The Process and Meaning of Collecting Ethnographic Textiles.

Consumption is one way individuals effectively deal with their feelings of anomie, or social instability resulting from a breakdown of standards and values, in contemporary, postmodern society. Through the purchase and use of particular products, consumed objects create or produce personal identities. A specialized form of consumption, collecting, in this case ethnographic textile collecting, plays a key role in the quest for self-authentication and community in contemporary Western Culture. In this paper, twelve collectors of ethnographic textiles were interviewed to better understand the manners and meanings of collecting as a specialized form of consumption. The collectors of ethnographic textiles used their collections as a way to both express their personal identity and become part of a larger community of textile collectors. Arnould and Prices\u27s (2000) theoretical model of authenticating acts and authoritative performances guided the analysis of the spoken word of the collectors interviewed

Speed dating and self-image: Revisiting old data with new eyes

In this paper we perform a variety of analytical techniques on a speed dating dataset collected from 2002–2004. There have previously been papers published analyzing this dataset however we have focused on a previously unexplored area of the data; that of self-image and self-perception. We have evaluated whether the decision to meet again or not following a date can be predicted to any degree of certainty when focusing only on the self-ratings and partner ratings from the event. Further to this we have examined how the decisions received after the session can affect the stability of one’s self-image over time. We also performed some general exploratory analysis of this dataset in the area of self-image and self-perception; evaluating the importance of these attributes in the grand scheme of attaining a positive result from a 4 min date

Gender Inference for Facebook Picture Owners

International audienceSocial media such as Facebook provides a new way to connect, interact and learn. Facebook allows users to share photos and express their feelings by using comments. However, Facebook users are vulnerable to attribute inference attacks where an attacker intends to guess private attributes (e.g., gender, age, political view) of target users through their online profiles and/or their vicinity (e.g., what their friends reveal). Given user-generated pictures on Facebook, we explore in this paper how to launch gender inference attacks on their owners from pictures meta-data composed of: (i) alt-texts generated by Facebook to describe the content of pictures, and (ii) comments posted by friends, friends of friends or regular users. We assume these two meta-data are the only available information to the attacker. Evaluation results demonstrate that our attack technique can infer the gender with an accuracy of 84% by leveraging only alt-texts, 96% by using only comments, and 98% by combining alt-texts and comments. We compute a set of sensitive words that enable attackers to perform effective gender inference attacks. We show the adversary prediction accuracy is decreased by hiding these sensitive words. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first inference attack on Facebook that exploits comments and alt-texts solely

The effect of concept congruence on preference for culturally diverse apparel products

The global market for designer apparel, especially the American market, is attractive to include in Asian designers’ internationalisation strategies. In an effort to identify factors that may impact acceptance of Asian designers’ culturally inspired work in the United States (US), one of the most challenging and largest apparel markets in the world, this study explored the effect of consumers’ perceptions of self- and product-concept congruence on their attitudes and intention to purchase Asian designers’ apparel products. Results suggest that US females whose self-concept is consistent with the product-concept will be likely to have a positive attitude towards that product and, consequently, to intend to purchase that product. Managerial implications suggest that Asian designers entering the American market could target consumers by designing communication efforts to appeal to Americans who share personality characteristics similar to their Asian designs. © The Textile Institute and Informa UK Ltd 201