COVID-19 and the Rise of the Conspiracy

This paper examines the rise of COVID-19 related conspiracy theories through a Durkheimian lens. Specifically, Durkheim’s concepts of anomie, collective consciousness, and religion can be useful in interpreting the increased participation in conspiracy theory groups. It examines how social distancing measures and government restrictions have led to increased anomie, and how conspiracy theory groups have been used to mitigate this anomic state by introducing shared beliefs and norms. These groups have also created opportunities for people to come together physically and virtually, sharing common beliefs and goals creating a distinct collective consciousness. This paper also focuses on social media’s role in perpetuating conspiracy theories and how online communities create an environment where it becomes difficult to decipher fact from fiction. It also focuses on how online communities foster group cohesion in a virtual environment. In addition, the paper also likens conspiracy groups to religious ones using Émile Durkheim’s definition.

Technology as portrayed in popular culture

The internet has completely reconfigured social relationships. As information and communication technology continues to change and evolve in ways that were previously unimaginable, films like Spike Jonze’s Her seem not so far from future technological developments. The purpose of this paper is to depict how Jonze’s work does a substantive job in portraying the disconnection from the world individual undergoes when they overly depend on technology for affection and meaning. One may think the idea of an Artificial Intelligence (AI) becoming so personable as unachievable, however, most of our smart technology is already customized to suit our personal needs and gives us quick information such as Siri or Alexa. This paper discusses some relevant aspects of this problem.

The Instagram Effect

Throughout this paper, I analyze the deterministic aspects of Instagram and how those aspects affect agency. The meaning of Instagram is dependent on the creators of the app themselves. By placing Instagram on a spectrum, on the one hand, the reader can see that this app is a tool that can stratify the human need for social communication; on the other hand, it can see how its deterministic abilities affect both our mental and physical health. This shows through the relationships users build through the screen which are in-genuine relationships, ones that can lead to a loss of individual agency and freedom. The deterministic aspects of Instagram are further reinforced through the idea of techno-social engineering where it can be shown how social media applications can change the behaviour and feelings of their users simply through the posts they are exposed to. Lastly, the device paradigm in relation to Instagram as a deterministic tool showcases how the backgrounds and contexts of devices are becoming increasingly concealed and separated from our daily life. This results in a deterioration of genuine interactions within the physical environment and further reinforces the existence of the app that is constructed based on the creators and what they would like to accomplices. As a result, Instagram is a deterministic tool that is detrimental to our individual agency.

COVID-19 and Mental Health

This content analysis examined 653 Twitter tweets from two threads in order to explore the ways in which emotional concerns are contextualized during the COVID-19 pandemic and sought to identify coping mechanisms mentioned in tweets following government-legislated lockdowns and social isolation measures. A purposive sampling method was employed to collect tweets possessing characteristics of interest to the present study. An open-coding procedure was utilized to examine any salient meanings or keywords, and the frequency of occurrence of contextualized emotional concerns and identified coping mechanisms was recorded. Results revealed 7 main ways within which emotional concerns were framed, including: COVID-19 Virus, School-Related, Groups/Individuals, Social Institutions, Financial/Work-Related, Mass Media, and Other. Results also revealed 10 themes in which coping mechanisms were identified: Hobbies/Interests, Social Media, Offering Resources, Substance Use, Connecting with Others, Eating, Raising Awareness/Promoting Compliance, Religion/Optimism, Humor/Sarcasm, and Other. Although previous literature has demonstrated that people exhibit psychological distress during a global health crisis, this study adds to the growing body of literature on COVID-19 and outlines the contexts in which emotional concerns arise during a pandemic and how people are coping through these unprecedented times. These findings provide insight into how individuals are sharing concerns about their mental health with others via Twitter during the COVID-19 pandemic, and points to the need for psychological interventions specifically oriented towards global health crises in the midst of government mandated lockdown measures.

