A reconsideration of feminist cyberactivism in the context of authoritarian regimes: the case of Cuban digital feminism

Contemporary Femininities in Mormonism and in Ireland: Challenging and Confirming Essentialism in Online Spaces

Social isolation poses significant challenges for older immigrants, particularly those who face cultural and linguistic barriers in their country of settlement. Despite these challenges, little is known about how older immigrants facilitate social connections. This study draws from the Inclusive Communities for Older Adults project to explore how Mandarin and Punjabi-speaking older immigrants utilize physical and digital spaces to mitigate social isolation. Data from semi-structured interviews with 20 older immigrants in Calgary, Canada, was analyzed thematically using deductive and inductive approaches. Findings reveal that physical spaces, such as community centers, facilitate social connections and recreational activities among older immigrants while providing volunteering opportunities that enhance meaningful community engagement. However, challenges such as transportation barriers and harsh winter conditions limit access to these spaces, highlighting the need for more localized and accessible facilities. To overcome these challenges, participants relied on digital platforms to maintain social networks, plan activities, and engage in virtual bonding activities. This study underscores the importance of hybrid approaches integrating community-driven physical and digital spaces to alleviate social isolation in older immigrant populations. Hence, the study recommends culturally and linguistically responsive programming, digital literacy initiatives, and policy measures to improve accessibility and inclusivity of physical and digital spaces.

The social network model is powerful enough to provide for the analysis and study of a variety of application domains from daily life, including health care and health informatics. After the widespread appearance of automated tools capable of deriving and analyzing social networks, social network analysis (SNA) and mining in the health care domain has recently received considerable attention for its key role in understanding how various bodies within the health care system form communities and how they are socially connected with each other. This understanding helps enhance the organizational structures and process flows, among others. In this article, we show how SNA techniques can solve issues in the medical referral system in the Canadian health care system and the like, by analyzing the social network of general practitioners (GPs) and specialists (SPs). One of the main targets is to optimize the communication between GPs and SPs with hopes of decreasing the waiting time of patients to be seen by SPs. Various SNA and mining techniques are described and analyzed, backed by reporting some experimental results.

Building on recent research around digital cultural production in Africa (Ligaga, Adenekan, Nyabola), my paper seeks to engage with digital media and online spaces — blogs, social media — in relation to contemporary literary practices in Africa. Its aim is to examine issues surrounding the production and circulation of contemporary “digital-native” texts, as well as the networks, both virtual and material, that underlie them. It draws on a range of examples from contemporary anglophone Africa, from online magazines (Bakwa, Saraba, Jalada, Hekaya) and Facebook fiction to self-published popular novels by writers who use social networks and blogs to produce, advertise and circulate their work (like Nigerian writer Myne Whitman and South African novelist Dudu Busani-Dube).First, the paper examines the complex relationship contemporary digital productions bear to the materiality and literary value usually associated with print. It then seeks to question the widespread notion that digital spaces are unmoored to geography and unbound by the power structures of the print publishing sector. Lastly, by analyzing two recent initiatives from Kenya (Jalada and Hekaya), it focuses on the various scopes and geographies of these virtual literary networks and the ways in which they intersect with material and social networks, through events like festivals or writers’ workshops.

