Sonic diaspora, vibrations and rhythm: thinking through the sounding of the Jamaican dancehall session

The propagation of vibrations may provide a better way of understanding diasporic spread than the conventional focus on the circulation of products (Hall 1980, Appadurai 1986, 1996, Gilroy 1993a, Brah 1996). Jamaican sound systems operate as a broadcast medium and a source of CDs, DVDs and other commercial products (Henriques 2007a). But the dancehall sound system session also propagates a broad spectrum of frequencies diffused through a range of media and activities - described as “sounding” (following Small’s 1998 concept of “musicking”). These include the material vibrations of the signature low-pitched auditory frequencies of Reggae as a bass culture (Johnson 1980), at the loudness of “sonic dominance” (Henriques 2003). Secondly a session propagates the corporeal vibrations of rituals, dance routines and bass-line “riddims” (Veal 2007). Thirdly it propagates the ethereal vibrations (Henriques 2007b), “vibes” or atmosphere of the sexually charged popular subculture by which the crowd (audience) appreciate each dancehall session as part of the Dancehall scene (Cooper 2004). The paper concludes that thinking though vibrating frequencies makes it easier to appreciate how audiences with no direct or inherited connection with a particular music genre can be energetically infected and affected - to form a sonic diaspora

The diffusion of innovations in the presence of geography and media

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2012.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 101-105).Increasingly, the world we live in is digital, mobile, and online. As a consequence, many of your seemingly mundane actions are recorded, archived, and for the first time widely accessible to both the generators and curators of this information. From this fire hose of digital breadcrumbs, we can learn an enormous amount about ourselves as individuals and societies. Simple questions such as where we go, who we are meeting, and how we interact when we get there can be explored with incredibly high resolution and richness. Through new emiprical and analytic tools, we can leverage information generated from rapidly expanding online social networks, revealing the beautiful and often surprising complexity of everyday human behavior. We are able to harness data from millions of cell phone users to better understand how people move through cities, use roads, and interact with their neighbors. This thesis deals with quantifying, analyzing, and ultimately modeling sociotechnical systems. More specifically, it focuses on modeling the diffusion of innovations in time and space. While there has been much work examining the affects of social network structure on innovation adoption, models to date have lacked important features such as meta-populations reflecting real geography or influence from mass media forces. This thesis shows that these are features crucial to producing more accurate predictions of a social contagion and technology adoption at the city level. Using data from the adoption of the popular micro-blogging platform, Twitter, a model of adoption on a network is presented. The model places friendships in real geographic space and exposes individuals to mass media influence. Results show that homophily both amongst individuals with similar propensities to adopt a technology and geographic location is critical to reproduce features of real spatiotemporal adoption. Furthermore, estimates suggest that mass media was responsible for increasing Twitter's user base two to four fold. To reflect this strength, traditional contagion models are extended to include an endogenous mass media agent that responds to those adopting an innovation as well as influencing agents to adopt themselves. The final chapter of this thesis addresses the future. The ubiquity of digital devices like mobile phones and tablets is opening rich new avenues of research. The massive amounts of data generated and stored by these devices can be used to gain a better understanding of the complex socio-technical systems they sense. The same tools, techniques, and analogies utilized in the first three chapters of this thesis can now literally be taken to the streets. With mobile phones that record when and where activities take place, a new window has been opened on urban systems. Future work will explore how people use cities dynamically to improve transportations systems and inform urban planners. New measurements will help understand what cities do well, when they fail, and why. At the core of this new domain, is an interdisciplinary approach to complex socio-technical systems that combines many fields and methods. This view forms a more holistic view of problems and potential solutions. The thesis presented stands as an example of data, theory, and simulation for diverse areas can be combined to gain novel insights into human behavior.by Jameson Lawrence Toole.S.M

