Network

Network is a device for organising and conceptualising non-linear complexity. Networks defy narrative, chronology and thus also genealogy because they entail a multiplicity of traces. Networks problematize boundaries and centrality but intensify our ability to think in terms of flows and simultaneity. As a concept, network has been highly conducive to theorizing phenomena and processes such as globalization, digital media (Internet), speed, symbiosis and complexity. This in turn enables us to rethink what constitutes the foundations of intelligence, knowledge and even life itself. One particularly useful application of network as a concept is the notion of the gift, which is often seen as the archetypical figure for understanding the nature of economics and social relationships

Control responsibility : the discursive construction of privacy, teens, and Facebook in Flemish newspapers

This study explores the discursive construction of online privacy through a critical discourse analysis of Flemish newspapers' coverage of privacy, teens, and Facebook between 2007 and 2018 to determine what representation of (young) users the papers articulate. A privacy-as-control discourse is dominant and complemented by two other discourses: that of the unconcerned and reckless teenager and that of the promise of media literacy. Combined, these discourses form an authoritative language on privacy that we call "control responsibility." Control responsibility presents privacy as an individual responsibility that can be controlled and needs to be learned by young users. We argue that the discourses contribute to a neoliberal rationality and have a disciplinary effect that strengthens various forms of responsibilization

Proxy of democracy? : metaphors of connection as arguments against representation

This paper aims to assess the arguments that claim representative democracy may be enhanced or replaced by an updated electronic version. Focusing on the dimension of elections and electioneering as the core mechanism of representative democracy I will discuss: (1) the proximity argument used to claim the necessity of filling the gap between decision-makers and stakeholders; (2) the transparency argument, which claims to remove obstacles to the publicity of power; (3) the bottom-up argument, which calls for a new form of legitimacy that goes beyond classical mediation of parties or unions; (4) the public sphere argument, referred to the problem of hierarchical relation between voters and their representatives; (5) the disintermediation argument, used to describe the (supposed) new form of democracy following the massive use of ICTs. The first way of conceptualizing e-democracy as different from mainstream 20th century representative democracy regimes is to imagine it as a new form direct democracy: this conception is often underlying contemporary studies of e-voting. To avoid some of the ingenuousness of this conception of e-democracy, we should take a step back and consider a broader range of issues than mere gerrymandering around the electoral moment. Therefore I shall problematize the abovementioned approach by analyzing a wider range of problems connected to election and electioneering in their relation with ICTs

Digital document and interpretation : re-thinking "text" and scholarship in electronic settings

The contribution starts from outlining the evolution of the scholarly production flow from the print based paradigm to the digital age and in this context it explores the opposition of digital versus analog representation modes. It then develops on the triple paradigm shift caused by genuine digital publishing and its specific consequences for the social sciences and humanities (SSH) which in turn results in re-constituting basic scholarly notions such as 'text' and 'document'. The paper concludes with discussing the specific value that could be added in systematically using digital text resources as a basis for scholarly work and also states some of the necessary conditions for such a 'digital turn' to be successful in the SSH.Der Beitrag beginnt mit einem Überblick zur Evolution des wissenschaftlichen Informationskontinuums auf dem Weg vom druckbasierten Paradigma in das digitale Zeitalter und geht in diesem Zusammenhang näher auf die Unterscheidung 'digitaler' und 'analoger' Repräsentationsmodi ein. Anschließend behandeln wir den als Folge des Übergangs zu genuin digitalen Publikationsformen erwartbaren dreifachen Paradigmenwechsel und dessen spezifische Konsequenzen für die Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften sowie als deren Folge wiederum die Re-Konstitution elementarer Kernbegriffe geisteswissenschaftlichen Arbeitens wie 'Text' und 'Dokument'. Der Beitrag schließt mit einer Betrachtung des spezifischen Mehrwerts, der sich aus dem systematischen Rekurs auf digitale Textressourcen in den Geisteswissenschaften ergeben könnte und geht dabei auch auf die erforderlichen Vorbedingungen eines solcherart erfolgreichen 'digital turn' in den Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften ein

