Статті в журналах з теми "Services financiers – Innovation"

Depuis la dernière crise financière internationale de 2008, où les banques ont sévèrement été critiquées, le secteur de la technologie financière (ou fintech) n’a cessé de se développer et d’innover, entretenant avec le secteur bancaire des relations à la fois aux allures de compétition et de collaboration. Même si l’utilisation de la technologie en soutien aux services financiers n’est pas récente, son essor au cours de la dernière décennie, notamment son adoption par les institutions financières, semble avoir accéléré le virage numérique et renforcé ses capacités à affronter une nouvelle crise. Les banques constituent l’une des industries dont l’activité est le moins affectée par les restrictions qu’impose la pandémie de COVID-19. Anthony Rjeily est associé chez Ernst & Young (EY) et leader national de ladite firme en transformation numérique et innovation. Il cumule plus de 25 années d’expérience et accompagne des entreprises de différents secteurs dans leurs projets de croissance par le biais de l’engagement numérique. Il nous explique dans cet entretien en quoi la fintech a rendu les banques commerciales plus agiles et leur a permis de rapidement s’adapter à l’avènement de la pandémie.

Le mobile money représente, pour les entreprises de services en l’occurrence les opérateurs de télécommunication, une innovation incrémentale de service accessible à tous les individus via le téléphone portable. Ressortir les facteurs explicatifs de son adoption par les clients répond aux préoccupations des offreurs de services financiers mobiles, en particulier celles des opérateurs de téléphonie mobile qui ambitionnent de développer leur portefeuille clients. Au plan individuel la théorie unifiée d’acceptation et d’utilisation de la technologie a été mobilisée dans différents contextes pour prédire le comportement d’adoption d’une innovation. Grâce à une approche méthodologique mixte et à l’échantillonnage de commodité, une étude qualitative de type semi-structuré suivant une analyse de contenu thématique a été effectuée d’une part et d’autre part un questionnaire conçu à base de Likert à 5 points a été réalisé sur un échantillon de 251clients utilisateurs. Les résultats révèlent que l’intention des clients à utiliser les services s’explique par la testabilité et l’utilité perçue. Quant à l’analyse de régression logistique, les résultats dévoilent d’une part que l’offre des services du mobile money est à faible coût et d’autre part que l’intention d’utilisation et la commodité constituent les réels facteurs expliquant l’adoption des services du mobile money.

Innovation related to the technological advances of entrepreneurship are essential in Industry 4.0. The availability of sufficient funding is one of the factors promoting innovations in companies. Therefore the issue of access to finance remains relevant. The study investigates the availability of public financial support for micro-enterprises - the largest enterprise category in Latvia (approximately 94%), focusing on those for whom the introduction of innovations is essential for their growth. In an ad hoc survey of companies registered in Latvia in nationally defined sectors, entrepreneurs disclosed their sources of funding over the three-year period: 2015-2017. Valid responses from 2511 companies, of them 1879 were micro-enterprises, revealed not only the diversity of their financial sources but also the reluctance of external financiers to support companies willing to innovate. Out of the micro-enterprises surveyed, which required new or additional funding during the three-year period in question, 21% stated that the goal of funding was “the development and introduction of new products or services”. Innovation as an important factor was stated by 28% micro-enterprises. According to the data processed by SPSS, micro-enterprises still prefer internal financing (64%) among many sources, whereas only 11% of the respondents used public funding. The micro-enterprises, for which innovation is important, relied solely on internal finance (65%), while public support was used by 13%. Based on the results of the study of Latvian companies, the need to improve the availability of financing for micro-enterprises is highlighted by creating a targeted\external funding offer in the form of a financial instrument based on public finance support.

La microfinance est une innovation sociale qui porte sur le financement des microentrepreneurs exclus du financement bancaire classique. Et grâce à ce financement qui se fait sous forme de microcrédit, aux bénéficiaires lancent des activités génératrices de revenus, qui leur permettent de s'intégrer dans le circuit économique du pays. Au Maroc, le microcrédit est un service géré par les associations de microcrédit (AMC) qui placent les besoins en matière de financement des démunis au centre de leurs préoccupations et le microcrédit comme une activité à activité mais non lucratif et les sommes financés par le financement des pauvres, ne sont que pour le financement des charges de fonctionnement de l'AMC (les charges du personnel, le loyer, etc.) Et puisque les besoins en matière de financement de cette population sont en évolution extrême, L'AMC marocaine lance en continu des innovations commerciales, c'est-à-dire elle développe et innove de nouveaux produits/services financiers adaptés avec les nouveaux besoins de ses bénéficiaires. Le présent article a pour objectif de répondre à la problématique de l'innovation dans le secteur de la microfinance à travers deux parties, la première opte à la présentation de la microfinance à la chaine internationale et nationale et la deuxième partie traite les grandes lignes de l'innovation dans le secteur bancaire ainsi que le processus d'innovation des AMC non-marocaines.

Relevance of the researching topic. The path to European and world integration chosen by Ukraine will strengthen the need for modernization of all spheres of public life, first of all, the educational sector, which in modern conditions is a key generator of social changes. Thus, the study of the updating of the educational process, information technologies of its provision in the conditions of the development of knowledge economy in our country today are actualized as never before. Formulation of the problem. Modern conditions for the development of the knowledge economy determine new requirements for financiers who are well aware of the peculiarities of modern and future innovation development of Ukraine, they develop new ways of evolution of the financial and credit system, ensuring financial stability and competitiveness of Ukraine in conditions of its integration into the world economy. As a result, the requirements for their professional training are increased, which requires both profound transformations in the system of higher education itself and in providing the educational process with new information technologies. Analysis of recent research and publications. The problematic issue was, to a greater or lesser extent, covered in the works of many scholars. Although these scientific works do not exhaust the deep nature of researched issue, they can be fully appreciated as a theoretical and methodological basis and a source for the research. The authors considered works, devoted to highlighting the role and significance of the knowledge economy’s development, the essence and important structural elements of teaching technology, the characterization of traditional and innovative technologies of vocational training, the problems of introducing a practical approach in the educational process, methodological aspects of the implementation of ICT and remote technology in the educational process. Identification of unexplored parts of the general problem. Despite the considerable scientific achievements of Ukrainian and foreign researchers, the problem of professional training of specialists in the period of formation of the information society is not exhausted. This requires further study of the content updating of the educational process in universities, information technologies for its provision in the conditions of the development of knowledge economy. The purpose of the study is the illustration of the problem of improving the quality of the educational process of professional training of specialists in finance, banking and insurance in the context of the development of the knowledge economy in Ukraine, defining the directions of its solution on the basis of implementation of the practice-oriented approach in the educational process and application of the latest educational and information technologies. Methodology of research. The methodological basis of the study is both general scientific and special methods of scientific knowledge. Among the general scientific methods were used methods of structural analysis and synthesis, generalization. Among the special methods, methods of grouping, comparing, and computer programming were used. Results of the research. The authors substantiated the necessity of building the information society in Ukraine, which envisages the transition to the priority scientific and technological and innovative development, namely providing education, training of a person for work in the information society. They had investigated modern problems of implementing a practical-oriented approach in the educational process. The peculiarities of content updating of educational process in higher educational institutions, information computer technologies of its provision in the conditions of development of knowledge economy have been revealed. The field of application of results. The results of the study can be used in the process of professional training of financiers by higher educational institutions, the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine. Conclusions. On the basis of the conducted research, the use of modern information technology in providing professional training of financiers in the conditions of development of knowledge economy in Ukraine results from the fact that the training of future specialists should be based on the principles of a practical approach, which is formed based on the model of the future professional, the logic of future professional activities, and provides conditions for the transformation of the student’s educational activity into a professional activity of a specialist. As an example of the Khmelnytsky National University, it has been proved that the current policy of creating, broadly introducing the latest ICTs in the educational process and their constant improvement, in accordance with changes in the current legislation and time requirements, contributes to ensuring the high quality of education, expanding the range of educational services and giving them the opportunity in the time convenient for them to get education (including the employed population, people with disabilities and foreign students), and is an example for other high schools for the implementation of high-quality education the first process in higher education.

The object of research in science and technology valleys and technology incubators, which for governments are the best investment of the scientific energies of scientists and innovators. As they are a link between research institutions and the industrial and service sectors, and as they transfer ideas and research results to different markets. This research aims to highlight the importance of Localization science and technology valleys and technological incubators related to nuclear activities, as they are one of the important tributaries to support the owners of the ideas of ambitious nuclear projects. The research also aims to shed light on the problems and obstacles that hinder the achievement of the desired goals of nuclear activities, such as: – the lack of information in the fields related to it; – the scarcity of expertise needed to implement it; – the lack of funding; – the absence of investors in this highly specific «nuclear» sector. The research presents the extent of the possibility of Localization those nuclear activities in Egypt through establishment valleys and incubators so that through this Localization there is an integrated environment of services and support that will ensure their development, raise their growth rates, and increase their efficiency. It is will lead to an increase in the chances of their success and sustainability, especially since Nuclear technology is used in many fields of industry, medicine, and agriculture. The research highlight the provisions of Egyptian Law regarding science, technology, and innovation incentives, as well as Egyptian Law establishing the Innovators Care Fund, to determine the possibility of establishing these valleys and incubators through the provisions of Egyptian legislation. Obtained results will have reached a great impact in encouraging investors and financiers to enter into technological partnerships with nuclear agencies in Egypt for the sake of safe investment in the elements associated with nuclear materials.