Homofilia por tópicos em uma rede social online

Orientador: André SantanchèDissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de ComputaçãoResumo: Entender a dinâmica de interações sociais é crucial para o entendimento questões que envolvem o comportamento humano. O surgimento de mídias sociais online, tal como Facebook e Twitter, possibilitou o acesso a dados de relacionamentos de pessoas em larga escala. Essas redes são orientadas à informação, com seus usuários compartilhando e consumindo informação. Nesta dissertação, estamos interessados na presença de homofilia por tópicos em uma rede social. Especificamente, nós exploramos como as conexões entre indivíduos estão ligadas com a sua similaridade por tópicos, i.e., a sua proximidade em consideração com os diferentes tipos de conteúdo que circulam pela rede. Para fazê-lo, representamos usuários utilizando as informações de suas mensagens. Nossos resultados demonstram que usuários, na média, estão conectados com usuários similares a eles e que interações mais fortes estão relacionadas com uma alta similaridade por tópicos. Nós também verificamos que, quando se considera apenas usuários dentro de um tópico, a homofilia se manifesta diferentemente de acordo com o tópico. Nós acreditamos que esta pesquisa, além de fornecer uma maneira de aferir similaridade por tópicos, aumenta as evidências de homofilia entre indivíduos, contribuindo para um melhor entendimento de como sistemas sociais complexos são estruturadosAbstract: Understanding the dynamics of social interactions is crucial to address questions involving human behavior. The emergence of online social medias, such as Facebook and Twitter, has enabled the access to data of people relationships at a large scale. These networks are information oriented, with users sharing and consuming information. In this dissertation, we are interested in the presence of topical homophily in an online social network. Specifically, we explore how individuals connections are related to their topical similarity, i.e., their proximity regarding the different kinds of content that are shared in the network. To do so, we represent users using the information of their messages. Our results show that users, on average, are connected with users which are similar to them and that stronger interactions are related to a high topical similarity. We also verified that, when considering only users inside a topic, homophily manifests differently according to the topic. We believe that this research, besides providing a way to assess the topical similarity of users, deepens the evidence of homophily among individuals, contributing to a better understanding of how complex social systems are structuredMestradoCiência da ComputaçãoMestre em Ciência da Computação1629113, 1461658CAPE

Talking About Uncertainty

In the first article we review existing theories of uncertainty. We devote particular attention to the relation between metacognition, uncertainty and probabilistic expectations. We also analyse the role of natural language and communication for the emergence and resolution of states of uncertainty. We hypothesize that agents feel uncertainty in relation to their levels of expected surprise, which depends on probabilistic expectations-gaps elicited during communication processes. Under this framework above tolerance levels of expected surprise can be considered informative signals. These signals can be used to coordinate, at the group and social level, processes of revision of probabilistic expectations. When above tolerance levels of uncertainty are explicated by agents through natural language, in communication networks and public information arenas, uncertainty acquires a systemic role of coordinating device for the revision of probabilistic expectations. The second article of this research seeks to empirically demonstrate that we can crowd source and aggregate decentralized signals of uncertainty, i.e. expected surprise, coming from market agents and civil society by using the web and more specifically Twitter as an information source that contains the wisdom of the crowds concerning the degree of uncertainty of targeted communities/groups of agents at a given moment in time. We extract and aggregate these signals to construct a set of civil society uncertainty proxies by country. We model the dependence among our civil society uncertainty indexes and existing policy and market uncertainty proxies, highlighting contagion channels and differences in their reactiveness to real-world events that occurred in the year 2016, like the EU-referendum vote and the US presidential elections. In the third article, we propose a new instrument, called Worldwide Uncertainty Network, to analyse the uncertainty contagion dynamics across time and areas of the world. Such an instrument can be used to identify the systemic importance of countries in terms of their civil society uncertainty social percolation role. Our results show that civil society uncertainty signals coming from the web may be fruitfully used to improve our understanding of uncertainty contagion and amplification mechanisms among countries and between markets, civil society and political systems

User Behavior Analysis and Data Trading in Multi-Agent Systems

The advancement of complex social systems such as Facebook and Twitter has led to huge volume of user generated contents, which enable detailed tracking and characterization of human activities. Users of these systems interact with each other to make decisions in events such as information dissemination and to learn knowledge such as rating of online businesses. Quantitative analysis and comprehension of mechanisms of users' behaviors in these systems are both intriguing and imperative in many academic fields (e.g., economics and social/political sciences) and applications (e.g., online advertisement and management of electronic commerce). In addition, due to the high commercial and research values of these user generated data for many individuals and companies, various data trading platforms are emerging to facilitate data transactions and to extract remarkable profits from the data markets, yet few methodological trading schemes are available in the literature. Therefore, in this dissertation, we are motivated to examine users' behaviors during several learning and decision making processes in networked systems and to design an efficient data trading mechanism systematically for markets with multiple data agents. Specifically, we first propose a graphical evolutionary game theoretic framework for information propagation over heterogeneous networks and analytically study the dynamics and stable states of the game. Theoretical results are corroborated by numerical experiments on real-world information diffusion data. Secondly, to incorporate users' long-term incentives, we propose a sequential game to model the decision-making procedures in generic popularity dynamics. Properties of the symmetric Nash equilibrium of the game are theoretically analyzed and match well with empirical observations from real world popularity dynamics such as information diffusion dynamics and paper citation dynamics. Thirdly, an evolutionary game theoretic learning algorithm is proposed for the social learning problem, where networked agents collaborate to detect some unknown system state. Theoretical analysis manifests that the stable states of the proposed distributed learning algorithm coincide with the decisions of a fictitious centralized detector. Lastly, we investigate the data trading problem in a market with multiple data owners, collectors and users. An efficient data trading mechanism based on iterative auctions is presented and we demonstrate that the mechanism converges to the socially optimal operation point and possesses appealing economic properties. Numerical studies based on data prices of real-world data transaction platforms are shown to verify the effectiveness of the proposed trading mechanisms

