Discord’s April Fools’ Loot Box Video: A Blatant Disregard for Ongoing Genocide in Gaza by Archit Mehta
May 1st, 2024
This April Fool’s Day, Discord uploaded a 17-second video. The video shows an object fired from outer space towards the Earth. In the next frame, the object is revealed — a loot box — when it falls on Discord’s mascot, Wumpus. About three weeks prior to Discord’s video, five Palestinians were killed, and 11 were wounded by humanitarian airdrops carried by the US and Jordan.…
The Culture Industry: ‘Clean Girls,’ Coastal Grandmothers, and TikTok Consumerism by Riley Tinlin
April 15th, 2024
TikTok has become the new mouthpiece for the conglomerate, spoken in pretty shiny words by girls who claim to be just like you. We become convinced that by participating (both socially and economically) in these trends, our identity will be validated. Still, instead, we are left unfulfilled, perpetuating a constant cycle of passive consumption and alienation.…
Re-Assessing the Consumer Welfare Standard by Ramat Jose
April 1st, 2024
Last Thursday, the Justice Department filed a civil antitrust suit against Apple for monopolizing the App Store and thus violating the Sherman Act. This is a significant case that has the potential to revolutionize the App Store and how we interact with our iPhones.…
Navigating the Labyrinth: Misinformation and AI in the Information Age by Maria Fernanda Chanduví
February 23rd, 2024
What is truly concerning is the increasing sophistication of deepfakes, which are becoming more difficult to distinguish from genuine content. Election season is a particular target for misinformation and deep fakes, and the potential for widespread use of deepfakes is concerning, especially regarding vulnerable demographics.…
Neuralink: A Bold Experiment from the Tech Mogul? by Yixiao Song
February 9th, 2024
Yet another of Elon Musk’s rockets exploded recently. One wonders what euphemisms Musk will use for his potentially disastrous experiments with human brains. Neuralink, the biotech company founded by Elon Musk, received FDA approval for its first human clinical trial last May.…
Rhythm, Narrative, and Soft Power: An Analysis of South Korea’s K-Pop Diplomacy in the Digital Age by Mac Milin Kiran
December 8th, 2023
In the intricate dance of international relations, where every nation vies for influence on the global stage, South Korea orchestrates a symphony of soft power unlike any other. Central to this approach is K-Pop, South Korea’s rhythmic diplomat, whose beats and narratives have found a global audience in the digital era, crossing cultures and borders with ease.…
The Impact of AI on PR and Strategic Communications: A Double-Edged Sword by Maria Fernanda Chanduví
November 20th, 2023
Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming the world, and the Public Relations (PR) and strategic communications field is no exception. In the ever-evolving landscape of PR and communications, AI has been nothing short of revolutionary, offering both positive and negative consequences for the industry.…
On the Intelligent Form by James Caridi-Doyle
November 13th, 2023
In Ex Machina, we see a struggle spin outwards from a central point of knowledge: qualities which would have at one point fallen solely within what might be described as the prescriptive domain of the human Form have begun to fall outside of that domain. When we are presented, through the film, with a robot that demonstrably moves like a human, looks like a human, exhibits the consciousness of a human, and in the very abstract sense feels like a human, we are left to wonder what exactly defines us in a world that holds such possibilities. …
