Apps

Two screens showing the BeReal notification

BeReal: How Authenticity Turns into Violation of Privacy

Article
Anna Skorodihina
22/09/2023
13 minutes to read

This article looks at how the new social media platform BeReal structures its app to enforce what is called an expository society through behaviour modification and how it plays into societies of control, compromising user privacy.

Risk society

Risking Your Future: Why Commercial Genetic Testing Is Disempowering

Article
Martijn Logtenberg
22/05/2023
9 minutes to read

Genetic testing companies, such as 23andMe, commercialise the neoliberal idea of personal responsibility for individuals' health through information on disease risks. This article exposes the underlying assumptions of this claim on risk society.

The inverted filter on TikTok

TikTok's inverted filter: debunking symmetry as beauty standard

Paper
Kelly Burnet
07/11/2022
10 minutes to read

In this paper, discourse analysis is done on two TikTok entries to the inverted filter trend that became very popular in April 2021. By showing facial asymmetry as normal, Aubrey Ober gave a twist to the trend and recycled the trend's meaning.

A frame from Miranda July's Somebody movie

Miranda’s July Relational and Participatory Art

Article
Szymon Zbiegniewski
24/10/2022
10 minutes to read

In 2014 Miranda July created a project that asked a question about how difficult it is to approach strangers. In this paper, I analyze this project through relational aesthetics and participatory art. 

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.