Evaluating the Extrajudicial Measures and Sanctions within the Youth Criminal Justice Act

Since the introduction of the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA), there have been some concerns about the effectiveness of young people utilizing extrajudicial measures and extrajudicial sanctions. This article investigates if the implementation of these measures has created positive impacts for young offenders or if it is equivalent to just “a slap on the wrist.” Using a lens of restorative justice, the strengths and weaknesses of youth circles, youth committees, and victim-offender mediation programs are examined. This article explores the roles of those involved within extrajudicial measures and sanctions and addresses the gaps that exist within this section of the YCJA. Ultimately, this article finds that the restorative justice practices of extrajudicial measures and sanctions are effective at supporting young people throughout the legal process. It discovers that the programs offered for young offenders can give them a voice in their situation and create a connection to their community. However, there are changes needed in the areas of consistent data collection, proper fund allocation, and programming availability.

A Return to Mechanical Solidarity

The emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic brought many changes to daily life in Canada. One such behavior that surfaced was what could be defined as ‘panic hoarding,’ namely, the purchasing of items such as toilet paper, sanitizer and disinfectant in far greater quantities per person than other times, which risked the creation of shortages across communities. In order to understand such behavior, this article will use ideas from Émile Durkheim to analyze the relationship of social media and its impact on the behavior of panic hoarding. In particular, Durkheim’s concepts of collective consciousness show how social media provides enough impetus to make the case that this pandemic is better defined by mechanical than organic solidarity. We can see social media as the vehicle through which collective consciousness can be experienced, and more immediately so at this time, insofar as we see how it influences panic hoarding behavior. We can also see that social media’s use of memes can be likened to totems, and that they give clues to the values we hold at this time.

Blasé Attitude, Hyperreality, and Social Media

Though there is much to gain through technological development, it is also necessary to critique the ubiquitous presence of devices in social life and the overstimulation they bring. The increasing mediation of reality through applications such as Instagram could blur the division between the ‘real’ world of everyday life and a ‘hyperreality’ fostered by such applications. Using concepts from theorists Jean Baudrillard and Georg Simmel, this paper presents a critique of the overstimulation of information through social media. With continuous and repetitive material being recycled online, it is discussed how a blasé attitude is used to protect oneself from being informationally overwhelmed.

Racism and Xenophobia Towards China and People with Chinese Ethnicity Following COVID-19

This content analysis examined public reactions to Twitter posts made by Donald Trump referring to COVID-19 as the “Chinese Virus”. Fifty replies were open coded from which eight themes emerged: endangerment, stigmatization, xenophobia, accountability, accuracy, inferiority, visual promotion, and written promotion. The themes correspond to four meta-themes regarding China, its population, and people with Chinese ethnicity including: explicit opposition to racism towards China and its population, neither an opposition nor a promotion of racism, an implicit promotion of racism, and an explicit promotion of racism. The most prevalent theme addressed xenophobia and more specifically, an opposition to racism towards people with Chinese ethnicity. While most replies to Trump’s Tweets demonstrated an opposition to xenophobia, 14 of the 50 Tweets analyzed explicitly promoted racism.

Confidence in the Government

This study examined public reactions to a Reddit post about a news article that showed a decreasing level of confidence from the public in response to the government’s actions during COVID-19. A content analysis on the 50 best comments from the Reddit post identified four common themes among user comments: a) sarcastic comments, b) explicit comments, c) personal comments, d) past comments. The most prevalent theme was sarcastic comments, which made up 50% of the sample. While the study mainly focused on low confidence levels in the government due to COVID-19, the study also emphasized ways in which political beliefs can have an impact on one’s attitude towards the government.

‘Googleplex Cultures’

This paper takes a Marxist approach to analyze Silicon Valley workplace cultures and how they exploit and alienate their workers. Unlike traditional corporate offices, Silicon Valley workplace cultures offer a range of perks and benefits that attract every office worker; however, it makes them feel a sense of appreciation, known throughout the paper as ‘Googleplex culture’. This culture presents a “decentralized workforce explicitly with integrated units working together to find solutions to problems or failure” (Tran, 2017) while providing employees with a range of unconventional, yet useful amenities. Throughout this paper, it is clear Googleplex culture’s onsite benefits, such as kitchens, free meals, snacks, cafés, private rooms, designated sleep areas, workout facilities, and many more perks the average workers could only wish for, obscure both the absolute and relative surplus labour which lead to exploitation. Googleplex cultures claim to be centred around the worker; however, the concept of crunch depicted in these companies is mainly focused on profits rather than employee health, further providing evidence that these workplace cultures initiate Marx's four forms of alienation.