I am stunned by the failure of so many organizations to create the capability for generating streams of new products and services over time. Organizations capable of ongoing innovation can create more profits, more value, more employment, more growth, and more adaptability to transformations in technologies and markets (BCG study of investor returns). Generating streams of innovation is even more important now, especially for organizations in emerging economies, because industrial transformations and global grand challenges (Ferraro, Etzion, & Gehman, 2015) demand continuous innovations in products, programs, business processes, and strategies. For example, digitalization is transforming business models from vertical industrial silos such as consumer goods, materials, or financials to horizontal platforms that orchestrate networks, create technologies, and provide services (think Amazon, Alibaba). New markets and technologies emerge unpredictably but will produce major economic and social changes. Emerging economies more directly face grand challenge complexities of poverty, water scarcity, inequality, and climate changes. Innovations in emerging economy organizations are also very complex, since they often include innovations in sales, distribution, and business models along with rigorous product design and development processes.

RESUMEN: La gestión empresarial, entendida como la actividad emprendida con el propósito de mejorar la productividad y la competitividad, así como asegurar la sustentabilidad de la empresa, enfrenta importantes retos y desafíos. Por un lado, la actividad empresarial debe desarrollarse en el entorno de la economía global, caracterizada por el libre comercio de bienes y servicios, así como la libre circulación de capitales financieros. Por otra parte, la libre circulación de capitales es el principal determinante de una amplia volatilidad e inestabilidad en los mercados financieros globales, lo que ejerce una gran influencia sobre la situación económica de un país y su actividad empresarial. Ello quedó plenamente demostrado con la crisis económica y financiera de 2008, cuyas consecuencias recesivas aún se manifiestan en la mayoría de los países del mundo. Así, como consecuencia de la recesión económica de 2008, millones de personas en todo el mundo perdieron sus hogares y sus empresas, y muchas de ellas se empobrecieron. No era eso lo esperado en el mundo de los negocios y las finanzas. La teoría económica neoliberal, con su fe en el libre mercado y en la globalización, había prometido prosperidad para todos. Se suponía que la Nueva Economía, con sus sorprendentes innovaciones financieras -como son la desregulación y la ingeniería financiera- traería consigo el fin de los ciclos económicos, crecimiento y bienestar. Si en el mundo desarrollado las consecuencias fueron desastrosas, en América Latina provocaron una verdadera emergencia económica y social. ABSTRACT: The business management, understood as the activity undertaken in order to improve productivity and competitiveness, and ensure sustainability of the company, faces significant challenges and challenges. On the one hand, businesses must develop in the environment of the global economy, characterized by free trade in goods and services and the free movement of financial capital. Moreover, the free movement of capital is the main determinant of a wide volatility and instability in global financial markets, which exerts great influence on the economic situation of a country and its business. This was fully demonstrated by the economic and financial crisis of 2008, whose recessionary consequences still evident in most countries. So, as a result of the economic recession of 2008, millions of people around the world lost their homes and businesses, and many of them were impoverished. That was not expected in the world of business and finance. The neoliberal economic theory, with its faith in free markets and globalization, had promised prosperity for all. It was assumed that the New Economy, with its surprising, as financial innovation and deregulation are financially engineering would bring to business cycles, growth and welfare. If I developed were disastrous in the world, in Latin America provoked a genuine economic and social emergency.

This article analyzes the competition between commercial banks and operators of mobile telephony (OMT) in financial inclusion in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in a market where services are differentiated horizontally. We use the Hotelling model (1929), to study the consequences of competition on the development of financial services. The conclusion is that competition between banks and operators of mobile telephony is not conductive to lower prices or massive financial inclusion. Rather, it accentuates a polarized diffusion of financial services across the national territory, given the low income levels of the population and the importance of the informal sector that characterizes the Congolese economy.

The purpose of the article/hypothesis. This article aims to introduce the concept of creative destruction in relation to transformative solutions in finance based on the example of FinTech and innovative technologies with special emphasis on blockchain and cloud computing. As a means to reach its objective this paper analyzes in depth the concept of creative destruction originated by Schumpeter in 1940s and translates it to modern business financial environment to present the reader with double-sided effects of introduced changes, their unique and unprecedented character both from the perspective of FinTech and traditional financials intermediares. Methodology. In order to research the effects of innovations on the financial markets the critical study of the foreign literature will be conducted. Results of the research. The conducted considerations displayed a parallel between innovations introduced by FinTech and actions undertaken by traditional financial institutions in order to remain strong players on the financial market. Even though solutions provided by start-ups may debilitate gained trust, which is one of the fundamental cores of finance, and raise questions related to breach of established regulations, they support the market with increased efficiency and variability of products and services. However, it can be easily perceived that advantages of introduced solutions outweigh possible dangers, and financial intermediaries, especially banks, decide to operate on the basis of the enagament model that supposes a synergy with start-up to blend favourable aspects of both of them including banks’ well-established repute and trust along with FinTech’s innovative potential.

La financiación colectiva, alternativa o crowdfunding se ha catalogado como un fenómeno tecnológico, social y de emprendimiento, de muy rápido crecimiento en el sector de los servicios financieros y se proyecta como una alternativa a los servicios bancarios ofrecidos por la banca tradicional. Uno de los aspectos más destacables de este modelo financiero alternativo crowdfunding, es que es innovador, tanto en términos de modelos de negocio y de plataformas tecnológicas. Estos modelos operan exclusivamente en línea, en sitios web y se han diseñado de acuerdo a las necesidades del cliente y del inversor. Es una forma de respuesta a la coyuntura económica que sevive en el mundo, representada en el recorte de las fuentes de financiamiento a las Pyme, presentándose como una excelente alternativa en la obtención de recursos para el financiamiento de sus proyectos. Con este trabajo se busca entender el potencial de los modelos crowdfunding, como vehículo de financiación necesario para las Pyme.ABSTRACTThe collective, alternative financing or crowdfunding has been catalogued as atechnological, social and entrepreneurial phenomenon of very rapid growth in the financial services sector and is projected as an alternative to the banking services offered by traditional banks. One of the most outstanding aspects of this alternative business crowdfunding model is that it is innovative, both in terms of technological platforms and business models. These models operate exclusively online, on web sites and have been designed according to the needs of customer and investor. This new business model is a form of response to the economic situation that exists in the world, represented in cutting sources of financing to SMEs, presenting itself as an excellent alternative in obtaining resources to finance their projects. This work seeks tounderstand the potential of models crowdfunding, as a vehicle for financing necessary for SMEs. Fecha de recepción: 12 de septiembre de 2016Fecha de aprobación: 16 de noviembre de 2016Fecha de publicación: 6 de enero de 2017

Because of the public sector crisis, the role of the state in the provision of public service activities has been gradually changing ever since the 1980s, as the role of the financier in public infrastructure, as well as of the provider of public service activities, was increasingly being assumed by the private sector, while the state began to strengthen its role in the areas of regulation and supervision.With the involvement of the private sector in the so-called project financing of investments in construction of infrastructure and the consequent provision of public service activities, new and innovative forms of cooperation between the public and private sector (public-private partnership) have gradually been introduced as an addition to the already established concession and public procurement relationships. At the same time, states have in addition to classic (budgetary) financing gradually introduced new ways of financing public service activities, which enabled the repayment of investments in public infrastructure and reimbursement of (private) providers for goods delivered or services rendered (public goods). Undoubtedly, these forms of cooperation between the public and private sector call for regulation of certain complex issues. This article focuses on the examination of forms of integration between the public and private sector in the provision of public service activities in the framework of concession relationships.

L’évolution de l’informatique documentaire au Québec, très peu différente de celle observée au Canada et aux États-Unis, a toutefois suivi l’évolution technologique de la province. Sans être la seule innovation technique de ces dernières années, elle constitue le facteur commun qui a permis une mutation des services documentaires et accéléré l’émergence d’une nouvelle philosophie de l’information. La technologie informatique a subi des changements rapides et continuels lors de la dernière décennie et son implantation a eu des impacts certains sur les ressources humaines, financières et, en définitive, sur les services offerts. Mais cette évolution fut effectuée de façon douloureuse et très morcelée. Elle s’est faite malgré l’absence d’assises et de structure de base pouvant la soutenir à différents niveaux. Malgré tout, la poursuite de la mutation de l’informatique documentaire doit s’inscrire dans le contexte de l’évolution nationale et internationale.

The flexibility of SMEs that largely constitute the building sector is one of the key elements to enable the building industry to address the financial crisis that began in 2007. Therefore, in order to achieve a recovery in the sector, this study based on empirical research analyzes the factors that allow adaptation of interorganizational information systems (IOIS) for domotics service innovation in the building sector. The main findings from this study allow us to conclude four ways in which the IOIS might contribute to service innovation in the building sector. The final purpose is to improve management in the interrelations between different agents to undertake more complex building projects, contributing in par ticular to improve the quality of housing.Keywords: building, IOIS, ICT, service innovation, domotics services.Adecuación de un modelo de sistema de información interorganizacional para la innovación de servicios domóticos en el sector de la edificaciónResumen: La flexibilidad de las PYMEs que mayoritariamente componen el sector de la edificación es uno de los elementos claves que le está permitiendo al sector soportar la crisis financiera iniciada en 2007. Por ello, con el fin de lograr una recuperación en el sector, este estudio basado en un trabajo de investigación empírico analiza los factores que permiten la adecuación de los sistemas de información interorganizacionales (SIIO) para la innovación de servicios domóticos en el sector de la edificación. El objetivo último es mejorar la gestión de las interrelaciones entre empresas para llevar a cabo proyectos de construcción más complejos.Palabras clave: sector de la edificación, SIIO, TIC, innovación de servicios, domótica.