Tourist behavior in a health alert environment

Tras el gran impacto que la reciente pandemia de la COVID-19 ha tenido sobre el sector turístico en general, y sobre los hoteles en particular, los profesionales del sector y los responsables de los destinos deben plantear cambios en la gestión y oferta turística, de forma que en el futuro pueda compaginarse una situación de crisis sanitaria con el mantenimiento de la actividad turística. La importancia creciente del sector turístico en todo el mundo, y particularmente en España, obligan a diseñar estrategias que permitan que la actividad turística contribuya de forma relevante al PIB, como lo ha estado haciendo en los últimos años. A lo largo del siglo XXI ya se han producido varios brotes epidémicos. El importante impacto que estas crisis pandémicas están teniendo en la economía, ha llevado a plantearlas incluso como un evento que condiciona los ciclos económicos. En los dos primeros años de la reciente pandemia, 2020 y 2021, la contribución del turismo al PIB español se redujo un 43%, pasando de representar el 14% del PIB total, al 5,9% en el año 2020 y el 8,5% en el 2021. El efecto también se ha notado considerablemente en el empleo, que conjuntamente en estos dos años cayó el 11,6%. Para combatir la propagación de los contagios, las autoridades y los hoteles implantaron medidas dirigidas a ofrecer alojamientos seguros, pero la rapidez con la que se pusieron en marcha no permitió realizar un estudio previo sobre su eficacia e impacto en el negocio hotelero. Diferentes estudios han demostrado que uno de los riesgos más importantes a la hora de tomar la decisión de viajar y elegir un destino es el riesgo de contraer una enfermedad. Por estas razones, es interesante investigar y determinar qué elementos son los que proporcionan al turista una mayor percepción de seguridad en su viaje. El objetivo de este trabajo es profundizar sobre el comportamiento de los turistas en situaciones de crisis sanitarias, y descubrir qué medidas son más importantes para aumentar su seguridad, así como los factores que influyen en la elección de un Hotel Seguro. Se entiende por Hoteles Seguros aquellos hoteles protectores de la salud que, no sólo han aplicado medidas básicas de prevención contra la COVID-19, sino que también han aplicado medidas adicionales para minimizar la interacción directa e indirecta entre las personas, con el fin de proteger la salud y evitar la transmisión de la enfermedad. Para dar el cumplimiento a este objetivo, en esta tesis se han desarrollado tres investigaciones diferentes, basadas en un estudio realizado en enero de 2021, en plena tercera ola de COVID¬19 en España, mediante una encuesta a 521 clientes potenciales de hoteles, y entrevistas a 14 gerentes de hoteles de la ciudad de Córdoba. Aunque algunos estudios evalúan la importancia de diferentes medidas de seguridad implantadas en los hoteles para hacer frente a la COVID-19, ningún estudio evalúa la importancia comparando el punto de vista de clientes y gerentes. Sin embargo, es importante determinar las diferencias entre ambos colectivos, si es que las hay, para que los gerentes puedan desarrollar estrategias de carácter operativo, así como estrategias de marketing, más ajustadas a las percepciones de los clientes y, en consecuencia, más exitosas. Con esta finalidad, se ha desarrollado la primera investigación. Tomando como marco teórico la Teoría de los Stakeholders, se contrasta la opinión de dos de estos grupos, clientes y gerentes, en relación con la importancia percibida sobre las medidas de seguridad aplicadas en los hoteles, concluyendo que son más importantes para los clientes, y cuanto mayor es la importancia para ambos grupos, menor es la diferencia entre sus valoraciones. Tras realizar una agrupación de las medidas por dimensiones, Limpieza, Distancia y relación con la Tecnología, se comprueba que las relacionadas con la Limpieza de los hoteles son las más importantes para los dos colectivos y sobre las que existe mayor acuerdo. Sin embargo, las relacionadas con la introducción de Tecnología para el control de infecciones son las menos valoradas por ambos grupos y sobre las que se observa mayor discrepancia. La aparición de la COVID-19 y la concienciación sobre sus efectos en la actividad de los alojamientos turísticos, justifica el interés de académicos y profesionales por mejorar la comprensión del comportamiento de compra segura en un contexto de crisis sanitaria. Los valores egoístas y socio-altruistas son factores clave para determinar los comportamientos pro-sociales, como sería el comportamiento de compra segura desde un punto de vista sanitario. Sin embargo, hasta la fecha, ningún estudio examina el efecto de estos valores en dichos comportamientos. Para ello, se ha desarrollado la segunda investigación, donde se propone y se prueba un modelo de investigación, incorporando la Teoría del Comportamiento Planeado y la Teoría de Valor-Creencia-Norma, para analizar cómo afectan los valores egoístas y socio-altruistas en la intención de alojarse en un hotel seguro. Se comprueba el efecto directo e indirecto de las preocupaciones egoístas, mediado por la actitud, el control conductual percibido, la norma subjetiva y la norma personal, sobre la intención de alojarse en un hotel seguro, y el efecto indirecto de las preocupaciones socio-altruistas. Además, en su conjunto, las preocupaciones egoístas tienen un efecto mayor que las socio-altruistas. Por último, en la tercera investigación, y utilizando como marco la Teoría del Intercambio Social, se analiza el efecto de los factores pull de hoteles seguros (es decir, medidas de seguridad e higiene frente a la COVID-19 implantadas en los hoteles) sobre la intención y la disposición a pagar una prima por alojarse en hoteles seguros. En concreto, inicialmente, y tomando como criterios la intención de alojarse