New Media M.A. Research Blog | Media Studies, University of Amsterdam | 2010

MIN(D)ING Your Data

Last week, ‘surveillance and control’ was the theme the Masters of Media-students were debating about. Theorists as Michel Foucault, Deleuze, Galloway and Thacker and Chun passed the revue. With the articles of the last three theorist there was some...

By Xander Stolwijk on 09/27/10 Comments Off

The Changing Power of Parents

Being present on a social network once was a way to escape parents’ attention. For many teens, home is a highly regulated space with rules and norms that are strictly controlled by adults. The...

By Elias van Hees on 09/27/10 Comments Off

Web 2.0+ User=♥? An ANT approach to User-Web relationships.

In reviewing the Digital Folklore Reader last week, I came across Olia Lialina’s essay Vernacular Web 2, in which she argues that the void caused by the demise of the playful, cheeky and, most importantly, personal homepage has been...

By Stefania Bercu on 09/27/10 2

Be free. Don’t adjust your Facebook privacy settings

Chun states that we, the users, perceive new media, in particular the Internet, to be free, democratic and save. We think we are in control of our content, but just like with other technologies, we can never have total...

By Emina Sendijarevic on 09/27/10 1

Facebook Confessions: Pastoral Power in New Media Practices

Facebook, as a tool to connect, communicate, share, link, network and socialize, has become omnipresent in the Internet landscape. Its history starts in 2004, when Mark Zuckerberg launched the network at Harvard University. It has since reached over 500 million...

By Agathe Wiedemair on 09/27/10 1

How Social Tagging can improve Digitized Cultural Heritage

The Internet has in recent years paved the way for the social web. This is a development to the so called Web 2.0. In this manifestation the web finally distanced itself from traditional websites in the old media tradition....

By Fenneke Mink on 09/27/10 1

Virtually Yours! The Meteoric Rise of Virtual Game Goods

In the space of just over a decade, virtual game goods have gone from being a black market cottage industry to an extremely successful business model for gaming and social networking virtual goods industries. This evolution, caused by player...

By Isobel Gorman on 09/27/10 1

Thou shall not lie (on your online profile)

(Untrustworthy) Online Identities in Web 2.0 The example of Facebook As new media history is being written at present time, the discourse keeps revolving around the notion of online identity and “personal privacy” issues that are connected to the...

By Ourania on 09/27/10 1

Review: Anne Friedberg’s “The Virtual Window”

book cover In The Virtual Window: From Alberti to Microsoft (2006, MIT Press), (the late) Anne Friedberg traces the history of the relationship between the window...

By Ashiq Khondker on 09/27/10 1

Social Networks and Multicultural Societies

After the web crash in the 90’s a new way of thinking about the internet arose. This lead to a brand new composition of the internet, often referred to as web 2.0. The term does not refer to any...

By Marte Lindstrom on 09/26/10 Comments Off

MUSIC: Is MySpace more important than an Official Website?

MySpace Music has become an easy way for musicians (solo artists and bands) to get exposure. Through Web 2.0 and the MySpace community means fans can connect to comment, put your song on their personal profile, and add you...

By Janice Wong on 09/26/10 Comments Off

Storytelling as a captivating business model

Last week Dutch artist Dennis Sibeijn found out that someone had used his work ‘Truth’ (left) in a competition in Taiwan and actually won. The Taiwanese student who stole the image had not even bothered to edit it...

By Lotte Woerde on 09/26/10 1

Campaigning and advocacy via social network sites, are social movements on the right path?

I do believe the Web 2.0 is shaping our societies, and much more the way users relate to each other. Social movements are adopting very fast social media technologies in their communication strategy. They use social network sites mostly...

By Cristina Reyna on 09/26/10 Comments Off

Does Facebook Rule? Ideas For The Future.

Facebook is everywhere. It connects 500 millions of people around the world. No doubts, it is an effect of purposeful endeavours of those who stay behind the success of the platform. It is becoming more and more interconnected into...

By Michal Kielbasa on 09/26/10 Comments Off

Online Identity on Facebook becoming more and more complex

‘Sharing information about ones Identity on the net is a process of self-portrayal’ (Baier et al. 2003: p. 3). A couple of years ago the world of social network sites was quite clear. There was facebook for students, linkedIn...

By Mathijs Voordenberg on 09/26/10 1

The Customer is Always Right (or at least able to convince the Internet masses they are)

With the dominance of social networking, user generated content, and the ability to comment on just about anything, web 2.0 has changed the way consumers interact with corporations, especially when they are pissed off. Many corporations are performing the...

By Ronen Shay on 09/26/10 2

False Predictions of the Future of Social Media

Perhaps it’s my dissatisfaction with social media hypes, and especially the ones that are ignited by marketing guru’s, but I can’t resist the feeling of pseudo science when I read about analyses and predictions about social media on blogs....

By Bob Nefkens on 09/26/10 3

Advantages of having a ‘Second Life’ – a short essay on how MMO Games may change the World

What are MMO games? Massively Multiplayer Online games are a fresh genre to the gaming industry, as all of them require a strong and stable Internet connection. This particular branch of gaming is becoming more and more popular due...

By Bart Brodzki on 09/26/10 2

Social Networks and Frameworks of Activism

For nearly ten years now, media analysts and commentators like Tim O’Reilly have sung the praises of Web 2.0 and social media. The new World Wide Web, characterised by its writerly, inclusive and connective nature, was to democratize the...

By Onur Yilmaz on 09/26/10 2

Y this Generation?

To start understanding social networks and their ceaseless popularity it’s important to understand the people who use them most. Although it’s a mistake to generalize about an entire generation there are unquestionably some central themes that apply to Generation...

By Natalie Dixon on 09/26/10 Comments Off

The Real Bubble of Virtual Worlds.

With the world economy recovering from the greatest financial crisis in modern times, researching its effect on the virtual economies that people playfully or laboriously engage with in online worlds would be interesting, relevant and difficult. The supposed correlation...

By Bram van der Kruk on 09/26/10 1

Hyves, THE information source for companies

How would I do research in web 2.0 and Social Network Sites? First I have to make clear for myself what web 2.0 exactly is. According to Tim O’Reilly, one of the founders of web 2.0, web 2.0 existed...

By Floor Broer van Dijk on 09/26/10 Comments Off

Review: Structures of Participation in Digital Culture (Joe Karaganis ed.)

Structures of Participation in Digital Culture is a reader on the topic of private and public involvement with digital culture. Editor Joe Karaganis promises the reader of the book from the start that he will find different ways...

By Anouka Slemmer on 09/26/10 2

Book Review: Check in/ check uit. De digitalisering van de openbare ruimte. [The Digitalization of Public Space] by C. van ’t Hof, R. van Est, F. Daemen

Is it still possible to check out? Check in/ check uit. De digitalisering van de openbare ruimte. stems from the assumption that new media developments such as OV-chipkaart and Google Street view are the visible parts of a fundamental...

By Mareline Heijman on 09/26/10 5