Sharia banking law was formed in the reform era through the procedure of making political decisions at the suggestion of the DPR RI. At the beginning of the reform order the legal product tended to be responsive. All the pillars of democracy can play a role. It's just that legal products that are born more serve international institutions or financiers because political configurations are more likely to be oligharkhi-cartels. The birth of this law is in line with the increasingly existence of Islamic banking in contributing and economic growth in Indonesia. As a political product, sharia banking law was born after a number of fundamental changes, especially changes in the construction of judicial authority carried out by the Supreme Court and the Judiciary under it. The birth of Islamic banking law follows a responsive legal character because this law embodies the needs of the community, guarantees business certainty and guarantees legal protection, gives space and movement to Islamic banking to develop and create innovations in Islamic banking products and services. In addition, this law is also the answer to the implementation of laws in accordance with Pancasila and has accommodated the needs of religious law. In the process of forming all stakeholders play an active role in either political parties or political forces, community organizations, government and society.

Islamic microfinance aims to offer alternative financial products and services to the Muslim population through developing innovative microfinance services and products based on Islamic finance principles. Two main Islamic financing methods are used in Islamic microfinance: financings based on profit and loss sharing principle and financings using mark-up. The Muslim population represents more than 23% of the world population. A large part of this population is living with income below the poverty line. According to the Islamic Development Bank (2008), more than 500 million poor (with income below USD 1.25 per day) live in the five largest Muslim-majority countries (Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nigeria, and Egypt). Despite the enormous potential market for Islamic microfinance, Islamic Microfinance Institutions serve only 1.28 million clients, representing only 1% of the total outreach of microfinance. One possible explanation for this low outreach is that the products offered by Islamic microfinance institutions may not be well adapted to the needs of the customers. Therefore, this research aims to examine customers’ satisfaction with Islamic loans. Moreover, the study aimed to identify the loan’s selection criteria, and the areas of improvement, from the customers' perspective. This study focused on small businesses since micro-entrepreneurs have specific needs related to their businesses that differ from the other customers’ needs. The study was conducted in the context of Bank Syariah Mandiri, one of the largest Indonesian Islamic commercial banks. The study proceeded in two steps. The first step was to investigate the relevant literature on Islamic microfinance and customers’ satisfaction in the Islamic microfinance sector. The second step was collecting primary data among the customers of the micro Banking Division of Bank Syariah Mandiri. The literature review on Islamic microfinance revealed a lack of understanding of customers’ attitudes, perceptions, and preferences. Therefore, this study aimed to provide a modest contribution to the field. The survey questionnaire was used to collect primary data, and a random sampling method was used to select the participants for the survey. One hundred questionnaires were distributed to the customers who owned a micro business and had an outstanding loan balance with Bank Syariah Mandiri at the time of the survey. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data. The Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) Version 22.0 was used to generate the statistical analysis. The response rate was 100% since questionnaires were distributed to the respondents at their house or business location. The study revealed that most respondents were satisfied with the credit and its features (loan size, cost, collateral requirements, time to process the application, and application form). The credit served their business and helped them improve their sales and incomes. In addition, the study showed that the essential criteria in selecting a credit were the cost, Syariah compliance, and the process easiness. An essential finding of this study was that the religious character of the Islamic Microfinance Institution was not of great importance when selecting a microfinance institution; however, it becomes a significant concern when selecting a credit. This finding suggests the importance of enhancing Syariah compliant product innovation to increase customers’ satisfaction

The multiple factors that define and relate service quality and customer or consumer satisfaction have served as the basis for the development of several multidimensional models that have allowed the study of this important issue. The level of research that will be used in this work is the explanatory levelbecause it is intended to evaluate the role of innovation in the design of the service quality improvement plan and its impact on customer satisfaction. As a case study, the M7D model was applied to two national banks. Among other results, national banks obtained 83.5% compliance with the M7D model, the dimensions with the best performance are customer satisfaction, organization, processes and social responsibility. While, medium-sized banks have a compliance level of 62.7% with the M7D model, the dimensions with the best performance are customer satisfaction, Social responsibility and leadership. 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A lo largo de los últimos 20 o 30 años la evolución del cambio tecnológico, organizacional y financiero, han producido diversas transformaciones en la estructura de instituciones poderosas en el sector económico mundial. El aspecto innovador, interactivo, entre proveedores, productores, usuarios, de diferentes países con diversos marcos institucionales y diversas políticas de todo el mundo, ha implicado una transformación en los sistemas de información y las redes globales. El resultado de estos cambios ha sido el desarrollo de una producción económica a escala mundial, eliminación de barreras comerciales, flujo de capitales, tratados internacionales, producto también de otras fallas en modelos económicos que no tenían relación directa con el nuevo alcance de esta creciente era tecnológica. Las primeras cuatro décadas de internet han traído el correo electrónico, la red informática global, las empresas electrónicas, los medios sociales, la red móvil y el almacenamiento en la nube. Internet ha servido para reducir los costes de investigar, colaborar e intercambiar información. Ha permitido la aparición de nuevos medios de comunicación y entretenimiento, de nuevas formas de comerciar y de organizar el trabajo, y de empresas digitales como nunca las ha habido. El objetivo general de esta investigación es presentar un recuento del impacto del Blockchain en el sistema empresarial, el uso de criptomonedas, el bitcoin como principal moneda digital; sus características, elementos, funcionamiento, beneficios y desventajas de su aplicación en áreas diversas de la economía mundial. Mostrar en resumen la manera como se presenta ante el consumidor y la innovación de su sistema de funcionamiento a través de bloques y cadenas, que se forman a través de las transacciones realizadas. Todo esto a través de una metodología documental, mediante la revisión de trabajos e investigaciones planteadas por diversos autores especialistas en áreas como economía y finanzas, que han presentado a lo largo de sus estudios el creciente interés de usuarios, instituciones financieras y empresas de aplicar este sistema como facilitador en el desarrollo de nuevos negocios, diseño de nuevos productos y servicios. Y presentando como conclusión sus beneficios y desventajas desarrolladas y detectadas hasta el momento a través de la puesta en práctica en algunas instituciones públicas y privadas.Palabras Claves: Blockchain, criptomonedas, bitcoin, globalización. AbstractThroughout the last 20 or 30 years, the evolution of technological, organizational and financial change has produced various transformations in the structure of powerful institutions in the world economic sector. The innovative, interactive aspect, between providers, producers, users, from different countries with different institutional frameworks and diverse policies around the world, has implied a transformation in information systems and global networks. The result of these changes has been the development of economic production on a world scale, elimination of trade barriers, capital flows, international treaties, also the product of other failures in economic models that had no direct relationship with the new scope of this growing era. Technological. The first four decades of the internet have brought email, the global computer network, electronic businesses, social media, the mobile network, and cloud storage. The Internet has served to reduce the costs of researching, collaborating and exchanging information. It has allowed the emergence of new media and entertainment, new ways of trading and organizing work, and digital companies like never before. The general objective of this research is to present an account of the impact of the Blockchain on the business system, the use of cryptocurrencies, bitcoin as the main digital currency; its characteristics, elements, operation, benefits and disadvantages of its application in diverse areas of the world economy. Show in summary how it is presented to the consumer and the innovation of its operating system through blocks and chains, which are formed through the transactions carried out. All this through a documentary methodology, through the review of works and research proposed by various authors specialized in areas such as economics and finance, who have presented throughout their studies the growing interest of users, financial institutions and companies to apply this system as a facilitator in the development of new businesses, design of new products and services. And presenting as a conclusion its benefits and disadvantages developed and detected so far through implementation in some public and private institutions.Keywords: Blockchain, cryptocurrencies, bitcoin, globalization

El uso de la tecnología y la creatividad en la práctica innovadora, hace que el docente desarrolle sus propios modelos para el mejor cumplimiento de los logros del aprendizaje, en esa línea surge el Emprendimiento Generador Solidario (EGS). El Modelo EGS es un ejercicio de simulación de una empresa cooperativa o caja solidaria de ahorro y crédito, donde ocurren situaciones muy similares a las que pasan en el entorno de este tipo de empresas. El modelo está estructurado en base a dos componentes: el social con organismos de gobierno surgidos de la representatividad de sus socios y el componente empresarial encargado del desarrollo de productos y servicios surgidos de la aplicación de herramientas de gestión: legal, administrativas, financieras, de marketing y con responsabilidad social. En este trabajo se plantea como objetivo de la experiencia académica, vivenciar la doctrina cooperativista y de la economía solidaria, para que también sean consideradas como proyecto de vida de los futuros profesionales que se forman en la Escuela de Ingeniería de Empresas de una universidad ecuatoriana. Abstract The use of technology and creativity in innovative practice makes teachers develop their own models for the best performance of learning achievement. In that line the Solidary Generator Entrepreneurship (SGE) emerges. The SGE model is a simulation exercise of a cooperative enterprise, or solidarity funds of savings and credit, where similar situations to the ones that happen in the environment of these businesses occur. The model is structured based on two components: the social one with government agencies, which were created from the representativeness of its partners; and, the business component, which is in charge of the development of products and services arising from the application of management tools: legal, administrative, financial, marketing and social responsibility. Therefore, this paper aims as an objective of the academic experience, live the cooperative and solidarity economy doctrine, to be considered as a life project for the future professionals who study in the School of Engineering of Enterprises of an Ecuadorian university.

