Albanian mountain views in black and white

The Transcontinental: Benign sousveillance across Europe's other spaces

Column
Tom Van Hout
24/08/2023
10 minutes to read

Ultracycling throws into relief the prosaics of machine vision in heterotopian spaces of hedonism and minimalism. I illustrate what it's like to navigate surveillance technology in an ultracycling race across Europe.

Ultracycling throws into relief the prosaics of machine vision in heterotopian spaces of hedonism and minimalism. I illustrate what it's like to navigate surveillance technology in an ultracycling race across Europe.

Keep on Reading Fiction. 2023 in three fictional novels

Column
Odile Heynders
22/12/2023
6 minutes to read

The Orphanage by Serhi Zhadan, Tremor by Teju Cole, and The End of Days by Jenny Erpenbeck are literary texts that put 2023 in perspective. How does literature counterbalance oversimplification in the complicated times we live in?

Macron on post-modernism

Column
Jan Blommaert
14/10/2017
4 minutes to read

Macron's distaste of post-modernism is actually a distaste for critical journalism attacking his very own Grand Narrative.

Conspiracy theories, Capitol riot, fiction,

The Capitol Riots: Democracy, Post-truth and Fiction

Column
Odile Heynders
13/01/2021
7 minutes to read

In light of the Capitol riots, Odile Heynders claims that we have to reflect on fiction and its development in time, in order to understand how the concept is used and functions in today’s society. 

Maptivism: how Strava affords identity work

Column
Ruben den Boer
16/06/2022
6 minutes to read

Self-tracking can be used for identity work. In this essay, I explore how a self-tracking app I use - Strava - affords identity work through slacktivist discourse affordances.

Spotting fake news for your media literacy

Column
Nataliia Vdovychenko
21/11/2021
6 minutes to read

Is it 'fake news', junk news, misinformation, malinformation, or disinformation? This column is going to sum up the ways in which we can critically evaluate and distinguish the types of misleading information on our (social) media timelines.

Fake news

Will AI save us from fake news?

Column
Nataliia Vdovychenko
10/12/2021
7 minutes to read

Attempts to decrease the spread of ‘fake news’ might come with the risks of censorship and control.

AI

Should AI be considered the (co-)author of AI art?

Column
Simone Sprangers
04/03/2021
3 minutes to read

AI is used quite often in art production. But this technology can lead to philosophical problems. Is the artist still the author of his work, or does he has to share this authorship with AI? The ontology of art can shed light on this issue.

Stocks

Reddit's GameStop rush (doesn't) change(s) the stock market

Column
Nataliia Vdovychenko
31/01/2021
7 minutes to read

GameStop has shaken the stock market with the help of Reddit users, or at least that is wat the news suggests. What is certain is that for the first time in history, the news about stocks is talking about the 'online community' rather than the wolves of Wall Street. How did this shift happen, and what are the long-term consequences? 

Before Parler was removed from Google and Apple's appstores and deleted from the Amazon servers, Parler users discussed the apparent 'cancellation' of their plaform. An analysis of their responses reveals a complex fusion of very distinct values and beliefs that can be linked to, inter alia, the Manosphere, alt-right movements and a whole range of conspiracy theories.

image of a clustered red and clustered blue communication network with just a few connections linking the two

Capitol riots, echo chambers and democracy

Column
Lauren Zentz
13/01/2021
5 minutes to read

The problem of corporate media is not their creation of echo chambers; it is that media organizations have allowed people whose views run against democracy to gain such a large following that their lies are now seen by many as fact.