Volume 5, Issue 1

This study aims to propose a quality control method for digitized versions of manuscript documents that will be relevant for paleographical and codicological analysis. The methodology applied consisted of a systematic review of papers related to automated analysis of the physical characteristics of handwritings and document supports in the field of digital paleography, as well as of the numerous standards that have been emerging in the field of image engineering for quality assessment in digital image recordings. We also worked with a sample of 275 digital representations of pages or double pages of manuscript documentation dating to between the 12th and 17th centuries. As a result of this study, we propose a taxonomy of physical attributes of the handwritings and of their documentary supports that must be represented in the digital image with a high level of fidelity and without any distortions that could lead scholars to erroneous interpretations of the physical and formal characteristics of the original documents. On the basis of this taxonomy, we identified a set of typical distortions caused by digitization processes that can affect the recording quality of the physical attributes previously proposed, as well as a set of parameters and metrics for measuring quality that can be used to create a sufficiently exhaustive quality model. We also detected a series of limitations which, if not properly managed, can compromise the effectiveness of these types of controls.

During the investigation of the Research Group Señoríos Medievales Segovianos in the Archive of the Diocese of Segovia an unusual document was digitized. It was a building license for Bishop Juan Arias Dávila to improve University facilities. This document was written in a different script: The Calligraphic Courtesan Script. related to traditional Courtesan script; this document was written in an especially clear writing style not connected with the usual cursive gothic styles in Castilla. This article tries to connect this clearness in the writing style with the presence of Juan Parix from Heidelberg in Segovia, who brought the first Spanish printing press to Segovia.

The illuminations in two Italian manuscripts are still a mystery today. Both manuscripts were based fully or partly on the Florentine Squarcialupi Codex (Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Pal. 87) dating from around 1410/15. With the help of a multi-analytical, non-destructive approach employing mobile instrumentation (XRF spectroscopy, visible reflectance spectroscopy and infrared reflectography), we examined the manuscripts Toronto, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, MSS 09700 and Düsseldorf, Kunstpalast, Inv. K 1925-67 for the first time with regard to their production processes. The identification of modern pigments allows them to be contextualized in illumination practices of the 19 th century. Manuals of that time provide a wealth of information on specific illumination practices and the availability of writing and painting materials, which correlates with the actual artefacts.

Since Traube (1861-1907) paleography has been concerned primarily with methods for transcribing, dating and placing texts. This paper responds to two changes in perspective that have occurred within western culture over the last century: the arrival of a digital world which saw the transformation of computers from calculating devices into new tools for writing and reading and a cultural shift away from a Cartesian perspective that distinguishes between body and mind and privileges self aware rationality over felt experience. For the purposes of this paper the link between these trends is that both throw new emphasis on writing as an activity rather than a product. This paper looks at how insights from the digital, and body-based disciplines of document creation might then interact with the paleographical and each other. The influences all run both ways, the paleographical can effect the digital as much an understanding of the digital can bring new ways of seeing to the paleographical.

The present paper addresses the issue of how interest-driven learning can enhance an attitude of student-generated inquiry in the learning process so to promote student participation in university research projects. The research question is how wonder as an epistemic emotion may sustain students’ interest-generated questioning, and how the latter may influence the design of a university research project. As a case-study, the paper describes a laboratory on palaeography which took place in Spring 2019 at an Italian State Archive within a University bachelor program in the context of a digital fragmentology project. To design the laboratory and establish qualitative analysis methods for its data, an interdisciplinary educational approach was designed that combines interest-driven learning, emotion theory, value theory, hermeneutics, and User Experience, on the background of Ernst Cassirer’s view of a human being as an animal symbolicum . In the laboratory, the students’ questions and hypotheses arising from their interaction with historical scripts and Medieval handwriting culture are helping redesign some aspects of the research project Textus invisibilis both on the level of the research design and of the team composition, as well as pointing to a novel relevance of state archives and historical libraries in higher education.

Traditionally, calligraphers and palaeographers seldom co-operate or collaborate. This is somewhat surprising considering both disciplines deal with the written texts in one form or another. One could argue that if we learn from each other’s respective fields, it would be mutually beneficial and enrich each other’s practice. This paper discusses the relationship between calligraphy, palaeography, and type design. It focuses on the question of how a calligrapher might approach and analyse a manuscript and how historical scripts have been an inspirational area for contemporary calligraphy and type design. This paper is written from a practitioner’s perspective in describing the processes of how calligraphy is analysed. From looking at manuscripts and documents, what elements can be obtained to develop ideas into design and artwork? What are the processes involved in using both traditional and digital methods? In contemporary calligraphy, what cross-cultural elements can we learn to enrich our traditions? This paper will use examples of my work and that of others as models for discussion.

This study examines the news selection processes followed by fact-checking organizations in the Middle East, specifically Egypt, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates, and gatekeeping such organizations face while working under authoritarian rule. By reviewing fact-checked news posted on the Facebook pages of six Arabic language organizations: Da Begad, HereszTruth, Fatabyyano, Matsad2sh, MisbarFC, and Saheeh Masr, this study manually analyzes about 5,000 fact-checked news stories to understand the extent of political fact-checking performed on Arab presidents, heads of government, and rulers, along with the most verified news topics. Results show that organizations in the Middle East rarely fact-check Arab rulers or refute their claims, while their news selection process prioritizes human interest topics. The study suggests that Arab fact-checkers resort to self-censorship due to gatekeeping influences that impact the region’s media climate.

This paper deals with a case study that provides unique and original insight into social media credibility attacks against the Saudi journalist and activist, Jamal Khashoggi. To get the data, I searched all the state-run tweets sent by Arab trolls (78,274,588 in total), and I used Cedar, Canada’s supercomputer, to extract all the videos and images associated with references to Khashoggi. In addition, I searched Twitter’s full data archive to cross-examine some of the hashtag campaigns that were launched the day Khashoggi disappeared and afterwards. Finally, I used CrowdTangle to understand whether some of these hashtags were also used on Facebook and Instagram. I present here evidence that just a few hours after Khashoggi’s disappearance in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, Saudi trolls started a coordinated disinformation campaign against him to frame him as a terrorist, foreign agent for Qatar and Turkey, liar.... etc. The trolls also emphasized that the whole story of his disappearance and killing is a fabrication or a staged play orchestrated by Turkey and Qatar. The campaign also targeted his fiancée, Hatice Cengiz, alleging she was a spy, while later they cast doubt about her claims. Some of these campaigns were launched a few months after Khashoggi’s death. Theoretically, I argue that state-run disinformation campaigns need to incorporate the dimension of intended effect. In this case study, the goal is to tarnish the reputation and credibility of Khashoggi, even after he died, in an attempt to discredit his claims and political cause, influence different audiences especially the Saudi public, and potentially reduce sympathy towards him.

In the past four years, Iranian Information Operations (IOs) have received a lot of scrutiny by social media companies and policymakers. From 2018 to 2021, several accounts on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram were taken down by tech companies for engaging in coordinated inauthentic behaviour. Despite the heated relationship between Iran and many Arab countries, the Iranian IOs in the Arabic online sphere have received less academic attention over the years. This study fills this gap by being one of the few studies to investigate the Iranian IOs in the Arab world. We analyse more than 9.3 million tweets posted from 2008 to 2020 using the hashed datasets shared by Twitter’s Election Integrity Hub. We found that Iran’s IOs have made the Arab world its primary target—despite the attention the US claims to receive from them. However, these IOs demonstrate very little engagement and reach amongst Arab users, limiting the possibilities of Iran infiltrating the online Arabic sphere, and fostering weak yet unruly Arab counterpublics. This study argues that Iran’s IOs garner their power from being perceived as efficient and dangerous operations that could pollute the public sphere of overseas nations, rather than through actual infiltration through engagement. We understand Iran’s efforts to be preoccupied with old propaganda efforts, through their investment in websites and imitation of news organisations. However, their efforts prove that Iran adopted the tactics of “new propaganda” that depend on creating a perceived atmosphere of distrust and chaos. We contribute to the discussion on information operations by proposing the term “perception IOs”, referring to IOs by governments that aspire to be perceived as effective meddling countries in foreign politics.

This paper develops some discursive resources and models to analyze how and why disinformation permeates mainstream media. It draws on certain linguistic strategies and propaganda models helpful to unravel disinformation in mainstream media coverage, with focus placed on two main Arabic speaking 24/7 news channels in the Middle East. These strategies and models are used to conduct exploratory critical analyses of data drawn from the online news websites of the two news outlets. The paper presents the trends characterizing disinformation in the Middle East, but more importantly the discursive and social patterns and practices the media employ when publishing news intended to discredit and harm rather than inform. The study’s contribution is twofold: First, it provides a discursive framework for the analysis of disinformation in traditional news outlets. Second, it provides an analytical framework to investigate how disinformation pervades mainstream media. The study’s data and analysis support the lines of research on how patriotic ethics guide coverage and how the selection of discursive patterns responds to interests of hegemonic powers with a say in media organizations’ affairs.

A product of the global rise of right-wing populism has been a seeming normalisation of gendered public disinformation, which portrays female public figures as unintelligent, untrustworthy, irrational, and libidinous. Social media has also allowed gendered disinformation to be used in targeted harassment campaigns that seek to intimidate and shame women, reducing their public visibility through psychological violence. Despite this, very few studies on social media involving the Arabic language have explored in detail this phenomenon in the Persian Gulf, despite numerous examples of harassment against women public figures. Since 2017, women journalists critical of regional governments have been subjected to increased attacks online, but none as intense as the attack on Al Jazeera anchor Ghada Oueiss in June 2020. Through keyword analysis, network analysis, and open-source intelligence techniques (OSINT), this paper highlights the intensity and scale of one such attack, identifying the increasing role of malinformation and disinformation in attempting to silence journalists. Such documentation can be useful in demonstrating the volume, velocity, and discursive nature of the attacks threatening women’s visibility online. This research also accounts for a potential mechanism of such attacks, which follow a playbook of: 1) leaking information through anonymous accounts, 2) co-opted or loyalist influencers amplifying the attacks, and 3) uncritical local media jumping on the attacks (breakout). From a transformative perspective, it is increasingly important that such attacks are documented, exposed, and analysed to provide evidentiary claims of such abuse. It also highlights the issues of such abuse in authoritarian regimes, who clamp down on online debate, except appear not to do so when the messaging reflects state propaganda.

Technology is used both to harm and assist people in romantic relationships. For intimate partner violence (IPV) victims, online forums, social media, and digital resources are used to cope with and/or seek support. What remains unknown is the extent to which in-person and digital abuse experiences affect victims’ subsequent preferences for and likelihood of using such channels to reveal and get help for their IPV. This study explored how abuse types and victims’ personal and relational characteristics affected preferences for and reported use of technology-mediated-disclosure and -support-seeking. Quantitative self-reports of IPV victims ( N = 495; 157 men and 338 women) indicated sought target and media type (in-person or online, sex-specific or co-ed groups, open or closed digital platforms, professional- or lay-managed resources) each varied according to multiple personal (age, sex) and IPV-specific (physical, psychological, and digital abuse) factors; technological experiences; and disclosure and support-seeking practices and preferences of victims. Findings are discussed in terms of implications for digital wellness policies and practices.

Giant collections of compound objects, with messy metadata, led to migration in batches and lessons learned. When the University of Mississippi Libraries implemented a campus-wide institutional repository, it also became necessary to use the same platform for nearly 100 digital collections, requiring migration from a locally hosted instance of CONTENTdm to the cloud-based Digital Commons. Because the collections were primarily comprised of compound objects, it was difficult to use harvesting protocol to populate the new repository, requiring new access copies to be reconfigured and uploaded as batches from the local servers after extensive metadata remediation.

Archaeological heritage administrators hold a key position as managers of archaeological information production. This article reports findings of an interview study conducted in Sweden (N=10) that focuses on providing an in-depth description of archaeology heritage administrators’ work with a focus on their information work practices and factors that influence how it unfolds. The findings show that its critical success factors focus on the adequacy and availability of resources, personal experience and functioning collaborations with key stakeholders and colleagues, and balancing between following and interpreting formal guidelines, boundaries and standards of the work. Based on a reading of the findings inspired by Luhmann and White, it is suggested that the administrators’ ability to balance between standards and ambiguity and regulate their personal contextual distance to the projects they were working on helped them switch between acting as subject experts and relying on others to maintain a control over their information work-as-whole.

This paper explores the information behaviour of repatriated migrants in Bangladesh in the context of their irregular migration. Using an exploratory qualitative research design, semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight repatriated migrants in Bangladesh. This study provides insights into the culturally situated, complicated information behaviour of repatriated migrants in Bangladesh. The findings of this study show that repatriated migrants did not seek any information in the context of their irregular migration. It is evident that factors such as unrealistic perceptions and expectations about life abroad, desperate desire to relocate to another country, and trust in smugglers and their agents played a key role in their information seeking in the context of their irregular migration. The study revealed that some participants were unaware of the risk of taking an irregular journey and deceived by the misinformation shared by their smugglers and their agents. Some interviewees even claimed not to attempt to move to Malaysia if they were aware of the heavy risks associated with the move. The concepts of “migration as gambling” and “Aladdin’s lamp” emerged in this study have some implications for local informational program development aiming to educate vulnerable rural population about the risk of irregular migration and connect them with reliable migrational information sources. The study identified some information grounds such as the Bazaar and Betel fields, which might be useful in offering informational programs at those grounds. The findings related to the information behaviour of repatriated migrants have potential implications for research in various disciplines, including library and information science, migrational studies, geography, and psychology.

This study aims at providing some evidence-based insight into Sub-Saharan Africa’s first eighteen months of COVID-19 research by evaluating its research contributions, patterns of collaboration, and funding sources. Eighteen months (2020 January 1-2021 June 30) COVID-19 publication data of 46 Sub-Saharan African countries was collected from Scopus for analysis. Country of affiliation of the authors and funding agencies data was analyzed to understand country contributions, collaboration pattern and funding sources. USA (23.08%) and the UK (19.63%), the top two external contributors, collaborated with Sub-Saharan African countries about three times more than other countries. Collaborative papers between Sub-Saharan African countries - without contributions from outside the region- made up less than five per cent of the sample, whereas over 50% of the papers were written in collaboration with researchers from outside the region. Organizations that are in the USA and the UK funded 45% of all the COVID-19 research from Sub-Saharan Africa. 53.44% of all the funding from Sub-Saharan African countries came from South African organizations. This study provides evidence that pan-African COVID-19 research collaboration is low, perhaps due to poor funding and lack of institutional support within Sub-Saharan Africa. This mirrors the collaborative features of science in Sub-Saharan Africa before the COVID-19 pandemic. The high volume of international collaboration during the pandemic is a good development. There is also a strong need to forge more robust pan-African research collaboration networks, through funding from Africa’s national and regional government organizations, with the specific objective of meeting local COVID-19 and other healthcare needs.