In this article, we turn back to the 1918 influenza pandemic to throw light on the alliances of information communication technologies and technologies of mobility (such as the car) during the pandemic. We examine newspaper articles, technical publications, and other historical texts to demonstrate that, despite the fact that mobile technologies—such as cellular phones—did not exist during the 1918 pandemic, the telephone and mobility technology nonetheless formed alliances as networks in motion, or social moments in which risk and reward are calculated not simply by the ability to move, but rather the ability to move, while remaining connected, revealing insight into early cultural formations that share similarities and differences with the use of modern mobile media and mobility technologies during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
In this article, a remix produced by the artist Pogo and a mashup made by the artist Kutiman are examined as positioned within an aesthetic public sphere. Using the taxonomy afforded by the quadpartitia ratio, these mashups and remixes are pulled apart to reveal insights into how traces of authorship can be detected by juxtaposing original and mashed-up or remixed images. Ultimately, this article will show that locating traces of authorship in mashups and remixes not only adds depth to aesthetic appreciation but also illustrates the aesthetic dependence of mashups and remixes upon the media images that circulate within a given aesthetic public sphere
The rampant misinformation amid the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates an obvious need for persuasion. This article draws on the fields of digital rhetoric and rhetoric of science, technology, and medicine to explore the persuasive threats and opportunities machine communicators pose to public health. As a specific case, Alexa and the machine’s performative similarities to the Oracle at Delphi are tracked alongside the voice-based assistant’s further resonances with the discourses of expert systems to develop an account of the machine’s rhetorical energies. From here, machine communicators are discussed as optimal deliverers of inoculations against misinformation in light of the fact that their performances are attended by rhetorical energies that can enliven persuasions against misinformation.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.