Religious Violence and Twitter: Networks of Knowledge, Empathy and Fascination

Twitter analysis through data mining, text analysis, and visualization, coupled with the application of actor-network-theory, reveals a coalition of heterogenous religious affiliations around grief and fascination. While religious violence has always existed, the prevalence of social media has led to an increase in the magnitude of discussions around the topic. This paper examines the different reactions on Twitter to violence targeting three religious communities: the 2015 Charleston Church shooting, the 2018 Pittsburgh Synagogue shooting, and the 2019 Christchurch Mosque shootings. The attacks were all perpetrated by white nationalists with firearms. By analyzing large Twitter datasets in response to the attacks, we were able to render visible associations among actors across religions communities, national identities, and political persuasions. What this project revealed is that if we apply actor-network-theory and data visualization to look at networks created by human/non-human (text, computer, phone, meme, tweet, retweet, hashtag) actors, we can see that knowledge, empathy, and fascination drive communication around mass violence against religious communities

Swallowing the Black Pill: Involuntary Celibates’ (Incels) Anti Feminism within Digital Society

Involuntary celibates (incels) are part of the online ‘manosphere’ and have been widely discussed in contemporary media in recent years due to their involvement in several offline mass murders. This article presents empirical data that specifically map aspects of the incel worldview: the ‘black pill’. Analysis of online discussion forums demonstrates how incels believe society is ordered through a hetero-patriarchal racial hierarchy and justify their sexlessness through beliefs rooted in biological determinism and victimisation by women and feminism. It is argued that the black pill is a disciplinary device that aids in building a digital counter-public that engenders a collective incel identity. Further, the article argues that the black pill produces a form of ‘stochastic terrorism’ in which users interpret its spectrum of beliefs to enact harms from online gender-based hate speech through terrorist violence in the offline world. As a point of departure, the article argues that incel counter-publics transcend the false distinctions between online and offline; both ‘worlds’ contribute to the (re)production of incel anti-feminism and misogyny

Social Networks and the Challenge of Hate Disguised as Fear and Politics

This case study examines social networks as the modern intersections of radical discourse and political extremism. But, as this research will show, extremist content in social networks, even that which has telegraphed violent hate crimes, is seldom communicated in textbook forms bigotry or provocations of violence. Today, the true challenge for social networks like Facebook and Twitter is addressing hate speech that reads more like fear mongering and identity politics, and thus, does not get flagged by monitors. From accounts dedicated to inciting fear over the “threat of immigrants” or “black crime,” to groups that form around hashtags declaring that a “#whitegenocide” is underway. These narratives represent the more ubiquitous versions of hate culture that permeate these popular spaces and radicalize cultural discourses happening there. This case study explores how such rhetoric has the same capacity to deliver messages of hate, and even incite violence, by investigating six hate crimes from 2019 that were preceded by social media diatribes. The comparative analysis will show how these examples mostly featured nonviolent expressions of cultural paranoia, rather than avowals of violence or traditional hate speech, thus making them harder to detect by programs seeking out such threats in plain sight. The research then examines the user policies of leading social networks to assess whether their guidelines on hateful and violent content are purposed to address the kinds of language that were espoused by these violent extremists. The study considers the strategies being employed by social networks to expose hateful content of all forms, and the need for more prominent counter narratives

Development of a virtual environment for catapult launch officers

Aircraft carriers are the centerpiece of the United States Navy. The primary weapon system of the aircraft carrier is the attached airwing and the combat power provided by its various aircraft. The airwing is only effective while airborne and thus dependent on the skill and training of a small number of launch officers known as shooters. Shooter training is accomplished on-the-job and often requires the launch officers to go underway on different aircraft carriers, at the expense of their parent command, in order to complete their qualifications. This thesis addresses the lack of alternative environments available for shooters to hone their skills. The results of a job task analysis provide insight into the skills required to perform the duties of a launch officer. Analysis of the data gathered from the job task analysis produced a flowchart that can be represented as a finite state machine and then reproduced in a virtual environment. A virtual environment was then created utilizing current virtual reality hardware and software to faithfully re-create an environment that presented the required attributes and scenarios to accomplish the tasks of a launch officer. This thesis yields a low-cost, portable, and safe alternative environment for shooters to perform the skills required for their training.http://archive.org/details/developmentofvir1094545210Lieutenant Commander, United States NavyApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited

Disrupting Infrastructure: Social Media and Accessing Digital Publics

This thesis investigates infrastructural barriers to effecting change through social media participation. Though social media is said to hold democratic potential by enabling open access to the digital public sphere, in reality it is often still the most privileged voices that get heard. Even in success cases of the power of social media like the Arab Spring, situational contexts lead to particular infrastructural access points that are not universally transferable, and still tend to favor mainstream perspectives. Barriers to amplifying marginalized voices include inadequate systems for digital memory and sharing algorithms that promote the visibility of the already visible. These issues become particularly evident in the social media efforts of intersectional feminist writers, which are too often and too easily ignored. This thesis proposes that biased infrastructural configurations can and should be disrupted to promote change

Embodied Historiographies: Affect and Realism in the "Medal of Honor" and "Call of Duty" Franchises after "Saving Private Ryan"