Les crypto-monnaies, comme le Bitcoin ou Ethereum, animent le débat public depuis au moins 10 ans. A leur avènement, les banques centrales se sont montrées pour le moins frileuses. Ainsi, dans un rapport publié en 2013, la Banque centrale européenne (BCE) avertissait que la nature non réglementée de ces monnaies pourrait exposer leurs utilisateurs à des risques élevés. Plusieurs années plus tard, les banquiers centraux reconnaissent maintenant leur potentiel. La Banque d'Angleterre, la Banque centrale suédoise et la BCE étudient toutes intensément la possibilité d'émettre leur propre monnaie numérique (ci-après dénommée «monnaie numérique de banque centrale» ou «central bank digital currencies» en anglais). Cet enthousiasme est-il justifié ? Les banques centrales devraient-elles créer leur propre monnaie numérique ? Ce focus de Regards économiques présente d’abord brièvement ce que sont ces monnaies. Il expose ensuite les raisons justifiant leur éventuelle introduction et détaille finalement les risques qu’elles pourraient poser. Notons tout d’abord que ces monnaies ne sont pas une copie «publique» des crypto-monnaies privées. Les banques centrales rejettent en effet la nature décentralisée et l’absence de gouvernance unifiée du Bitcoin et des crypto-monnaies similaires. Par ailleurs, la nature «numérique» de ces nouvelles monnaies n’est pas vraiment une innovation. La majorité de la masse monétaire prend déjà une forme numérique. A côté de la monnaie «physique» (pièces et billets), la plus grande partie de notre monnaie est constituée de dépôts bancaires privés et de dépôts à la banque centrale (la monnaie de réserve). Pour l'instant, seules les banques et certaines institutions financières ont accès aux réserves de la banque centrale. La véritable innovation au cœur des monnaies numériques de banque centrale serait de donner aux particuliers et aux entreprises la possibilité de détenir de l'argent sous forme de dépôts directement auprès de la banque centrale. En somme, les monnaies numériques de banques centrales, malgré leur nom, ne formeraient pas une nouvelle monnaie, mais plutôt un nouveau moyen de payement, labellisé en euros, et de valeur équivalente à l’euro. Pour quelles raisons une banque centrale pourrait-elle donner cette opportunité à toutes et tous ? Une première raison est liée à la dépendance des banques centrales vis-à-vis du système financier. Le système financier moderne est basé sur une certaine division du travail entre les banques commerciales qui sont chargées de prêter de l'argent au secteur productif, et les banques centrales qui supervisent les premières et tentent d'influencer l'économie par des interventions sur les marchés financiers. Schématiquement, ces dernières tentent de peser sur le comportement des premières de deux manières : soit en modifiant le taux d’intérêt auquel les acteurs financiers peuvent leur emprunter de l’argent, soit via l’achat ou la vente d’actifs financiers. Cela signifie que les banques centrales n'ont qu'une influence indirecte sur l'économie productive et qu'elles dépendent des banques commerciales pour canaliser la politique monétaire. Lors de la crise financière de 2007-2008, par exemple, la dépendance des banques centrales par rapport aux banques commerciales a conduit les premières à injecter des milliards d'euros et de dollars sur les marchés financiers, dans l'espoir que les banques commerciales utilisent cet argent pour des investissements productifs. Or, l’efficacité de ces politiques est loin d’être démontrée. D’aucuns s’effraient que cette situation ne génère des bulles spéculatives et ne privilégie indûment les banques commerciales, sans que ces dernières ne financent l’économie productive à la hauteur des espérances des banquiers centraux. La mise en œuvre de monnaies numériques de banque centrale à grande échelle pourrait modifier radicalement cette situation. Cela offrirait un système de paiement alternatif qui ne serait pas géré par le secteur bancaire commercial. Les citoyens pourraient également choisir de placer leurs économies sur un compte à la banque centrale qui, par définition, serait plus sûr qu’un compte dans une banque commerciale. En outre, l'introduction de ces monnaies réduirait la dépendance des banques centrales vis-à-vis des banques commerciales en permettant aux banques centrales de créditer directement les comptes des citoyens ou des entreprises, sans nécessairement recourir à des intermédiaires bancaires. Par conséquent, l'introduction de ces monnaies pourrait rendre la politique monétaire plus directe et plus simple. A première vue, donc, on pourrait se réjouir de la possibilité de limiter la dépendance des banques centrales par rapport aux banques commerciales. Il convient cependant de considérer plusieurs problèmes importants. Premièrement, si les particuliers et les entreprises décident de considérer leur banque centrale comme leur fournisseur de services bancaires, ne risque-t-on pas de rendre les banques commerciales obsolètes et superflues ? Dans ce cas extrême, ni les citoyens ni les banques centrales n'auraient plus besoin d'intermédiaires pour l’octroi de crédits et l’accueil de dépôts. Les banques commerciales garderaient sans doute le rôle d’intermédiaire sur les marchés financiers, mais manqueraient d'une source de financement appropriée (les dépôts des clients) et perdraient une de leurs principales activités (les prêts). La taille des marchés financiers pourrait se réduire considérablement. Cela pourrait fragiliser la santé économique des banques commerciales et celle des marchés financiers dans leur ensemble. Un deuxième problème concerne l’équilibre des pouvoirs entre gouvernements, banques centrales et banques commerciales. À la suite de la crise financière, les banques centrales ont déjà acquis d'énormes pouvoirs. La BCE a par exemple participé à la Troïka en Grèce et dicté des réformes économiques structurelles dans ce pays. La Réserve fédérale américaine (la Fed), la BCE et la Banque d'Angleterre ont également obtenu des pouvoirs supplémentaires de supervision du système bancaire. Et elles sont toutes intervenues massivement sur les marchés financiers, par l'achat massif d'obligations et de titres. L’introduction de monnaies numériques de banque centrale renforcerait ces tendances et accroîtrait le poids des banques centrales sur les marchés financiers, en leur donnant un accès direct aux comptes des citoyens et des entreprises, et en leur permettant de contourner les acteurs financiers commerciaux. Ce déséquilibre de pouvoir pourrait encore accroître le déficit démocratique dont souffrent les banques centrales. Par ailleurs, les banques centrales, si elles sont amenées à fournir des services bancaires et à alimenter l'économie productive par le crédit, pourraient être entraînées dans d’importants conflits d'intérêts. En effet, ces dernières deviendraient leur propre régulateur. En conclusion, il est certain que les monnaies numériques de banque centrale suscitent un débat intéressant sur le rôle des banques centrales dans le système financier. D’une part, elles pourraient constituer une piste de solution à la dépendance des banques centrales vis-à-vis des marchés financiers. Cependant, elles pourraient également conduire à accroître démesurément les pouvoirs des banques centrales et à fragiliser les marchés financiers en rendant le financement des banques commerciales plus complexe. L’enjeu, en définitive, est le partage du pouvoir financier entre banques commerciales et banques centrales – un débat qui dépasse de loin l’objectif de ce focus, et qu’il ne prétend pas trancher. Pour aller plus loin : Larue, L., Fontan, C. et Sandberg, J. (2020). The promises and perils of Central Bank Digital Currencies. Revue de la Régulation, Numéro 28.

Les relations entre la société civile et l’Etat dans le monde oscillent entre le pôle anglo-saxon où la société civile prédomine par rapport à un Etat qui doit justifier son rôle en permanence, et celui des Etats-Nations qui ont façonné le sentiment national dans des pays du continent européen. Cependant, au fil de l’histoire contemporaine des convergences se dessinent entre ces deux modèles, d’abord dans les relations entre les administrations et les administrés, ensuite lorsque la société civile participe à des politiques publiques sensibles, par exemple la protection de l’environnement. En premier lieu, la reconnaissance des droits de l’usager-client-citoyen a inspiré en réponse des dispositifs préventifs de contentieux mis en place par la plupart des administrations publiques : une codification des règles opposables, des simplifications, des informations ciblées et individualisées, l’institution de médiateurs. S’inscrivant dans cette orientation, Haïti a institué dans sa Constitution l’Office de Protection du Citoyen(OPC) après la chute de la dictature Duvalier. En second lieu, à la fin du XXème siècle et au début du XXIème siècle, la société civile a apporté sa valeur ajoutée à la mise en œuvre, ou à la critique, de politiques publiques dans des domaines spécifiques, par exemple l’aide au développement, la protection de l’environnement, le partenariat public-privé, des transitions politiques post-conflits. Haïti est également partie prenante de ce mouvement historique transnational. Cependant, l’insuffisance des ressources humaines et des moyens financiers dans l’un des pays les plus pauvres du monde périodiquement victime de catastrophes naturelles, a incité les responsables administratifs à aller au-delà, en associant la société civile haïtienne de l’élaboration du Programme de Modernisation de l’Etat PME-2023 à sa mise en œuvre alors que jusqu’à présent, la société civile était écartée des plans de réforme administrative qui se sont succédés en Haïti. Au-delà des procédures, au-delà des contributions ponctuelles à telle ou telle action ou politique publique, cette participation active de la société civile à la modernisation de l’État est une innovation en termes de méthode. La société civile exerce ainsi un droit de regard, juridiquement fondé par des arrêtés du Premier ministre, sur les activités des administrations, en particulier leurs fonctions d’accueil du public. Ce positionnement nouveau de la société civile incite à l’émulation entre services pour améliorer leurs prestations respectives. Les responsables haïtiens de la société civile et de la fonction publique sont disponibles pour échanger avec leurs homologues d’autres pays des retours d’expériences comparables.

