Lade...
Journal Title
ZeMKI Working Papers
15 Ergebnisse
Filter
Einstellungen
Gerade angezeigt 1 - 10 von 15
- Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item-typ:Veröffentlichung, Administered Dehumanisation: Absurdity, Automation, and Resistance in We, Brazil, and Robodebt(2026-02-05)Smith, TaraTheodor Adorno’s concept of the administered world describes a reality in which anything that cannot be reduced to numbers is rendered useless, with managers and administrators as its true maintainers. This paper examines how this reduction of humanity to data is depicted in Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We (1921), Terry Gilliam’s Brazil (1985), and Australia’s Robodebt scheme (2015–2020). In We, the totalitarian One State enforces mechanical precision and suppresses imagination. In Brazil, an absurd bureaucratic error spirals into tragedy. Robodebt, which unlawfully used income averaging to issue hundreds of thousands of false welfare debts, demonstrates the real-world harm of automated governance. Together, these case studies reveal how administrative systems erase individuality, normalise harm, and prioritise cold rationality over human dignity, while also pointing to fragile spaces for resistance and imagination.BerichtBand:5625 23 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item-typ:Veröffentlichung, Uncertain Election Polls, Uncertain News Coverage: Two-Sided Heterogeneity in News Outlet–Pollster Relations(2025-10)24 24 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item-typ:Veröffentlichung, Beyond the gaze: Rhythms of surveillance, care, and recognition in the transcontinental race(2025-09)Van Hout TomThis paper examines the Transcontinental Race (TCR), a self-supported ultra-distance cycling event across Europe, as a site where surveillance, care, and recognition intersect in complex ways. Drawing on two autoethnographic reflections from the 2023 (TCRNo9) and 2025 (TCRNo11) editions of the race, the paper traces a shift in how mediated practices shape riders’ experiences and relationships. I analyze race tracking technologies and online reporting as forms of participatory, benign surveillance: GPS traces, digital narratives, and spectators’ affective investments create a shared rhythm of visibility that connects riders, organizers, volunteers, and audiences. At the same time, the race experience inevitably exceeds surveillant gazes, foregrounding embodied rhythms, sensory intensities, and affective encounters that cannot be fully captured by digital traces. By integrating both perspectives, the paper conceptualizes the TCR as a communicative figuration that continuously reorganizes visibility, agency, and care. In doing so, it contributes to broader debates on mediatization, mobility, and the relational dynamics of surveillance.BuchBand:5018 22 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item-typ:Veröffentlichung, On the concept of communication in the face of artificial conversational agents(2025-08)Bolin, GöranThere are, as of course well known in the philosophy of communication, several conceptualisations of the phenomenon of communication throughout media and communications research. Examples include the intersubjective sharing of experience, or intersubjective sharing of understanding, and many conceptualisations boil down to James Careys oft-cited distinction between a ritual and a transmission approach to communication. Many, if not most, of these conceptualisations presuppose two “morally autonomous selves”, as John Durham Peters has pointed out. With the rapid spread of Communicative AI (ComAI), this perception needs to be re-evaluated. Much mediated conversation today occurs, not between humans, but between humans and machines, and there is a rapidly growing body of research that suggests new ways of conceptualising these communicative relations. Still, most communication theory suggest the social to be an important ingredient in communication. The paper will discuss some social situations in which ComAI has been implemented, and the implications this might have for our understanding of the concept of communication.BuchBand:4917 13 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item-typ:Veröffentlichung, “German Version better”: Mimetic Normativity in TikTok Daʿwa(2025-03)Günther, ChristophThis article explores how TikTok’s short video format facilitates a distinctive mode of religious instruction that simplifies Islamic norms into binary categories of “right” (ḥalāl) and “wrong” (ḥarām). Focusing on two case studies, I highlight how Muslim content creators convey ethical guidance by referencing the Qurʾan and Hadith while omitting the nuanced discursive traditions of Islamic jurisprudence and contextual knowledge. The brevity of the videos limits critical engagement with complex theological discussions, presenting norms as supra-historical and detached from human experience. This leaves audiences to debate the norms presented in comment threads, without explicit acknowledgment of scholarly expertise. Additionally, I employ a performance-centred approach to analyse how TikTok’s functional logics and affordances, including collaboration, humour, spatial settings, and app features like hashtags and captions, shape the presentation and reception of religious content. These elements, combined with audience interactions and the app’s user interface, constitute a “technosocial setting” that frames the couple’s performative enactments of Islamic