Analyzing the Aestheticized Ideology and Platform Infrastructure of Gab Social As Maly and Beekmans (2025) argue, digital platforms are not merely neutral tools for distributing ideas; rather, they function as ideological infrastructures in their own right. The design, interface...

By aestheticizing neutrality and framing minimal moderation as democratic transparency, #Gab Social renders ideology seemingly invisible, while quietly facilitating and legitimizing far-right discourse, Christian nationalism, and Trumpist populism.

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The Watermelon Woman: Creating History through Fiction In 2021, The Watermelon Woman (1996) was selected for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”. As ...

Cheryl Dunye challenges archival truth and reclaims black lesbian history in her groundbreaking mockumentary The Watermelon Woman. The project challenges the objectivity of archival truth and criticises the erasure of black queer identities in film.

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TPCS 71: The idea of ethnicity in Indonesia By Zane GoebelAbstractEthnicity is now a ubiquitous social category in Indonesia which typically points to a community living in a particular region of Indonesia who speaks a particular language. Even...

This working paper uses the notion of “one-to-many participation frameworks” to examine how linguistic forms, places, and persons have been linked over the past 150 years to produce ethnic communities in #Indonesia.

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When Banksy's Walls Speak: A Silenced Challenge Between Heritage and Justice In early September 2025, a new Banksy mural appeared on the exterior wall of the Royal Courts of Justice in central London. The image showed a judge in traditional wig and gown raising a gavel over a ...

In 2025, a Banksy mural appeared on London’s Royal Courts of Justice, showing a judge raising a gavel over a protester. Authorities quickly removed it, citing heritage protection. Should '#heritage' safeguard buildings, or the values they represent?

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“The choice is yours…”, an analysis of Wilders’ algorithmic politics on platform X Geert Wilders: a longtime actor in politicsGeert Wilders has been a long-standing figure in Dutch politics. He has served in the House of Representatives since 1998, initially as a member of the Peopl...

Geert #Wilders is internationally seen as the most iconic politician of the Netherlands and one of the most mediagenic figures of Europe’s radical right. This paper analyzes his presence on X, focusing on how he uses the platform’s algorithmic dynamics.

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TPCS 70: Ethnographic monitoring as method toward a pedagogy of narrative By Kristel PetersIntroduction: Investigating narrative and voice in the transition classThis thesis engages with ethnographically investigated issues of narrative and voice in a transition class in th...

This study of a so-called “transition class” in the Netherlands highlights the potential of ethnographic monitoring for examining narrative and voice, as well as for fostering the production of democratic knowledge.

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Data centres are an integral part of the modern digital economy, but their regular operation poses significant environmental challenges, particularly in terms of energy and water use. Can we reimagine data centres as spaces of justice and community building?

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The truth about Coachella: Between reality and fiction Coachella is considered to be one of the most extravagant and glamorous music and arts events of the year. Every April, Coachella is at the forefront of social media discourse. What sets Coachella apa...

Coachella is not just a festival, it is a cultural phenomenon. Many influencers share their #Coachella experiences online. Is the social media portrayal of Coachella closer to truth or fiction?

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Writing against the status quo: What can a Suriname edit-a-thon add to the Wikipedia public sphere? Many may think of Wikipedia as the public town square of the internet, the one place we can all go to receive and contribute to the chronicling of our world as we construct it (see Arendt, 1958). I ce...

This paper reveals how and why #Wikipedia falls short of its promises to be a neutral, all representing encyclopedia, by demonstrating what a singular #Suriname edit-a-thon can add to the platform.

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TPCS 69: ‘Taking up speech’ in an endangered language: Bilingual discourse in a heritage language classroom By Robert E. Moore, Lian Malai Madsen, Jan Blommaert and others, edited by Jenny Van der AaThis working paper is the result of the annual e-seminar of the Linguistic Ethnography Forum (LEF), which too...

Inspired by a study into a #heritage language classroom, in this paper, Robert E. Moore, Lian Malai Madsen, Jan Blommaert, and others discuss various concepts and ideas, including what it means to be a "native speaker", and the role of "superdiversity".