This article briefly discusses the topic of digitization in the banking industry, consumer behavior when purchasing financial services and the importance of digitization for the delivery of customer services. In this research work the authors focused on the theories of consumer behavior, digitization as a financial innovation in order to answer the following problem: Does digitization satisfy the customers of financial institutions and would it replace one day the employees in their work and the services rendered? In order to collect and analyze the data, a questionnaire was sent to the clients of several Lebanese commercial banks, a quantitative methodology is used to process and analyze the responses through the IBM SPSS version 24 software. Finally, from the results, the researchers can conclude that customers are encouraged to use digitization especially in times of crisis or when there is no access to financial institutions, as is currently the case in lockdowns due to the pandemic such as Covid-19 but still prefer human contact in ordinary moments for greater interaction with the customer advisor.

Abstract Background Telehealth studies have highlighted the positive benefits of having the service in rural areas. However, there is evidence of limited adoption and utilization. Our objective was to evaluate this gap by exploring U.S. healthcare systems’ experience in implementing telehealth services in rural hospital emergency departments (TeleED) and by analyzing factors influencing its implementation and sustainability. Methods We conducted semi-structured interviews with 18 key informants from six U.S. healthcare systems (hub sites) that provided TeleED services to 65 rural emergency departments (spoke sites). All used synchronous high-definition video to provide the service. We applied an inductive qualitative analysis approach to identify relevant quotes and themes related to TeleED service uptake facilitators and barriers. Results We identified three stages of implementation: 1) the start-up stage; 2) the utilization stage; and 3) the sustainment stage. At each stage, we identified emerging factors that can facilitate or impede the process. We categorized these factors into eight domains: 1) strategies; 2) capability; 3) relationships; 4) financials; 5) protocols; 6) environment; 7) service characteristics; and 8) accountability. Conclusions The implementation of healthcare innovation can be influenced by multiple factors. Our study contributes to the field by highlighting key factors and domains that play roles in specific stages of telehealth operation in rural hospitals. By appreciating and responding to these domains, healthcare systems may achieve more predictable and favorable implementation outcomes. Moreover, we recommend strategies to motivate the diffusion of promising innovations such as telehealth.

Abstract. The sector in Mexico denominated as private non-financial services represents a field of great relevance for the national economic and social growth due to the important amount of jobs that it contributes. Specifically, the business support and waste management and remediation services subsector has presented in recent years a remarkable increase in the number of personnel employed. Subsequently, the branch corresponding to waste management and remediation services means an important area not only of economic and social concern but also for the environment. The traditional valuation methods used on real estate applies several innovative techniques that are just beginning to be used for the valuation of companies and its corresponding decision making. The method of valuation of the two Betas comes from the market approach and allows to obtain a precise result of the value of an asset or company from easily obtained data belonging to a sample of comparable elements. The results obtained allowed to apply this method to a case study and obtain its market value.Key words: beta distribution function, private non-financial services, two betas method, valuation of companies, waste management and remediation servicesJEL: C10, G10, Q50 Resumen. El sector en México denominado como servicios privados no financieros representa un campo de gran relevancia para el crecimiento tanto económico como social del país a causa de la importante cantidad de empleos que aporta. Específicamente, el subsector apoyo a los negocios y manejo de desechos y servicios de remediación ha presentado en los últimos años un incremento destacable en cuanto a la cifra de personal ocupado. Subsecuentemente, la rama correspondiente a manejo de desechos y servicios de remediación significa un área importante no solo por el aspecto económico y social sino también ambiental. La valuación tradicional de inmuebles utiliza diversos métodos innovadores que recién están comenzando a ser utilizados para la valuación de empresas y su correspondiente toma de decisiones. El método de valuación de las dos Betas proviene del enfoque de mercado y permite obtener un dato preciso del valor de un activo o empresa a partir de datos fáciles de obtener pertenecientes a una muestra de elementos comparables. Los resultados alcanzados permitieron aplicar dicho método a un caso de estudio y obtener su valor de mercado.Palabras clave: función de distribución beta, manejo de desechos y servicios de remediación, método de las dos betas servicios privados no financieros, valuación de empresas

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how cryptocurrencies are being used as a vehicle for financial crime (such as money laundering, terrorist financing and corruption) and propose a more effective international standard for regulation that uses the Liechtenstein blockchain act as a benchmark. Design/methodology/approach This paper investigates how cryptocurrencies facilitate financial crime through a qualitative study consisting of interviews with 10 presumed providers of illegal financial services and 18 international compliance experts. Findings This study shows that cryptocurrencies are a highly suitable vehicle for money laundering, terrorist financing and corruption and that current compliance efforts in the cryptocurrency sector are ineffective. Research limitations/implications The presented findings illustrate that for a more effective combat of financial crime via cryptocurrency, an international standard for blockchain and cryptocurrency regulation must be created. This paper suggests that Liechtenstein’s innovative and comprehensive blockchain act could be used as a basis for said standard. Practitioners should also consider cooperating transnationally when prosecuting financial crime via cryptocurrency. Originality/value The fact that cryptocurrencies facilitate financial crime is widely known. However, this study combines the perspectives of both compliance experts and presumed criminals to gain a comprehensive understanding of the techniques that money launderers, terrorist financiers and corrupt public officials use. This paper examines the potential for the innovative Liechtenstein blockchain act, which has, thus, far not received empirical attention, to set the benchmark for international regulations.

Many non-profits face barriers developing systems to collect and analyze data that can leverage the type of information that their funders and stakeholders require. Constraints such as limited evaluation expertise, time, and money make this virtually impossible to achieve without a viable solution. In an increasingly competitive environment, it is imperative that non-profits find innovative ways to track and measure their work within their evaluative capabilities. There are different ways in which evaluators can help even the most constrained non-profit organizations capture their reach and make the most of their existing data. This article proposes a three-step framework for the development of a data-collection and -analysis system through the use of spreadsheets. Not only is this proposed system feasible within the constraints of the non-profit sector, but it is also valuable for the sustainability of their services over time.De nombreuses organisations à but non-lucratif font face à des obstacles en ce qui concerne la mise en place de systèmes de collecte et d’analyse de données pour offrir des informations pertinentes pour leurs bailleurs de fonds et parties prenantes. Le fait d’avoir une expertise limitée en évaluation, des contraintes de temps et financières sont des obstacles qui rendent impossible l’implantation de solutions viables. Dans un environnement de plus en plus concurrentiel, il est impératif que les organisations à but non-lucratif trouvent des moyens innovants pour monitorer leur travail en respectant leur capacité évaluative. Les évaluateurs disposent de divers moyens pour aider les organisations à but non-lucratif, même celles disposant de très minces ressources, à évaluer leur portée et à tirer le meilleur parti des données dont elles disposent. Le présent article propose une procédure en trois étapes pour l’élaboration d’un système de collecte et d’analyse des données faisant appel à des chiffriers. Non seulement il est possible d’implanter un tel système compte tenu des contraintes du secteur à but non lucratif, mais il apporterait beaucoup pour la pérennité des services.

