Cyber-Raiding

Author(s):  
Tarek El-Ariss

Focusing on the Internet as a space of regression and harassment following the Arab uprisings, this chapter traces the violence perpetrated against Arab authors, activists, and intellectuals online to the emergence of fiction as hyperreality principle. Investigating the relation between reading practices and knowledge production, and continuing the examination of the function of the author as leaking subject in the digital age, it focuses on the act of fragmenting the work itself through online campaigns and perverse literary performances. Specifically, it examines a hashtag campaign—in fact, a hashtag ghazwa (tribal raid)—launched on Twitter against a Saudi author, Badriah Albeshr [al-Beshr] (b. 1967), who was accused of apostasy for passages in her novel Hend and the Soldiers (2010).

Author(s):  
Jennifer Duggan

AbstractThe politics of children’s literature and the actors surrounding it have never been more visible than they are now, in the digital age. As one of the first children’s series to gain widespread popularity concurrently with the spread of the internet, the Harry Potter septet arrived on the global stage at the perfect moment to develop an avid, connected fandom. But the fandom has laid bare the many conflicting ideologies of the fans themselves and of the actors surrounding the texts. This article examines the contentious issue of gender nonnormativity and its relation to the Harry Potter texts, the queer/trans reading practices and political resistance common to the fandom, and the ongoing disagreements over gender, made visible on social media, between Rowling and the fans of her series. The article discusses the Harry Potter novels’ varied and conflicting ideologies; queer/trans readings of the Potter septet, including both invitations and resistances to queer/trans reading by Rowling herself; how gender is queered and queried in and through fan fiction; and finally, the recent hostilities between Rowling and her fans. It concludes by discussing the worsening relationship between Rowling and her fans and highlighting how fans are using their collective power to undermine Rowling’s gender politics through fan fiction. By doing so, the article traces the complex politics of the reception of books for young people in the digital age, demonstrating that authors’ powerful voices continue to shape readers’ responses to texts long after their publication but showing, too, that readers often resist authors’ attempts to influence not only their textual interpretations but their politics.


2014 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 94-112
Author(s):  
Angelė Pečeliūnaitė

The article analyses the possibility of how Cloud Computing can be used by libraries to organise activities online. In order to achieve a uniform understanding of the essence of technology SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS, the article discusses the Cloud Computing services, which can be used for the relocation of libraries to the Internet. The improvement of the general activity of libraries in the digital age, the analysis of the international experience in the libraries are examples. Also the article discusses the results of a survey of the Lithuanian scientific community that confirms that 90% of the scientific community is in the interest of getting full access to e-publications online. It is concluded that the decrease in funding for libraries, Cloud Computing can be an economically beneficial step, expanding the library services and improving their quality.


2021 ◽  
pp. 146144482110186
Author(s):  
Gianfranco Polizzi

This article proposes a theoretical framework for how critical digital literacy, conceptualized as incorporating Internet users’ utopian/dystopian imaginaries of society in the digital age, facilitates civic engagement. To do so, after reviewing media literacy research, it draws on utopian studies and political theory to frame utopian thinking as relying dialectically on utopianism and dystopianism. Conceptualizing critical digital literacy as incorporating utopianism/dystopianism prescribes that constructing and deploying an understanding of the Internet’s civic potentials and limitations is crucial to pursuing civic opportunities. The framework proposed, which has implications for media literacy research and practice, allows us to (1) disentangle users’ imaginaries of civic life from their imaginaries of the Internet, (2) resist the collapse of critical digital literacy into civic engagement that is understood as inherently progressive, and (3) problematize polarizing conclusions about users’ interpretations of the Internet as either crucial or detrimental to their online engagement.


2015 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 354-356 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda Herrera
Keyword(s):  

The world is not sliding, but galloping into a new transnational dystopia … The Internet, our greatest tool of emancipation, has been transformed into the most dangerous facilitator of totalitarianism we have ever seen. The Internet is a threat to human civilization.


