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

Facebook’s Rosetta: How Are Algorithms Using Our Data?

Digital networking companies have started to build artificial intelligence software that can filter through unwanted content that may be offensive to their users. Facebook recently announced the latest addition to this trend with a machine learning program called Rosetta; software...

By Dana Lamb on 09/24/18 Comments Off

China’s Social Credit System could bring George Orwell’s 1984 character ‘Big Brother’ to life by allowing Big Data Surveillance to control Chinese public life

Any person who has seen the critically acclaimed Netflix show ‘Black Mirror’ will think the following is straight out of a dystopian futurology thriller. Unfortunately, the idea of every member in society being attributed a ‘social credit score’ based...

By Victor Bouwmeester on 09/23/18 Comments Off

When Fiction Becomes Reality: From Black Mirror to China’s Social Credit Score

Since 2014, the Chinese government is working on implementing a new behavioral scoring system: the social credit score. Presented as an assessment of the ‘reliability’ of citizens, it combines a whole set of criteria such as consumption habits, records...

By Sarah Bels on 09/23/18 Comments Off

The Zero UI Music Player

One of the most iconic computers in cinema is certainly HAL9000 from Stanley Kubrick’s epos 2001: A Space Odyssey. With all inner workings hidden beneath a red light in a camera lens, the mischievous A.I. created an eerie atmosphere...

By Frederic Vosseberg on 09/23/18 Comments Off

“Be the Exception” for New Balance: Brand Surveillance and the Corporatization of Individuality

New Balance’s New York Fashion Week installation, “Real Time Exception Spotting,” combines surveillance and algorithmic technologies to celebrate and reward personal expression through style. But what does it mean for an algorithm to quantify individuality? And can surveillance technologies,...

By Hailey Beaman on 09/23/18 Comments Off

Facebook AI protects life from Live Streaming

In an era when everyone lives online, Facebook, the biggest social platform, adds constantly new tools for the user. One attractive feature is live streaming. Despite chatting and concerts that we are used to see, live video shows us...

By Anna Vallianatou on 09/23/18 Comments Off

Is your personal safety app keeping you safe?

The World Health Organization (WHO) reports, “one in three women globally have been sexually or physically abused- amounting to some 800 million people world-wide.” One of the tools gaining acceptance among women to help prevent harassment is ‘Safetipin:...

By Kanchana Varghese on 09/23/18 Comments Off

ADPOCALYPSE!! Is YouTube taking it to far in their recent rage of demonitizing video’s by the masses?

ADPOCALYPSE!! Is YouTube taking it to far in their recent rage of demonitizing video’s by the masses? The ‘Adpocalypse’, as it has been declared by worlds most popular YouTuber, Pewdiepie, is without any doubt the biggest struggle YouTube...

By Tom Brok on 11/15/17 Comments Off

MirrorMirror: Illuminating the black box for the everyday internet user

MirrorMirror is a web extension that tracks a user’s search engine queries ultimately compiling a digital profile that characterizes the user. The goal of the non-profit tool is to encourage awareness and potentially behavioural change surrounding user’s interaction with...

By David Schogt on 10/24/17 Comments Off

Netflix and Choose? Choice, Recommendation and Streaming in an Age of Algorithmic Culture

Have you ever had that moment on “Movie Night”, when the pizza is on it’s way, the ice cream is cooling in the freezer and all you need to do is decide on which dystopian thriller to watch...

By Louie Oestreicher on 09/24/17 Comments Off

Is Apple our Online-Privacy Vigilante?

Abstract: Apple purports that its new Intelligent Tracking Prevention Technology integrated in Safari browser prevents 3rd-party cookies from collecting users’ data, therefore, reducing online ads, and ultimately protecting users’ privacy. This paper challenges this by arguing that ITP’s functionality...

By K. Abdulghani on 09/24/17 Comments Off

You Snooze, You Lose? Temporary Time-Out from Friends on Facebook

Brace yourselves! Facebook is testing out a ‘snooze’ button that reportedly mutes people on your feed for up to 30 days. With the help of the emerging feature, you could (and hopefully will very soon) walk away from...

By Hanna Yerega on 09/24/17 Comments Off

Artificial Intelligence: an objective method for measuring beauty?

Last August, a team of biogerontologists and data scientists, organised the First International Beauty Contest Judged by Artificial Intelligence ever: Beauty.AI (Beauty.AI). With the support of major (tech)companies, like EY, NVidia and Microsoft, a team of scientist developed various...

By Pieter Vliegenthart on 09/22/16 Comments Off

Bad News for Facebook

In the past couple of weeks Facebook and its content-monitoring policy as well as the changes made to its Trending Topics section made the headlines over and over again. These headlines have led to many opinion pieces and several...

By Ecesu Erol on 09/19/16 Comments Off

“I want to show you something”: Cinetree as an alternative to automated recommendations

A boutique among department stores Last year, Dutch actress Hanna Verboom launched a new video on demand service, Cinetree. It distinguishes itself from other popular movie streaming sites by offering a very limited yet carefully curated selection of films....

By Joep Bouma on 09/19/16 Comments Off

PeerRevYOU: A Tool for Media Students

Presenting to you: PeerRevYOU, a peer review platform for Media students. Thanks to this tool, students are able to review each other’s work before they hand it in to their teacher. We argue that this process could improve...

By Lisanne Buijze on 10/16/15 Comments Off

The Logout Project

We might all have felt this way at some point– scrolling through endless posts and photographs of people who seem like they are living “The Life”: getting that promotion they have dreamed of, marrying the most perfect person in...

By Izumi Otsuka on 10/16/15 Comments Off

AI: is it just buzz or is it really changing the web design world?

“A.I. Websites. Build for Humans.” It has been quite a while since the non-stop futuristic flashy banners began showing up on my browser. The Grid is an AI web-builder that will build a website for you in a couple...

By Izumi Otsuka on 09/16/15 Comments Off

Spotify the Data Sage.

Is Discover Weekly a step forward or a step back? In the good ol’ days people discovered music by listening to the radio and recording the music on audio tapes. The disk jockeys were the opinion leaders that could...

By Daniël Landman on 09/15/15 Comments Off

rMA Thesis Conference 2015: (pre)Cyberspace Perspectives on Information Technologies

The following is a modified transcript of my research presentation for the 2015 Research Master in Media Studies Thesis Conference. My thesis is an exploration of magical writing practices in contemporary digital culture. This was too much to talk...

By Rose Rowson on 05/05/15 Comments Off

HipsterFlipster: A Critical Alternative to Algorithmic Ranking Systems

It’s friday night, weekend has just begun and you and your friends are looking for a nice bar, club or restaurant to drink some beers. But where to go to? Just download the HipsterFlipster app on your cellphone, and...

By Roy Schutte on 10/17/14 Comments Off

SCiO: the Star Trek tricorder in real life

One of the most emblematic and authentic motifs from the American sci-fi television series Star Trek involves the medical officer Leonard McCoy using a tricorder in order to scan and analyse living beings and environments. He records data with a small...

By Josip Batinic on 09/16/14 Comments Off

eterni.me – I read dead people

„We all pass away sooner or later“, states the opener of the webpage of eterni.me. Only to continue with a much surprising statement: “But what if you could be remembered forever?” – With the data of your old online-communication,...

By Felix Clasbrummel on 09/16/14 2

Instagram and Hyperlapse: Anticipated Memory

Social networks have a huge impact on how their users perceive their lives and what happens to them. Different networks influence different aspects of our lives, both social and cultural. Instagram, one of the most popular networks today, meant...

By Markéta Horázná on 09/16/14 Comments Off