Digital semaphore: Political discourse and identity negotiation through 4chan’s /pol/

2021 ◽  
pp. 146144482110348
Author(s):  
Dillon Ludemann
Keyword(s):  
Political Discourse ◽  
Identity Negotiation ◽  
Individual User ◽  
The Face ◽  
Identity Markers ◽  
National Flag ◽  
Digital Spaces

This article explores the ways in which Blommaert’s (2018) notion of “light” identity markers in digital spaces shows—through specific features within /pol/—the “politically incorrect” board of the popular anonymous imageboard website 4chan. Here, flags attached to individual user posts work to frame interaction, which can both signal sincerity to a post with a national flag, or demonstrate a predilection for deception and trolling with what is known as a “memeflag.” Users implement these choices to alter performative aspects of interaction on /pol/ and the “audience” of other users offer their own evaluations, dismissals, and jokes in the face of these displays. This article posits that “light” identity features, or those located within specific communities, as opposed to more widespread or institutionalized aspects of identities create categories of awareness in 4chan that, in turn, shapes ideas of competence for those who have “lurked” long enough to glean it.

scholarly journals Basket of options: Unpacking the concept

2021 ◽  
pp. 003072702110194
Author(s):  
E Ronner ◽  
J Sumberg ◽  
D Glover ◽  
KKE Descheemaeker ◽  
CJM Almekinders ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Technological Change ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Farm Households ◽  
Agricultural Technologies ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Individual User ◽  
Opportunities For Learning ◽  
Critical Attention ◽  
The Face ◽  
Potential Adaptation

How to stimulate technological change to enhance agricultural productivity and reduce poverty remains an area of vigorous debate. In the face of heterogeneity among farm households and rural areas, one proposition is to offer potential users a ‘basket of options’ – a range of agricultural technologies from which potential users may select the ones that are best suited to their specific circumstances. While the idea of a basket of options is now generally accepted, it has attracted little critical attention. In this paper, we reflect on outstanding questions: the appropriate dimensions of a basket, its contents and how they are identified, and how a basket might be presented. We conceive a basket of options in terms of its depth (number of options related to a problem or opportunity) and breadth (the number of different problems or opportunities addressed). The dimensions of a basket should reflect the framing of the problem or opportunity at hand and the objective in offering the basket. We recognise that increasing the number of options leads to a trade-off by decreasing the fraction of those options that are relevant to an individual user. Farmers might try out, adapt or use one or more of the options in a basket, possibly leading to a process of technological change. We emphasise that the selection (or not) of specific options from the basket, and potential adaptation of the options, provide important opportunities for learning. Baskets of options can therefore be understood as important boundary concepts that invite critical engagement, comparison and discussion. Significant knowledge gaps remain, however, about the best ways to present the basket and to guide potential users to select the options that are most relevant to them.

Can the Chinese Diaspora Speak?

2021 ◽  
pp. 127-142
Author(s):  
Qiao Collective
Keyword(s):  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
Chinese Diaspora ◽  
Overseas Chinese ◽  
The Face ◽  
Discursive Context ◽  
Red Guards

The Chinese diaspora is compelled either to prostrate to an edifying project of assimilation to U.S. liberal democracy, or be branded as illiberal "Red Guards" unfit for serious political discourse. This discursive context has long mobilized overseas Chinese to affirm the universalism of Western liberalism in opposition to a Chinese despotism defined either by dynastic backwardness or communist depravity. Can overseas Chinese speak for themselves in the face of the West's "hegemonic right to knowledge?" Or will all such speech that challenges U.S. presuppositions of liberal selfhood and Chinese despotism simply be tuned out as illiberal noise?

Cultural Identity Preservation Through Social Media

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nurhayat Bilge
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Ethnic Identity ◽  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Sense Of Community ◽  
Identity Negotiation ◽  
Cultural Preservation ◽  
Identity Preservation ◽  
Shared History ◽  
The Face ◽  
Social Media Platforms

This chapter explores cultural identity negotiation on social media for a specific refugee group. Previous research indicates the importance of a sense of community and cultural preservation in regards to establishing and maintaining a cultural identity for this specific group. The group, Meskhetian Turks, is an example of ethnic identity and an established ethnicity through shared history and struggle. This chapter focuses on the virtual implications of the group's identity in social media. More specifically, it explores how social media platforms serve as a cultural unifier, where cultural identity is maintained and perpetuated in the face of an unattainable physical homeland.

scholarly journals „Brak” państwa czy jego „nadmiar” – wyzwania i zagrożenia współczesnej demokracji

1970 ◽  
Vol 21 (282) ◽  
pp. 19-33
Author(s):  
Małgorzata Kiwior-Filo
Keyword(s):  
Political Discourse ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Fundamental Importance ◽  
Modern World ◽  
The Face ◽  
Migration Crisis

