Diggit magazine

10/10/2025

Are online discussion forums spaces for democratic discussion or, rather, playgrounds for anonymous expressions of and ? This working paper examines responses to Sofi Oksanen's comments about the political party True Finns to answer that question.

By Sanna LehtonenAbstractThis paper addresses a literary author’s societal role as a public intellectual and examines the reception of literary authors as social action realised in online discussion forums as discursive practice. Online discussion forums are often conceived as democratic meetin .....

08/10/2025

Are you a musician who would like to submit a unique sound for the new podcast series Living Culture, Making (and potentially win a cash prize)? You have until October 13 to submit something.

What does heritage sound like?We are looking for an original piece of music for our new podcast (deadline October 1, 2025). Are you a musician who would like to submit a unique sound for us to consider? You have the chance to win a cash prize and become an integral part of an exciting n ...

08/10/2025

In the 15th century, the Castilian grammarian Antonio Nebrija observed that "language was always the companion of empire". While language generation and the influence of major tech corporations are becoming increasingly obvious, Britta Schneider explains how we might understand 'Large Language Models' — LLMs — as "assemblages of digital empire", and how these technologies are linked to language ideologies.

In 1492, the Castilian grammarian Antonio Nebrija observed that "la lengua fue siempre compañera del imperio".¹ Discourses on language are indeed central to discourses of power and our concepts of language play a crucial role in legitimising political structures that legislate human d ...

07/10/2025

This article examines the populist framing and algorithmic visibility of Joost Eerdmans, leader of the Dutch right-wing JA21 party. Despite identifying as a populist, Eerdmans' engagement with digital platforms like X highlights limitations in adapting to the hybrid media system.

Joost Eerdmans, leader and co-founder of the Dutch right-wing JA21 party, began his political career with the Pim Fortuyn List, identifying himself as a true Fortuynist (Douwes & Eerdmans, 2021). Fortuyism stems from the Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn, who was murdered in 2002. Fortuyn oppo ...

06/10/2025

This study examines how nostalgia about pre 1975 South Vietnam is mobilized on and how it contributes to affective polarization in contemporary Vietnam. While the war has long ended and has been reunited since, online users sharing archival footage of a pre 1975 are creating a new upsurge in idealistic memories of the earlier divided capitalistic South. This study analyses the deeper implications behind this discourse.

Fifty years have passed since North Vietnam tanks crashed through the gates of Saigon’s presidential palace, marking the end of the prolonged Vietnam War. The iconic images that followed - helicopters taking off from the roof of the U.S. embassy, carrying the last American soldiers and many Sou .....

03/10/2025

Since the early 1990s, some fundamental changes have taken place in the ways in which notions like ' ' and ' ' take shape in real life. In this working paper, Jan Blommaert therefore argues that there is a need to unthink and rethink some of these basic concepts.

By Jan BlommaertThe issueThere is a dramatic need to unthink and rethink some of the most basic concepts in social science – notions such as community, identity, and indeed citizenship. The reason for this is that since the early 1990s, some fundamental changes have taken place in the ways in w .....

01/10/2025

Who owns your digital identity after ? In this current age, we all produce personal data, representing our digital legacy after we die. But, who decides what can be remembered, how it is remembered, and by whom?

Facebook memorial accounts The current post-digital society is not imagiable without the use of socio-technological platforms. Facebook, with approximately 2.9 billion monthly active users (Wong, 2023), represents the most extensively utilized of these platforms. It functions as ...

30/09/2025

It can be quite difficult to start a new ethnographic research project, right? 🤔 In this video, Liz Przybylski gives some advice on embarking on such projects in contexts. According to her, people should "trust and know that their embodied experience is also a useful source of information".

Would you like to learn more about Przybylski's ethnomusicological research? There's a longer video about her work on our website: https://www.diggitmagazine.com/dr-liz-przybylski-ethnomusicology-and-sonic-sovereignty

29/09/2025

What would William think if he saw his designs printed on cheap smartphone cases? His reaction might not be as straightforward as you’d expect. Though Morris preferred over mass production, and fiercely opposed the destruction of nature, he also believed 'beautiful' things should be accessible to everyone. And isn't 'beauty' always in the eye of the beholder? This article draws on Morris’ ideas to critically explore the contemporary popularity of his work on platforms like .

Today, for most people, the name William Morris is probably synonymous with colourful wallpaper prints, filled with birds, plants, and other references to nature. But Morris was much more than that. In his own time, Morris was a well-known poet and writer, co-founder of a magazine, associations, ...

24/09/2025

How is the online visibility of Tucker linked to the success of Donald ? This article demonstrates how Carlson's understanding of the hybrid media system helped him to produce uptake for his own message while promoting Trump and changing the meaning of 'democracy'.

Tucker Carlson is one of the most influential figures in promoting right-wing ideology in the United States, with 4 million followers on Instagram. In the lead-up to the 2024 election, Carlson became a powerful messenger for Donald Trump’s political narrative. With his online presence, Carlson ...

23/09/2025

On September 15, 2025, four days after was assassinated, US vice president, JD Vance, took over as the host of The Charlie Kirk Show. In this article, Ico Maly explains how this move allowed to combine two genres, and blend them into a new figure — 'the vice president influencer' — while announcing a McCarthyist regime drenched in Christian language.

https://www.diggitmagazine.com/jd-vance-show-and-american-authoritarianism

Staging the vice president as an activist–influencerCharlie Kirk was a prominent MAGA figure: a metapolitical influencer (Maly, 2020, 2024) seeking to shift the narrative to the right and a central player within the Trumpist movement. In stepping into Charlie Kirk’s position, Vice President V .....

22/09/2025

This paper examines how AI-generated images from ’s DALL·E 3 (re)produce age-related discourses, highlighting the role of AI systems in knowledge and ideology production. Through critical and multimodal discourse analysis, this paper reveals how these images and their accompanying texts reinforce stereotypes, lead to under-representation of social groups, homogenize experiences and define the life stages of each age group based on the notion of productivity.

Since the launch of ChatGPT in 2022, questions have emerged about the role of AI in knowledge production, and its sociopolitical implications. Most studies on the biases and sociopolitical implications of AI focus on matters of gender and race, while fewer address issues related to age, such as d .....