Social Shifts
Featured Image of Women and National Identity in Türkiye’s Public Urban History: The Case of Ankara City View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Hacer Elmacı
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881-1938) founded the new, secular Republic of Türkiye in 1923. Among the most important initiatives of the Kemalist national program in the early years of the Republic was the construction of the new capital, Ankara. During these formative years, a massive architectural urbanization and modernism program was implemented, visually distancing the nascent Republic from its recent past (Değirmenci, 2022). The history and story of the newly established nation-state have been transmitted from generation to generation through different elements of public history, such as museums, monuments, and statues on the streets. In this context, this paper investigates how women belonging to the Turkish nation have been represented from past to present and how this gendered national identity is constructed through representations in the example of Ankara City. The data of this study, which is based on qualitative research methodology, consists of sculptures, monuments, and museums in Ankara. The data is analyzed through content analysis and social semiotic analysis. As a result of the study, it was observed that women were depicted within the framework of traditional roles such as motherhood and wifehood and as active fighters in the Turkish War of Independence, a significant and empowering role in Turkish history. It was also found that womanhood was associated with pride, dignity, determination, freedom, and cultural development. It is also understood that a particular emphasis was placed on women's role in nation-building and constructing the modern Turkish nation through representation through elements of public history.
ODS 13 – Climate Action: Analysis of the Impact of Climate Change in Portugal and Worldwide View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Catarina Athayde
Importance of Sustainable Development (SD) in the lives of people and the planet. Regarding climate and global warming, we know that fires, deforestation, pollutant emissions, are caused by human action. There is a need for humans to think about their actions and change their attitudes. As a consequence of this human action, we have example the gradual rise in the level of the planet's seas and oceans; climate change caused by human intervention in nature. That said, measures are needed to combat global warming, such as raising awareness among the population about the consequences of their actions; the adoption of policies sustainable, such as recycling various materials. The same is said about other DS subjects such as energy efficiency, sustainable mobility, sustainable consumption, efficient use of resources, valorization of waste or even the preservation of biodiversity. Also the recycling of materials necessary for the development of sustainable societies and local development. If we all understand the importance of using the planet's resources well to make it easier to avoid certain destructive behaviors. For example in In the case of deforestation, the disappearance of forests has consequences in terms of the balance of the environment global and human life. It is worth highlighting what is described in the Brundtland Report that the SD aims to satisfy needs of the present, without compromising the ability of future generations to satisfy their own needs. To achieve the goal of SD, a change in attitudes is necessary.
Affective Polarization’s Missing Link: Examining the Effects of Emotional, Cognitive, and Behavioral Disinhibition View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Ivelin Sardamov
The United States and other established democracies have in recent years experienced rising “negative partisanship” or “affective polarization.” This is a condition distinct from policy-based contestation, marked by intense dislike and distrust of political opponents. The study of related emotions entails an understanding not only of how they are generated, but also of emotional, cognitive, and behavioral regulation. These capacities are commonly analyzed at the individual level, taking into account environmental factors. To understand broader environmental influences and related psychosocial tendencies, we need to examine wider, longer-term social, cultural, and technological changes. As sociologists Émile Durkheim and Daniel Bell once observed, the march of industrial capitalism and mass production entailed general erosion of inhibitory self-regulation. At the neuropsychological level, the disinhibition they described can largely be attributed to the sensory and social overstimulation associated with material excess, social and technological acceleration, information and experiential overload, existential insecurity, and similar developments. The progressive relaxation of self-restraint has been further exacerbated with the spread of information technology and other socioeconomic and cultural shifts. It has facilitated the expression of intense negative emotions and aggressive impulses; undermined empathy; led to cognitive disinhibition and “ideological obsession” (or embrace of “extreme overvalued beliefs”); and enabled violent responses to perceived provocations. In a dangerous feedback loop, the unrestrained expression of negative emotions and antagonistic impulses can become a form of self-stimulation, undermining further self-regulation. These tendencies suggest that the aggravation of affective polarization is a largely structural problem that may defy any targeted interventions.
Pirates of the Pre-Conscious, Sirens to our Desires: A Psychoanalytic Understanding of Relating to a Non-organic-device-other View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Cecilia Taiana
In this paper, I elaborate on two main ideas: 1. AI and Psychoanalysis: A Convergence of Ideas. The first part of this presentation briefly traces the historical links between AI and psychoanalysis, highlighting their shared ancestry in 19th-century thinkers like Hermann von Helmholtz and Gustav Fechner. Their ideas about perception, unconscious inference, and the mind as an energy-regulating system laid the groundwork for both fields. This section examines the influence of Helmholtz's theories of unconscious inference and energy conservation on Freud's psychoanalytic model and how these concepts resonate with contemporary neuroscientific frameworks like Karl Friston's free energy principle and Geoffrey Hinton's AI's predictive coding model. 2. Two types of Attention: AI and Psychoanalysis. I argue that AI's approach to attention fundamentally differs from Freud's concept of evenly suspended attention. In this section, I highlight the dangers of relating to a non-organic-other in the context of an emerging 'intention economy' that [consciously] conceals its intentions from the user. I examine AI's potential to capture and seduce human attention, particularly within the emerging "intention economy," which seeks to predict and exploit human intentions for commercial gain. This evolution of the digital landscape raises ethical concerns about the commodification of human experience and the potential for AI to "steer" users toward predetermined outcomes. The constant flooding of the secondary process of the universal other is an intrusion/seduction that interferes and modifies the use of consciousness as a sense-organ that attributes psychic quality to understanding what they are feeling or thinking.