(Re)Conceptualizing Intercultural Communication in a Networked Society

We offer four theses about how intercultural communication is altered in a digitally networked era. Digital media shape intercultural communication by (1) producing new public fora capable of (2) hosting rich, multimodal ‘‘spaces’’ of contact on (3) a scale of many-to-many communication that (4) challenges traditional modes of representatio

The evolving scholarly record

This report presents a framework to help organize and drive discussions about the evolving scholarly record. The framework provides a high-level view of the categories of material the scholarly record potentially encompasses, as well as the key stakeholder roles associated with the creation, management, and use of the scholarly record. Key highlights: A confluence of trends is accelerating changes to the scholarly record\u27s content and stakeholder roles. Scholarly outcomes are contextualized by materials generated in the process and aftermath of scholarly inquiry. The research process generates materials covering methods employed, evidence used, and formative discussion. The research aftermath generates materials covering discussion, revision, and reuse of scholarly outcomes. The scholarly record is evolving to have greater emphasis on collecting and curating context of scholarly inquiry. The scholarly record’s stakeholder ecosystem encompasses four key roles: create, fix, collect, and use. The stakeholder ecosystem supports thinking about how roles are reconfigured as the scholarly record evolves. The ways and means of scholarly inquiry are experiencing fundamental change, with consequences for scholarly communication and ultimately, the scholarly record. The boundaries of the scholarly record are both expanding and blurring, driven by changes in research practices, as well as changing perceptions of the long-term value of certain forms of scholarly materials. Understanding the nature, scope, and evolutionary trends of the scholarly record is an important concern in many quarters—for libraries, for publishers, for funders, and of course for scholars themselves. Many issues are intrinsic to the scholarly record, such as preservation, citation, replicability, provenance, and data curation. The conceptualization of the scholarly record and its stakeholder ecosystem provided in the report can serve as a common point of reference in discussions within and across domains, and help cultivate the shared understanding and collaborative relationships needed to identify, collect, and make accessible the wide range of materials the scholarly record is evolving to include

Citizen Journalist to Activist: the Language Behind Black Lives Matter

This study explores the discourse surrounding an event in the social movement, Black Lives Matter, to gain insights into how digital literacy practices influence and mediate participation in the 21st century civil rights movement for a new generation of activist. This study examines three points of engagement, (1) the experience of the event as it is initially interpreted and shared online, (2) the intermingling of consciousness through social media, and (3) the post social media interpretation and action. Data was collected from Twitter analyzed using discourse analysis

Re-locating media production

It was arguably easier in the past to pin down media production in medium- or content-specific locales, such as the studio, the newsroom or the set. Contemporary processes of media convergence have dramatically opened up the ‘what’ and ‘where’ of media production to include all manner of quotidian practices and ephemeral places. This special issue however pushes back against the idea that contemporary landscapes of media production have been flattened. Each of the articles collected here accounts for significant transformations in media practices nearer to those which we would conventionally associate with media production, yet which are also potentially left behind in the rush to describe, theorize, celebrate and critique trends such as ‘produsage’, ‘prosumption’ and participatory media culture. Taken together, the papers in this special issue provide new insights into the locations and re-locations of contemporary media production across new and under-researched liminal and peripheral geographies, and around new and unexpected objects

A Human-centric Perspective on Digital Consenting: The Case of GAFAM

According to different legal frameworks such as the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), an end-user's consent constitutes one of the well-known legal bases for personal data processing. However, research has indicated that the majority of end-users have difficulty in understanding what they are consenting to in the digital world. Moreover, it has been demonstrated that marginalized people are confronted with even more difficulties when dealing with their own digital privacy. In this research, we use an enactivist perspective from cognitive science to develop a basic human-centric framework for digital consenting. We argue that the action of consenting is a sociocognitive action and includes cognitive, collective, and contextual aspects. Based on the developed theoretical framework, we present our qualitative evaluation of the consent-obtaining mechanisms implemented and used by the five big tech companies, i.e. Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft (GAFAM). The evaluation shows that these companies have failed in their efforts to empower end-users by considering the human-centric aspects of the action of consenting. We use this approach to argue that their consent-obtaining mechanisms violate principles of fairness, accountability and transparency. We then suggest that our approach may raise doubts about the lawfulness of the obtained consent—particularly considering the basic requirements of lawful consent within the legal framework of the GDPR