Diggit Magazine

Smart cities and the imagined objectivity of data

Article

Sammy Kossen

12/03/2019

10 minutes to read

Smart Cities are not only about optimizing people's lives, but also lead to new forms of surveillance and directing people towards normative behavior. Big brother is watching you.

Diggit Profile: Jeff Bezemer on multimodality and ethnography

Interview

Jan Blommaert

15/04/2020

Jeff Bezemer discusses the tremendous potential of ethnographic multimodal analysis for addressing new, complex modes of communication.

Online proctoring: how the corona crisis makes some students more equal than others

Column

Linnet Taylor

23/04/2020

6 minutes to read

In the coronavirus crisis, many universities - including Tilburg University - set up online exams and proctoring to ensure students can graduate. Linnet Taylor (Tilburg University) highlights the problems this brings, suggesting alternatives.

Farage, meme, british identity, british flag, nationalism, anti-Enlightenment

Nigel Farage's British Identity

Article

I. Duque Femenía

04/12/2018

13 minutes to read

What do bell bottoms and nationalism have in common? The are both outdated…and apparently back in style. Nigel Farage uses British Identity in ways reminiscent of past decades, from introspective foreign policy to who counts as a national. Groovy?

George Floyd, black lives matter, protests, racism

Racism in the US

File

Twitter politics: the next stage

Column

Jan Blommaert

14/01/2020

6 minutes to read

Two recent incidents on Twitter in the wake of the US attack on Iran's general Soleimani show us how Twitter continues to define politics as we know it.

Ellen DeGeneres: talk show host or CIA agent?

Paper

Iris Dumoulin

16/03/2020

11 minutes to read

In 2018, people believed that Eric Trump suggested that Ellen DeGeneres is part of a hidden government within the US. This essay analyzes how this conspiracy theory has come into existence, who plays a role in it, and what this means online.

Sebastian Stan as Winter Soldier, Cover Photo.

How Sebastian Stan Instagram fan accounts are building connections online

Article

Idhuna Pastoor

05/04/2019

14 minutes to read

How is the online fandom of Sebastian Stan built on the social media platform Instagram? And how do the followers of these fan accounts connect online?

Yellow Vests from France to Taiwan: A globalized icon of resistance

Article

Lisa van Turnhout

03/02/2020

11 minutes to read

The article discusses how the yellow Hi-Viz vests used by French activists became a global icon of resistance for different, local causes around the world, and how the internet has been the force that propelled this idea forward.

The SpaceX mission and why it worries me

Column

Jan Blommaert

03/06/2020

4 minutes to read

Elon Musk's SpaceX operates in a field of power previously reserved for state institutions under public control. Is this a good or a bad thing?

Vlogging during the coronavirus crisis

Column

Mingyi Hou

14/04/2020

7 minutes to read

Chinese student Yi Dahua’s vlogging from Turin, Italy has made him a micro-celebrity during the coronavirus crisis. His case illustrates a "boundary-blurred" public sphere with widely varied public communication on the pandemic.

Squatting Slavs: a culture, a stereotype or just a meme?

Article

Kristiana Naydenova

08/11/2018

18 minutes to read

Is the Squatting Slav phenomenon helping Slavs express themselves or is it ruining their reputation? This article explores the emergence, historical background, popularization, culture and language of the meme.

Free access to scholarly e-books and articles? Thank you, but no, thank you

Column

Juan Eduardo Bonnin

14/05/2020

4 minutes to read

Why have academic publishers started offering free access to their content? In this article I argue that they want to prevent you from getting to know the benefits of piracy.

Online Dating app digital culture online love

Dating apps as part of our culture

Article

Manon Bijl

29/10/2019

12 minutes to read

Dating apps enable people to do things they have never done before. It are truly global products, but they only work because they are embedded in local (sub)cultural practices.

The algorithmic populism of Alice Weidel

Article

Karlijn Raaijmakers

08/11/2018

10 minutes to read

Technical developments and the growth of social media have caused politicians to start using social media as a tool for their political campaigns. This is also the case for Alice Weidel: the leader of the AfD. What are the consequences?

It's a match: Tinder and Tourism

Article

Lieke van der Wielen

15/05/2019

8 minutes to read

Tinder Tourism is influencing the way we experience travel, but the way we travel is also changing Tinder

Deep fakes - an emerging risk to societies

Paper

Tunde Farago

18/11/2019

22 minutes to read

Deep fakes are a rapidly evolving technology that can easily fool not just our human senses, but also the software created to counter them. This paper explores their potential social, cultural and political implications.