Online spaces are being transformed into new social spaces with a variety of interpersonal relationships and social activities. Especially, cyber spaces based on three dimensions show various cross-cultural social relationships and activities compared with cyber spaces based on two dimensions. These phenomena have different characteristics, depending on users' cultural backgrounds. Relating to social issues in online spaces, many preliminary studies have been conducted. Especially, impressions have been considered important subjects related with social networks. In spite of that, sufficient cross-cultural research related with impressions in online spaces has not been conducted, especially based on 3-D cyber spaces. Therefore, the main goals of this study were to extract 3-D cyber factors formatting perceptional impressions and compare those factors based on cultural differences. In the preliminary research, we identified six impressions dimensions in 3-D cyber space: F1.Cheerful, F2.Logical, F3.Violent, F4.Selfish, F5.Warm, and F6.Seclusive (Lee, Kim & Park, 2009).In order to achieve our goal, first, we selected two countries considering Hofstede's culture dimensions (e.g. Power Distance, Individualism versus Collectivism, Masculinity versus Femininity, Uncertainty Avoidance) (Hofstede, 2005). Korea and America have very different cultural characteristics in terms of Hofstede's culture dimensions (Hofstede & Bond, 1984). Secondly, we conducted in-depth individual interviews. For these interviews, we recruited interviewees as actual users of 3-D cyber spaces (Second Life); depending on the frequency uses and interpersonal relations contained therein, we selected eight Korean participants and eight American participants. Before conducting interviews, we recorded normal lives of participants within a three-day span, for two hours of each day. Then, we conducted the survey to each participant seeing the video clips of others' virtual lives for the purpose of analyzing others' preserved impressions. In-depth interviews were conducted in 3-D cyber space using actual voices. The interview consisted of two parts of questions: 1) What are the factors relating with your perceived impressions?; and 2) If you help an avatar on the video clip before you saw to make clear his/her impression, how will you help? All interviews were recorded as video and audio clips.After collecting data, we analyzed data based on Grounded theory (Strauss, 1990) recognized qualitative research methods. First of all, we accurately transcribed all voice data to text data, and then separated data to minimal units of meaning considering interviewees' intentions. Finally, we extracted properties and grouped properties during axial coding.As a result, Factors formatting perceptional impression in 3-D cyber space was derived with distinction by Korean and American users. These derived factors were linguistic, visual, behavioral, relational, inner-environmental, and outer-environment. Of these, linguistic factors (106, 43%) and behavioral factors (57, 23%) were the most derived. Further, looking at the visual factors, the number of derived factors was similar among Korean and American users. Alternatively, we looked at the detailed factors derived with distinction by Korean and American users. The factors derived by Korean users included exposure degree of clothes, thickness of clothes, while the factors derived by American users included color of clothes and types of avatar.In conclusion, this study has theoretical and empirical significance. The theoretical significance, through the cultural differences research, is to understand how each intercultural impression provided role elements in Korea cultures and American cultures and to understand how the impression provided difference elements. Therefore, more extensive future research on the dimensions of the intercultural impression formation mechanism was proposed, based on this study. The empirical significance was to offer impression dimensions-related elements in 3D gaming to developers and designers in the development of related systems; furthermore, as the results provide data of how elements affect impression in intercultural perception and how in each dimension, the system will be able to provide a basis about impression formation elements in intercultural context.

Online social networks have become an important part of the online activities on the web and one of the most influencing media. Unconstrained by physical spaces, online social networks offer to web users new interesting means to communicate, interact, and socialize. While these networks make frequent data sharing and inter-user communications instantly possible, privacy-related issues are their obvious much discussed immediate consequences. Although the notion of privacy may take different forms, the ultimate challenge is how to prevent privacy invasion when much personal information is available. In this context, we address privacy-related issues by resorting to social network analysis and link mining techniques. We first describe the fundamental of social networks, their common representations, and the main motivations associated with their use. Afterwards, we particularly show how privacy attacks can build on social network analysis and link mining techniques to reveal user-sensitive information. The chapter concludes with a discussion of some open challenges to address in future privacy-related works.KeywordsSocial NetworkSocial Network AnalysisSocial Network SiteResource Description FrameworkBetweenness CentralityThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

The total criminalization and pervasive stigmatization of abortion in the Philippines constrain women’s reproductive agency. Furthermore, the intensification of regulatory biopolitical mechanisms during the COVID-19 pandemic also delimits women’s reproductive actions and decisions. Using a queer phenomenological approach drawn from Sara Ahmed’s theorization, this study analyzes 14 abortion testimonies as shared by 14 women in digital spaces during the pandemic. In the findings, I map Filipino women’s embodied encounters during abortion alongside a complex interplay between digital and physical spaces. Here, I highlight the following processes: 1) accessing the digital abortion marketplace, 2) queering everyday spaces into makeshift abortion places, 3) embodying affinities in the digital abortion community, and 4) claiming collective resistance through abortion testimonies. This study discusses empirical and theoretical insights towards women’s embodied precarities and forms of resistance during abortion and in relation to structural violence. I then propose future directions for abortion research in the Philippines, where I also aim to make practical contributions towards advancing reproductive justice.

In this study we present a proposal for digital methods using Social Network Analysis (ARS) techniques as a product that materializes in ways to investigate data from social networks. Through such methods, we research the potential of these techniques to investigate the topology of networks and the individual and collective actions of their actors. As an example, we adopted as a case study the Twitter profile of the Ministry of Health of Canada to examine actors and communication strategies in combating the pandemic. These actors played a leading role in distributing information against Covid-19. As a contribution, we identified that, through the methods adopted, it was possible to perceive a triangulation in the communication of government agents with their public, in addition to identifying communication strategies in combating the pandemic.

