From the families we choose to the families we find online: media technology and queer family making

Since the mid-2000s, a number of Western countries have witnessed an increase in the number of children born into ‘alternative’ or ‘queer’ families. Parallel with this queer baby boom, online media technologies have become intertwined with most people’s intimate lives. While these two phenomena have appeared simultaneously, their integration has seldom been explored. In an attempt to fill this gap, the present article explores the ways in which contemporary queer reproduction is interwoven with online media practices. Importantly, the article does not understand online media as a technology that simply facilitates queer kinship; rather, it argues that online media technology is a reproductive technology in its own right. Drawing on empirical examples of media practices of kinning, such as online shopping for donor sperm and locating ‘donor siblings’ via online fora such as Facebook, the article analyses the merging and intersection of online media and queer kinship. These analyses serve as a foundation for an exploration of contemporary kinship and the development of a new theoretical framework for contemporary queer reproduction. Empirically, the examples are from single women’s (i.e. solo mothers) and lesbian couples’ family making. Using Weston's work on ‘chosen families’ as a backdrop for discussion, the article describes families of choice in light of new online kinship connections. In particular, the article focuses on online-initiated connections between donor siblings and how such connections can re-inscribe biology as important to queer kinship. Furthermore, it closely examines how media technology guides queer reproduction in particular directions and how technology causes becoming as a family.

Violations of Islamic Law in Male–Female Relations: The Shifting of Nyubuk Tradition of the Customary Peoples of Lampung

Advances in media and communication technology have wrought significant shifts in the nyubuk tradition of the customary peoples of Lampung Pepadun. Male–female relations, once clearly regulated by customary doctrine through nyubuk, are now mediated by social media technology that facilitates the violation of customary and Islamic laws. This article examines how nyubuk, a cultural medium for communication that has traditionally been used in spouse selection, has shifted as social media has become widely available. More specifically, it seeks to understand how the nyubuk tradition has come to disappear without any significant resistance. In doing so, it applies a qualitative descriptive approach, with data having been collected through interviews. This study finds that despite generations of practice, shifting social and cultural practices have threatened nyubuk with extinction, and the practice has increasingly been replaced by social media. As a result, behaviors that violate social and religious norms have become increasingly common in society. Male–female relations, traditionally regulated under Islamic norms through nyubuk, have become increasingly open as cultural spaces have been replaced by social media. This has facilitated transgressions and other violations of Islamic law by young men and women. Obeisance of religious law depends significantly on local cultural authorities, and where these authorities are ignored, once dominant laws and practices may become extinct. Received: 28 September 2021 / Accepted: 16 November 2021 / Published: 3 January 2022

Dramatic Premise and Human Purpose

Carl Jung's therapy is based on the dramatic structure of dreams, and current neurobiology and semantics confirms that drama—as defined by Plato—is the electromagnetic (EM) pattern of human reality. Therefore, fractal universal structure may be perceived in everything—“as above, so below”—and First Cause morality and intention can be correlated with contextual human purpose. Dramatic premise is a common denominator that integrates all of the dramatic components (plot, character, exposition, and lysis). First Cause Intention trickles down to personal harmony of purpose, but FC morality has always been problematic for humans. What part does evil play in the drama of human-cultural morality? Due to the significant difference of scale, human “contextuality” must be factored into the equation for moral behavior. Today's artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms for media technology can be used to foster authentic FC “coherent entrainment” according to Carl Jung's ratio between archetypes of the unconscious and their relatively conscious projections as archetypal representations (AR).

University Student Perspectives Towards Distance Mathematics Education in the COVID-19 Process

E-learning in mathematics education can be an approach that could provide much better learning environments in the pandemic. The COVID-19 cases have started to increase social anxiety and anxiety in many countries around the world. The current COVID-19 pandemic, which affects all countries, causes problems in economic and social fields, especially in education. The rapid growth of information communication technologies has led to the development and spread of the distance education system. Due to COVID-19, teachers and academics had to learn methods of teaching students using online resources, social media technology, and e-learning activities more effectively. The main purpose of this study is to collect students' views on distance education in mathematics lectures. This study will assist the planning and execution of the distance education carried out in universities during the COVID-19 outbreak. The population of this current study includes college students in a private university. The sample consists of 596 university students.

Enriching Course Content in University With New Media Technologies and Neuro Education

Avoiding technology is the same as staunching the flow of daily life, because it has become a part of our lives. Understanding of media has begun to change as technological tools have taken over daily life to such an extent. The individual, the smallest circle of this change ring, has also started to differentiate in terms of needs and expectations, so education has become the element that needs to be changed most. Classical teaching methods does not appeal to the students anymore. Neuro education and eye tracking methods are pioneer methods to be used in education. By the help of new media, students can visualize the information they have been learning and have a quick understanding of the information they get in the lectures. In this study, the effects of the spread of new media technology in education and how the old understanding of students and teachers are reshaped and adapted to this technology has been explored.

Proposing Transmedia Storytelling for Malaysian Film Industry: Thematic Considerations

Media convergence is ultimately the result of the disruption in media technology, creating a new episteme that foregrounds the diverse and interlinked way a story travels across platforms. One crucial development of media convergence is transmedia. While media scholars argue that media convergence has resulted in ontological uncertainties, it ironically entrenches some recognisable functions of the traditional media. This enables traditional communication functions like storytelling to be incorporated within media convergence. Storytelling, as communication functions, has continued to challenge the spatial and temporal metaphors of messages, allowing cultural symbols to transcend traditionally held boundaries in communication. Indeed, much has been written about transmedia storytelling, less however, has linked transmedia storytelling with the Malaysian film industry. The main aim of this paper is to thematically review past studies on transmedia storytelling in order to propose the idea that transmedia storytelling can help the Malaysian film industry as it is a new form of communication that the industry needs in increasing production, creating and determining local and global consumption of Malaysian stories. The review of past studies on transmedia storytelling reveals five salient themes: 1) Transmedia and engagement; 2) Liberatory potential; 3) Hybridisation of producer and user; 4) Uniqueness of media genre, and 5) Media literacy. The themes found are used to problematise transmedia storytelling and the Malaysian Film industry; this leads to the proposal of how transmedia storytelling can help the Malaysian film industry prosper while contributing to the understanding of transmedia storytelling and its benefit for the Malaysian film industry. Keywords: Transmedia storytelling, Malaysian film industry, media convergence, digital technologies, themes.

What is wrong with Singapore

This artwork was produced as part of the residency programme organised by the Centre of Contemporary Art, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, and the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design, Philippines called Acts of Life, with support from the Goethe-Institut. During the residency, the artist observed that media technology is utilised to abate the narratives by the nation state to define how a subject should operate and experience the world. Reflecting this, the artist created a work to discern the truthfulness and relevancy of a national narrative in individual lives. For this, a survey is devised as an artistic strategy to juxtapose the desires of a subject with the expectations of a nation state. An opinion booth was set up as part of the 2019 Singapore Art Week. With the header “What is wrong with Singapore”—the booth invites the audience to contribute their opinion towards the statement by writing it down on a postcard and pasting it on a designated wall. The accessibility, dissemination, and restriction of these opinions are left completely to the judgement of the audience visiting the booth.