y disposición a pagar más por un hotel seguro, se han identificado tres segmentos: 'no clientes', 'clientes sin disposición a pagar más' y 'clientes con disposición a pagar más'. A continuación, se analizan los factores pull que diferencian a estos segmentos, agrupándolos en tres categorías Empleados, Instalaciones y Tecnología. Los resultados muestran que el segmento 'clientes con disposición a pagar más', identificado como el más numeroso, es el que tiene un mayor interés en medidas relacionadas con la Tecnología. Las conclusiones de los estudios realizados en esta tesis pretenden ser una aportación útil para los profesionales del sector, de forma que, en futuras crisis sanitarias, y todo indica que se van a seguir produciendo, puedan simultanearse el control de los contagios y la actividad turística. Por ello, sería interesante centrar los esfuerzos en aquellas medidas en las que las preocupaciones de los directores de hoteles coinciden con las de los clientes, entre las que destacan su preocupación por la Limpieza. Igualmente, ser conscientes de la importancia que las preocupaciones egoístas tienen sobre la intención de alojarse en un hotel seguro, puede servir de orientación para definir su estrategia de comunicación a los clientes. Adicionalmente, dada la importancia que las medidas relacionadas con la implantación de la Tecnología tienen para el segmento con disposición a pagar más por reservar este tipo de alojamiento, los gestores podrían considerar la introducción de este tipo de medidas para atraer a estos clientes. Se trata del segmento más numeroso y que muestra una mayor intención de alojarse en un hotel seguro, además de ser el más rentable.While several studies assess the importance of different security measures implemented in hotels to address COVID-19, there is a lack of research that compares the perspectives of customers and managers. Understanding the differences between these two groups is crucial for managers to develop operational and marketing strategies that align with customer perceptions and lead to greater success. The first research in this thesis has been conducted to achieve this goal. Drawing on the Stakeholder Theory as a theoretical framework, the perceived importance of security measures applied in hotels is compared between customers and managers. The findings indicate that these measures are more important for customers, and as the importance increases for both groups, the differences in their evaluations diminish. When categorizing the measures into dimensions, Cleanliness, Distance, and related Technology, it was observed that those related to hotel Cleanliness were deemed the most important by both groups, showing the highest level of agreement. On the other hand, measures concerning the implementation of infection control Technology were least valued by both groups and exhibited the greatest discrepancy in their evaluations. The emergence of COVID-19 and the awareness of its impact on tourist accommodations have generated interest among academics and professionals to enhance the understanding of safe purchasing behavior during health crises. Selfish and socio-altruistic values play a crucial role in determining pro-social behaviors, including safe shopping behavior from a health perspective. Surprisingly, no study has yet explored the influence of these values on such behaviors. To address this gap, the second research in this thesis introduces a research model that combines the Theory of Planned Behavior and the Value-Belief-Norm Theory. This model aims to analyze how selfish and socio-altruistic values affect individuals, intention to stay in a safe hotel. The study examines the direct and indirect effects of selfish concerns, mediated by attitude, perceived behavioral control, subjective norm, and personal norm, on the intention to stay in a safe hotel. Additionally, the indirect impact of socio-altruistic concerns is also assessed. Overall, the findings indicate that selfish concerns have a stronger influence than socio-altruistic concerns. Finally, the third research in this thesis utilizes the Social Exchange Theory as a framework to examine the impact of pull factors of safe hotels, which refer to the health and safety measures implemented against COVID-19, on individuals, intention to stay and their willingness to pay a premium for staying in such hotels. Initially, three segments were identified based on the criteria of intention to stay and willingness to pay more: ,non-clients,, ,clients without willingness to pay more,, and ,clients with willingness to pay more,. The pull factors that differentiate these segments were then analyzed and categorized into three categories: Employees, Facilities, and Technology. The results indicate that the largest segment, ,customers willing to pay more,, shows the highest interest in technology-related measures. The conclusions drawn from the studies conducted in this thesis aim to provide valuable insights for professionals in the sector. These findings can assist in effectively combining the control of contagions with tourism activity during future health crises, which are expected to continue occurring. Therefore, it would be beneficial to focus efforts on measures that align with both the concerns of hotel managers and clients, including the emphasis on Cleanliness. Additionally, recognizing the si gnificance of selfish concerns in influencing the intention to stay in a safe hotel can guide the development of communication strategies for customers. Lastly, given the importance of technology-related measures for the segment willing to pay more for this type of accommodation, managers could consider implementing such measures to attract these customers. This is the largest segment, which demonstrates a higher intention to stay in a safe hotel, in addition to being the most profitable