"We Can't Keep Painting Over Our Problems":Murals, Social Media, and Feminist Activism in Ireland Rachael A. Young (bio) On 26 July 2016 eighty protestors gathered in the space in front of Dublin's Project Arts Centre. Dressed in black "repeal" jumpers and blue face paint, the group chanted "What do we want? A woman's right to choose!" while holding up photographs of a red heart with the words "Repeal the 8th" written inside. The photos replicated a mural that was painted over the previous day. Activist Andrea Horan had commissioned popular street artist Maser to paint the pro-choice mural, but Dublin City Council announced that the artwork lacked necessary permits. Project Arts Centre director Cian O'Brien was forced to paint over the image, leaving a plain blue wall where the mural had previously resided. But this censorship could not remove Maser's artwork or the idea it represented from the public sphere. Indeed, Irish feminists and activists refused to allow the mural image to be forgotten or erased. Standing in front of the protested space in Temple Bar, one activist argued, "You can paint over the mural. You can cover us up, but the problem is not going away. We're still here. It's not going away with a little bit of blue paint."1 Refusing to be "painted over" anymore, Irish feminist activists and their allies used murals to create both a physical and digital space [End Page 320] to discuss and advocate for women's issues during the repeal movement. This article considers how murals created a forum-like space, both corporeal and virtual, and allowed Irish citizens to interact with feminist issues and debates in their daily lives. Many academics have discussed how art has created a dissident space for feminist activists, exploring how Irish women have created and navigated these spaces to challenge an oppressive patriarchal system.2 In this article I will build on this work, specifically exploring how contemporary feminist murals in Ireland integrate and combine physical and digital space. Replicas of Maser's mural spread across Ireland, creating material locations in which viewers could physically insert themselves into the abortion debate while simultaneously allowing people a digital method to claim the issue as their own via personal social-media accounts. This amalgamated space allowed people to interact with Maser's mural, and through it the repeal movement, in a personal and continual manner. In using both physical murals and their socialmedia interactions, Irish feminists successfully helped to repeal the Eighth Amendment and created a precedent for feminist activism to use street art to engage with other issues concerning female bodies, including the subjects of sexual violence and body positivity.3 This article will examine four murals that all engage with Irish women's struggle to end patriarchal control of the female body. I begin with two pro-choice murals, Maser's 2016 Repeal the 8th and the 2018 Savita by Aches. I then analyze two artworks by street artist Estr, the 2018 work Not Asking For It, which addresses the topics of consent, sexual violence, and rape culture in Ireland, and a 2019 mural depicting singer Lizzo that aims to combat the stigma of shame [End Page 321] Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Maser's Repeal the 8th mural after being painted over. The HunReal Issues, (@HunRealIssues), Twitter, 26 July 2016, 12:58 pm, https://twitter.com/HunRealIssues/status/757545602825748480. surrounding female bodies and sexuality by embracing body-positive ideals. Building upon the success of Maser's work, I argue that each of these murals created a combination of physical and digital space that was used by Irish feminist activists as a new tool to challenge patriarchal authority over women and their bodies. Feminist Activism, Street Art, and Social Media: Parallel Functions of Creating Space The 2020 themed issue of Feminist Review concerning abortion in Ireland begins with a familiar feminist cry, a refusal to apologize for creating space "to express the injuries involved in the everyday experience of living as a woman in Ireland's 'police state.'"4 One method...

Social network analysis for personalized characterization and risk assessment of alcohol use disorders in adolescents using semantic technologies

Despite the widely recognised impact of both digital and physical spaces as active contributors to teaching and learning processes, relatively little is known about the learning environment. Furthermore, it is time to explore the interplay between these two spaces. Therefore, we proposed employing a holistic approach to develop a new conceptual model for Designing Teaching and Learning Environments (DTALE). To do this, the paper presents first a critical review of the research literature underpinning learning environments, with a particular interest in the integration of the physical and digital spaces, to develop the DTALE model. In the second step, the DTALE model has been developed and validated by applying the model to existing cases from different contexts. Based on the study’s findings, we outline the implications for theory and practice. Limitations and suggestions for future research are also included.

Digital practices and online spaces are wrought with political, social, and economic entanglements producing both what is known as traditional literacies and embodied literacies. As such, literacies of social class are embedded in digital practices and materially discursively produced through online spaces just as much as they are cultivated in other geographical places (i.e., communities, classrooms). Digital spaces have been used to shame poor and working-class people through stereotypical images, politically divisive rhetoric, and aesthetically charged platforms that produce class stratification. Perhaps less visible by many, digital spaces have also been used to cultivate literacies of class consciousness, solidarity, collectivity, and grossly inequitable distribution of wealth and resources. While “limited access” to online spaces might mean limited digital mobility, it might also mean limited exposure to the normalization of privilege and hatred curated in online spaces about working-class and working-poor people. And in a smaller way, it might mean limited exposure to discourses of class solidarity and power in the working class. In this chapter, we will explore some ways digital practices create literacies of social class and imagine the implications for youth and families identifying as working class or poor.