teachings. This setting not only influences audience interpretation but also facilitates memetic engagement, reinforcing TikTok’s role as a platform for disseminating simplified religious norms in an engaging, collaborative manner.BuchBand:4826 18 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item-typ:Veröffentlichung, Auditing the Text Understandability of German Public Administration Websites(2024-06-20); ; ; ; Research on text simplification is commonly motivated by the assumption that available text is too complex. So far, an empirical basis for this claim is missing. This paper provides a starting point for substantiating the claim that complex text is ubiquitous. With a focus on German public administration, this paper reports the results of a data-mining audit study investigating more than 49,900 websites of 26 large counties in Germany. We show that difficult text is a universal problem. The vast majority of text on official German county websites is either difficult or very difficult. Despite slight differences between counties, text across counties was difficult to understand. We also found no strong correlation between the number of inhabitants, a county’s area, or population density. We make actionable recommendations on how to continue studying this in the future.Wissenschaftlicher ArtikelBand:46299 250 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item-typ:Veröffentlichung, Gaging LLMs’ strengths and weaknesses in political content analysis(2026-06); Meyer, HendrikRecent innovation and growth in the capabilities of generative artificial intelligence have opened options for the scholarship of political communication. While large language models (LLMs) have much to offer to improve content analysis workflows in political communication, there is as of yet no consensus regarding which options deliver the best results to the field and scale best computationally. This paper investigates the performance of five distinct classification models across three content analysis tasks of varying complexity: identifying political content, classifying political issues, and detecting stance towards climate policies and movements in news articles. Our automated coding is validated by 36,320 individual human coding decisions. We show that (political) task complexity is a crucial determinant for model selection. While simpler, efficient models perform well on lower to moderate complexity tasks, both proprietary and commercial LLMs exhibit superior performance on the nuanced stance detection task when appropriately instructed. These findings underscore the need to balance performance gains with computational costs and CO2 emissions, advocating for a “frugality approach” to automated coding.BuchBand:006018 10 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item-typ:Veröffentlichung, Who is afraid of fake news? Public attitudes on questions concerning the sources, distribution, and impact of fake news in Israel(2026-04)Nossek, HillelThis article analyzes public attitudes in Israel toward the definition, sources, distribution, and perceived impact of fake news. It draws on an online survey of 502 respondents aged 15 and above conducted during the March 2019 election campaign. The findings indicate that a majority adopts a definition aligned with academic consensus, viewing fake news as news-like content that presents false information with the intent to mislead for political or economic gain. Social networks are identified as the main channels of dissemination, while traditional media and personal networks are regarded as more trustworthy sources of information. A central result is the confirmation of the third-person effect: only 21% of respondents believe their own voting behavior could be influenced by fake news, whereas 49% assume that others are more susceptible. Attitudes toward fake news vary significantly across demographic factors such as education, age, sector, religiosity, political orientation, and income. The study underscores the continued relevance of professional journalism in verifying information and mitigating the effects of misinformation, while highlighting the interaction between global patterns and local sociocultural contexts.BuchBand:005931 28 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item-typ:Veröffentlichung, Restoring audiovisual products sustainably: innovative approaches to work with audiovisual archives(2026-03)26 26 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item-typ:Veröffentlichung, From Disruption to Reaction: The Eschatology of Silicon Valley(2026-03)Siapera, EugeniaThis article contends that Silicon Valley’s apparent rightward turn reflects a structural continuity rather than a rupture with its founding ideology. Reconstructing the genealogy of the Californian Ideology, it shows how the fusion of libertarian market thought and countercultural individualism evolved into technocracy, meritocracy, and state platform capitalism. These formations exhibit clear affinities with neo-reactionary and accelerationist currents that reject democracy in favor of hierarchical, expert rule. Drawing on Geiger’s notion of high-tech eschatology, the article argues that contemporary tech elites mobilize apocalyptic and redemptive narratives to frame technological domination as inevitable and salvific. Silicon Valley’s endgame thus appears as a post-democratic order in which optimization replaces equality and technological destiny substitutes for political choice.BuchBand:005773 54