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Join us May 7th to discuss heritage, environment, and justice @tilburguniversity.bsky.social! I will launch my book with a response from @lcollins232.bsky.social and host a roundtable with @mcorporaal.bsky.social @philpaiement.bsky.social @s-starrenburg.bsky.social & Wessel Ganzevoort. Register 👇

Algorithmic Populism: The Case of Geert Wilders In a world dominated by social media, the intersection of ideology, message politics, and algorithmic visibility reshapes the way political discourse is disseminated and consumed. Platforms like X (fo...

Can social media algorithms amplify populist rhetoric? This article explores how Geert #Wilders leverages platforms like X to shape political discourse and fuel societal debates.

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Rage baiting in the banal hyperreal: Real Housewives of Antwerp and the attention economy RHOANT, now in its second season since premiering in 2025, follows seven close ‘friends’ as they perform privilege and pettiness. Online, audiences latch onto the show’s awkward encounters and “cringe...

The Real Housewives of Antwerp illustrates how reality TV engineers rage to drive attention. Staged events feed platform circulation, producing a banal hyperreal where affect becomes value and hate-watching turns viewers into participants in the spectacle.

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TPCS 68: Enregistering the globalized nation in Tanzania By Jan BlommaertDraft of chapter 6 in Jan Blommaert (2014) State Ideology and Language in Tanzania. Second revised edition. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Ujamaa was a political ideology aimed ...

In this paper, Jan Blommaert demonstrates that #Tanzania has become a globalized nation whose political, social and cultural profiles must be understood in relation to the scales that characterize globalized sociopolitical and cultural configurations.

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The reflection of broader societal trends on the immersive art experience ''Presence and Erasure'' by Random International This essay examines how the installation artwork Presence and Erasure reflects individualist tendencies and consumerist culture through interactive participation. The link between individual values an...

This essay examines the artwork "Presence and Erasure" in light of increasing individualism and consumerism. Using facial recognition, the artwork engages viewers and promotes a sense of self-awareness aligned with the commodification of identity.

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TPCS 67: Indonesians doing togetherness in Japan By Zane GoebelAbstractThis article examines how a group of people from diverse backgrounds go about doing togetherness through talk in a transnational setting. My empirical focus is the small talk of ...

If you interact with an individual from the same country or region as yourself when you are abroad, how do you establish a sense of "togetherness"? This paper analyses Indonesians in a transnational setting to establish how they ‘do’ togetherness.

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Farming and Folklore in Beara: A Landscape between Tradition and Loss Earth is in the midst of a climate crisis. Whilst fossil fuels dominate headlines, there are also more subtle disruptions at play in the form of biodiversity loss. Overgrazing is causing the loss of m...

This article explores the tension between biodiversity loss and traditional farming in rural Ireland, specifically the #Beara Peninsula. Drawing on folklore, it foregrounds complex interactions between environmental protection, heritage, and colonialism.

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“The Anti-Semite Likes to Play With Discourse”: Examining the Circulation of Coded Antisemitic Narratives in Instagram’s Multimodal Spaces. Antisemitism persists as a powerful ideological discourse that has historically framed Jewish people through stereotypes of greed, conspiracy, and undue influence (Agus, 1961, pp.242-253; Wodak, 2020,...

Antisemitic content continues to circulate on Instagram, often hidden in memes, reels, emojis, and coded humor that evade moderation. How do such narratives manage to persist and spread online?

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Constant Connection or Rawdogging Boredom: a TikTok Trend Battle According to 2025 statistics, people spend on average 6 hours and 38 minutes per day looking at screens worldwide – meanwhile, the average attention span is less than a minute (Backlinko Team, 2025). ...

People are constantly connected to each other, the news, the weather, and just about all the information in the entire world. With everyday circumstances like these, how did a trend that is built on disconnecting and doing nothing become popular?

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TPCS 66: The aesthetics of microblogging: How the Chinese state controls Weibo By Jonathan BenneyAbstractMicroblogs, epitomized by Twitter in the West and Weibo in China, have attracted considerable attention over the past few years. There have been a number of optimistic accoun...

This working paper argues that the microblog is a distinctive medium with special potential for political communication, and that by monitoring and censoring the #Weibo service, the Chinese party-state deliberately manipulates the medium.

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Politics, poetics and childlike perception: The canonisation of children's author María José Ferrada The canonical children’s literature author: from the Global North to Latin AmericaDepending on where you are on the European continent, when speaking of children’s literature in conversations with fri...

