Touch to Make: An Index Finger’s Path into the Sculpture Factories in China
In spring of 2024, when green buds had already begun to appear even though light flurries were still falling in Rochester NY, I was slumped in the folding…
Tag: social media
Why propaganda, hate and political extremism thrive in the attention economy
Dogwhistles and Figleaves by Jennifer Mather Saul and Safe Havens for Hate by Tamar Mitts explore how extremist rhetoric thrives online and why content moderation doesn’t effectively tackle…
“Life continues, even in 1941, even in the middle of war” – Indignity by Lea Ypi
Indignity: A life Reimagined by Lea Ypi explores the period of transition between the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the rise of Enver Hoxha’s communist regime in…
“I Just Want to Be Happy!”: Singing, Scrolling, and Healing in a Chinese Senior’s Digital Life
Once considered a funny truth, Douglas Adams’s “three rules of technology”[1] now feels increasingly outdated—especially his claim that any technology introduced after age 35 is against the natural…
Beyond Preaching Unity and Inclusion: Observations from Syria’s Media and Online Spaces
The collapse of Bashar Al-Asad’s authoritarian regime (2000-2024) and the less-violent-than-expected capture of Damascus by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) brought […] The post Beyond Preaching Unit…
The Dictator’s New Clothes: Syrian Drama’s Presence
On the morning of December 8, 2024, just hours after the fall of the Al-Asad regime was officially declared, Syrians […] The post The Dictator’s New Clothes: Syrian…
Network Ghosts in the Age of Generative AI
What are faculty thinking about generative AI? In my role at our faculty center, I speak to faculty often on the problems they face teaching in the…
Gap Capitalism: Commodifying Zeno’s Paradox
By Own screenshot, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=26632754 I watch people on the Seoul subway playing 쿠키런 (Cookie Run) while we barrel towards Chongno. It’s the successful coloniz…
The Last Moon Village: A Proposal for a Multimodal Anthropology
You’ll see them in film, k-dramas, music videos, webtoons and video games: narrow Seoul alleys (골목길), old restaurants with peeling wallpaper, protagonists drown…
Elliot Montpellier takes the page 99 test
Page 99 of my dissertation offers only a half-page of writing. The top half contains a screenshot from YouTube of the original soundtrack (OST) for the Hum TV…
From a Hashtag to the Right for Indoor Air Quality: A Short Story of the #covidisairborne Movement
Isolated during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, I started to follow on Twitter (the social media platform now called X) a few scientists who were dedicating…
Digital Contention in a Divided Society – review
In Digital Contention in a Divided Society, Paul Reilly examines how social media influences political engagement in Northern Ireland, analysing digital interactions during the Union Flag Protest (201…
Religion auf Instagram — Interview mit Prof. Dr. Viera Pirker und Paula Paschke
Prof. Dr. Viera Pirker, Professorin für Religionspädagogik und Mediendidaktik an der Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main sowie seit 2024 Vizepräsidentin der Goethe-Universität für Studium und Lehre,…
Anagha Anil: Portrait Populism: On the Communist Iconography of Kerala
Communism continues to thrive both as a ubiquitous presence and a powerful electoral force in the south Indian state of Kerala. Established in 1940, the Communist Party of…
Networking for Introverts
I realized that I miss connecting – and being connected – with other people. Last week I read Taking the Work out of Networking by Karen Wickre, and…
Multimodal Methods in Anthropology
Today (April 26, 2024), our book, “Multimodal Methods in Anthropology” is released into the world. Here’s a song I’ve created for the moment using Udio, a text-to-song Generative…
The Revolution Will Be Hilarious: Comedy for Social Change and Civic Power – review
Caty Borum‘s The Revolution Will Be Hilarious: Comedy for Social Change and Civic Power considers how comedy intersects with activism and drives social change. Borum’s accessible text draw…
Platypod, Episode Eight: CASPR 2023
Download the full transcript of this episode. CASTAC in the Spring 2023 The 2023 edition of CASPR: CASTAC in the Spring discussed digital ethnography and its multiple facets.…
Júlia Fernandez: Outside of Humanity: Palestinian Children and the Value of Life
The algorithm swiftly gets it –yes, I am sucked in by news about Gaza- and collapses my social media platforms’ feeds into a monothematic thread that mirrors my…
Sahana Udupa and Ethiraj Gabriel Dattatreyan on their book, Digital Unsettling
Interview by James Slotta https://nyupress.org/9781479819157/digital-unsettling/ James Slotta: A couple of decades ago, paeans to the liberatory potential of the internet were common. Since then, t…
April Reber take the page 99 test
Page 99 falls in chapter two of my dissertation. This chapter, “Moments of Disruption,” describes how members of the radical right group, Alternative for Germany (AfD), message a…
Atheistische Online-Community – Untersuchungen zu sozialen Interaktionsformen von Atheist*innen auf Reddit
Im Juni 2021 habe ich mich erfolgreich auf ein Abschlussstipendium von REMID e. v. beworben und konnte mit dieser Förderung meine Masterarbeit mit dem Titel „Atheistische Online-Community –…
Female Truck Drivers in China Navigate Gender Norms on Douyin
It’s dark outside: 4:34 AM. I am peering through a truck’s windshield, gazing at a seemingly endless stretch of highway. “Female truck driver Li Ping is live streaming,”…
Seriensommer, Folge 4: Paranoia, Killer-Apps und der Sadismus der Erwachsenen
Das Coming-of-Age und die Mischung von Realität und Fiktion sind an sich klassische Stoffe des literarischen und filmischen Erzählens. Die aktuellen TV-Serien über das Erwachsenwerden fügen diesen Sto…