlink

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.

Auf diese 69 Emojis können sich Smartphone-Nutzer freuen

(Smartphone users can look forward to these 69 emojis)

Hyperlink

Newspaper | Welt
Date | 23.3.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | diversity, emojis
Summary | The next OS update is near and it will include 69 new emojis approved by the Unicode Consortium. Among them are a tyrannosaurus rex, a zombie, a puking emoji, and many others. All emojis are now available in male and female versions.
Image Description | The new emojis.
Image Tags | emojis

15-jährige Berlinerin erfindet Kopftuch-Emoji

(15 year old Berliner creates hijab emoji)

Hyperlink

Newspaper | Welt
Date | 15.9.2016
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | diversity, emojis
Summary | A 15 year old girl from Berlin has submitted a hijab emoji design to the Unicode Consortium. That is the organization which authorizes new emojis. The designer, Rajouf Alhumedi argued that a hijab is part of many women's identity and that that should be represented in emojis. Emojis have become a valid language of its own - the Oxford English Dictionary even picked an emoji as the word of the year once.
Image Description | The new emojis.
Image Tags | emojis

"Apple, was hast du meinen Emojis angetan?"

("Apple, what have you done to my emojis?")

Hyperlink

Newspaper | Welt
Date | 14.9.2016
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | diversity, emojis, Twitter
Summary | The new Apple update comes with redesigned emojis and people are devastated. The changed look of the emojis makes many users sad to the extend that they feel like they "have lost a friend", one person on Twitter writes. There are also a few new emojis, most notably: all emojis are available in multiple skin shades and most emojis now exist in a male and female version. There is also an emoji of a homosexual couple now.
Image Description | A series of Tweets about the new emojis.
Image Tags | emojis, Twitter

Entwaffnend

(Disarming)

Hyperlink

Newspaper | Welt
Date | 3.8.2016
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | diversity, emojis, politics, punctuation, threat
Summary | Punctuation marks are probably jealous of emojis because they are replacing them! Discussion about emojis is becoming increasingly political. New emojis represent various skin colors, and both men and women for all activities/professions, for instance a female police officer and basketball player. Apple has even decided to replace the gun emoji with a water pistol in light of recent gun violence deaths in the US. Most People however ridicule Apple's move and argue that it is more of a PR stunt than a political statement.
Image Description | N/A

Endlich, ein Emoji für Döner

(Finally, an emoji for Döner Kebab)

Hyperlink

Newspaper | Welt
Date | 4.6.2016
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | diversity, emojis, selfie
Summary | The Unicode Consortium has published the 72 new emojis to join the old corpus. It include a lot of additional animals, foods, sports, as well as a selfie emoji. The new emojis however also work towards more diversity: Mrs Santa, a prince, a male dancer, and a groom are now available on all platforms.
Image Description | Emojis.
Image Tags | emojis

Muslimische Smileys

(Muslim smileys)

Hyperlink

Newspaper | Welt
Date | 18.3.2016
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | diversity, emojis
Summary | An app with muslim-themed emojis is now available. The emojis can however only be sent as image files and not integrated in the keyboard. They would have to be included by the Unicode Consortium for that to be possible and an Australian is already petitioning to Unicode to include muslim emojis. Meanwhile, Indonesia wants to force Unicode to block all emojis depicting homosexuality within the country because it clashes with their Islamic morals and values.
Image Description | The Muslim Emojis in use.
Image Tags | emojis, female(s), male(s)

Page 2 of 6
Back | Next