The changes taking place in the modern world, their character and dynamics determine the need to verify the role and tasks of the most important institution of political life, in particular the state. However, the multitude of positions in this regard, from extremely libertarian, aimed at eliminating the state as an organization using coercion, promoting “philosophy of strength” instead of “philosophy of freedom”, to voices demanding “strengthening” the state - a guarantor of security (on various levels: military, economic , social, social, cultural etc.), especially in the face of challenges such as migration crisis or modern terrorism. The dilemma of limiting the state or strengthening it, which has always been present in political discourse, deepens the crisis of values and the difficulty in defining concepts of fundamental importance, including democracy itself. Question asked by Chantal Delsol What do we care about? it seems so current in the face of many contemporary paradoxes.

Testing Our Mettle

2020 ◽  
pp. 34-55
Author(s):  
Michele Gillespie
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
Social Thought ◽  
Cultural Meanings ◽  
Critical Locus ◽  
American Media ◽  
The Face ◽  
Civil War Era ◽  
And Gender

Women’s and gender historians over the last fifty years have not suffered such physical horrors, they have had to test their mettle on the scholarly battlefield of Civil War history. Theirs has been a dogged fight in the face of strong opposition to gendering a past that traditional historians and popular culture have preferred to see as great battles between great men. Newer narratives that document white and black women’s resistance, agency, and leadership across the Civil War era have been contesting these persistent older accounts for several decades. Recently historians have disputed traditional historical approaches even more rigorously by exposing the cultural meanings of gender during wartime. They have argued that ideas about masculinity and femininity shaped Civil War political discourse, social thought, and economic roles, ultimately affecting the nature and outcome of the war. The Southern Association for Women Historians (SAWH) has long been a critical locus of support for these scholars who are challenging outmoded conceptions of the Civil War that emanate from within the profession and across mainstream American media and culture.

scholarly journals When will the Daybreak Come?

2008 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristin Skare Orgeret
Keyword(s):  
Popular Music ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
Cultural Resistance ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
Autocratic Regime ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Government ◽  
Alternative Sites

AbstractPopular musical expressions are important for discourses of citizenship and belonging. Focusing on popular music and political processes in Ethiopia today, this discussion uses Tewodros Kassahun aka Teddy Afro’s music as an example. Teddy Afro is a popular voice challenging the prevailing political discourse in Ethiopia. Several of Afro’s songs have been banned by the government on radio and television in Ethiopia, but are found to provide alternative sites of political and cultural resistance to the autocratic regime. Reasons for censorship are discussed as well as how music can provide alternative sites of resistance. The findings show that oppressing political expressions may not always kill the ideas, as they may find alternative arenas in the face of obstacles.

scholarly journals La conquista del Río de la Plata en el poema Romance Indiano, de Luis de Miranda de Villafañe

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miryam Celeste Buzó Silva
Keyword(s):  
Political Discourse ◽  
Literary Work ◽  
16Th Century ◽  
Rio De La Plata ◽  
Río De La Plata ◽  
La Plata ◽  
Political Analysis ◽  
The Face ◽  
Del Rio ◽  
Historical Moment

Luis de Miranda was part of the expedition of Don Pedro de Mendoza and wrote Romance Indiano, a composition in verse, considered as the first literary work of the Río de la Plata, that articulates a narrative about everything that happened during the conquest of this area of America. This work deals with desolation, hunger, and other issues with a political discourse of a foundational nature, at a historical moment characterised by the need to make decisions in the face of the vicissitudes suffered by the conquerors of the first Adelantado’s army. The richness of the text lies in its literary and political analysis, because the poem is not only characterised by the style used, which allows to observe the resources and values of the 16th century, but it also presents a political tinge, since its reading offers the vision of the conqueror in the process of settlement and conquest of the River Plate territory.

scholarly journals The Ten Aporias of Our Time. The Theory and Practice of Nuclear Deterrence

2021 ◽  
pp. 88-111
Author(s):  
Alexei Arbatov
Keyword(s):  
Control System ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
Arms Control ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Psychological Aspects ◽  
Nuclear Deterrence ◽  
Nuclear War ◽  
The West ◽  
Conventional Weapons ◽  
The Face

Rising international tensions and the risks of sliding towards a nuclear conflict in the face of the erosion of the arms control system between Russia and the West is becoming an essential subject of modern political discourse. In particular, the author investigates the psychological aspects of deterrence, the dichotomy of its functions of preventing and conducting nuclear war, the concepts of first and retaliatory strike, the dialectics of defense and offence, and plans for limited nuclear war, the effect of the entanglement of nuclear and conventional weapons.

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