Masters of Media

Project KOVR: the Anti-Surveillance Coat that Protects Online Privacy in the Real World

From the 22nd to the 30th of October it was Dutch Design Week (DDW) in Eindhoven, a week wherein hundreds of new design projects are shown to the public. A lot of emergent projects can be found in Eindhoven...

By Lisanne Blomberg on 12/01/16 1

Call for Applications – MA in New Media and Digital Culture at the University of Amsterdam 2017-2018

One-year and two-year international Master’s programs in New Media available: MA Media Studies: New Media and Digital Culture (one year, full time) Research MA Media Studies: New Media and Digital Culture (two years, full time) MA New Media and...

By Anne Helmond on 11/14/16 17

Who owns the playground?: Urban gamification and spatial politics in Pokémon GO

“Sydney park destroyed as thousands of Pokémon Go players descend” wrote Irish news website TheJournal.ie on the first of August. This is just one example of a situation wherein Niantic’s popular augmented reality game Pokémon GO puts a considerable...

By Stefani Mans on 11/14/16 0

In The Filter Bubble: How algorithms customize our access to information

‘Mark Zuckerberg promises to do more about the circulation of fake news on Facebook’ Dutch news website nu.nl said on 13 November 2016. This isn’t the first time Facebook has been criticized lately. The social media network has been...

By Stefani Mans on 11/13/16 1

Inquiring polarisation: re-imagining Youtube as a diplomatic mediator

The extent of political polarisation in large parts of the Western world seems to be such that disparities between one and another point of view is not just difference, but enmity. Hillary Clinton has been ordered to be put...

By Rhubini Kunasegaran on 10/21/16 0

Surfer.safe: an online extension of parenthood

The alarm rings and you get out of bed. Before doing anything else, you go into the kitchen to make a pot of coffee. Before getting dressed for the day, you sit down in your favourite chair, turn on...

By Lisanne Blomberg on 10/21/16 0

Trust Me: How Trust is Established in Airbnb

The financial crisis in 2008 marked the advent of the sharing economy, and its motto “access trumps ownership” (The Economist) came out as a good option to deal with the crisis which mainly occurred as a result of the...

By Olga Resetnaka on 10/21/16 2

Your Bike Solution: An Exploration of Solutionism

Nowadays technological solutions are everywhere and many more solutions are offered to make our lives easier and more convenient. Many posts on this blog discuss certain technological developments and solutions. In this research we want to reflect on the...

By Manon vanHoek on 10/21/16 0

Car Companies Are Racing to the Street with the Self-Driving Car

Autonomous cars are starting to take over our highways faster than you would think. The notion of the self-driving car is a big deal in media and debate as of late. Many car companies are eager to become the market...

By Zoe Versteegen on 10/21/16 0

The Swipe Society: Tindoption

Has it ever occurred to you how much of our precious time can be wasted while struggling to create a family or adopt a child? And we don’t blame you, who does not want that picturesque family idylle. At...

By Emilija Jokubauskaite on 10/21/16 0

Breaking the illusion of Control: “Home -1.0”

Introduction: Idea and Aim of the Project A recent innovation towards ultimate control is Apple’s “Home” app, which can command all smart devices in a house, from lamps to locks. But who gains power with this app? Is it...

By Michel Blonk on 10/21/16 0

Image is Everything

Idea and Concept The focus of the project was to find a fun way in which to think critically about self presentation online. Being a young group who are 75% single, dating applications quickly became a topic of discussion....

By Arnaud Muller on 10/21/16 0

Saintify.me (A Critical Intervention)

by Catherine Mills, Matthias Nothnagel & Georgina Ustik Introducing Saintify.me, a browser extension that makes activism simple and easy! Concept “Being good has never been so simple.” – Catherine Mills, Georgina Ustik, Matthias Nothnagel Social media sites have introduced...

By Catherine Mills on 10/21/16 4

Paprika: From Anonymity and Self-presentation to the True Self

Applications such as Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, LinkedIn and Twitter are known by most smartphone users. When looking at someone else’s smartphone, you will most likely see at least one of those applications and it even gets suspicious when someone...

By Elsemieke Vermijs on 10/21/16 0

Volunteering at Hand

A critical alternative to matching the needs of communities Current events in the world, such as poverty, wars, and national disasters, bring forth a rise in volunteering organisations and activities. Therefore, it is surprising that in many countries the...

By Sabina B. on 10/21/16 0

Encountr: Sharing Experiences in a Media City

With the ubiquitous presence of new media in our urban environments, we can refer to the context that we live in as The Media City. Taking this concept as a main element in our research, our approach has been...

By Talía Cu on 10/21/16 0

New Digital Ink: The Terms and Conditions of Tech Tats

A future with chips implanted under your skin which track your health and makes bankcards and keys unnecessary might seem distant, but with the development of the newest generation of wearables – the so called Tech Tat – it...

By Arabella Memdouh on 10/21/16 0

Advolution: An Interactive Media Archaeology of Website Advertisements

The last season of South Park revealed a shocking revelation (South Park, “Sponsored Content”). Advertisements have evolved to be sentient and are fighting a secret war against us! While we do not believe things have gone that far, advertisements...

By Eline Meissen on 10/21/16 0

Do you “LensIt”? A call for research on modified selfies

Flower crowns, dog’s ears-nose-tongue, poking rainbows, big sparkling eyes…. Oh Snapchat what have you done? It has almost been a year since the Snapchat filtered selfies have occupied the Internet (TechCrunch). Did we move from “selfie mania” era to...

By Charlotte Leclercq on 10/20/16 0