Author Profile

  • Annewil Neervens
  • Url: http://annewilneervens.wordpress.com
  • Posts: 6
  • About the user: I hold a Bachelor's degree in journalism and recently graduated with a Master's degree in New Media and Digital Culture at the University of Amsterdam. I am particularly interested in online social networks, software and digital influence.

Author Archive

(Re-)Constructing Social Networking Sites: Examining Software Relations and its Influence on Users

Annewil Neervens | 18 October 2009, 12:14 pm | tags: , ,

It’s a little overdue, but I hereby officially want to post my MA thesis for everyone to read (and/or use under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 license). This thesis was written in a total period of about five months under the supervision of Richard Rogers, with Geert Lovink as the second reader. This thesis deals with the relation between social networking sites (SNSs) and its underlying software, as well as the influence this might have on the user.

Twitter’s Implications: Is Less Really More?

Annewil Neervens | 12 October 2008, 7:07 pm | 1 comment | tags: , ,

It’s around us everywhere. Increasingly, the trend of creating single-phrase sentences – or aphorisms – is taking over the way we write and read, on line and offline. It almost seems as though there is no more room for elaborate writings and conversations. It has to be short, fast and informative. But, is less really more?

Social Networking Sites: What Added Value Lies in the Connections?

Annewil Neervens | 05 October 2008, 11:40 pm | 1 comment | tags: , , , ,

In having different social networking sites, connections are also different. This might seem obvious, but how do these connections differ and what does that mean?

In their paper ‘Public Displays of Connection’, MIT Media Lab professor Judith Donath and academic danah boyd write:

‘Networks are the extension of our social world; they also act as its boundary. We may use the network to extend the range of people we can contact; we may use it to limit the people who can contact us. Most of the networking sites so far are designed to grow networks, not limit them. Yet costs and limits can add value. The expenditure of energy to maintain a connection is a signal of its importance and of the benefits it bestows.’

PICNIC 08 – All Media

Annewil Neervens | 25 September 2008, 10:01 pm | 2 comments | tags: , , ,

Today’s themes in the E-Art Dome, presented by Virtueel Platform, are ecology, online life/social networking and mobility. The second presentation of the day is All Media, by Mieke Gerritzen and Koert van Mensvoort, which definitely fits those descriptions. Koert van Mensvoort starts off his presentation with a video of a bird making incredible sounds, some sounding not unlike a car alarm. He stresses that this video ‘is not media art, it’s an actual bird’. Next, is ‘the biggest visual power show’, an intellectual show that’s posed as a visionary statement, where the next nature is presented. Meaning that nature is increasingly controlled by man. Van Mensvoort calls this ‘a culturally emerged nature.’

Does the DailyMe Dissolve Our Social Glue? Analysis of a Web 2.0 Application

Annewil Neervens | 21 September 2008, 10:18 pm | 2 comments | tags: , ,

The term ‘Daily Me’ was first coined in 1995 by author and MIT Lab founder Nicholas Negroponte. Law professor Cass Sunstein took up this notion in his book Republic.com published in 2001 (he also wrote about it in the updated version Republic.com 2.0 published last year) on which he wrote: ‘It is some time in the future. Technology has…

Book Review: Republic.com 2.0

Annewil Neervens | 14 September 2008, 11:35 pm | 1 comment | tags: , , ,

After the book Republic.com (2001), law professor Cass Sunstein now provides us with an updated version by the name of Republic.com 2.0.

As we look at the table of contents, not much seems to be changed except for the inclusion of two new chapters: Blogs (chapter 8) and Republic.com (chapter 10).

The back flap of Republic.com 2.0 states that with this book ‘Sunstein thoroughly rethinks the critical relationship between democracy and the Internet in a world where partisan Web logs have emerged as significant forces in politics and where cyber-jihadists have embraced the Internet to thwart democracy and spread violence’.