Vectorisation of male supremac(h)ist ideologies in high-impact narratives and sociopolitical statism in western contemporary patriarchies

The present thesis dissertation, oriented at the fulfilment of the requirements for the obtention of the Philosophy Doctor, aims provide an intensive analysis on the deployment of traditional and contemporary narrative formats, in the context of the patriarchal establishments which have governed the Western world since early foundational civilisations, for the endurance of their supremac(h)ist organisation principles through the creation and maintenance of a conceptually recreated gender breach. The appropriate obtention of relevant data, for the surveyal of the potential encoding of gender unequal ideological concerns, as oriented to the alterity portrayal of the male and the female with socio-political stratification purposes, from the analysis of such a wide variety of narrative formats entails the implementation of diverse, text-specific, methodological guidelines. The technology in the contemporary world has imposed the inevitable presence of penetrating audiovisual ideological narratives with a massive outreach. Such would be the case of television, whose brief, but precise, advertisement narrations are studied to intergenerationally perpetuate the patriarchal task distribution that displaces women to the private sphere for the performance of kitchen and cleansing duties in a world were women cannot be denied to work and efforts for conciliation are necessary, as exhibited in the analysed costumbrist spots by major and highly consumer-endorsed brands ‘Natillas La Lechera’ and ‘La Cocinera’, or ‘Lejía Conejo’ bleach, ‘Vileda Windomatic’ squeege and ‘Philips Perfect Care’. As opposed to television advertising, other audiovisual formats, such as animation, do not intend to depict spectators’ daily life, but to present easy-to-embrace characters, who are studied to hold a powerful faculty to channelise narrative-controlled feelings and ideas. Such a factor would justify the eligibility of The Simpsons, as the longest scripted show in TV history and the most popular family in UK, over the royal family. In ‘The Diatribe of a Mad Housewife’, the female incorporation to the public sphere of professional life, which materialises in female writing, is deceitfully conceived as a source of misandry and conflict between the male figures of reference. Another audiovisual narrative format for male chauvinist ideologisation, video games, would interestingly resort to the immersion of fictional worlds governed by representational rules tacitly accepted by players when interacting with such influential major entertainment products, so the player-avatar identification facilitates the extrapolation of the gender-based in-game representations to the players’ external reality. Specifically, top-sales Resident Evil 4 (2005) and Bioshock Infinite (2013) present their respective female protagonists, Ashley Graham and Elisabeth Comstock, as passive entities to possess and custody in the private sphere, being both the characters the unfortunate threat to the socio-political stability of the status quo when the private custody decays and their control is usurped by male figures who move them to other public or private spaces. As observed in Resident Evil 4, the reversibility of such a systemic unbalance may be feasible when the damsel in danger is rescued from the private captivity setting and the initial custody by the male president of the United States and head of the free patriarchal world is restored. However, the male custody of Elisabeth Comstock in Bioshock Infinite’s public sphere, which implies her presence outside the house prophylactic confinement, is contrastively portrayed as the catalyser of the unleash of female uncontrolled powers and the inevitable destruction of the malecreated civilisation. The first five games in Pokémon saga offer a peaceful alternative to Resident Evil 4 and Bioshock Infinite, where gender alterity is imposed by the necessary-to-progress interaction of the player with male and female flat stereotypical characters, and the peaceful coexistence of humans and monsters is guaranteed by a hierarchised power apparatus with a minimal female representation. On the contrary, contemporary written formats, along with the atemporal urban legend and news, are also examined to complement the holistic contribution performed by narratives for the creation of a multiplatform supremac(h)ist ideological apparatus. Thus, wide-outreach social networking interactions may be contemplated to resort to hoaxes, pseudo-informative narratives, for the fostering of gender-biased conceptions which justify the organisation of the community around the male figure. Specifically, Twitter is analysed to have been utilised by Spanish (ultra)right political forces to summon the population’s fear to massive concentrations in early COVID-19 crisis to depict Spanish 8M feminist activism and overtly feminist first-order female politicians as peril for the wellbeing of the community, which prioritises their ambitions to individuals’ health and integrity. In order to filter and retrieve the tweets to explore, term (8M, 8-M), chronological (March 6th – June 21st, 2020) and geolocation (Spain) Boolean operators have been implemented in Twitter internal browser. Boolean operators may also prove relevant for the discovery of news as a written narrative genre actively contaminated by writers’ ideological communicative intentions during text elaboration and design, as observed in the ideological justification and ‘laundering’ of the toxic model of possessive masculinity exhibited upon Will Smith’s aggressive restitution of the woman-channelised