scholarly journals Understanding the social in a digital age

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (7) ◽  
pp. 1125-1134
Author(s):  
Zoetanya Sujon ◽  
Harry T Dyer

Datafication, algorithms, social media and their various assemblages enable massive connective processes, enriching personal interaction and amplifying the scope and scale of public networks. At the same time, surveillance capitalists and the social quantification sector are committed to monetizing every aspect of human communication, all of which threaten ideal social qualities, such as togetherness and connection. This Special Issue brings together a range of voices and provocations around ‘the social’, all of which aim to critically interrogate mediated human connection and their contingent socialities. Conventional methods may no longer be adequate, and we must rethink not only the fabric of the social but the very tools we use to make sense of our changing social formations. This Special Issue raises shared concerns with what the social means today, unpicking and rethinking the seams between digitization and social life that characterize today’s digital age.

2021 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 363-378
Author(s):  
Christine Jourdan

This article identifies and presents the main debates and issues that are generating interest in the field of creole studies. It is composed of two main sections. The first one presents the debates currently stimulating creolistics: the nature of pidgins and creoles and the relation between the two, the sociological and typological distinction between pidgins and creoles, the various theories explaining their origin, and their transformation through time. The second part raises issues linked to the social life of these languages, an area of research that, though present since the beginning of creolistics, has remained limited. Using the framework of linguistic ideology, this review surveys the social status of pidgins and creoles, the prejudices that exclude them from being used at schools, and their lack of linguistic legitimacy. It concludes with a discussion of pidgins and creoles on social media.


2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (7) ◽  
pp. 83-97
Author(s):  
Sean Hildebrand, PhD ◽  
Brandon Waite, PhD

The purpose of this special issue of the Journal of Emergency Management is to assess the state of disaster preparedness, response, mitigation, and recovery during the COVID-19 pandemic. This article adds to this discussion by examining the results of a national survey of emergency managers in the United States regarding the social media platforms they use to communicate information related to the COVID-19 pandemic, how proficient they feel using them, and what value they see in these technologies during the times of crisis. The authors’ findings help make sense of government responses to the pandemic, as well as contribute to the body of literature on communication and emergency management more broadly. Furthermore, their findings have important implications for emergency management practitioners and educators. 


2021 ◽  
pp. 016344372110453
Author(s):  
Alexander Lewis Passah

The paper is rooted in the observations from the two internet blackouts witnessed in Meghalaya in 2018 and 2019. The state is located in the North Eastern region of India and this study focuses on the Khasi population residing in the East Khasi Hills District. The study explores the complex role social media has played in information dissemination in the digital age. India currently leads the world in terms of internet blackouts and it has been imposed 538 times in the country. This phenomenon has become a reoccurring trend over the last few years with the rise in digital communications and technological affordances. The paper addresses the dualistic nature of social media and how it can be empowering on the one hand, and can also be a key contributor to mis(dis)information on the other. The study offers a non-digital centric approach by adopting digital ethnographic methods and offers insights into the social media practices and experiences of the Khasi participants as well as delving into the problematic nature of internet blackouts with respect to Meghalaya. Evidently, social media has become a space in which most individuals carry their identity, aspirations, views, history, and opinions.


2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 55-58
Author(s):  
Megan D. Graewingholt

VoxGov is a cutting-edge discovery platform for finding and analyzing government information, encompassing a vast collection of official documents, legislative information, and social media content all in one place. This comprehensive resource engages researchers in fresh and dynamic ways, provides superior analytical features, and surpasses comparable products in the value and diversity of its content. For scholars, legal experts and the general public alike, the growing importance of examining the social media footprint generated by the executive branch, government agencies and legislators cannot be understated. Given the massive output and changing nature of government web presences, VoxGov is well-timed aggregator of ephemeral online content, and delivers a powerful research experience for exploring official government information in the digital age.


2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 81
Author(s):  
Redyanto Noor

The reality of young readers'(Jakarta) receptions of the teenlit novel concerning the motives, purposes, and benefits of reading the teenlit novel explains the social-cultural function of teenlit novel. Teenlit novel as a means of entertainment is able to fulfill the social-cultural function, which is giving spiritually pleasure, to be able to accommodate the horizon-expectations of adolescent readers. Teenlit novel provides entertainment while teaching "something" to teenagers. Teenlit novel serves as a social media such as self-identification, actualization, and socialization. Teenlit novel directly or indirectly has function to develop personality: independent, confident, and more mature. However, in some ways there is a contradictory reality between the motives, goals, and benefits of reading teenlit novels among teenagers. The contradictory reality is the absence of a correlation between motives and goals with the benefit of reading teenlit novel. The motive of spare time is not correlated with the purpose of gaining knowledge. The purpose of acquiring knowledge is not correlated with the benefits of not feeling smarter. These facts indicate that there are important issues relating to information and values promoted by the novel teenlit and the value system prevailing in adolescent social life.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 4382-4387