When setting foot in Latin American, the name María José Ferrada will inevitably come up. She is a Chilean children's literature writer, recently turned adult novel writer, who sensibly addresses political themes through a child's point of view.

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Algorithmic Populism in NYC: How Zohran Mamdani Hacked the Neoliberal Code Introduction: Beyond the NoiseIn the contemporary era of "algorithmic politics" the digital public sphere is frequently mischaracterized as the exclusive playground of the far-right. From Donald Trump...

In #NYC, a new kind of politics is cutting through the noise. While Eric Adams relies on a "nightlife" persona, democratic socialist @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social has hacked the neoliberal code using memes, irony, and a hyper-specific focus on rent control.

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TPCS 65: Good is not good enough: Combining surveys and ethnographies in the study of rapid social change By Jan Blommaert and Fons van de VijverIntroductionThis short research note is intended to stimulate debates across disciplinary and methodological-traditional boundaries. Such debates, we believe, ar...

Because our objects of research refuse to sit still, the research instruments of humanities scholars demand perpetual reality checking and redevelopment. This working paper attempts to support this process by joining two different methodological frameworks.

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Painting The Bigger Picture: Exploring Sensate Knowledge in Welfare Systems With a background in Applied Psychology, I started working as a junior reintegration coach in the Dutch welfare system. There, I was mostly responsible for the intake-interviews, files and running wor...

What happens when welfare systems rely on forms and policies, while lived experience remains unseen? This article explores vulnerability, trust, and the quiet moments that escape rational analysis.

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From Paper to Screen: The Making of That Afternoon The cold and dark of a Dutch winter day is palpable in the film's depictions of the politics of language, migration, identity, and belonging today. Die Middag (That Afternoon) conveys the intense stru...

In November 2025, filmmaker and writer Nafiss Nia visited @tilburg-university.bsky.social to talk about her 2023 film Die Middag (That Afternoon). This lecture explores how she became a filmmaker, and how she created this highly acclaimed and poignant film.

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Light pollution in the Anthropocene: the environmental cost of illumination What do you see, when you look up at the night sky? I grew up in a larger Dutch city and thinking back to early childhood memories, I could just point out the North Star and the Big Dipper in a clear ...

What do the effects of light pollution on non-human life reveal about the way anthropocentric dualism separates humans from the #environment? This analysis explores a mutualistic posthumanist perspective to find a more connected way of living with nature.

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TPCS 64: Superdiversity & Language: Notes from a social policy perspective By Jenny PhillimoreIntroductionAs a social policy analyst I have tended to see language as a means to an end, a mechanism for communicating need, for accessing resources, for offering help and also to...

There is anti-#migrant rhetoric implying that migrants in the UK resist speaking English. In this working paper, Phillimore expains what social policy analysts can gain if they understand language as a resource rather than a problem.

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Pregnancy Without a Female Body: Ethical Considerations After Watching "The Pod Generation" Imagine a future where pregnancies can occur in artificial wombs. In the film The Pod Generation (2023), recently screened by Studium Generale, this concept becomes a reality. Although still in the re...

How would society change if pregnancies could occur in an artificial womb? Inspired by the movie 'The Pod Generation', this article discusses how technology raises questions about the meaning of parenthood, contemporary relationships, and #gender roles.

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Colonial Legacies and Digital Heritage with Kate Simpson Whose heritage matters? What gets preserved, and why do we identify with certain items, places, or histories more than others? Listen to the first episode of the podcast Living Culture, Making Heritag...

How does digital #heritage reproduce colonial hierarchies of power—or help resist them? Digital Humanities and archival scholar Dr. Kate Simpson (University of Glasgow) sits down with @ecocritickate.bsky.social to unpack why heritage is always political.

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The Aesthetics of Wellness: How Instagram Shapes Happiness and Exclusion IntroductionInstagram has become a central stage for wellness in contemporary digital culture. Images of workouts, healthy meals, skincare routines, and meditation circulate widely, shaping how people...

Instagram #wellness culture functions as both a roadmap to happiness and a mechanism of exclusion by circulating a dominant aesthetic of well-being that links happiness to consumption, productivity, and bodily conformity.

www.diggitmagazine.com/aesthetics-w... #Instagram