family name staining at 2022 Academy Awards. To these regards, the filtered journalistic reports on Smith’s assault on Chris Rock upon Jada Pinkett’s alopecia joke, in Spanish, English and Portuguese, highlight Pinkett’s passivity in favour of the male participants’ interventions, who are to impose offence on the defenceless woman, in the case of Rock, and deliver medieval-like justice, as providentially assigned by the Catholic divinity, for the effective exercise of the custody of the damsel in danger, as incarnated by Smith. In this context, contemporary broadcasting platforms reveal as powerful vectors of influencer-based toxic masculinities. The last of the written genres examined befits those high impact viral accounts, with adaptative contextual flexibility to enhance its relevance for the narratee, a sense of veracity and a cautionary ending which exhort narratees to vectorise the subliminally ideological precepts encoded in the story ‘DNA’. These atemporal narratives, extracted from Spanish and English language Ortí and Sampere (2017), Camacho (2005, 2007), Brown & Flynn (2003) and Brunvald’s (1999) anthologies are filtered to obtain urban legends which depict women ‘in action’ under no male custody, as in Camacho’s (2007) “Secado Rápido”, a story at the crossroads of gender and Elder age inferiority in the private sphere, where an unsupervised widow kills an innocent puppy while arrogantly trying to microwave-dry it after an unplanned bath; Brown and Flynn’s (1999) “Chain reaction”, where an uncivil, yet irrelevant, woman’s behaviour in a public transport space causes a massive disaster which redounds in the destruction of the male-created urban skyline; or Hayes’ (2013), where the female ambition’s to trespass women’s patriarchal limitations lead her to reach the top of the Catholic Church under the disguise of John Anglicus, in early 13th century, but meets the capital penalty when misguided by her lust and her subsequently unexpected public labor during a religious service in the surroundings of Rome’s colosseum and St. Clement’s church.La presente tesis doctoral, que está orientada a la satisfacción de los requisitos para la obtención del título de doctor en la rama de lenguas y culturas, pretende llevar a cabo un análisis intensivo de la utilización de formatos narrativos tradicionales y contemporáneos, en el contexto de los statu quo patriarcales que han gobernado el mundo occidental desde los albores de sus civilizaciones fundacionales, con el objeto de perdurar sus principios de organización ‘supremac(h)istas’ por medio de la creación y mantenimiento de una brecha de género de origen conceptual. La obtención adecuada de información relevante sobre la posible existencia de codificaciones ideológicas en base a la desigualdad de género, que estarían dirigidos a una descripción altérica de la mujer y el hombre para la estratificación sociopolítica, en tan amplia variedad de formatos narrativos, requiere la implementación de líneas metodológicas diversas y adaptadas al formato textual correspondiente. Las prestaciones tecnológicas del mundo contemporáneo han impuesto la presencia ineludible de narrativas ideológicas audiovisuales de largo alcance. Este sería el caso de la televisión y sus cortas narrativas publicitarias, que, aunque cortas pero precisas, contribuyen a la perpetuación intergeneracional de la distribución de tareas patriarcal, que desplazaría a la mujer a la esfera privada para la satisfacción de obligaciones, en lo que a la cocina y a la higienización del hogar se refiere, en un mundo en el que no se puede alienar el derecho a la mujer a trabajar y que impone un esfuerzo extra para la conciliación familiar, como se observa en los anuncios, de corte costumbrista, de productos de marcas punteras como ‘Natillas La Lechera’, ‘La Cocinera, ‘Lejía Conejo’, ‘Vileda Windomatic’ o ‘Philips Perfect Care’. Al contrario que en el caso de la publicidad televisiva, otros formatos audiovisuales, como la animación, no persiguen retratar la vida diaria del espectador, sino ofrecer personajes con los que simpatizar, dada su probada valía para la canalización de ideas y emociones en las narrativas en las que se enmarcan. Este factor justifica la elección de Los Simpsons, que se erigen como el espectáculo guionizado de mayor duración en la historia de la televisión, así como la familia más popular en Reino Unido, incluso por encima de la familia real del país. En ‘Diatriba de una ama de casa loca’, la incorporación de la mujer a la vida profesional de la esfera pública, que en el caso de Marge se materializa en la escritura femenina, se concibe, no exenta de engaño, como una fuente de misandria y conflicto entre las figuras masculinas de referencia en el entorno de social de Marge. Otro formato narrativo audiovisual de ideologización supremac(h)ista tendría su seno en los videojuegos, que ofrecen a los jugadores una experiencia inmersiva en la que, como fruto de la interacción con estos productos de entretenimiento de gran influencia, los jugadores aceptan tácitamente las reglas representacionales y operativas que gobiernan el mundo ficticio del juego. En particular, los títulos superventas Resident Evil 4 (2005) y Bioshock Infinite (2013), muestran a sus protagonistas femeninos respectivos, Ashley Graham and Elisabeth Comstock, como sujetos pasivos a poseer y custodiar en la esfera privada, suponiendo ambos personajes una amenaza para la estabilidad del statu quo cuando la custodia privada inicial decae y su control es apropiado indebidamente por otras figuras masculinas, que ejercerán una custodia forzosa de la mujer cautiva en otros contextos públicos y privados. Como se puede observar en Resident Evil 4¸el desequilibrio sistémico