3D Time-Based Aural Data Representation Using D4 Library’s Layer Based Amplitude Panning Algorithm

Presented at the 22nd International Conference on Auditory Display (ICAD-2016)The following paper introduces a new Layer Based Amplitude Panning algorithm and supporting D4 library of rapid prototyping tools for the 3D time-based data representation using sound. The algorithm is designed to scale and support a broad array of configurations, with particular focus on High Density Loudspeaker Arrays (HDLAs). The supporting rapid prototyping tools are designed to leverage oculocentric strategies to importing, editing, and rendering data, offering an array of innovative approaches to spatial data editing and representation through the use of sound in HDLA scenarios. The ensuing D4 ecosystem aims to address the shortcomings of existing approaches to spatial aural representation of data, offers unique opportunities for furthering research in the spatial data audification and sonification, as well as transportable and scalable spatial media creation and production

Detecting social changes in times of Superdiversity:An Ethnographic Linguistic Landscape Analysis of Ostend in Belgium

Superdiversity, on the one hand, calls for new frames, concepts, and methodologies to deal with a fluid reality characterized by rapid (social) changes. On the other hand, we also have a need to broaden our scope beyond the heavy focus on the urban metropolis as the locus of superdiversity. With this paper I want to contribute to the research addressing these challenges by infusing existing research within Linguistic Landscape Studies with a semiotic and ethnographic perspective and add to our existing knowledge of superdiversity by focusing on a ‘small’ Belgian city called Ostend instead of a cosmopolitan world city with millions of inhabitants. I argue that Ethnographic Linguistic Landscape Analysis (ELLA) enables us to describe, quite accurately, rapid social changes in complex superdiverse neighborhoods. Moreover, ELLA enables us to move beyond a mere synchronic picture of superdiverse neighborhoods and sketch a ‘stratigraphy’ and a historical perspective on them

Ist International Conferences on Pharmacy Practice, 2018

Embracing Smart Partnership: Driving Innovation Into Practice. 27-28 June 2018. Organized by: Faculty of Pharmacy, University Teknologi Mara Published by: Asian Journal of Pharmaceutical and Clinical Researc

Populism as a mediatized communicative relation:The birth of algorithmic populism

In this paper, I want to introduce a(n digital) ethnographic approach to populism that understands populism as a (digitally) mediatized chronotopic communicative and discursive relation. Populism, I argue, is not only constructed in a (mediatized) communicative relation between journalists, politicians and academics, but also in the relation to citizens, activists and computational agency. Attention to all these actors, and the media they use, is of crucial importance if we want to understand populism. Digital media are not just new media that populists use, their algorithms and affordances reshape their populism. In times of digitalization, we cannot understand populism by only looking at ‘the input’, the frame that actors prepare for uptake, it is about the uptake as well. More concretely, I will argue that digital media have given birth to a new form of populism: algorithmic populism. Understanding and focusing on populism as a ‘communicative relation’ between all these human and non-human actors allows use to analyze ‘populism’ more precisely

Metapolitical New Right Influencers:The Case of Brittany Pettibone

Far-right movements, activists, and political parties are on the rise worldwide. Several scholars connect this rise of the far-right at least partially to the affordances of digital media and to a new digital metapolitical battle. A lot has been written about the far-right’s adoption of trolling, harassment, and meme-culture in their metapolitical strategy, but researchers have focused less on how far-right vloggers are using the practices of influencer culture for metapolitical goals. This paper tries to fill this gap and bring new theoretical insights based on a digital ethnographic case study. By analyzing political YouTuber and #pizzagate propagator Brittany Pettibone, this paper contributes to our understanding of radicalization processes in relation to the use of digital media

The global New Right and the Flemish identitarian movement Schild & Vrienden:A case study

This paper argues that nationalism, and nationalistic activism in particular are being globalized. At least certain fringes of radical nationalist activists are organized as ‘cellular systems’ connected and mobilize-able on a global scale giving birth to what I call ‘global nationalistic activism’. Given this change in nationalist activism, I claim that we should abandon all ‘methodological nationalism’. Methodological nationalism fails in arriving at a thorough understanding of the impact, scale and mobilization power (Tilly, 1974) of contemorary ‘national(istic)’ political activism. Even more, it inevitably will contribute to the naturalization or in emic terms the meta-political goals of global nationalist activists. The paradox is of course evident: global nationalism uses the scale- advantages, network effects and the benefits of cellular structures to fight for the (re)construction of the old 19th century vertebrate system par excellence: the (blood and soil) nation. Nevertheless, this, I will show, is an indisputable empirical reality: the many local nationalistic battles are more and more embedded in globally operating digital infrastructures mobilizing militants from all corners of the world for nationalist causes at home. Nationalist activism in the 21st century, so goes my argument, has important global dimensions which are easily repatriated for national use. This forces us to adjust our understanding of locality, nationalism and our methodological apparatus

