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

ProPublica is Re-Purposing Data for Social Reforms

Whether you were scrolling through your Facebook news’ feed or simply reading tweets about the most recent political scandals, chances are you have been exposed to contradictory information, and even ‘fake news’. On the internet, anyone can spread dishonest...

By Laurie Le Bomin on 09/23/18 Comments Off

Power according to Foucault

Introduction This article gives a short overview about several concepts related to ‘power’ from 20th century French social theorist Michel Foucault. He was highly influenced by Jean Hyppolite and Louis Althusser. Foucault is both associated as a structuralist and...

By Vera Seegers on 05/09/18 Comments Off

Platform Capitalism: Neoliberalism and the Homo Economicus

In relation to the theme of neoliberalism, we chose to explore the creation of the homo-economicus and the factors that play into it: Both classical and neo-liberalism place importance on man as an economic subject. They both have a...

By Ayse B. Tosun on 04/26/18 Comments Off

A Foucauldian Genealogy of Cybernetic Subjectivity

An overview of cybernetics, its production of subjects and key players and ideas that formed the cybernetic paradigm.

By Jasper van Tilburg on 04/23/18 Comments Off

Seeing eye to I(t)

What became of the bionic contact lens? Since the digital display was introduced users have dreamt of breaking it free from its four encapsulating walls. Numerous attempts, from projected to integrated and even curved or rimless screens, have all...

By Tsjip van der Nat on 11/03/17 Comments Off

Creating awareness by visualizing the variety of “fake newses”

Our research objective is the phenomenon of fake news. We claim that fake news is not one thing, and also not a new phenomenon. Rather we would like to offer a new conceptualization by visualizing the various levels of...

By Yarden Skop on 10/25/17 Comments Off

A Streamlined Explanation: The Problem with Streaming Games on YouTube

Felix “PewDiePie” Kjellberg is one of the most popular video game streamers on YouTube with more than 57 million subscribers (Orland, 2017). Because of a racial slur uttered in one of his recent Let’s Play videos, PewDiePie faced a...

By Ayse B. Tosun on 10/25/17 Comments Off

You cannot log out from the grave: The implications of Facebook suggesting immortality within its death policy.

People are barely aware that all their online profiles, pictures, and status updates will remain available online after they decease. When uploading those memories onto Facebook, we create our “digital self”. But when signing up for Facebook, users are...

By Drea Rodriguez Cervantes on 10/24/17 Comments Off

“One More Thing…” – A critical approach to the Apple 2017 Keynote Presentation

But there is “One more thing.” There it was again. These famous words, first introduced by Steve Jobs, where presented at the 2017 Keynote Presentation. It was the first presentation in the official Steve Jobs Theater and the “One...

By Tijs Koops on 09/25/17 Comments Off

Privatising public transport: tech companies are getting their foot in the door of London’s public transport

Route-planning app Citymapper has decided to take public transport into its own hands. It seems the popular urban navigation app, after years of watching the bus routes of London, didn’t like what it saw, and now a Citymapper-branded bus...

By Anna Lezard on 09/25/17 Comments Off

World Wide Web Consortium and Digital Rights Management: Innovating Stagnation

The history of “Digital Rights Management” software while relatively new, has been quite controversial. Oftentimes advocates of online privacy and security argue about the possibilities of abuse stemming from such DRM technologies, along with activists and proponents of the...

By Nikiforos Pingouras on 09/24/17 Comments Off

A click away from giving up our autonomy? – A critical view on Amazon’s new Dash button

The alarm clock rings, you slowly make your way to the coffee machine since there is no other way of functioning at a time like that, but then realize you ran out of coffee yesterday. What a disaster! But...

By Mariessa Radermacher 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

Forever Alive: Facebook’s Death Policy and Memorialization

55 is the average age for people to make their will, according to a certified notary. The management and distribution of properties, money and important documents are the most common possessions in these wills. No one ever asked this...

By Drea Rodriguez Cervantes on 09/24/17 Comments Off

Managing the ‘self’: your DNA online

How to explore your inner self? You could go to a retreat in Thailand. You could ask your mother about your childhood. Or you could upload your DNA online. Awakens’ Genomic Explorer allows you to dissect your genetics by...

By Linda V. on 09/24/17 Comments Off

Shiver Me Timbers: Did Streaming Inadvertently Pave the Way For a New Kind of Piracy?

Some time in the mid-2000s, the popular peer-to-peer downloading program E-mule once made me wait for a whole year to download the discography of an Irish blues musician – a hefty file in .rar format, which was owned by...

By Ayse B. Tosun on 09/23/17 Comments Off

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 Comments Off

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 Comments Off

The Rise of the Emoji’s. Final goal: World Domination.

It seems almost impossible, a life without these creative, colourful and sometimes confusing characters. There is no easier way of texting – even for those who aren’t used to modern smartphones – and it seems like...

By Mintsje deWitte on 09/22/16 Comments Off

The New Digital Mall: How Social Media is Changing the Way We Shop

E-Commerce and Web 2.0 Before the Internet – if you wanted to buy something, you had to physically enter a store to purchase it: ‘going shopping’ was a social experience by nature because of the...

By Caroline Nisenson on 09/21/16 Comments Off

Picturing a community: Imgur’s evolution from photo to family

Not so long ago, sitting in a café with a long-time friend, our conversation turned to our favourite teenage movies. With this came a brief mention of Michael Cera, the typecast Hollywood ‘nice guy’. In passing, I happened to...

By WIlliam Nash on 09/21/16 Comments Off

Recognition: looking through a mediated lens

“Can a machine make us look afresh at great art through the lens of today’s world?” (Tate). This is a question art institution Tate Britain poses about their online program Recognition, launched two weeks ago. This program uses Artificial Intelligence (AI)...

By Rianne Riemens on 09/21/16 Comments Off

Smart City needs smart privacy

As European Capital of Innovation, Amsterdam is experimenting with a range of technologies which turn the city into a so-called “smart city”. With the beacon gadgets installed all over the city, more interaction with the public is made possible....

By Charlotte Leclercq on 09/20/16 1

Prisma: The Photo App With Its Own Charisma!

All the Instagram addicts must have already tried out or, at least, come across with artsy photos badged with the #prisma hashtag. For those of you who (strangely enough) haven’t seen or heard of it before, Prisma is...

By Christina Panteli on 09/19/16 Comments Off