causado por dicho ‘traspaso’ solo reviste reversibilidad cuando se rescata a la ‘damisela en apuros’ del escenario privado donde se mantiene cautiva y se restaura la custodia inicial, a cargo del presidente de los Estados Unidos y líder del mundo patriarcal libre. Por el contrario, la custodia masculina de Elisabeth Comstock en la esfera pública de Bioshock Infinite, que implica inherentemente la presencia de la mujer fuera de su confinamiento profiláctico entre las cuatro paredes del hogar, se conceptualiza como el catalizador de la liberación de los poderes descontrolados de la misma y la destrucción inevitable de la civilización creada por la mano del hombre. Por otro lado, los cinco primeros títulos de la saga Pokémon ofrecen una alternativa pacífica al mundo ficticio de Resident Evil 4 y Bioshock Infinite, donde la interacción del jugador con personajes masculinos y femeninos estereotípicos y planos se impone como una necesidad para el progreso de los jugadores en la narrativa, y la convivencia pacífica entre seres humanos y monstruos viene de la mano de un aparato de poder jerarquizado en el que la presencia de la mujer es mínima. Por otro lado, los formatos escritos contemporáneos, junto con otros formatos atemporales como la noticia o la leyenda urbana, también son objeto de análisis, de cara al descubrimiento de la contribución holística de narrativas diversas a la creación de un aparato ideológico supremac(h)ista multiplataforma. En este contexto, se examina la manera en la que las interacciones en redes sociales de amplio alcance recurren a los bulos, narrativas pseudo-informativas, para la promoción de concepciones basadas en la desigualdad de género, que vendrían a justificar la organización sociopolítica de la comunidad en torno a la figura del hombre. En particular, se analiza el uso de Twitter, por parte de fuerzas de la (ultra)derecha política española, para avivar el miedo de la población general a las concentraciones masificadas en los albores de la crisis sanitaria de la COVID-19 y retratar, así, al activismo feminista español en torno al 8M, y a las políticas de primer orden que lo encabezan, como un peligro para el bienestar de la comunidad que priorizaría sus ambiciones a la salud e integridad de los ciudadanos. Para la recuperación y subsiguiente filtrado de los tuits a estudiar, se implementan los operadores booleanos terminológicos (8M, 8-M), cronológicos (del 6 de marzo al 21 de junio de 2020) y de geolocalización (España) en el buscador interno de Twitter. La pertinencia de los operadores Booleanos para el estudio de la noticia, como género narrativo que adolece de una contaminación por parte de las intenciones comunicativas ideológicas de sus escritores, durante el proceso de elaboración textual, se puede observar en la justificación ideológica y el ‘blanqueamiento’ del modelo de masculinidad tóxica exhibida por Will Smith en la restitución agresiva de la honra familiar, previamente violada por medio de la explotación de la mujer del núcleo familiar como instrumento para ello. En relación a esto, los relatos periodísticos filtrados en español, inglés y portugués destacan la pasividad de Pinkett en favor de la intervención de los intervinientes masculinos, quienes imponen su ofensa verbal sobre la mujer indefensa, en el caso de Rock, e imparten una justicia cuasi-medieval, de acuerdo a los designios providenciales de la divinidad católica, para el ejercicio de la custodia de la ‘damisela en apuros’, en el caso de Smith. En este contexto, las plataformas de retransmisión de contenidos contemporáneas se erigen como vectores poderosos de las masculinidades tóxicas exhibidas por las figuras influyentes antes mencionadas. El último de los géneros escritos explorados en la presente tesis correspondería a aquellos relatos virales de alto impacto, que destacarían por su flexibilidad contextual adaptativa al público meta, la sensación de veracidad que recrean y su final precautorio, factores que contribuirían, de forma holística, a la vectorización de los preceptos ideológicos imbricados subliminalmente en el ‘ADN’ de la narración. Estas narrativas atemporales, que han sido exploradas en las antologías en lengua castellana e inglesa de Ortí y Sampere (2017), Camacho (2005, 2007), Brown y Flynn (2003) y Brunvald (1999), han sido sometidas, con posterioridad, a su filtrado para la obtención de leyendas urbanas que crean un retrato distorsionado de la mujer ‘en acción’, lejos de la custodia masculina, como sería el caso de “Secado Rápido” (Camacho, 2007), una historia que entremezcla género y edadismo, como factores clave en la inferioridad del individuo, en la que una viuda sin supervisión acaba con la vida de un cachorro de perro al intentar, en un alarde de inteligencia arrogante, secarlo en el microondas tras un baño que no estaba en los planes de la ‘abuelita’. Así mismo, en la leyenda urbana de título “Chain Reaction” (Brown and Flynn, 1999), el comportamiento tan inadecuado como inocuo de una mujer poco cívica en el espacio público del transporte colectivo origina la devastación del paisaje urbano civilizado creado por el patriarcado. Por último, también es objeto de análisis la leyenda urbana de Hayes (2013), en la que la ambición femenina lleva a una mujer a traspasar las limitaciones previstas por el patriarcado para su género y alcanzar así, a principios del siglo XIII y bajo la identidad de John Anglicus, la cima de la jerarquía católica, siendo presa de su lujuria, que asombrará a los allí presentes con un inesperado parto durante una procesión religiosa en las cercanías del Coliseo Romano y la iglesia de San Clemente, y su posterior ejecución, como único sino de la mujer que invade los espacios reservados para el hombre

Undoing Networks

How do we think beyond the dominant images and imaginaries of connectivity? Undoing Networks enables a different connectivity: "digital detox" is a luxury for stressed urbanites wishing to lead a mindful life. Self-help books advocate "digital minimalism" to recover authentic experiences of the offline. Artists envision a world without the internet. Activists mobilize against the expansion of the 5G network. If connectivity brought us virtual communities, information superhighways, and participatory culture, disconnection comes with privacy tools, Faraday shields, and figures of the shy. This book explores non-usage and the "right to disconnect" from work and from the excessive demands of digital capitalism

Tackling complexity in biological systems: Multi-scale approaches to tuberculosis infection

Tuberculosis is an ancient disease responsible for more than a million deaths per year worldwide, whose complex infection cycle involves dynamical processes that take place at different spatial and temporal scales, from single pathogenic cells to entire hosts' populations. In this thesis we study TB disease at different levels of description from the perspective of complex systems sciences. On the one hand, we use complex networks theory for the analysis of cell interactomes of the causative agent of the disease: the bacillus Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Here, we analyze the gene regulatory network of the bacterium, as well as its network of protein interactions and the way in which it is transformed as a consequence of gene expression adaptation to disparate environments. On the other hand, at the level of human societies, we develop new models for the description of TB spreading on complex populations. First, we develop mathematical models aimed at addressing, from a conceptual perspective, the interplay between complexity of hosts' populations and certain dynamical traits characteristic of TB spreading, like long latency periods and syndemic associations with other diseases. On the other hand, we develop a novel data-driven model for TB spreading with the objective of providing faithful impact evaluations for novel TB vaccines of different types