In this article, I engage with aesthetic experience as a central hermeneutic endeavour for theorising performing arts audiences in the Arab region. I argue that a critical engagement with Arab performing arts audiences’ aesthetic experiences necessitates both an archaeological manoeuver and a re-articulation of two keywords: ‘experience’ and ‘everyday’. The article advances, using evidence from research, that allowing the audiences of performing arts in the Arab region to speak may be a step towards democratising the triangular meaning making process among (...) the performer, the audience, and the art institution, and a means towards dislocating, if not liberating, the categories Arab culture, art, performance, and experience, from their teleological articulations. (shrink)

Theory of Mind (ToM), the cognitive capacity to attribute internal mental states to oneself and others, is a crucial component of social skills. Its formal study has become important, witness recent research on reasoning and information update by intelligent agents, and some proposals for its formal modelling have put forward settings based on Epistemic Logic (EL). Still, due to intrinsic idealisations, it is questionable whether EL can be used to model the high-order cognition of ‘real’ agents. This manuscript proposes a (...) framework that takes visibility, memory, perspective and communication as the main factors underpinning mental attributions. This is more in-line with findings in cognitive science and allows us to model well-known False-Belief Tasks that are typically used in testing people's ToM. We discuss some of the framework's technical features, arguing why it does justice to empirical observations. (shrink)

Media coverage of influencer marketing abounds with ethical questions about this emerging industry. Much of this coverage assumes influencers operate without an ethical framework and many social me...

Rumour has been part of collective human life for centuries. Communities deal with anxiety and make sense of the unknowable by mixing apprehensions with what is already known to them. With modernity, and in line with studies on a range of social phenomena, there have been efforts to develop a science on rumour. Most of these studies deal with rumour at the propositional level, such that the rumouring or rumour-rebutting subject invariably belongs to one of the two sides of the (...) ‘true–false’ divide. Similar categories are followed in the study of rumour in social media, where the nodes in a rumour chain are, however, less hierarchical, and where images are increasingly used for persuasion. This paper, following a value-oriented approach, argues that the science on rumour has objectivized the problem, and has suggested instrumental solutions like enhancing the digital literacy of social media users. Whereas a value position should ideally attempt to efface the dilemma of the rumouring/rumour-rebutting subject, and locate rumours within the larger socio-political and historical context of a society. (shrink)

Social media platforms have been rapidly increasing the number of informational labels they are appending to user-generated content in order to indicate the disputed nature of messages or to provide context. The rise of this practice constitutes an important new chapter in social media governance, as companies are often choosing this new “middle way” between a laissez-faire approach and more drastic remedies such as removing or downranking content. Yet information labeling as a practice has, thus far, been mostly (...) tactical, reactive, and without strategic underpinnings. In this paper, we argue against defining success as merely the curbing of misinformation spread. The key to thinking about labeling strategically is to consider it from an epistemic perspective and to take as a starting point the “social” dimension of online social networks. The strategy we articulate emphasizes how the moderation system needs to improve the epistemic position and relationships of platform users — i.e., their ability to make good judgements about the sources and quality of the information with which they interact on the platform — while also appropriately respecting sources, seekers, and subjects of information. A systematic and normatively grounded approach can improve content moderation efforts by providing clearer accounts of what the goals are, how success should be defined and measured, and where ethical considerations should be taken into consideration. We consider implications for the policies of social media companies, propose new potential metrics for success, and review research and innovation agendas in this regard. (shrink)

It is argued that since its institutionalization in the 1970s, Uses and Gratifications research has been heavily influenced by applied economic theories about Expectancy Value and Subjective Expected Utility. Underlying these theories are assumptions about the acting individual having full mastery of situations. This idea is contrasted with the way in which action theory portrays action. Here, mastery of situations is not assumed at forehand, but depends on the situation and is something that has to be achieved. Action theories further (...) emphasize the influence of others. Applying these ideas to the study of media use means that more attention has to be paid to processes of gaining mastery, to situational influences, and to the influence of others. It is argued that discrete-time event history analysis may be a valuable tool to accomplish this. This may contribute to the study of several important questions in communication research, regarding audience flow and audience selectivity, and the social uses of media use. (shrink)

