Intersectional Analysis
Architecture, Humanitarianism and Social Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Javier Fernandez Contreras, Greder Damien
The representation of humanitarian crises has transformed significantly with the rise of social media, where victims equipped with smartphones become witnesses, creating real-time narratives of violence, displacement, and survival. This study examines the architectural dimensions of thirteen contemporary crises, ranging from Ukraine, Sudan, and Lebanon to the Darién Gap, Bangladesh, and the DRC, and investigates how social media mediates global attention and empathy. Analyzing over 7,000 images from 200 accounts—including those of NGOs, reporters, and anonymous civilians—this research identifies two key dynamics: the standardization of global attention through visual imagery and the embodied portrayal of suffering within architectural contexts. Social media platforms enable the dissemination of localized conflicts on a global scale, yet algorithms often prioritize uniform narratives, eroding nuance and amplifying biases. At the same time, architecture emerges as a witness to humanitarian crises, situating asymmetries of power, space, and survival. The study questions whether digital imagery signals a new phase of mediatization, paralleling shifts from Capa’s war photography to the televised Vietnam War. Social networks now interlace crisis content with personal media, as seen during the Israel-Hamas conflict, reshaping public perceptions of humanitarianism. By juxtaposing institutional narratives with individual accounts, the research highlights tensions between standardized and localized representations of crises. This analysis underscores the dual role of social media: as a tool for mediated empathy and as a gatekeeper shaping collective memory. Ultimately, it calls for a critical understanding of architecture’s visibility within humanitarian narratives, advocating for a more nuanced and localized portrayal of global emergencies.
Semiotic Strategies in Digital Diplomacy: Reframing Protocol Language in the Age of Virtual Communication
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Elisabeta Jalaboi
This paper explores the semiotic transformation of diplomatic protocol language within the broader context of digital diplomacy, focusing on both video-mediated interactions and communication across social media platforms. In an era where diplomacy increasingly unfolds on Zoom, X (formerly Twitter), or Instagram, traditional communicative rituals of formality, distance, and hierarchy are reconfigured through new symbolic codes. Drawing on classical and contemporary semiotic theory (Peirce, Barthes, Eco), this study examines how meaning is constructed and performed in mediated diplomatic settings—from virtual summits to curated ambassadorial posts. Attention is given to visual and verbal elements: camera framing, attire, emojis, hashtags, speech formulas, and even silence or strategic vagueness. By analyzing representative cases of official communications from ministries of foreign affairs, ambassadors, and state leaders, the paper highlights how social platforms become arenas of symbolic performance, identity negotiation, and soft power projection. These hybrid forms of communication not only reshape protocol, but also raise new tensions between accessibility and authority, spontaneity and strategy. The paper contributes to a broader understanding of diplomacy as a semiotic field of practice where media logics, aesthetic choices, and symbolic codes intertwine, challenging classical distinctions between public discourse, ritual performance, and mediated authority.
Digital Democracy and Algorithmic Culture: AI-Mediated Analysis of Global Democratic Expression Through Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Maria Burns
This study examines how democratic governance structures influence digital cultural expression across five continents through the lens of media technologies. Using machine learning algorithms to analyze digital art and online cultural artifacts, this research investigates how AI can decode human perceptions, emotions, and expressions of democratic values embedded in digital media. The paper presents a comparative analysis of digital cultural patterns from representative nations with varying democratic frameworks, exploring how political systems shape the technological mediation of cultural expression. Through automated content analysis of digital artworks, social media expressions, and online cultural productions, we demonstrate how machine learning technologies can reveal underlying democratic sentiments and cultural values that traditional analysis might overlook. Our AI-driven methodology employs computer vision and natural language processing to interpret visual and textual elements in digital culture, mapping correlations between democratic governance indicators and patterns of digital expression. It employs a mixed-methods computational approach utilizing both R and Python programming environments within RStudio's integrated development platform. The research addresses how media technologies both reflect and reshape democratic discourse in the digital age. Findings suggest that AI technologies can serve as powerful tools for understanding the intersection of democracy, culture, and digital media, while raising important questions about algorithmic interpretation of human expression and the role of technology in mediating democratic participation.