Conviviality is a popular concept in urban design while referring to the good qualities of public spaces. This concept is the need for current times when social life in physical public spaces is declining away largely to forces like social media and the virtual world. The human tendency to feel satisfied and happy exists in existence with others. The social media has taken away the role that established Greek agora as the first centre of public interaction which initiated the concepts of modern democracy. Where popular public spaces have big roles to perform, the small public spaces in the neighbourhood and markets perform an important role to stage the everyday local nuisance in people's life. Even If public space is satisfactory enough to take away the loneliness and boredom of everyday course of modern living a lot can be achieved. Conviviality is one such factor which helps to elevate the satisfaction of spending time with others. This paper is an attempt to understand conviviality and relate it to public open spaces from the physical planning point of view.


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 536-542
Author(s):  
V. L. Muzykant ◽  
M. A. Muqsith

The article considers the relationship between the 2020 regional elections in Indonesia under the covid-19 pandemic, public space, and political activism in the social media. The covid-19 pandemic has changed the social, political and cultural fabric of the contemporary world. First, the covid-19 threatened the countrys healthcare system, then it affected other aspects of social life, including the political sphere. The pandemic has been exacerbated by the spread of misinformation about the covid-19, which is also known as the infodemic. Thus, the covid-19 pandemic influenced the choice of holding elections or delaying it until the situation is under control. The development of the social media encourages political activism in the political public sphere and makes it more diverse in the sphere of egalitarianism. The political public sphere becomes increasingly dynamic and critical to various policies. Indonesia did not postpone the 2020 regional elections under the covid-19 crisis. According to the health protocol, this decision had its pros and cons in the digital space. The authors show that political activists in the social media called for prioritizing health rather than the process of democratization through elections, while the government supporters insisted on having elections even in the covid-19 pandemic situation. Finally, the 2020 regional elections were held but were followed by various incidents. The question is whether the governments argument to hold elections under the covid-19 pandemic was reasonable or, on the contrary, contributed to the wider spread of the covid-19 in Indonesia. Deliberative democracy should consider civil participation as the main pillar of the political system, which is relevant for the new social reality as based on the new social media technologies.


2015 ◽  
Vol 53 (1(105)) ◽  
pp. 7-19
Author(s):  
David Nicholas

PURPOSE: The research upon which this article is largely based comes from a year-long international study of trustworthiness in scholarly Communications in the digital age, Essentially, the main thrust of the project was to determine the impact of the digital transition and the new products it has ushered in, such as open access publications and the social media, on academic researchers’ scholarly practices. This paper focuses and reflects further on the disciplinary differences of scholarly researchers when it comes to using, citing and publishing and, especially, whether arts and humanities researchers are any different in the way they think and behave to their counterparts in the sciences and social sciences. APPROACH/METHODS: An international survey of over 3650 academic researchers examined how trustworthiness is determined when making decisions on scholarly reading, citing, and publishing in the digital age. The survey asked respondents whether or not they agreed with comments and ąuotes about scholarly behaviour obtained from pre-survey focus groups and interviews. Data from focus groups, interviews and the published literature are also used to explain further the results of the survey. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: In generał, it was found that traditional methods and criteria remain important across the board. That is, researchers have moved inexorably from a print-based system to a digital system, but have not significantly changed the way they decide what to trust, where to publish, what to cite or use. Social media outlets and (non-peer reviewed) open access publications are not fully trusted. However, there were some significant differences according to the discipline of the respondent and this papers focuses upon these differences by comparing the views and behaviour of arts and humanities researchers with those from other disciplines. The main findings were: a) journals and the metrics that surround them are clearly not so important to humanities scholars, but nevertheless still pretty important; b) humanities researchers take a lot more care about what they use and where content comes from; c) humanities researchers look slightly more favourably on the social media. Originality/value: As far as it is known this is the first comprehensive study of digital humanities researchers and their decisions on what they use and cite and where they choose to publish.


2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-97
Author(s):  
Anne H. Fabricius

Th is paper will discuss a particular hashtag meme as one example of a potential new manifestation of interjectionality, engendered and fostered in the written online context of social media. Th e case derives from a video meme and hashtag from the United States which ‘went viral’ in 2012. We will ask to what extent hashtags might perform interjectional-type functions over and above their referential functions, thereby having links to other, more prototypically interjectional elements. Th e case will also be discussed from multiple sociolinguistic perspectives: as an example of the (indirect) signifying of ‘whiteness’ through ‘black’ discourse, as cultural appropriation in the context of potential policing of these racial divides in the United States, and as a case of performative stylization which highlights grammatical markers while simultaneously downplaying phonological markers of African American English. We will end by speculating as to the implications of the rise of (variant forms of) hashtags for processes of creative language use in the future.


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