The chapter opens the “Meandering in Transition” collection. It presents contributors and outlines reasons why some of the Central and Eastern European states accomplished a decisive break with the Communist past and became members of European and transatlantic structures, while some opted for pseudo-transition and fostered hybrid political…[Read more]

Spanish abstract: Una nota sobre el libro de George Ritzer ‘La McDonaldización de la Sociedad’ (1993) desde la perspectiva de la fase avanzada de estandarización de los procesos y del trabajo en el capitalismo mediado por las tecnologías de la información y comunicación y especialmente por la Red. ____…[Read more]

Focusing on the work of John McWhorter and, to a lesser extent, Peter Trudgill, this paper critically examines some common themes in language complexity research from the perspective of intellectual history. The present-day conception that increase in language complexity is somehow a “natural” process which is disturbed under the “ab…[Read more]

Twenty-five years ago, my colleagues Miyuki Kamachi and Jiro Gyoba and I designed and photographed JAFFE, a set of facial expression images intended for use in a study of face perception. In 2019, without seeking permission or informing us, Kate Crawford and Trevor Paglen exhibited JAFFE in two widely publicized art shows. In addition, they…[Read more]

This paper argues that the current estimates for the time of influx of Indian genes into
some sections of the Australian Aboriginal population during the Holocene bear large
uncertainties which make elimination of the probability of a more recent gene flow less
likely. It also highlights that indications for the plausibility of a later gene…[Read more]

This chapter explores a case of activism to promote FM broadcasting in the USA at the turn of the millennium, using data drawn from a large ethnographic project. These radio activists provide a unique site for analysing new media adoption and resistance; as technologically savvy critics of Internet utopianism, they are not dismissible as mere…[Read more]

In the early years of the 21st century, as free software communities matured, they began to recognize that their contributor bases were overwhelmingly composed of men. A 2006 European Union policy report revealed that fewer than 2% of free software practitioners were women, which catalyzed attention to these matters (Nafus, Leach, & Krieger,…[Read more]

Both radio activism and gender advocacy within F/OSS illustrate how
technologies acquire political meanings within technical communities. In
examining these sites, we can observe how activists who are concerned with
expressing political beliefs do so through engagement with technologies. Geek
communities are important because they are situated…[Read more]

At the turn of the millennium, scholars and pundits reflected on how communica- tion systems could shape events and societies, often while basking in the perceived glow of the then-novel Internet. Others pled for reasoned engagement with the interplay between communication infrastructures and the social life of knowledge, a much-needed corrective…[Read more]

Dance music is a medium and social practice that has in some cases functioned as a site of refuge for people and communities whom mainstream society marks “deviant” or “uncivilized. Foundational movements in dance music emerge from particular spaces and times where communities are able to center bodies and practices that subvert or contradict…[Read more]

Dance music is a medium and social practice that has in some cases functioned as a site of refuge for people and communities whom mainstream society marks “deviant” or “uncivilized. Foundational movements in dance music emerge from particular spaces and times where communities are able to center bodies and practices that subvert or contradict…[Read more]

(First paragraph): “Any DJ could tell you that you don’t know what music really means until you see it in people’s bodies. A DJ establishes a relationship between audio recordings and the crowd, responding to the speed and intensity of their movements, the symbolism of physical attitudes and gestures, their vocalizations, and the simple pre…[Read more]

(First paragraph): “Any DJ could tell you that you don’t know what music really means until you see it in people’s bodies. A DJ establishes a relationship between audio recordings and the crowd, responding to the speed and intensity of their movements, the symbolism of physical attitudes and gestures, their vocalizations, and the simple pre…[Read more]

Spanish abstract: Análisis de la estructura narrativa de ´Shutter Island´ (Martin Scorsese, 2010), una película en la que el espectador se introduce en el mundo ficticio de una isla prisión / institución total, sólo para descubrir más adelante que no se trata del mundo social efectivo del protagonista, sino del mundo de su visión alucinat…[Read more]

Abstract: The freedom of research is a cornerstone of our civilisation; in many ways it can even be seen as a human right. However, freedom of research does not mean the liberty to cheat. Cheating in science – deliberate falsification of evidence to support a hypothesis – is not only academic misconduct; it is also a crime against society and the…[Read more]

Short description (video lecture) of what you can do, when you “do chresiology”, part 2 (slides).

Book review of Low Power to the People

Review of Low Power to the People: Pirates, Protest, and Politics in FM Radio Activism

The United States ushered in a new era of small-scale broadcasting in 2000 when it began issuing low-power FM (LPFM) licenses for noncommercial radio stations around the country. Over the next decade, several hundred of these newly created low-wattage stations took to the airwaves. In Low Power to the People, Christina Dunbar-Hester describes the…[Read more]