Bots in Public Arenas of Social Networks

In the study of social bots, one of the important trends is the transition from a technology-centered understanding of bots as a threat to information and computer security to a broader, socially-focused understanding of bots as a new tool of informational influence used by various social actors in online social networks. This transition is of value to modern sociology. As one such actor, the authors consider a group of civic activists who use bot-technology to construct and solve the problem of defrauded equity holders. The novelty of the article lies in the interpretation of this group’s activities in the context of the concept of public arenas. The botnet “Deceived equity holders of LenSpecStroy” was detected thanks to the author’s complex methodology that combined the method of frequency analysis of messages, profiling of bot accounts, including static and behavioral analysis of user profiles, statistical analysis of texts, analysis of the botnet’s structural organization, analysis of the content of its publications, and analysis of bursts of network publication activity. Analyzing these bursts of publication activity and the content of botnet publications showed how bot-technologies aided in implementing effective techniques aimed at constructing and maintaining the social problem of defrauded equity holders: expanding the capacity of the public arena, realizing (creating) dramaturgical novelty and emotional richness in discussing the problem, taking into account the organizational specifics of the public arena, directing interest in the problem towards other (related and equally important) public arenas (media, legislative and executive power, political parties).

Digital Transformations of the Public Arena

Digital technologies have changed the public arena, but there is little scholarly consensus about how they have done so. This Element lays out a new framework for the digitally mediated public arena by identifying structural changes and continuities with the pre-digital era. It examines three country cases – the United States, Germany, and China. In these countries and elsewhere, the emergence of new infrastructures such as search engines and social media platforms increasingly mediate and govern the visibility and reach of information, and thus reconfigure the transmission belt between citizens and political elites. This shift requires a rethinking of the workings and dysfunctions of the contemporary public arena and ways to improve it.

Epilogue

The book closes with an epilogue that addresses the current health and economic conundrum that Latin American societies face and some of their political repercusions. The text registers how these societies have been affected by the pandemic, economic deceleration, rising unemployment and growing challenges to the livelihood of millions of citizens. While representative democracy weakens under such pressures and populist projects are recreated, the region has a strong tradition of highly participatory societies pressing demands and making their voices heard in the public arena. Under those conditions, one should expect outbursts of popular mobilization and unrest to develop that will challenge personalist rule and decision-making, most likely supported by countervailing visions of democracy that reverberate cyclically in the public spheres of Latin America.

The Intimate Virtuoso: The Guitar, the Rhetoric of Transformation, and Issues of Spectacle in Music by Fernando Sor, Johann K. Mertz, and Giulio Regondi

<p>Studies of virtuosity in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries have tended to focus on the piano and the violin. These instruments were obviously virtuosic and lent themselves to visual and aural displays of power, most notably in the case of Liszt and Paganini. These virtuosi crafted spectacles that were often described with metaphors of power and violence. These spectacles came to characterise the virtuosity of the early nineteenth century. However, the guitar has been largely neglected in scholarship dealing with virtuosity from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This is due, in large part, to the status of the guitar within that period. Though popular as an accompanying instrument and in the home, the guitar struggled to find a secure position as a legitimate solo instrument in the public arena. While guitarists such as Dionisio Aguado and Mauro Giuliani were described as ‘virtuosi’, their instrument, unlike the piano and the violin, did not give itself to a spectacle that conveyed notions of power and violence. Rather, the guitar is an intimate instrument, quieter than the piano or the violin, and utilising small movements in the hands. These aspects of the instrument, so often perceived as ‘limitations’ led many writers to dismiss it as an inappropriate instrument for performance in the public spheres occupied by the piano and the violin. Guitarist-composers sought to play to the guitar’s strengths in ways that contrasted with the conventional metaphors of power and violence. Some of these attempts rhetorically aligned the guitar with genres and instruments that carried greater cultural capital. Composers used orchestral metaphors and emphasised the guitar’s ability to imitate other instruments. Other guitarist-composers sought to create a greater spectacle both in and beyond the music itself by emphasising physical movements within the music and writing extra-musical gestures into the music. The rhetoric of transformation was used either by or about the guitarist-composers Fernando Sor, Dionisio Aguado, Johann Kaspar Mertz, and Giulio Regondi, all of whom this exegesis focuses on, demonstrating a desire to legitimise the guitar at a time when it struggled not only to find traction as a ‘serious’ classical instrument, but also a place amongst more obviously virtuosic instruments.</p>

The Intimate Virtuoso: The Guitar, the Rhetoric of Transformation, and Issues of Spectacle in Music by Fernando Sor, Johann K. Mertz, and Giulio Regondi