This thesis explores feminist women's experiences of online gendered hate: abusive, threatening or upsetting acts or comments which are often sexual, violent, or gendered in content, and which target women in public online spaces. This work draws directly on the experiences of feminist women in England and Wales, using data gathered during focus groups and interviews, and analysed within frameworks offered by feminist and hate crime scholars. The participants were feminist women who had directly received abuse themselves, or had experienced online gendered hate indirectly: through reading about this or seeing other women being targeted. Accounts given by participants showed the importance of the internet as a space in which they could practice, perform, and develop their feminism. However this was also a world in which women experienced a continuum of abusive acts. Setting this study apart from existing research is the finding that ‘mundane’ behaviours (often treated as trolling) were seen as abusive and harmful by many of the participants. Using these findings, this research develops a model for conceptualising online gendered hate. Analysis revealed that feminist women's participation in online spaces was disrupted by abusive behaviours. This thesis argues that the ways in which online abuse controls women's participation in the online world is wider than has previously been understood: women did not have to experience abuse directly to be constrained by it. In this, online gendered hate sends a message to all feminist women online about what is (and is not) appropriate performance of difference (Perry, 2001). This research examined how women attempted to fight back and resist online abuse, concluding that no one strategy was successful. Reflection is given to how the findings of this research contribute to contemporary debates on the inclusion of misogyny as a strand of hate crime in England and Wales.

Purpose - The aim of this research is to describe new religious practices in digital media. Method - Digital ethnography and literature review are the methods used in this research. Result - A new form of religious practice has emerged, conducted by influencers (A'yun, Ulfi, and Hijrapedia). This includes online muroja'ah, online Quran waqf, and online umrah substitutes. All three clearly indicate the existence of negotiations between offline and online spaces. Implication - This research definitively shows the shift from conventional preaching to digital methods without diminishing traditional religious authority. It is a definitive reference point for other new religious practices. Originality/Value - This research offers originality by revealing how digital media reshapes religious practices, introducing unique forms such as online muroja’ah, Quran waqf, and umrah substitutes led by influencers. It bridges the gap between traditional and digital spaces, challenging conventional sociological views and providing new insights into the evolution of religion in the digital age. *** Tujuan - Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk mendeskripsikan praktik-praktik keagamaan baru di media digital. Metode - Etnografi digital dan tinjauan literatur adalah metode yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini. Hasil - Bentuk praktik keagamaan baru telah muncul, yang dilakukan oleh para influencer (A'yun, Ulfi, dan Hijrapedia). Hal ini mencakup muroja'ah online, wakaf Alquran online, dan pengganti umrah online. Ketiganya dengan jelas menunjukkan adanya negosiasi antara ruang luring dan daring. Implikasi - Penelitian ini secara definitif menunjukkan pergeseran dari da’wah konvensional ke metode digital tanpa mengurangi otoritas keagamaan tradisional. Penelitian ini merupakan titik referensi yang pasti untuk praktik-praktik keagamaan baru lainnya. Orisinalitas/Nilai - Penelitian ini menawarkan orisinalitas dengan mengungkapkan bagaimana media digital membentuk kembali praktik keagamaan, memperkenalkan bentuk-bentuk unik seperti muroja'ah daring, wakaf Alquran, dan pengganti umrah yang dipimpin oleh influencer. Penelitian ini menjembatani kesenjangan antara ruang tradisional dan digital, menantang pandangan sosiologis konvensional dan memberikan wawasan baru tentang evolusi agama di era digital

While there is an extensive body of literature about the impact of sharing physical space on ethical consumption, and a growing body of literature that addresses the impact of digital technologies on ethical consumption, there is little research on the increasing intersections between the physical and digital realms. This study explores the distinct affordances of physical and digital spaces and how they may work in both complementary and synergistic fashions. Drawing on an ethnographic study of two ethical consumption communities in North London, UK, we explore how ethical consumers navigate and negotiate both physical and digital spaces, taking advantage of such affordances. We develop the notion of chorophilia, or love for physical space, explore digital commitments and synergistic affordances of scaling up, and advance polytopes, which focus on the relationality of digital-physical spaces. Implications and avenues for future research are also discussed.