Introduction 2021 was the year that NFTs got big—not just in value but also in terms of the cultural consciousness. When digital artist Beeple sold the portfolio of his 5,000 daily images at Christie’s for US$69 million, the art world was left intrigued, confused, and outraged in equal measure. Depending on who you asked, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) seemed to be either a quick cash-grab or the future of the art market (Bowden and Jones; Smee). Following the Beeple sale, articles started to appear indicating that the film industry was abuzz for NFTs. Independent filmmaker Kevin Smith was quick to announce that he planned to release his horror film Killroy Was Here as an NFT (Alexander); in September 2021 the James Bond film No Time to Die also unveiled a series of collectibles to coincide with the film’s much-delayed theatrical release (Natalee); the distribution and collectible platforms Vuele, NFT Studios, and Mogul Productions all emerged, and the industry rumour mill suggests more start-ups are en route (CurrencyWorks; NFT Studios; NewsBTC). Blockchain disciples say that the technology will solve all the problems of the Internet (Tewari; Norton; European Business Review); critics say it will only perpetuate existing accessibility and equality issues (Davis and Flatow; Klein). Those more circumspect will doubtless sit back until the dust settles, waiting to see what parts of so-called web3 will be genuinely integrated into the architecture of the Internet. Pamela Hutchinson puts it neatly in terms of the arts sector: “the NFT may revolutionise the art market, film funding and distribution. Or it might be an ecological disaster and a financial bubble, in which few actual movies change hands, and fraudsters get rich from other people’s intellectual property” (Hutchinson). There is an uptick in the literature around NFTs and blockchain (see Quiniou; Gayvoronskaya & Meinel); however, the technology remains unregulated and unstandardised (Yeung 212-14; Dimitropoulos 112-13). Similarly, the sheer amount of funding being put into fundamental technical, data, and security-related issues speaks volumes to the nascency of the space (Ossinger; Livni; Gayvoronskaya & Meinel 52-6). Put very briefly, NFTs are part of a given blockchain system; think of them, like cryptocurrency coins, as “units of value” within that system (Roose). NFTs were initially rolled out on Ethereum, though several other blockchains have now implemented their own NFT frameworks. NFTs are usually not the artwork itself, but rather a unique, un-copyable (hence, non-fungible) piece of code that is attached, linked, or connected to another digital file, be that an image, video, text, or something else entirely. NFTs are often referred to as a digital artwork’s “certificate of authenticity” (Roose). At the time of writing, it remains to be seen how widely blockchain and NFT technology will be implemented across the entertainment industries. However, this article aims to outline the current state of implementation in the film trade specifically, and to attempt to sort true potential from the hype. Beginning with an overview of the core issues around blockchain and NFTs as they apply to film properties and adjacent products, current implementations of the technology are outlined, before finishing with a hesitant glimpse into the potential future applications. The Issues and Conversation At the core of current conversations around blockchain are three topics: intellectual property and ownership, concentrations of power and control, and environmental impact. To this I would like to add a consideration of social capital, which I begin with briefly here. Both the film industry and “crypto” — if we take the latter to encompass the various facets of so-called ‘web3’ — are engines of social capital. In the case of cinema, its products are commodified and passed through a model that begins with exclusivity (theatrical release) before progressing to mass availability (home media, streaming). The cinematic object, i.e., an individual copy of a film, is, by virtue of its origins as a mass product of the twentieth century, fungible. The film is captured, copied, stored, distributed, and shared. The film-industrial model has always relied on social phenomena, word of mouth, critical discourse, and latterly on buzz across digital social media platforms. This is perhaps as distinct from fine art, where — at least for dealers — the content of the piece does not necessarily matter so much as verification of ownership and provenance. Similarly, web3, with its decentralised and often-anonymised processes, relies on a kind of social activity, or at least a recorded interaction wherein the chain is stamped and each iteration is updated across the system. Even without the current hype, web3 still relies a great deal on discourse, sharing, and community, particularly as it flattens the existing hierarchies of the Internet that linger from Web 2.0. In terms of NFTs, blockchain systems attach scarcity and uniqueness to digital objects. For now, that scarcity and uniqueness is resulting in financial value, though as Jonathan Beller argues the notion of value could — or perhaps should — be reconsidered as blockchain technology, and especially cryptocurrencies, evolve (Beller 217). Regardless, NFT advocates maintain that this is the future of all online activity. To questions of copyright, the structures of blockchain do permit some level of certainty around where a given piece of intellectual property emerged. This is particularly useful where there are transnational differences in recognition of copyright law, such as in France, for instance (Quiniou 112-13). The Berne Convention stipulates that “the subsistence of copyright does not rest on the compliance with formal requirements: rights will exist if the work meets the requirements for protection set out by national law and treaties” (Guadamuz 1373). However, there are still no legal structures underpinning even the most transparent of transactions, when an originator goes out of their way to transfer rights to the buyer of the accompanying NFT. The minimum requirement — even courtesy — for the assignment of rights is the identification of the work itself; as Guadamuz notes, this is tricky for NFTs as they are written in code (1374). The blockchain’s openness and transparency are its key benefits, but until the code can explicitly include (or concretely and permanently reference) the ‘content’ of an NFT, its utility as a system of ownership is questionable. Decentralisation, too, is raised consistently as a key positive characteristic of blockchain technology. Despite the energy required for this decentralisation (addressed shortly), it is true that, at least in its base code, blockchain is a technology with no centralised source of truth or verification. Instead, such verification is performed by every node on the chain. On the surface, for the film industry, this might mean modes of financing, rights management, and distribution chains that are not beholden to multinational media conglomerates, streamers like Netflix, niche intermediaries, or legacy studios. The result here would be a flattening of the terrain: breaking down studio and corporate gatekeeping in favour of a more democratised creative landscape. Creators and creative teams would work peer-to-peer, paying, contracting, servicing, and distribution via the blockchain, with iron-clad, publicly accessible tracking of transactions and ownership. The alternative, though, is that the same imbalances persist, just in a different form: this is outlined in the next section. As Hunter Vaughan writes, the film industry’s environmental impact has long been under-examined. Its practices are diverse, distributed, and hard to quantify. Cinematic images, Vaughan writes, “do not come from nothing, and they do not vanish into the air: they have always been generated by the earth and sun, by fossil fuels and chemical reactions, and our enjoyment of them has material consequences” (3). We believe that by watching a “green” film like Avatar we are doing good, but it implicates us in the dirty secret, an issue of “ignorance and of voluntary psychosis” where “we do not see who we are harming or how these practices are affecting the environment, and we routinely agree to accept the virtual as real” (5). Beyond questions of implication and eco-material conceptualisation, however, there are stark facts. In the 1920s, the Kodak Park Plant in New York drew 12 million gallons of water from Lake Ontario each day to produce film stock. As the twentieth century came to a close, this amount — for a single film plant — had grown to 35-53 million gallons per day. The waste water was perfunctorily “cleaned” and then dumped into surrounding rivers (72-3). This was just one plant, and one part of the filmmaking process. With the shift to digital, this cost might now be calculated in the extraction of precious metals used to make contemporary cameras, computers, or storage devices. Regardless, extrapolate outwards to a global film industry and one quickly realises the impact is almost beyond comprehension. Considering — let alone calculating — the carbon footprint of blockchain requires outlining some fundamentals of the technology. The two primary architectures of blockchain are Proof of Work (PoW) and Proof of Stake (PoS), both of which denote methods of adding and verifying new blocks to a chain. PoW was the first model, employed by Bitcoin and the first iteration of Ethereum. In a PoW model, each new block has a specific cryptographic hash. To confirm the new block, crypto miners use their systems to generate a target hash that is less than or equal to that of the block. The systems process these calculations quickly, as the goal is to be “the first miner with the target hash because that miner is the one who can update the blockchain and receive crypto rewards” (Daly). The race for block confirmation necessitates huge amounts of processing power to make these quick calculations. The PoS model differs in that miners are replaced by validators (or staking services where participants pool validation power). Rather than investing in computer power, validators invest in the blockchain’s coins, staking those coins (tokens) in a smart contract (think of this contract like a bank account or vault). When a new block is proposed, an algorithm chooses a validator based on the size of their stake; if the block is verified, the validator receives further cryptocurrency as a reward (Castor). Given the ubiquity and exponential growth of blockchain technology and its users, an accurate quantification of its carbon footprint is difficult. For some precedent, though, one might consider the impact of the Bitcoin blockchain, which runs on a PoW model. As the New York Times so succinctly puts it: “the process of creating Bitcoin to spend or trade consumes around 91 terawatt-hours of electricity annually, more than is used by Finland, a nation of about 5.5 million” (Huang, O’Neill and Tabuchi). The current Ethereum system (at time of writing), where the majority of NFT transactions take place, also runs on PoW, and it is estimated that a single Ethereum transaction is equivalent to nearly nine days of power consumption by an average US household (Digiconomist). Ethereum always intended to operate on a PoS system, and the transition to this new model is currently underway (Castor). Proof of Stake transactions use significantly less energy — the new Ethereum will supposedly be approximately 2,000 times more energy efficient (Beekhuizen). However, newer systems such as Solana have been explicit about their efficiency goals, stating that a single Solana transaction uses less energy (1,837 Joules, to be precise) than keeping an LED light on for one hour (36,000 J); one Ethereum transaction, for comparison, uses over 692 million J (Solana). In addition to energy usage, however, there is also the question of e-waste as a result of mining and general blockchain operations which, at the time of writing, for Bitcoin sits at around 32 kilotons per year, around the same as the consumer IT wastage of the Netherlands (de Vries and Stoll). How the growth in NFT awareness and adoption amplifies this impact remains to be seen, but depending on which blockchain they use, they may be wasting energy and resources by design. If using a PoW model, the more valuable the cryptocurrency used to make the purchase, the more energy (“gas”) required to authenticate the purchase across the chain. Images abound online of jerry-rigged crypto data centres of varying quality (see also efficiency and safety). With each NFT minted, sold, or traded, these centres draw — and thus waste, for gas — more and more energy. With increased public attention and scrutiny, cryptocurrencies are slowly realising that things could be better. As sustainable alternatives become more desirable