Hipsterification and capitalism:A digital ethnographic linguistica landscape analysis of Ghent

This working book is part of an ongoing dialogue with my colleagues at the University of Tilburg and it focusses explicitly on the connection between people, culture, identity, language and semiotic material in a post-digital context. Or more concretely, it analyses how the symbolic economy of Ghent, Belgium is constructed in the neoliberal and post-digital 21st century. The online, global and mobile dimensions of the contemporary material world pose important methodological and theoretical challenges. The research presented here not only makes an empirical, but also a theoretical and methodological argument. I have the explicit aim to contribute and stimulate further interdisciplinary research on social groups and space in the post-digital constellation that characterizes superdiversity. Throughout this working book, I will address these challenges. I will start by tackling the methodological issues in the next chapter where I will introduce my methodology: Digital Ethnographic Linguistic Landscape Analysis or ELLA 2.0. This methodology puts space, or more precisely the geosemiotic landscape and the symbolic economy of spaces central. Space is analysed as constructed through (digitally mediated) social action in context. In Chapter 2, I will introduce the field. I will understand hipster the hipster as a translocal, layered and polycentric micro-population manifesting itself through a very specific style and identity discourse. And just like the hipster is a translocal phenomenon, we see that the hipster- city is also found all over the world. From this translocal introduction of the field, I will zoom in on the process of hipsterification in Ghent Belgium in the 21st century. In Chapter 3, I go back in time to the beginning of the 21st century and analyse the party scene in Ghent as a process of meaning making in the context of neoliberal capitalism. The identity discourse of the Culture Club as edgy, cosmopolitan and hip, created added value for all kinds of big brands. The hipster is not only a transnational, polycentric cultural phenomenon, or a consumer, but also a producer. The identity discourses and semiotizations of the hipster create added value which not only shape micro-enterprises but also cities and platforms. The imagination of Ghent as a hip city is therefor only partly the effect of the presence of hipsters, it is also the effect of neoliberal urban policies. In Chapter 4, I will show how the hipsterification of the historical centre of Ghent is expanding and how new hip infrastructures contribute to the understanding of Ghent as a hip city. At the same time, I will show how the construction of local hipness and originality cannot be understood in full without looking at the higher scales. Hipster culture is a niched, layered and translocal phenomenon and the cultural products and strategies of hipster entrepreneurs, seen from a global scale fit a genre or a format. In Chapter 5, we move from the centre of the city, to a poor and ‘superdiverse’ neighbourhood in the 19th century belt and show how ELLA 2.0 allows us to describe the changes in the social composition of the neighbourhood and the process of hipsterification. In Chapter 5, we move attention to two other sites in the 19th century belt – The Old Docks and the Watt complex – to show how authenticity discourses and hipster semiotics are used to start up a process of hipsterification. I end with a more general reflection and conclusion on the relation between people, cities and capitalism in post-digital Ghent and on the theoretical and methodological impact of the findings. I will explicitly do this from the ethnographic perspective on social space, social groups and social action I developed throughout the book. Maybe even more than a mere methodological contribution, I hope that this book can help to get the conceptualization of superdiversity ‘out of sociolinguistics’ that Arnaut (et al., 2017: 4) hopes for

How gamers experience informal digital learning of English within video games and online affinity spaces

Abstract. This study aims to investigate how English language learning occurs within the experiences of playing online video games and interacting in related online affinity spaces. Although there have been past studies that have researched language learning in video games, both in formal and informal contexts, none have specifically explored how players experience language learning in both online video games and online affinity spaces. This study used the concepts of informal learning, implicit learning, informal language learning, informal digital learning of English, affinity spaces, communities of inquiry and communities of practice as a guide for the research process. It also used qualitative content analysis as a method of data analysis. The participants of this study consisted of 6 Finnish males who currently attend upper secondary school in Finland. The data was gathered via semi-structured interviews. The findings reveal that most participants experienced English language learning through playing video games incidentally and unconsciously. Essentially, most participants were unaware of language learning occurring while playing video games, and they did not intend to learn English while playing. Moreover, they learned mostly through interacting with the video game space itself while some also learned through playing with others. In regard to online affinity spaces, most participants learned English incidentally. Most participants experienced English language learning through interacting with the content within the online affinity spaces. More, specifically, when inquiring about new knowledge related to gaming, players were able to learn English at the same time. These finding reveal the potential for online video games and online affinity spaces to help gamers learn English. The implications of this study include the potential for educators to utilize online video games and online affinity spaces in formal learning. This study is important to the field of digital language learning research as it presents a glimpse into the specific processes that occur within informal digital language learning

The coronavirus, the attention economy and far-right junk news

The coronavirus has devastating consequences for social life in all corners of the world. People are dying and country after country is forced to take drastic measures in the hope of flattening the curve. For others, this pandemic is an opportunity to reach a wide audience, to make money or to further a political agenda. Not surprisingly, the coronavirus crisis is heavily politicized by far-right YouTubers