This dissertation examines the representation of World War II in First Person Shooters (FPSs) and the shift in their perception after the release of Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan (1998). It argues that the release of Saving Private Ryan (1998) allowed the genre to unhinge itself from a popular discourse critical of immersive video games and attach itself to a discourse that regarded embodiment as a privileged way of representing history realistically. The first chapter analyzes the PC game Wolfenstein 3D (1992) to establish the genre’s state of play before the release of Spielberg’s film. It lays out the limitations faced by the game genre: due to the perception that FPSs engage the players’ bodies more directly than other media, they found themselves unable to function as fact-based historiographies. As a result, they approached representations of WWII by combining them with the genre inventories of science fiction and horror. Chapter II introduces the term “visceral realism” to analyze the impact of Steven Spielberg’s 1998 war film Saving Private Ryan on representations of WWII and their perception. It argues that the highly physical opening battle scene in particular shifted the perception of such representations from associations with horror and the ‘body genre’ to the idea that bodily experienced WWII historiographies offer a privileged access to the hardships and struggles of the ‘Greatest Generation.’ Chapter III analyzes the first FPS to react to this shift, Medal of Honor (1999), and argues that it unhinged the genre from public controversies in the wake of the Columbine High School Massacre by alluding to accepted genres like the spy thriller and ideologies like the celebration of the ‘Greatest Generation.’ Chapter IV discusses the 2003 FPS Call of Duty and its use of cinematic conventions and portrayal of historical artifacts to establish a U.S.-centric narrative of war from the perspectives of the U.S., U.K. and USSR troops. I argue that this shift in national subjectivities during the game serves as an extension of Cold War ideology by constructing a moral hierarchy between the United States, Great Britain and Communist Russia. Finally, the conclusion considers the historical and cultural environment of this dissertation’s analyses and, using postwar Germany as an example, shows the wide variety of possible readings of these games.PHDGermLang&Lit&ScrArtsCult PhDUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/147519/1/hecknerm_1.pd

Characteristics of Fame-Seeking Individuals Who Completed or Attempted Mass Murder in the United States

Previous researchers have found mass murderers characterized as loners, victims of bullying, goths, and individuals who had a psychotic break. A gap in the literature that remained concerned the motive and mindset of mass murderers before their attack, particularly those who seek fame, and why they are motivated by such violent intentions. The purpose of this study was to provide a deeper analysis of the characteristics of fame-seeking individuals who have completed or attempted mass murder, as well as insight into their behavior on social media. The conceptual framework consisted of a constructivist model, which guided the exploration the purposeful sample of 12 Americans who completed or attempted mass murder. The research questions aligned with themes provided by Bandura\u27s social learning theory, Sulloway\u27s theory of birth order and family dynamics, Millon and Davis\u27s psychopathy theories, O\u27Toole\u27s findings on the copycat effect, and Lankford\u27s criteria for fame-seeking mass murderers, and guided an analysis of open-source data. Six main themes among fame-seeking individuals in the United States who had completed or attempted mass murder emerged: (a) fame as primary motivation, (b) preoccupation with violence, (c) presence of specific role models/copycat behavior, (d) strong opinions about society/racial groups, (e) symptoms of narcissism/mood disorder/personality disorder, and (f) failed relationships. These findings add to the knowledge about mass murder and fame seeking. Social change may occur through recommended evaluation of and improvements in current mental health approaches, improved threat assessment, expanded education on characteristics of mass murderers, and dissemination of information related to mass murder

Smart Guns, the Law, and the Second Amendment

Smart guns, which originally meant personalized guns that only the owner could fire, had a false start as a promising new technology several years ago. Nevertheless, policymakers have shown renewed interest in the wake of highly publicized incidents of gun violence, as well as advances in technology. The first generation of smart guns foundered on problems with the reliability of the technology, as well as a legislative misstep that would have banned all other guns as soon as smart guns appeared in the retail market. This proposal triggered massive boycotts of certain manufacturers and dealers and a subsequent abandonment of the project by the gun industry overall. Newer technologies, however, such as improved biometric grip identifiers, precision-guided rifles that rarely miss, blockchain or “glockchain” automated tracking, and optical scopes that send videos to smartphones, have revived interest in smart gun products. At least one state in 2019 (New Jersey) passed carefully drafted legislation promoting the introduction of personalized guns, while another (Arizona) passed legislation discouraging the adoption of digital ledgering technology for firearms. In addition, some leading candidates in the 2020 primary advocated for smart guns as a solution to gun violence. This paper will explore the emerging second-generation smart gun technology, its potential for adoption by the military, law enforcement, and civilian markets, and the realistic prospects for improvements in safety or reduction in gun violence. This discussion will include the disconnect between policy agendas regarding firearm safety and technological enhancements driven by current consumer demand—and the murky moral assumptions that undergird bot

History of Computer Art

A large text presents the history of Computer Art. The history of the artistic uses of computers and computing processes is reconstructed from its beginnings in the fifties to its present state. It points out hypertextual, modular and generative modes to use computing processes in Computer Art and features examples of early developments in media like cybernetic sculptures, video tools, computer graphics and animation (including music videos and demos), video and computer games, pervasive games, reactive installations, virtual reality, evolutionary art and net art. The functions of relevant art works are explained more detailed than is usual in such histories. From October 2011 to December 2012 the chapters have been published successively in German (The English translation started in August 2013 and was completed in June 2014)