and mainstream, it is safe to predict that many NFT marketplaces may migrate to Cardano, Solana, or other more efficient blockchain bases. For now, though, this article considers the existing implementations of NFTs and blockchain technology within the film industry. Current Implementations The current applications of NFTs in film centre around financing and distribution. In terms of the former, NFTs are saleable items that can raise capital for production, distribution, or marketing. As previously mentioned, director Kevin Smith launched Jay & Silent Bob’s Crypto Studio in order to finish and release Killroy Was Here. Smith released over 600 limited edition tokens, including one of the film itself (Moore). In October 2021, renowned Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai sold an NFT with unreleased footage from his film In the Mood for Love at Sotheby’s for US$550,000 (Raybaud). Quentin Tarantino entered the arena in January 2022, auctioning uncut scenes from his 1994 film Pulp Fiction, despite the threat of legal action from the film’s original distributor Miramax (Dailey). In Australia, an early adopter of the technology is director Michael Beets, who works in virtual production and immersive experiences. His immersive 14-minute VR film Nezunoban (2020) was split into seven different chapters, and each chapter was sold as an NFT. Beets also works with artists to develop entry tickets that are their own piece of generative art; with these tickets and the chapters selling for hundreds of dollars at a time, Beets seems to have achieved the impossible: turning a profit on a short film (Fletcher). Another Australian writer-producer, Samuel Wilson, now based in Canada, suggests that the technology does encourage filmmakers to think differently about what they create: At the moment, I’m making NFTs from extra footage of my feature film Miles Away, which will be released early next year. In one way, it’s like a new age of behind-the-scenes/bonus features. I have 14 hours of DV tapes that I’m cutting into a short film which I will then sell in chapters over the coming months. One chapter will feature the dashing KJ Apa (Songbird, Riverdale) without his shirt on. So, hopefully that can turn some heads. (Wilson, in Fletcher) In addition to individual directors, a number of startup companies are also seeking to get in on the action. One of these is Vuele, which is best understood as a blockchain-based streaming service: an NFT Netflix, if you like. In addition to films themselves, the service will offer extra content as NFTs, including “behind the scenes content, bonus features, exclusive Q&As, and memorabilia” (CurrencyWorks). Vuele’s launch title is Zero Contact, directed by Rick Dugdale and starring Anthony Hopkins. The film is marketed as “the World’s First NFT Feature Film” (as at the time of writing, though, both Vuele and its flagship film have yet to launch). Also launching is NFT Studios, a blockchain-based production company that distributes the executive producer role to those buying into the project. NFT Studios is a decentralised administrative organisation (DAO), guided by tech experts, producers, and film industry intermediaries. NFT Studios is launching with A Wing and a Prayer, a biopic of aeronaut Brian Milton (NFT Studios), and will announce their full slate across festivals in 2022. In Australia, Culture Vault states that its aim is to demystify crypto and champion Australian artists’ rights and access to the space. Co-founder and CEO Michelle Grey is well aware of the aforementioned current social capital of NFTs, but is also acutely aware of the space’s opacity and the ubiquity of often machine-generated tat. “The early NFT space was in its infancy, there was a lot of crap around, but don’t forget there’s a lot of garbage in the traditional art world too,” she says (cited in Miller). Grey and her company effectively act like art dealers; intermediaries between the tech and art worlds. These new companies claim to be adhering to the principles of web3, often selling themselves as collectives, DAOs, or distributed administrative systems. But the entrenched tendencies of the film industry — particularly the persistent Hollywood system — are not so easily broken down. Vuele is a joint venture between CurrencyWorks and Enderby Entertainment. The former is a financial technology company setting up blockchain systems for businesses, including the establishment of branded digital currencies such as the controversial FreedomCoin (Memoria); the latter, Enderby, is a production company founded by Canadian film producer (and former investor relations expert in the oil and uranium sectors) Rick Dugdale (Wiesner). Similarly, NFT Studios is partnered with consulting and marketing agencies and blockchain venture capitalists (NFT Investments PLC). Depending on how charitable or cynical one is feeling, these start-ups are either helpful intermediaries to facilitate legacy media moving into NFT technology, or the first bricks in the capitalist wall to bar access for entry to other players. The Future Is… Buffering Marketplaces like Mintable, OpenSea, and Rarible do indeed make the minting and selling of NFTs fairly straightforward — if you’ve ever listed an item for sale on eBay or Facebook, you can probably mint an NFT. Despite this, the current major barrier for average punters to the NFT space remains technical knowledge. The principles of blockchain remain fairly opaque — even this author, who has been on a deep dive for this article, remains sceptical that widespread adoption across multiple applications and industries is feasible. Even so, as Rennie notes, “the unknown is not what blockchain technology is, or even what it is for (there are countless ‘use cases’), but how it structures the actions of those who use it” (235). At the time of writing, a great many commentators and a small handful of scholars are speculating about the role of the metaverse in the creative space. If the endgame of the metaverse is realised, i.e., a virtual, interactive space where users can interact, trade, and consume entertainment, the role of creators, dealers, distributors, and other brokers and players will be up-ended, and have to re-settle once again. Film industry practitioners might look to the games space to see what the road might look like, but then again, in an industry that is — at its best — somewhat resistant to change, this may simply be a fad that blows over. Blockchain’s current employment as a get-rich-quick mechanism for the algorithmic literati and as a computational extension of existing power structures suggests nothing more than another techno-bubble primed to burst (Patrickson 591-2; Klein). Despite the aspirational commentary surrounding distributed administrative systems and organisations, the current implementations are restricted, for now, to startups like NFT Studios. In terms of cinema, it does remain to be seen whether the deployment of NFTs will move beyond a kind of “Netflix with tchotchkes” model, or a variant of crowdfunding with perks. Once Vuele and NFT Studios launch properly, we may have a sense of how this all will play out, particularly alongside less corporate-driven, more artistically-minded initiatives like that of Michael Beets and Culture Vault. It is possible, too, that blockchain technology may streamline the mechanics of the industry in terms of automating or simplifying parts of the production process, particularly around contracts, financing, licensing. This would obviously remove some of the associated labour and fees, but would also de-couple long-established parts and personnel of the industry — would Hollywood and similar industrial-entertainment complexes let this happen? As with any of the many revolutions that have threatened to kill or resurrect the (allegedly) long-suffering cinematic object, we just have to wait, and watch. References Alexander, Bryan. “Kevin Smith Reveals Why He’s Auctioning Off New His Film ‘Killroy Was Here’ as an NFT.” USA TODAY, 15 Apr. 2021. <https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/2021/04/15/kevin-smith-auctioning-new-film-nft-killroy-here/7244602002/>. Beekhuizen, Carl. “Ethereum’s Energy Usage Will Soon Decrease by ~99.95%.” Ethereum Foundation Blog, 18 May 2021. <https://blog.ethereum.org/2021/05/18/country-power-no-more/>. Beller, Jonathan. “Economic Media: Crypto and the Myth of Total Liquidity.” Australian Humanities Review 66 (2020): 215-225. Beller, Jonathan. The Cinematic Mode of Production: Attention Economy and the Society of the Spectacle. Hanover, NH: Dartmouth College P, 2006. 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IntroductionOn 4 December 2016, a man entered a Washington, D.C., pizza parlor armed with an AR-15 assault rifle in an attempt to save the victims of an alleged satanic pedophilia ring run by prominent members of the Democratic Party. While the story had already been discredited (LaCapria), at the time of the incident, nearly half of Trump voters were found to give a measure of credence to the same rumors that had apparently inspired the gunman (Frankovic). Was we will discuss here, the bizarre conspiracy theory known as "Pizzagate" had in fact originated a month earlier on 4chan/pol/, a message forum whose very raison d’être is to protest against “political correctness” of the liberal establishment, and which had recently become a hub for “loose coordination” amongst members the insurgent US ‘alt-right’ movement (Hawley 48). Over a period of 25 hours beginning on 3 November 2016, contributors to the /pol/ forum combed through a cache of private e-mails belonging to Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager John Podesta, obtained by Russian hackers (Franceschi-Bicchierai) and leaked by Julian Assange (Wikileaks). In this short time period contributors to the forum thus constructed the basic elements of a narrative that would be amplified by a newly formed “right-wing media network”, in which the “repetition, variation, and circulation” of “repeated falsehoods” may be understood as an “important driver towards a ‘post-truth’ world” (Benkler et al). Heavily promoted by a new class of right-wing pundits on Twitter (Wendling), the case of Pizzagate prompts us to reconsider the presumed progressive valence of social media protest (Zuckerman).While there is literature, both popular and academic, on earlier protest movements associated with 4chan (Stryker; Olson; Coleman; Phillips), there is still a relative paucity of empirical research into the newer forms of alt-right collective action that have emerged from 4chan. And while there have been journalistic exposés tracing the dissemination of the Pizzagate rumors across social media as well as deconstructing its bizarre narrative (Fisher et al.; Aisch; Robb), as of yet there has been no rigorous analysis of the provenance of this particular story. This article thus provides an empirical study of how the Pizzagate conspiracy theory developed out of a particular set of collective action techniques that were in turn shaped by the material affordances of 4chan’s most active message board, the notorious and highly offensive /pol/.Grammatised Collective ActionOur empirical approach is partially inspired by the limited data-scientific literature of 4chan (Bernstein et al.; Hine et al.; Zannettou et al.), and combines close and distant reading techniques to study how the technical design of 4chan ‘grammatises’ new forms of collective action. Our coinage of grammatised collective action is based on the notion of “grammars of action” from the field of critical information studies, which posits the radical idea that innovations in computational systems can also be understood as “ontological advances” (Agre 749), insofar as computation tends to break the flux of human activity into discrete elements. By introducing this concept our intent is not to minimise individual agency, but rather to emphasise the ways in which computational systems can be conceptualised in terms of an individ­ual-milieu dyad where the “individual carries with it a certain inheritance […] animated by all the potentials that characterise [...] the structure of a physical system” (Simondon 306). Our argument is that grammatisation may be thought to create new kinds of niches, or affordances, for new forms of sociality and, crucially, new forms of collective action — in the case of 4chan/pol/, how anonymity and ephemerality may be thought to afford a kind of post-truth protest.Affordance was initially proposed as a means by which to overcome the dualistic tendency, inherited from phenomenology, to bracket the subject from its environment. Thus, affordance is a relational concept “equally a fact of the environment and a fact of behaviour” (Gibson 129). While, in the strictly materialist sense affordances are “always there” (Gibson 132), their capacity to shape action depends upon their discovery and exploitation