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

FemInstagram: can Instagram help fight sexism?

Lena Dunham, Feminista Jones, Anna Gensler, Rupi Kaur are only a few of the many social media activists, involved in the debate on feminist issues, but all of them report having been victims of cyber-bullying in one way or another. Besides...

By Emilija Jokubauskaite on 09/19/16 Comments Off

Throwing a Life Vest at Humanity

Alan Kurdi’s Photo. A photo of a boy, lying facedown on a Turkish beach, sporting a little red shirt and velcro shoes. This was the image that circulated the world wide web last week, becoming the latest example of...

By Ysabel Camus Favis on 09/14/15 Comments Off

Get Water! Have fun and make a difference

What if someone told you that by playing a fun digital game you could raise awareness to a current global issue, promote learning and education, or perhaps even help solving relevant problems at a local, national and/or international level?...

By Giovanna Salazar Ojeda on 09/18/14 Comments Off

Introducing Toosheh: The new mesh network application that tries to tackle the problem of information controls inside Iran

Branded as a little blue bundle, the new android application developed by the Information Sciences Institute at the University of Southern California is a slight play on words. Toosheh which in Persian means baggage, endeavours to connect Iranian’s through what...

By Mahsa Alimardani on 09/16/14 1

Finite FM | Podcast with Franco Berardi

In 2011 Franco – Bifo – Berardi, an Italian media theorist and media activist, published the book After the Future with AK Press, an anarchistic publishing company. He writes about the idea of the future and the way it is...

By Inte Gloerich on 10/31/13 1

We Are Here: Locating micro-social dynamics of mediation

We Are Here (Dutch: Wij Zijn Hier) sums about 220 refugees that are actively searching for security and shelter in Amsterdam on a daily basis. In their very first blog post, they have stated their core objective: We are...

By Ariadna Matamoros Fernandez on 10/09/13 Comments Off

We Are Dread: A Review of the Dread Exhibition at De Hallen, Haarlem

By Lani Shadduck & Lucy Chinen “Dread trembles in my pocket. Dread chirps incessantly. Dread flashes and bounces. Dread summons me a hundred times a day to pay attention to my phone or my laptop, and stiffening...

By Lani Shadduck on 10/09/13 Comments Off

Porn 3.0

An online platform to crowd-fund porn production? This not-so-silly idea has been the subject of much online talk, from tech specialists to webzines but even more serious newspapers, especially after the launch of GoGoFantasy or the more famous Offbeatr. This Kickstarter for...

By Matthieu Foucher on 10/07/13 Comments Off

Internet Imperialized

In 2010, Google.cn redirected users to Google.com.hk. Google released an official blog post announcing that it would no longer censor search results for Chinese users. The decision proceeded an allegation that U.S. companies (Google included) had been attacked by...

By Samantha Carter on 09/12/13 1

#VemPraRua

How the use of Social Media platforms can mobilize a whole nation and transform the history of a country “Vem pra rua, porque a rua é a maior arquibancada do Brasil” The sentence above was extracted from the song...

By Gustavo López on 09/12/13 3

Brazil Left Facebook

Although it’s winter in Brazil, the so-called ‘Brazilian Spring’ has clearly arisen in June and July 2013. The protests in Brazil show parallels to the ‘Arab Spring’ demonstrations (Dec. 2010-Feb. 2011), in which network communications were used to form a grassroots movement. Through...

By Cristel Kolopaking on 09/11/13 Comments Off

Our Future Will Last Up To Ten Seconds: Could Snapchat be used as a revolutionary tool?

Developed by Stanford University students in 2011, Snapchat is an application which allows users to send and receive picture messages and videos in real time. As well as many other features, the USP of Snapchat is that it only...

By Rose Rowson on 09/11/13 Comments Off

Women in games 2013: one step forward, two steps back

Even though it’s now common knowledge that 47% of gamers are women, the gaming industry and geek culture keep struggling to be more inclusive, as 2013 has already had its good share of controversies, tough debates and hateful Tweets...

By Matthieu Foucher on 09/09/13 1

The Internet is now built on mass surveillance

Brought to light in recent months, the Edward Snowden-powered NSA leaks have publicized the wholesale spying efforts by US and UK intelligence agencies that undermine the very fabric of the Internet – turning it into a vast surveillance program...

By Nicholas Vieira on 09/09/13 1

What is data visualization’s goal? NGOs and real impact

The main goal of data visualization is to communicate information clearly and effectively through graphical means. (Friedman 2008) Friedman’s definition is simple and concise, yet broad and applicable to any type of visualization. What it fails to provide is what...

By Irina Enache on 03/21/13 2

Piracy was my shot at equality

Piracy is not theft, let’s make this perfectly clear. Theft, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English, is “the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it”. Piracy, on the other hand, is...

By Bozhan Chipev on 03/19/13 2

[Event] Unlike Us #3 | Social Media: Design or Decline

This March, the Unlike Us conference is taking place in Amsterdam for a second consecutive year. Hosted by Amsterdam’s Institute of Network Cultures, the event gathers academics, artists and activists to discuss ‘social media monopolies and their alternatives’. Unlike...

By Larissa Hildebrandt on 02/28/13 Comments Off

Syria: Cracking down on digital dissidents

For Syrian dissidents, social networking sites are essential for bypassing traditional media and communication channels. But in doing so, online activists might all too easily fall prey to the government’s digital surveillance. Social networking services like Facebook, Twitter and...

By Mathias Schuh on 10/19/12 1

Wanted: skilled volunteers to change the world

New media has been offering many possibilities for non-profit and social enterprises to find volunteers online, but an initiative called Catchafire is taking the center of attentions within the web. The purpose of the website is simple: provide a...

By Juliana Marques on 10/14/12 Comments Off

Digital Activism, Revisited.

At the end of March, 2012, I attended the Unlike Us conference, organized by the Institute of Network Cultures. What followed was a series of conferences and insightful discussions. Unlike Us brought together activists, academics, students whom all discussed...

By Massiel Sánchez on 09/10/12 1

Bioart, Ethics And Artworks

This lengthy post is part of a Critical Media Art Course. The theme of the week was "Life", and the readings provided focused on Bioart, and the concerns around it. Following an introduction to the term of Bioart,...

By Clément Adam on 04/18/12 6

Lessons in anti-security: tactical media and viral art

The following report is the outcome of two three hour sessions held in the context of the New Media course “Critical Media Art”, exploring the ideas and practices of ‘tactical media‘, in particular the use of viral tactics by...

By Daniel de Zeeuw on 02/19/12 Comments Off

Symposium “I Don’t Know Where I’m Going But I Want To Be There”

A thunderous introduction by Film + Design called ‘Modern Worship’ shows a time-lapse video image of a dancing King of Pop impersonator in full glitterati, refracting the stage-lights in a multitude of sparkles and starbursts, while slo-mo moonwalking across...

By Martijn Dorresteijn on 12/19/11 Comments Off

Overview on the “I don’t know where I’m going but I want to be there” annual symposium

On Saturday December 17th, The Museum of the Image (formally known as the Graphic Design Museum) organized a symposium about visual culture in Paradiso, Amsterdam. The symposium brought together a crowd of professional, students and industries from the fields...

By Clément Adam on 12/18/11 Comments Off