Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 11
Posts 1 - 10

Weißt du, was diese Emojis wirklich bedeuten?

(Do you know what these emojis really mean?)

Hyperlink

Newspaper | Welt
Date | 30.9.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | emojis, misunderstanding, punctuation, texting
Summary | We cannot imagine texting nowadays without emojis. They have become as important to us as punctuation. They serve to add a specific tone to our messages or to present them in a specific light. They are however also very easy to misunderstand. Do we really know what the emojis stand for? Here is an emoji quiz to text your emoji literacy!
Image Description | Artsy photograph of women texting and using emojis, a GIF, and emojis.
Image Tags | emojis, female(s), gifs, smartphone

Mit diesem Gadget kannst du Sprachbarrieren überwinden

(With this gadget you can overcome language barriers)

Hyperlink

Newspaper | Welt
Date | 7.8.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | translation
Summary | There is a new invention from China: an in-ear device that can directly translate speech. It lags three seconds behind real-time - plenty of time for silence to become awkward. It is also dependent on a wireless internet connection. So far it can translate these languages into Mandarin: French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, English, German.
Image Description | Getty images of three women with the German, Spanish, and Italian flag painted on their faces, as well as Getty images of a woman and a man using headphones together, buttons labeled with different languages, as well as GIFs of cats speaking French and Japanese and a film reference GIF (Anchorman).
Image Tags | female(s), gifs, male(s), text

iOS 11 - Diese 11 neuen Features solltest du kennen

(iOS 11 - you should know these 11 new features)

Hyperlink

Newspaper | Welt
Date | 22.9.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | smartphone, texting
Summary | The Apple operational system iOS 11 is meant for iPhones and iPads. It has a lot of new functions, like a screen recording function, or a one-handed texting function where the keyboard is slightly shifted to the right for people who only want to text with one thumb. Other features include a new control center and other changes to the user surface as well as a way to save GIFs.
Image Description | Getty images of a man presenting iOS 11 and a woman using a smartphone, screenshots showing the iOS 11 user surface, and tweets about the new iOS 11 features, some with GIFs.
Image Tags | female(s), gifs, male(s), smartphone, Twitter

A Hunt for Ways to Combat Online Radicalization

Hyperlink

Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 23.8.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | Google, research/study, social media, threat, YouTube
Summary | Social media companies have only recently begun waking up to the fact that their unpoliced platforms are safe spaces for all kinds of extremism. Studies show that extremists nowadays get radicalized online, whether they be islamists or white supremacists. While these two movements may differ in ideologies, they resemble each otehr very strongly in their internet strategies of recruitment and organization of offline events. A research group at Google has now come up with a diversion strategy to combat the radicalization of individuals online. They target people who watch extremist recruitment videos on YouTube with video suggestions that present differing arguments and the downsides of that ideology. So far, there can be no knowing whether this strategy is helping but the redirection videos are being watched.
Image Description | GIF with mouse cursor arrows: black arrows surrounding a white arrow.
Image Tags | gifs

Texting With Boys

Hyperlink

Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 10.6.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | gender, online dating, texting
Summary | The author loves how the digital age has changes dating enabling romantic interests to communicate mainly via text messages, despite the widespread opinion that cell phones have killed romance. However, many men prefer women to be good listeners in person and via text message and lose interest when women text them music and books recommendations.
Image Description | A GIF of the response being typed symbol known from messaging apps (speech bubble and ellipses).
Image Tags | gifs

Why Kids Can't Write

Hyperlink

Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 2.8.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | grammar, punctuation, school, smartphone, social media, spelling, texting, threat, word/writing
Summary | Many students struggle with writing despite various pedagogical models that have been implemented in past years to tackle that perpetual issue. This is all the more suprising considering that today's students may do moret voluntary writing than any generation before it. They text and post on social media a lot but the writing register is different there. The format's main principle is shortness so grammar, spelling, and punctuation take a back seat.
Image Description | GIF of a hand writing and a group of teachers in a workshop.
Image Tags | female(s), gifs, text

9 Gründe, warum du dich auf den 30. freuen kannst

(9 reasons why you can look forward to your 30st)

Hyperlink

Newspaper | Welt
Date | 16.6.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | addiction, smartphone, technology-free
Summary | One of the reasons why becoming 30 years old right now is not so bad is that one is practically a digital native but remembers a time before omnipresent internet and digital devices. One knows how to use all things digital, i.e. "speaks the language of the zombies", but knows how to avoid becoming a zombie.
Image Description | Getty images of a woman blowing out candles, a pig farm, a medieval painting, a man with an alcoholic beverage, a crowd of people, two women taking a selfie, a woman sticking her head in a bush, as well as GIFs of a treadmill accident and a Star Wars meme.
Image Tags | female(s), gifs, male(s), selfie

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)

DNCE Confirms They Don’t Use Autocorrect

Hyperlink

Newspaper | Huffington Post
Date | 18.4.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | autocorrect
Summary | The band members of DNCE joke about how their band name is not autocorrect friendly. None of their band name ideas were and many other musicians also do not use autocorrect friendly names. Essentially, autocorrect cannot keep up with contemporary communication because people are just more creative with language than any software could keep up with.
Image Description | Photograph of DNCE at a performance and a GIF of them posing on a red carpet.
Image Tags | female(s), gifs, male(s)

Snap Makes a Bet on the Cultural Supremacy of the Camera

Hyperlink

Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 8.3.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | GIFs, language threat, Snapchat
Summary | Snapchat is showing us the future: communication is switching to more visual modes of communication such as photographs, videos, GIFs, funny filters. Linguist Gretchen McCulloch has argued that Snapchat filters constitute a new mode of phatic communication. We have seen the primacy of text gradually broken up in the past decade. This does not mean, however, that the written language will disappear altogether. Text is still very important for conveying accurate information concisely.
Image Description | GIF with anthropomorphic cameras and emojis dancing around.
Image Tags | camera, emojis, gifs

Page 1 of 2
Back | Next