by particular forms of life that are capable of perceiving them. It is axiomatic within ethology that forms of life can be understood to thrive in their own dynamic, yet in some real sense ontologically distinct, lifeworlds (von Uexküll). Departing from this axiom, affordances can thus be defined, somewhat confusingly but accurately, as an “invariant combination of variables” (Gibson 134). In the case of new media, the same technological object may afford different actions for specific users — for instance, the uses of an online platform appears differently from the perspective of the individual users, businesses, or a developer (Gillespie). Recent literature within the field of new media has sought to engage with this concept of affordance as the methodological basis for attending to “the specificity of platforms” (Bucher and Helmond 242), for example by focussing on how a platform’s affordances may be used as a "mechanism of governance" (Crawford and Gillespie 411), how they may "foster democratic deliberation" (Halpern and Gibbs 1159), and be implicated in the "production of normativity" (Stanfill 1061).As an anonymous and essentially ephemeral peer-produced image-board, 4chan has a quite simple technical design when compared with the dominant social media platforms discussed in the new media literature on affordances. Paradoxically however in the simplicity of their design 4chan boards may be understood to afford rather complex forms of self-expression and of coordinated action amongst their dedicated users, whom refer to themselves as "anons". It has been noted, for example, that the production of provocative Internet memes on 4chan’s /b/ board — the birthplace of Rickrolling — could be understood as a type of "contested cultural capital", whose “media literate” usage allows anons to demonstrate their in-group status in the absence of any persistent reputational capital (Nissenbaum and Shiffman). In order to appreciate how 4chan grammatises action it is thus useful to study its characteristic affordances, the most notable of which is its renowned anonymity. We should thus begin by noting how the design of the site allows anyone to post anything virtually anonymously so long as comments remain on topic for the given board. Indeed, it was this particular affordance that informed the emergence of the collective identity of the hacktivist group “Anonymous”, some ten years before 4chan became publicly associated with the rise of the alt-right.In addition to anonymity the other affordance that makes 4chan particularly unique is ephemerality. As stated, the design of 4chan is quite straightforward. Anons post comments to ongoing threaded discussions, which start with an original post. Threads with the most recent comments appear first in order at the top of a given board, which result in the previous threads getting pushed down the page. Even in the case of the most popular threads 4chan boards only allow a finite number of comments before threads must be purged. As a result of this design, no matter how popular a discussion might be, once having reached the bump-limit threads expire, moving down the front page onto the second and third page either to be temporarily catalogued or else to disappear from the site altogether (see Image 1 for how popular threads on /pol/, represented in red, are purged after reaching the bump-limit).Image 1: 55 minutes of all 4chan/pol/ threads and their positions, sampled every 2 minutes (Hagen)Adding to this ephemerality, general discussion on 4chan is also governed by moderators — this in spite of 4chan’s anarchic reputation — who are uniquely empowered with the ability to effectively kill a thread, or a series of threads. Autosaging, one of the possible techniques available to moderators, is usually only exerted in instances when the discussion is deemed as being off-topic or inappropriate. As a result of the combined affordances, discussions can be extremely rapid and intense — in the case of the creation of Pizzagate, this process took 25 hours (see Tokmetzis for an account based on our research).The combination of 4chan’s unique affordances of anonymity and ephemerality brings us to a third factor that is crucial in order to understand how it is that 4chan anons cooked-up the Pizzagate story: the general thread. This process involves anons combing through previous discussion threads in order to create a new thread that compiles all the salient details on a given topic often archiving this data with services like Pastebin — an online content hosting service usually used to share snippets of code — or Google Docs since the latter tend to be less ephemeral than 4chan.In addition to keeping a conversation alive after a thread has been purged, in the case of Pizzagate we noticed that general threads were crucial to the process of framing those discussions going forward. While multiple general threads might emerge on a given topic, only one will consolidate the ongoing conversation thereby affording significant authority to a single author (as opposed to the anonymous mass) in terms of deciding on which parts of a prior thread to include or exclude. While general threads occur relatively commonly in 4chan, in the case of Pizzagate, this process seemed to take on the form of a real-time collective research effort that we will refer to as bullshit accumulation.The analytic philosopher Harry Frankfurt argues that bullshit is form of knowledge-production that appears unconcerned with objective truth, and as such can be distinguished from misinformation. Frankfurt sees bullshit as “more ambitious” than misinformation defining it as “panoramic rather than particular” since it is also prepared to “fake the context”, which in his estimation makes bullshit a “greater enemy of the truth” than lies (62, 52). Through an investigation into the origins of Pizzagate on /pol/, we thus are able to understand how grammatised collective action assists in the accumulation of bullshit in the service of a kind of post-truth political protest.Bullshit Accumulation4chan has a pragmatic and paradoxical relationship with belief that has be characterised in terms of kind of quasi-religious ironic collectivism (Burton). Because of this "weaponizing [of] irony" (Wilson) it is difficult to objectively determine to what extent anons actually believed that Pizzagate was real, and in a sense it is beside the point. In combination then with the site’s aforementioned affordances, it is this peculiar relationship with the truth which thus makes /pol/ so uniquely productive of bullshit. Image 2: Original pizzagate post on 4chan/pol/When #Pizzagate started trending on Twitter on 4 November 2017, it became clear that much of the narrative, and in particular the ‘pizza connection’, was based on arcane (if not simply ridiculous) interpretations of a cache of e-mails belonging to Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager John Podesta released by Wikileaks during the final weeks of the campaign. While many of the subsequent journalistic exposé would claim that Pizzagate began on 4chan, they did not explore its origins, perhaps because of the fact that 4chan does not consistently archive its threads. Our analysis overcame this obstacle by using a third party archive, Archive4plebs, which allowed us to pinpoint the first instance of a thread (/pol/) that discussed a connection between the keyword “pizza” and the leaked e-mails (Image 2).Image 3: 4chan/pol/ Pizzagate general threadsStarting with the timestamp of the first thread, we identified a total of 18 additional general threads related to the topic of Pizzagate (see Image 3). This establishes a 25-hour timeframe in which the Pizzagate narrative was formed (from Wednesday 2 November 2016, 22:17:20, until Thursday 3 November 2016, 23:24:01). We developed a timeline (Image 4) identifying 13 key moments in the development of the Pizzagate story such as the first attempts at disseminating the narrative to other platforms such as the Reddit forum r/The_Donald a popular forum whose reactionary politics had arguably set the broader tone for the Trump campaign (Heikkila).Image 4: timeline of the birth of Pizzagate. Design by Elena Aversa, information design student at Density Design Lab.The association between the Clinton campaign and pedophilia came from another narrative on 4chan known as ‘Orgy Island’, which alleged the Clintons flew to a secret island for sex tourism aboard a private jet called "Lolita Express" owned by Jeffrey Epstein, an American financier who had served 13 months in prison for soliciting an underage prostitute. As with the Pizzagate story, this narrative also appears to have developed through the shared infrastructure of Pastebin links included in general posts (Pastebin) often alongside Wikileaks links.Image 5: Clues about “pizza” being investigatedOrgy Island and other stories were thus combined together with ‘clues’, many of which were found in the leaked Podesta e-mails, in order to imagine the connections between pedophila and pizza. It was noticed that several of Podesta’s e-mails, for example, mentioned the phrase ‘cheese pizza’ (see Image 5), which on 4chan had long been used as a code word for ‘child pornography’ , the latter which is banned from the site.Image 6: leaked Podesta e-mail from Marina AbramovicIn another leaked e-mail, for example, sent to Podesta from the renowned performance artist Marina Abramovich (see Image 6), a reference to one of her art projects, entitled ‘Spirit Cooking’ — an oblique reference to the mid-century English occultist Aleister Crowley — was interpreted as evidence of Clinton’s involvement in satanic rituals (see Image 7). In the course of this one-day period then, many if not most of the coordinates for the Pizzagate narrative were thus put into place subsequently to be amplified by a new breed of populist social media activists in protest against a corrupt Democratic establishment.Image 7: /pol/ anon’s reaction to the e-mail in Image 6During its initial inception on /pol/, there was the apparent need for visualisations in order make sense of all the data. Quite early on in the process, for example, one anon posted:my brain is exploding trying to organize the connections. Anyone have diagrams of these connections?In response, anons produced numerous conspiratorial visualisations, such as a map featuring all the child-related businesses in the neighbourhood of the D.C. pizza parlor — owned by the boyfriend of the prominent Democratic strategist David Brock — which seemed to have logos of the same general shape as the symbols apparently used by pedophiles, and whose locations seems furthermore to line up in the shape of a satanic pentagram (see Image 8). Such visualisations appear to have served three purposes: they helped anons to identify connections, they helped them circumvent 4chan’s purging process — indeed they were often hosted on third-party sites such as Imgur — and finally they helped anons to ultimately communicate the Pizzagate narrative to a broader audience.Image 8. Anonymously authored Pizzagate map revealing a secret pedophilia network in D.C.By using an inductive approach to categorise the comments in the general threads a set of non-exclusive codes emerged, which can be grouped into five overarching categories: researching, interpreting, soliciting, archiving and publishing. As visualised in Image 9, the techniques used by anons in the genesis of Pizzagate appears as a kind of vernacular rendition of many of the same “digital methods” that we use as Internet researchers. An analysis of these techniques thus helps us to understanding how a grammatised form of collective action arises out of anons’ negotiations with the affordances of 4chan — most notably the constant purging of threads — and how, in special circumstances, this can lead to bullshit accumulation.Image 9: vernacular digital methods on /pol/ ConclusionWhat this analysis ultimately reveals is how 4chan/pol/’s ephemerality affordance contributed to an environment that is remarkably productive of bullshit. As a type of knowledge-accumulation, bullshit confirms preconceived biases through appealing to emotion — this at the expense of the broader shared epistemic principles, an objective notion of “truth” that arguably forms the foundation for public reason in large and complex liberal societies (Lynch). In this sense, the bullshit of Pizzagate resonates with Hannah Arendt’s analysis of totalitarian discourse which nurtures a conspiratorial redefining of emotional truth as “whatever respectable society had hypocritically passed over, or covered with corruption" (49).As right-wing populism establishes itself evermore firmly in many countries in which technocratic liberalism had formerly held sway, the demand for emotionally satisfying post-truth, will surely keep the new online bullshit factories like /pol/ in business. 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