Diggit magazine

07/10/2026

What can we learn about society by studying body horror? In this video, Inge van de Ven and Roos Slegers explore how the genre reflects cultural anxieties surrounding the body and bodily transformation. They pay particular attention to the representation of (older) women in horror, and argue that female bodies often evoke fear and disgust in ways that male bodies do not. https://www.diggitmagazine.com/dr-inge-van-de-ven-and-dr-roos-slegers-body-horror

02/10/2026

This working paper shows that, while YouTube mashup videos that ridicule politicians could be seen as mere entertainment, they also exemplify how mashups increasingly function as a medium for political critique, while also deconstructing these memes on which they draw.

By Ari Häkkinen and Sirpa LeppänenIntroductionBy 2013, it has become obvious that social media is an ever more important factor in various walks of life. Political protests, citizen empowerment, and activism are no different in this respect. We know how, for instance, during the Arab S ...

29/09/2026

In this working paper, Ico Maly introduces the notion of digital voice as a heuristic for examining the interplay between digital discourse and the infrastructural power of digital platforms.

In this working paper, I introduce the notion of digital voice as a heuristic to examine the interplay between digital discourse and the infrastructural power of digital platforms, and more specifically, to highlight the ideological functioning of digital platforms. To realize this, I build furth .....

28/09/2026

What can a local windmill tell us about the dynamics of globalization? By examining the local windmill of Eksel, a village in Belgium, this study shows how the windmill embodies a complex set of community practices and ideologies in which the local and the global continuously interact.

The windmill as a sociocultural artifactPeople live and have lived together all over the world. The different communities are constantly shaped by space and time, and these features define our meaning and function in real social life (Blommaert, 2010). In short, people and their practices are per .....

25/09/2026

This working paper examines how teachers and students in Bilingual School Programmes and Bridging Classes navigate change, linking daily practices to broader socio-economic processes and institutional language education dynamics.

By Miguel Pérez-Milans and Adriana Patiño-SantosIntroductionIn the spring of 2010 we were invited to have a look at the data collected by a research team coordinated by Luisa Martín-Rojo in Madrid (Spain). This team had been doing ethnographic fieldwork during the academic year 2008-2009, at I .....

23/09/2026

AI has become more and more prominent in the music industry. This article explores to what extent the perceived difficulty of the artistic process influences how listeners value music created with versus without artificial intelligence. To answer this question, it examines Rosalía’s studio album Lux in contrast to Haven’s I Run, which was taken down from streaming platforms amid allegations of copyright infringement and speculations about the vocals having been generated by AI.

We have arrived at an age in which AI art is present in our everyday lives. In the last few months of 2025, at least six AI or AI-assisted artists have debuted on various Billboard rankings. These figures could be higher since it is becoming increasingly difficult to tell who or what is ...

21/09/2026

When thinking about digital activism, usually a specific image of self-censored infographics and remediated protests come to mind. However, less visible digital activism also exists. One such action was performed by a group of women from Minneapolis, who used Tinder as an activist tool to fight against ICE agents. This article is about how they balanced (in)visibility and how a single post was able to end it all.

The current political era within the United States is characterized by constantly reinforced appeals to pride. Symptomatic is the White House-website, where you are bombarded with calls to save America and popups welcoming you to “the golden age” the moment you enter it. The way America is sa .....

18/09/2026

In this working paper, Jan Blommaert explains why historicizing epistemologies and methodologies is a prerequisite for critique, and thereafter explains how his research evokes and relates to this belief.

By Jan BlommaertPreface: what linguists have made of itMost standard textbooks and historical accounts state that linguistics as a modern science started with the publication of Ferdinand de Saussure’s Cours de Linguistique Générale in 1916. In this posthumous compilation of course notes, Sau .....

16/09/2026

Fame can feel like a dream come true, but for some, it becomes a trap. This paper explores how cruel optimism operates in the music industry, using Liam Payne as a case study.

Fame can feel like a dream come true, but for some, it becomes a trap. Lauren Berlant’s concept of cruel optimism (2011) explains how people hold on to hopes or ideals that actually end up hurting them. These attachments feel motivating and sustaining, yet they can keep people stuck in situatio .....

14/09/2026

How can we successfully contest the far-right rise and metapolitical project? This essay analyzes a potential anti-fascist metapolitics as practiced by political streamer and activist Hasan Piker. It examines how Piker succeeds in contesting the far-right's messaging and in providing an ideological counterforce for a political audience within the hybrid media system.

The study of metapolitics in this essay entails the study of the right-wing project to establish a hegemonic ideology. While the far-right sees international cultural and electoral success, the left is failing electorally and losing momentum culturally. The left-wing political decline can be expl .....