Digital media technology, when deployed in ways that cultivate shared learning communities in which students and teachers are empowered to participate as partners in conjoint educational practices, can transform the way we teach and learn philosophy. This essay offers a model for how to put blogging and podcasting in the service of a cooperative approach to education that empowers students to take ownership of their education and enables teachers to cultivate in themselves and their students the excellences of dialogue. (...) The essay is organized around a compelling story of how the students in an Ancient Greek Philosophy course responded to an anonymous, belligerent commenter on the blog from outside of the class. The incident brings the pedagogy of cooperative education into sharp relief. (shrink)

Social media has become an important way for science communication. Some scholars have examined how to help scientists engage with social media from operational training, policy guidance, and social media services improving. The main contribution of this study is to construct a symbiosis evolution model of science communication ecosystem between scientists and social media platforms based on the symbiosis theory and the Lotka–Volterra model to discuss the evolution of their symbiotic patterns and population size under different (...) symbiosis coefficients. The results indicate that the size of the symbiosis coefficients determines the equilibrium outcome of the symbiosis evolution of scientists and social media platforms; scientists and social media platforms can promote each other’s population size under the mutualism pattern, which can achieve sustainable science communication; “1 + 1 > 2” effect can only be achieved under the symmetric mutualism pattern and the growth of scientists and social media platforms is more stable and sufficient than that of other patterns. The findings will provide additional perspectives for promoting the sustainable development of science communication based on social media. (shrink)

Indoor radon is a natural radioactive gas that enters homes through cracks in the foundations. It is one of the leading causes of lung cancer. Although radon can be detected with an indoor radon test and can be mitigated by means of either ventilation or professional measures, testing and mitigating rates of the at-risk population remain insufficient. The objective of this study is to systematically review the current level of evidence regarding the design and effectiveness of mass media campaigns (...) to address the health risks of indoor radon to homeowners. The results show that informative tone of voices prevailed, other components, such as emotional or social components, were often not included. Furthermore, the focus was mostly on intention and less on behavior itself, and on testing instead of mitigation. Further research is needed to test effective and innovative communication strategies to increase protective behavior concerning indoor radon. (shrink)

This article highlights how Internet and new media are experienced by Romanian Seventh-Day Adventist pastors in their ministry. What is the acceptance of Web 2.0 services for neo-Protestant pastors of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, what uses of these technologies they make in their work, what is their mobilization for the appropriation of an innovative culture in the daily pastoral work, how these uses allow them to manage their religious activity, these are the main questions of a survey we conducted (...) in 2016 to shed light on uses of digital technologies by Romanian Seventh-Day Adventist pastors. (shrink)

The article is devoted to the identification of minimum units of existence and action, which modern complex artistic-theoretical practices help to reveal. Through a number of examples – IT based cultural theory (A. Galloway), medium oriented postbiology (D. Bulatov) and literature inspired new materialism (J. Bennett) – the author explores the description and terms that would be equally effective in the variety of disciplines, in­cluding humanities and exact sciences. Underlying the process character, dynamism and principal non-completion of compression-decompression, reversible vector (...) shifts, alter­nation of influx and efflux of “gravitational sympathy”, accordingly, the author sees the insistence to discover some autonomous existence behind them, however small, generic or quantic it may turn to be. It obviously means the shift from what seemed a mere artistic practice to ontological and existential questions. Further, analyzing the ba­sic characteristics of this autonomous existence, the author identifies the relationship be­tween high-tech procedures and degree of intensity of the autonomy in question. Having opened before us a huge number of new experiences, new technologies present us with existence which appears to be not only “weak”, but literarily “semiliving”. Therefore, open-ending into physical cosmic space the multilevel technological contours seek to out­line a new world whose description needs time to develop. (shrink)

Art history on the edge : iconology, media, and visual culture -- Four fundamental concepts of image science -- Image science -- Image X text -- Realism and the digital image -- Migrating images : totemism, fetishism, idolatry -- The future of the image : Rancière's road not taken -- World pictures : globalization and visual culture -- Media aesthetics -- There are no visual media -- Back to the drawing board : architecture, sculpture, and the digital (...) image -- Foundational sites and occupied spaces -- Border wars : translation and convergence in politics and media -- Art X environment -- The historical uncanny : phantoms, doubles, and repetition in the war on terror -- The spectacle today : a response to retort -- Coda : for a sweet science of images. (shrink)

