DH Colloquiums

SADiLaR organizes monthly Digital Humanities colloquia. These typically take place on Wednesdays (in the middle of the month) from 10:00 to 11:00 SAST. During these DH colloquia a wide variety of topics are discussed, mostly on content related to Digital Humanities, sometimes focusing more on the techniques or methodologies used, sometimes focusing more on the applications or application areas.

The DH colloquia are part of Escalator's Explorer track. You can find more information on Escalator here: https://escalator.sadilar.org/, on Escalator's championship programme here: https://escalator.sadilar.org/champions/overview/, and on the Explorer track within Escalator's championship programme here: https://escalator.sadilar.org/champions/explorer/. Also check out the other tracks within the Escalator championship programme as there may be tracks directly related to your interests. If you want to be a member of the Digital Humanities community, you may also want to consider joining the DHCSSza Slack. This page will provide more information on how to join (this is also free): https://escalator.sadilar.org/connect/.

If you have suggestions for speakers at the DH colloquium (or if you want to speak yourself), or if you want to provide feedback, please do not hesitate to contact Prof Menno van Zaanen: menno.vanzaanen@nwu.ac.za.

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Title:

Depp vs Heard: a Digital-Hermeneutics Approach to Trust in Online Culture

Abstract:

There seems to be a surplus of both trust and distrust in contemporary media culture. On the one hand, we place great trust in the platforms that govern and structure our online lives. We rely on algorithms to organize our lives and make decisions for us. We fall prey to confirmation bias and filter bubbles, which we might characterize as an overly trusting attitude towards (human and/or technological) others. On the other, increasing political, ideological, and epistemological polarization in culture means we can be deeply suspicious of others outside our ideological communities, and trust in experts is waning in certain communities. Radicalizing content and he mainstreaming of conspiracy thought only contribute to a deep-seated distrust of groups outside of the own community, and of things as they seem.

In this presentation, I will look at the trust- part of this equation, through the lens of what Paul Ricoeur has called the ‘hermeneutics of faith’. In Freud and Philosophy, Ricoeur contrasts the hermeneutics of suspicion with readers who come at a text with hopes of revelation. He identifies this strand of hermeneutics in the phenomenology of religion and its symbolic language. The interpreter feels herself addressed by the text and unveils or unmasks its meaning with an attitude of reverence, according to a logic of revelation. I argue that hermeneutics today has migrated from a range of philosophical theories and approaches in literary studies, to pervasive practices in online culture at large that warrant scholarly reflection. In this case, these include echo chambers, filter bubbles, and the so-called ‘guru effect’, and in general in the often blind trust that we put in the platforms that govern our lives.

Then, I examine the role that trust plays in online discussions on the notorious case of the trial of Johnny Depp versus his ex-wife Amber Heard. I look at a corpus of posts and comments from Reddit using an approach called 'digital hermeneutics' (Van de Ven & Van Nuenen, 2022), which is inspired by Gadamer's dialogical hermeneutics. It consists of a 'scaled reading' on five different scales: platform hermeneutics; contextual reading; distant reading; hyper-reading (concordance views); and close reading.

Speaker: Inge van de Ven

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Inge van de Ven

Change my view? a Digital-Hermeneutics Approach to Dialogism in Online Culture

13 September 2023

DH Colloquiums

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