<p>Studies of virtuosity in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries have tended to focus on the piano and the violin. These instruments were obviously virtuosic and lent themselves to visual and aural displays of power, most notably in the case of Liszt and Paganini. These virtuosi crafted spectacles that were often described with metaphors of power and violence. These spectacles came to characterise the virtuosity of the early nineteenth century. However, the guitar has been largely neglected in scholarship dealing with virtuosity from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This is due, in large part, to the status of the guitar within that period. Though popular as an accompanying instrument and in the home, the guitar struggled to find a secure position as a legitimate solo instrument in the public arena. While guitarists such as Dionisio Aguado and Mauro Giuliani were described as ‘virtuosi’, their instrument, unlike the piano and the violin, did not give itself to a spectacle that conveyed notions of power and violence. Rather, the guitar is an intimate instrument, quieter than the piano or the violin, and utilising small movements in the hands. These aspects of the instrument, so often perceived as ‘limitations’ led many writers to dismiss it as an inappropriate instrument for performance in the public spheres occupied by the piano and the violin. Guitarist-composers sought to play to the guitar’s strengths in ways that contrasted with the conventional metaphors of power and violence. Some of these attempts rhetorically aligned the guitar with genres and instruments that carried greater cultural capital. Composers used orchestral metaphors and emphasised the guitar’s ability to imitate other instruments. Other guitarist-composers sought to create a greater spectacle both in and beyond the music itself by emphasising physical movements within the music and writing extra-musical gestures into the music. The rhetoric of transformation was used either by or about the guitarist-composers Fernando Sor, Dionisio Aguado, Johann Kaspar Mertz, and Giulio Regondi, all of whom this exegesis focuses on, demonstrating a desire to legitimise the guitar at a time when it struggled not only to find traction as a ‘serious’ classical instrument, but also a place amongst more obviously virtuosic instruments.</p>

Coopetitive Platform: Common Benefits in Electricity and Gas Distribution

Simultaneous collaboration and competition, or coopetition, has so far been studied among firms or non-profit organizations, leaving the public arena largely unexplored. This study focuses on identifying and measuring common benefit generation by local government actors in coopetition. We purposefully choose a metropolis composed of 41 municipalities setting to identify and measure those effects of coopetition that cannot be achieved by individual actors alone. We use real data and tariffs to run simulations that identify common and individual benefits generated in gas and electricity distribution. We find that savings can be achieved by mutualizing energy procurement, even though the distribution of savings is not equal among municipalities. We substantiate that energy communities can act as coopetitive platforms to optimize energy costs of municipalities.

Pandemia y desintegración regional: la COVID-19 y el retroceso de la comunidad de seguridad sudamericana

El artículo analiza el desarrollo de una comunidad de seguridad en América del Sur y el impacto que tuvo sobre ella la pandemia provocada por el coronavirus. A partir de un enfoque constructivista, en la primera parte del trabajo se explica cómo la crisis del regionalismo, la dificultad para definir amenazas comunes y la erosión de la identidad colectiva atentaron contra la maduración de la comunidad de seguridad sudamericana. Sobre este escenario, se argumenta que la crisis sanitaria originada por la COVID-19 dio lugar a un movimiento de resecuritización que profundizó el retroceso de la comunidad y se manifestó en tres indicadores: 1) la proliferación de discursos que identifican a los vecinos como una amenaza a la seguridad y la salud; 2) la fortificación de las fronteras; 3) el incremento de la militarización de la seguridad ciudadana y otras esferas de la arena pública. Como conclusión, se sostiene que ese tipo de prácticas y discursos da lugar a un tipo de comunidad política parecida a una sociedad anárquica, en la que los Estados se identifican más como rivales que como amigos. Abstract The article analyzes the development of a security community in South America and the impact that the coronavirus pandemic had on it. By using a constructivist methodology, the paper analyzes how the crisis of regionalism, the difficulty in defining common threats and the erosion of a collective identity hampered the maturation of the community. In this context, it is argued that the health crisis caused by COVID-19 gave rise to a securitization process that deepened the process of dismantling that community and was reflected in three indicators: 1) the proliferation of discourses that identify neighbors as a threat to safety and health; 2) a fortification of the borders; 3) an increase in the militarization of citizen security and other spheres of the public arena. It is concluded that this type of practice and discourse gives rise to a type of political community similar to an anarchic society, where states identify themselves as rivals rather than friends.

Towards New Ways of Representing History: Generic Innovations in the Historical Biopic in Spain

As virtual sites of public memorialization, historical biopics play an important part in shaping our view of the past. The genre employs a range of formal and narrative strategies in order to create persuasive narratives about historical characters and events. However, nation-specific socio-cultural and industrial conditions frequently determine whose lives are deserving of biographical treatment and how their stories are told. The following comparative analysis of two recent historical biopics, Clara Campoamor, The Forgotten Woman (Clara Campoamor, la mujer olvidada, Laura Mañá, 2011) and While at War (Mientras dure la guerra, Alejandro Amenábar, 2019), foregrounds some of these nation-specific circumstances in the Spanish context. It then proposes that these two works employ innovative strategies that signal possible new avenues for the historical biopic in Spain. In the case of Clara Campoamor, Mañá suggests alternative ways of representing historical female figures in the public arena, whilst in his film Amenábar mobilizes the conventions of the Hollywood biopic to aid transnational readability.

Troubling Pasts: Teaching Public History in Northern Ireland

This article explores the challenges and opportunities presented for the teaching and practice of public history in a post-conflict society that remains deeply divided over its past. It examines some of the negative ways in which history is used in the public arena, but also the potential of public history initiatives for building a more cohesive and forward-looking society. It examines how students can use the rich cultural landscape of Northern Ireland and engage with a wide range of experienced practitioners to learn more about the ways in which history divides; how we can negotiate these divisions over interpretations; how different communities understand, represent, and engage with their past; and why this matters.