This paper addresses the impact that the ever-growing involvement of scientists in knowledge-sharing practices by means of social media might have on the material conditions under which academic labour-power reproduces itself. Science communication is advocated for on the basis of its supposedly altruistic character, so scientists are prevented from expecting any form of remuneration ensuing from it. However, as our Marxian-informed analysis of the determinations of the value of the commodity labour-power will elucidate, this novel duty involves the exertion (...) of an additional quantity of work by academics, owing either to the relative complexation of the productive attributes requisite to use social media efficiently, or, particularly, to the accelerated pace at which scientists’ working capacity becomes productively consumed, both in absolute (extension of working hours) and in relative (work intensification) terms. It will be demonstrated that, as science communication via social media brings about an increase in the value of scientific labour power, wages must be raised so as to preserve science labourers in their normal condition. The article will further throw into relief that the political action of scientists themselves stands as the more general mediation for this innermost necessity of the capitalistic relationship of production to assert itself. (shrink)

As the model also suggests, however, the mainstream is not monolithic and is not maintained by a conscious conspiracy. The very efficiency of 'democratic' thought control is such that many individuals are completely unaware of the realities of the system by which they are controlled, and so perceive no danger in exposing that system to radical examination. For this and other reasons, damaging rationality and common sense do occasionally slip through the net.

David Sterritt _The Films of Jean-Luc Godard: Seeing the Invisible_ Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999 ISBN 0521580382 (hb) 0521589711 (pb) 297 pp.

Zusammenfassung Ausgehend von modernen religionswissenschaftlichen Diskussionen um ‚religi⃶se Bildung‘ wird im Artikel der Frage nach Medien religi⃶ser Bildung im philosophischen Heidentum der Sp⃤tantike nachgegangen: inwiefern k⃶nnen die zwei neuplatonischen Pythagorasviten als Instrumente religi⃶ser Bildung in einer Zeit verst⃤rkter Konfrontation mit dem Christentum gelesen werden? Die Ergebnisse zeigen die Vielfalt und Individualit⃤t der neuplatonischen Szene auf, die als einer der sch⃤rfer konturierten Bereiche paganer Religiosit⃤t gelten kann: während Porphyrios Pythagoras in seiner Philosophiegeschichte lediglich als einen Philosophen der Vergangenheit festh⃤lt, benutzt ihn (...) Iamblich zur Konkretisierung und Kommunikation einer Lebensform, welche philosophische Bet⃤tigung und traditionelle religi⃶se Praxis miteinander verbindet. (shrink)

The aquatic, the virtual and the zero-gravity medium share some similarities in the way they are experienced by human beings. Present-day realities are uncertain and fluid. As the term ‘Aquaponics’ refers to agriculture and suggest a very static process, I would advance that the metaphors of travel and movement should be more appropriate to describe today’s challenges regarding the exploration and understanding of those medium. I have included in this article a personal interview with Dr Sarah Jane Pell, a researcher, (...) Artist and professional diver, in order to gain some perspectives on the testimonies of Kitsou Dubois, a French Choreographer who conducted zero-gravity performances. Based on their statements, I give further in the text an insight on my personal practice of Aikido, a Japanese martial art and mind–body harmonization technique. Using references from popular Culture, my own experiences and the testimonies of Kitsou Dubois and Dr Sarah Jane Pell, as well as examples taken from ancestral spiritual traditions from around the world, I try to draw a map of contemporary and multi-scalar realities with a critical approach to the concept of aquaponics. (shrink)

Social media platforms’ digital advertising revenues depend considerably on partnerships. Business partnerships are endemic and essential to the business of platforms, yet their role remains relatively underexplored in the literature on platformisation and platform power. This article considers the significance of partnerships in the social media ecosystem to better understand how industry platforms, and the infrastructure they build, mediate and shape platform power and governance. We argue that partners contribute to ‘platformisation’ through their collective development of business-to-business platform (...) infrastructures. Specifically, we examine how partners have integrated social media platforms with what we call the audience economy – an exceptionally complex global and interconnected marketplace of intermediaries involved in the creation, commodification, analysis, and circulation of data audiences for purposes including but not limited to digital advertising and marketing. We determined which relationships are involved, which are exclusive or shared, and identified key ecosystem partners. Further, we found that partners build and integrate extensive infrastructures for data-sourcing and media distribution, surfacing infrastructural and strategic sources and locations, or ‘nodes’, of power in this ecosystem. The empirical findings thus highlight the significance of partnerships and partner integrations and draw attention to the powerful industry players and intermediaries that remain largely invisible. (shrink)

... Reminds us that the future of free, increasingly complex societies depends on the ability of an educated citizenry to think clearly and critically and make decisions based on reliable information"--Jacket.

Journal of Mass Media Ethics, Volume 27, Issue 3, Page 206-210, July-September.