2016 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 341-356 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olivia Rose Marcus ◽  
Merrill Singer

In this article, the authors provide a layered analysis of Ebola-chan, a visual cultural artifact of the 2014–2015 Ebola outbreak. Rather than considering her as a two-dimensional anime character (i.e. as a simple iconic coping mechanism and/or a fear response), this recent Internet meme is analyzed using an integrated semiotic and structural approach that involves discussion of the genesis of disaster humor in light of the changing world of the Internet, the history of anthropomorphism of disease, and the biosocial nature of an infectious disease epidemic. Our analysis is designed to advance both the anthropology of the Internet and the anthropology of infectious disease. As a multi-vocal symbol with different meanings for different audiences, Ebola-chan represents a social response to a lethal epidemic in the digital age.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Judith Hildebrandt ◽  
Jack Barentsen ◽  
Jos de Kock

Abstract History shows that the use of the Bible by Christians has changed over the centuries. With the digitization and the ubiquitous accessibility of the Internet, the handling of texts and reading itself has changed. Research has also shown that young people’s faith adapts to the characteristics of the ‘age of authenticity’, which changes the role of normative institutions and texts in general. With regard to these developments this article deals with the question: How relevant is personal Bible reading for the faith formation of highly religious Protestant German teenagers? Answers to this question are provided from previous empirical surveys and from two qualitative studies among highly religious teenagers in Germany. The findings indicate, that other spiritual practices for young people today are more important as a source of faith than reading the Bible. The teenagers interviewed tend to seek an individual affective experience when reading the Bible, so that the importance of cognitive grasp of the content takes a back seat to personal experience.


2004 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Bach

The battle between the recording industry and those illegal sharing music over the Internet has gripped headlines over the last few years like few others related to the digital age. At its core, it is a battle about the meaning of property and thus a battle over the heart of the emerging information economy. This article critically examines the double punch of law and technology – the simultaneous and interwoven deployment of legal and electronic measures to protect digital content – and asks whether it is merely a defense strategy against piracy, as the industry asserts, or rather an attempt to fundamentally redefine the producer-consumer relationship. Based on some initial evidence for the latter proposition, the article analyzes reasons for concern, outlines the current politics of copyright policymaking that have given producers the upper hand, and sketches elements of a strategy to fight music piracy that does not infringe on basic consumer rights.


2015 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heather B. Terrell

<p><em>In a literature survey on how reference collections have changed to accommodate patrons’ web-based information-seeking behaviors, one notes a marked “us vs. them” mentality — a fear that the Internet might render reference irrelevant. These anxieties are oft-noted in articles urging libraries to embrace digital and online reference sources. Why all the ambivalence? Citing existing research and literature, this essay explores myths about the supposed superiority of physical reference collections and how patrons actually use them, potential challenges associated with electronic reference collections and how providing vital e-reference collections benefits the library as well as its patrons.</em></p>


Author(s):  
Ana Sabino

The limits of the page have been historically set by the constrictions of the materials on which the text is inscribed. In the digital age, those materials no longer impose a physical limit, and the limits are more bound to what are our established reading practices and conventions. We still need to access the text in finite portions — we cannot process the infinitude of text that the limitless digital space would allow. Hence, notions as window or frame appear to make this infinite space readable — not unlike the ancient practice of reading and writing on a scroll, which contained large texts, but could only be read portion by portion. Nowadays, we no longer simply turn a page and leave it behind; in our perception, it is more like a frame is constantly being repositioned. In order to question this transition and its implications, we will be looking at a paper and a digital edition of Bartleby, the Scrivener by Herman Melville.


Author(s):  
Konstantin S. Sharov

The paper is concerned with a study of the changing content and style of non-canonical Christian religious preaching in the digital age. Special attention is paid to the analysis of modern rhetoric Christian preachers practice in their Internet channels, forums and blogs. It is shown that the content of the Internet sermon is largely determined by the Internet users themselves and the topics of their appeals. The fundamental characteristics of the content of the Internet sermon are: 1) focus on the individual, their private goals and objectives, not just on theological problems; 2) rethinking the phenomenon of the neighbour; 3) a shift from the Hesychast tradition of preaching the importance of inner spiritual concentration to the preaching of religious interactivity. The observed stylistic features of the digital preaching can be summarised as follows: 1) moving away from simple answers to the rhetoric of new questions addressed to the audience; 2) empathy, co-participation with a person in his/her life conflicts and experiences; 3) desire to share religious information, not to impose it; 4) resorting to various rhetorical techniques to reach different audiences; 5) a tendency to use slang, sometimes even irrespective of the audience’s language preferences and expectations. It should be pointed out that the Orthodox Internet sermon in the Russian Internet space has a dual and contradictory nature. On the one hand, this phenomenon can be regarded as positive for the Orthodox preaching in general, since it is a means of spreading Christian ideas in the social groups that do not constitute a core of parishioners of Orthodox churches, for example, schoolchildren, students, representatives of technical professions, etc. On the other hand, the effectiveness of such preaching is still unclear. Lack of reliable statistics as well as the results of the survey related to the Orthodox Internet preaching gives us no opportunity to judge about effectiveness or ineffectiveness of the phenomenon at this stage of its development.


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