The Banality of Digital Reputation: A Visual Ethnography of Young People, Reputation, and Social Media

This article relies on a visual ethnography with young people between 13 and 20 years old. Young people were asked to make visual collages of fictional social media accounts, which are used in this article to analyse the signification of “good” and “bad” reputation in digital youth culture. It explores how reputation is performed visually and aesthetically in digital youth culture. The aim is to contribute to the critical study of digital reputation, it formulates an ethical critique on how the signification of digital reputation has formed alongside values and beliefs that support the growth of platform capitalism, rather than assigning a reputational value and rank responsibly. I conclude how the signification of digital reputation is not only conformist and essentialist but also meaningless. The banality of reputation argues that, in the context of popular social media, there is no real or substantial information made available to distinguish between a “good” or a “bad” reputation, except for stylized banality, a stylistic focus on lifestyle and commodities. The point is that reputation should not be banal and meaningless. Many important political and institutional decisions in a democracy rely on the evaluation of reputation and critical assessment of the information upon which such evaluations are made. Although platform capitalism has made digital reputation meaningless, it is in fact an essential skill to critically orient oneself in digital societies.

Critical archives for decolonial literacies

This article relates to the information ethical critique of archives in the decolonial debate for social memory appropriation and cultural knowledge production. The decolonial approach is presented as a critical literacy emergent tendency that searches for evidencing conflicts in the formation of archives, collections and common knowledge in its power relations of historic social constructions. Decolonial theory have been unfolding in many areas and bringing diverse questionings focusing on the plurality of knowledge and ethical preservation, especially on ethno-racial relations. This article tries to broad the field of information science production pointing to a fictional problematic frontier of meaning making, dispute and collective reality. Looking for support on a psychoanalysis approach to cultural trauma, Lacan's symbolic contribution helps to evidence perspectives on ways of reporting and constituting social conflict with development of archival devices, communication contends and social memory. The biographical and performance artistic aspects presented, complements decolonial perspectives in what is referred to as “neo-documentalism”, in the field of Information Science, as a poetic character intrinsic in critical literacies of information. Abstrato (pt): Relaciona a crítica dos arquivos no debate decolonial pela apropriação social da informação e produção cultural do conhecimento. A abordagem decolonial se apresenta como um letramento crítico evidenciando conflitos na formação dos arquivos, acervos e do conhecimento comum em suas relações de poder e construção histórica social. As abordagens da psicanálise de Lacan para o trauma cultural ajudam a apoiar perspectivas sobre as formas de relatar e constituir conflitos sociais com o desenvolvimento de dispositivos e conteúdos simbólicos arquivísticos. Os aspectos biográficos e performáticos apresentados complementam a perspectiva decolonial no que se denomina “neodocumentalismo”, no campo da Ciência da Informação, como caráter artístico intrínseco aos letramentos críticos da informação.

Feminist Ethics and Gender Portrayals in Urhobo (African) Traditional Music

Essential concern of feminist ethics is that the moral perspectives and experiences of women are not often taken into cognizance in ethical discussion and that there is an unjust power structure in a culture that discriminates against women and privileges the position and rights of men over women. The moral ideal is often based on the male evaluation. The moral views on what ought to be just relationships between men and women permeate almost all aspects of cultural life, including music. Urhobo traditional music is not an exception. Urhobo traditional music which is a reflection of African traditional values that endorses patriarchy portrays women as inferior to men and women are to be subservient to men in decision-making in society. The paper will use critical analytic and hermeneutic methods to do a feminist ethical critique of gender portrayal in Urhobo traditional music. Excerpts from Urhobo traditional music will be presented, translated and their meaning evaluated. The paper finds and concludes that there is a need to create traditional music that projects the equality of men and women, just relationships among the sexes, and enhances the positive values of feminist ethics.

Death and the form of life

This article explores the relevance of death to the value of life. After a preliminary discussion of the human experience of mortality, I consider Heidegger’s argument that death is a condition of authenticity, Sartre’s claim that death is an externality that is irrelevant because it cannot be lived and Simmel’s theory that death is a boundary that is transcended by life. While all theories have their merits, I suggest that Simmel’s approach, which articulates well with Levinas’s ethical critique of Heidegger, offers important insight into our responsibility for other people and for the survival of other forms of life.

Levinas and the ethical turn: a Nietzschean critique and response

The contentious ‘ethical turn’ in continental philosophy motivates this project. Emmanuel Levinas is among the leaders of this movement to draw renewed attention to ethics in the continental tradition. Levinas describes the transcendence that transpires in the self-Other encounter as the source of ethical obligation. However, given Friedrich Nietzsche’s ethical critique, his followers view the category of transcendence with suspicion. They think it presupposes an ontology of unchanging being. Since Nietzsche and his disciples reject ontologies of unchanging being, preferring immanence instead, they think that transcendence inevitably appeals to some imaginary world beyond the one we inhabit. Consequently, they view all philosophers of transcendence as escapist. To assess whether Levinas’ philosophical project is viable, I draw from Nietzsche’s work to mount a Nietzschean critique of Levinas. I subsequently consider a Levinasian reply to the Nietzschean critique, arguing that Levinas’ transcendence provides a compelling alternative to a Nietzschean ethics of immanence.

Levinas and the ethical turn: a Nietzschean critique and response

The contentious ‘ethical turn’ in continental philosophy motivates this project. Emmanuel Levinas is among the leaders of this movement to draw renewed attention to ethics in the continental tradition. Levinas describes the transcendence that transpires in the self-Other encounter as the source of ethical obligation. However, given Friedrich Nietzsche’s ethical critique, his followers view the category of transcendence with suspicion. They think it presupposes an ontology of unchanging being. Since Nietzsche and his disciples reject ontologies of unchanging being, preferring immanence instead, they think that transcendence inevitably appeals to some imaginary world beyond the one we inhabit. Consequently, they view all philosophers of transcendence as escapist. To assess whether Levinas’ philosophical project is viable, I draw from Nietzsche’s work to mount a Nietzschean critique of Levinas. I subsequently consider a Levinasian reply to the Nietzschean critique, arguing that Levinas’ transcendence provides a compelling alternative to a Nietzschean ethics of immanence.