Text on Instagram as emerging genre: A framework for analyzing discursive communication on a visual platform

Against the backdrop of Instagram’s transforming platform culture, this contribution proposes a framework for analyzing text posts as form of discursive communication. Text posts on the formerly mainly visual platform are understood as both a new social media genre and an emerging social practice. First, the genre is contextualized and grounded by recent evidence of a modal expansion, as well as through the reconstruction of transforming platform affordances. Secondly, based on long-term online ethnographic involvement and data collection, recurring categories and properties are identified within the emerging genre and differentiated in four discursive dimensions: text types, forms of (re)mediation, stance, and tonality. Variations within the dimensions are further distinguished and illustrated and their relevance scrutinized. These discursive dimensions are designed to be used as heuristics and / or analytical categories in combination with various methodological approaches from in-depth qualitative explorations to large-scale automated analyses. Finally, possible broader sociocultural implications of the emerging genre are discussed

#strokesurvivor on Instagram: Conjunctive experiences of adapting to disability

This study investigates practices of sharing the experience of stroke on Instagram through use of the hashtag #strokesurvivor. The hashtag brings together people from different cultural backgrounds and professions and those who experience different kinds of healthcare and varying degrees of physical or cognitive impairment. Through a digital ethnography of #strokesurvivor, the conjunctive experiences and communicative practices of the community are reconstructed. Instagram enables specific forms of sociality and sharing, like long-term visual storytelling and influencer dynamics. Adapting to a transformed body and identity is perceived and practiced as a conjunctive experience and a struggle. A strong orientation towards a “normal life” is a recurring theme. Mourning and perseverance are put forward as two modes of coping with and adapting to a transforming body and self

Dynamical model of DNA-protein interaction: effect of protein charge distribution and mechanical properties

The mechanical model based on beads and springs, which we recently proposed to study non-specific DNA-protein interactions [J. Chem. Phys. 130, 015103 (2009)], was improved by describing proteins as sets of interconnected beads instead of single beads. In this paper, we first compare the results obtained with the updated model with those of the original one and then use it to investigate several aspects of the dynamics of DNA sampling, which could not be accounted for by the original model. These aspects include the effect on the speed of DNA sampling of the regularity and/or randomness of the protein charge distribution, the charge and location of the search site, and the shape and deformability of the protein. We also discuss the efficiency of facilitated diffusion, that is, the extent to which the combination of 1D sliding along the DNA and 3D diffusion in the cell can lead to faster sampling than pure 3D diffusion of the protein.Comment: accepted in JC

How do Black Lives Matter? Zur visuellen Konstruktion von Protest in deutschsprachigen Tageszeitungen und auf Instagram

Der gewaltsame Tod von George Floyd Ende Mai 2020 löste eine globale Protestbewegung aus: Ausgehend von den USA fanden weltweit zahlreiche Kundgebungen, Demonstrationen und Mahnwachen statt, mit denen gegen Rassismus und Polizeigewalt Stellung bezogen wurde. Dieser Protest war und ist Gegenstand unterschiedlicher visueller Repräsentationen und medialer Formen, die einen wichtigen Anteil an den Bedeutungsproduktionen rund um die Protesthandlungen haben. Auf Basis einer Bildtypenanalyse der (Bild-)Berichterstattung über die Proteste in deutschsprachigen Tageszeitungen sowie der Darstellungsformen auf Instagram im Kontext von Demonstrationen im deutschsprachigen Raum setzt sich der Beitrag mit visuellen Konstruktionen von Protest auseinander und diskutiert deren Bedeutung vor dem Hintergrund gesellschaftlicher, medialer und politischer Kontexte. Es zeigen sich jeweils unterschiedlich dominierende Bildtypen: So sind in der Medienberichterstattung Bilder von Demonstrierenden als Masse vorherrschend, die die einzelnen Teilnehmer:innen nicht wahrnehmbar machen. Auf Instagram finden sich vor allem Innen-Perspektiven der Demonstrationen durch individuelle (Selbst-)Inszenierungen der Demonstrierenden. Deutlich wird zudem, dass die journalistischen Bilder die Proteste insbesondere im Hinblick auf spannungsreiche Konfliktsituationen im US-Kontext mit hohem Nachrichtenwert zeigen, während auf Instagram die Vergemeinschaftung über Gruppenbilder und damit die Inszenierung und Mobilisierung der Teilnehmenden in den Vordergrund rückt. The violent death of George Floyd at the end of May 2020 triggered a global protest movement: Starting in the US, numerous rallies, demonstrations, and vigils took place around the world, taking a stand against racism and police violence. This protest was and is subject to different visual representations and mediated expressions, which have an important share in the production of meaning around the protest actions. Based on a picture type analysis of the (image) coverage of the protests in Austrian, German and Swiss newspapers as well as on visual expressions on Instagram in the context of demonstrations in German-speaking cities, the article deals with visual constructions of protest and discusses their meaning against the background of social, media, and political contexts. Different dominant image types emerge in each case: In media coverage, for example, images of demonstrators as a mass are predominant, which make the individual participants imperceptible. On Instagram, there are mainly internal perspectives of the demonstrations through individual self-dramatizations of the demonstrators. It also becomes clear that journalistic images show protests with a high news value, especially with regard to tense conflict situations in the US context, while on Instagram the communalization via group images and thus the staging and mobilization of the participants comes to the fore

Formal assessment of some properties of Context-Aware Systems

Context-Aware systems are becoming useful components in autonomic and monitoring applications and the assessment of their properties is an important step towards reliable implementation, especially in safety-critical applications. In this paper, using an avalanche/landslide alert system as a running example, we propose a technique, based on Boolean Control Networks, to verify that the system dynamics has stable equilibrium states, corresponding to constant inputs, and hence it does not exhibit oscillatory behaviors, and to establish other useful properties in order to implement a precise and timely alarm system

Showing/Sharing: Analysing Visual Communication from a Praxeological Perspective

This contribution proposes a methodological framework for empirical research into visual practices on social media. The framework identifies practices, pictures and platforms as relevant dimensions of analysis. It is mainly developed within, and is compatible with qualitative, interpretive approaches which focus on visual communication as part of everyday personal communicative practices. Two screenshots from Instagram and Facebook are introduced as empirical examples to investigate collaborative practices of meaning-making relating to pictures on social media. While social media seems to augment reflexive, processual practices of negotiating identities, visual media, in particular, amps up aesthetic, ambivalent and embodied dimensions within these practices

Perception of Brazilian Companies on the Potential and Concrete Benefits Resulting from the FSC Certification

Funding: This paper was funded by National Funds of the FCT — Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology within the project «UIDB/04928/2020» and by Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior—Brasil (CAPES)—Finance Code 001.Concern with the adequate use of natural resources has increased the relevance of products certifications in the wood supply chain, especially in companies established in Brazil, the cradle of one of the largest forest reserves. This study investigates the perception of companies on the potential and concrete benefits resulting from the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification. To achieve this, a multiple case study was carried out with data triangulation through semi-structured interviews, documentary research and non-participant observation. Four FSC certified industries established in Brazil were analyzed. The results showed that of the four companies participating in the study, only one did not achieve the desired economic benefits, whereas all organizations accomplished the advantages of the other areas of sustainability, both the social and environmental.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio