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

As Cookies Crumble, Publishers Come Out to Play

Introduction: In January 2020, Google announced that web browser Chrome would be dropping third-party cookies by 2022. According to Google, blocking third-party cookies is meant to “enhance privacy” for end-users and “to support publishers.”So, with the end of third-party...

By Carla Roman on 09/28/20 Comments Off

Data mining at The Times

Data mining, also defined as KDD (Knowledge Discovery in Databases), is a subfield of computer science which has extensively raised in the last years, rapidly becoming a discipline known to a widespread audience, mainly because of its use in...

By Roberto Pizzato on 09/10/14 Comments Off

The Digital Book: curating emails via the EPUB format

During the first block of the Spring semester, a group of MA New Media students took part in the elective The Digital Book. This course aims to contextualise the rise of digital publishing in theoretical terms, focussing on themes...

By Rose Rowson on 03/21/14 1

Thinking the unthinkable (some thoughts on the production of thought and access to knowledge)

A few days ago, Bret Victor, a researcher and software engineer, announced via Facebook that he had redesigned his talk “Media for Thinking the Unthinkable“, which he delivered on April 4th of this year at the MIT Media Lab. As...

By Fernando van der Vlist on 09/11/13 Comments Off

Snow Fall, the future of online journalism?

We live in a time of dropping newspaper sales and traditional journalists that see their offline audiences shrink each year. Most newspapers have a well maintained online presence and try to employ the medium’s possibilities like showing video content...

By Inte Gloerich on 09/11/13 Comments Off

Is piracy democratising education?

Piracy, be it of software, music or books, is rarely spoken of in a positive light (Liang 356). Governments and organisations around the world are scrambling to stop copyright infringement from eating into profits. My relationship with piracy started...

By Larissa Hildebrandt on 03/19/13 Comments Off

Open-access journals: First Monday leads by example

At a time when publishers, academics and libraries are struggling to navigate a new publishing landscape, some are turning to Internet scholars to lead the way. First Monday is “one of the first openly accessible, peer–reviewed journals on the Internet,...

By Larissa Hildebrandt on 03/13/13 Comments Off

Academia.edu: Social Networking Meets Open Access Publishing

Scholars are the driving force behind the scientific and social progress of humanity. Even though this statement sounds very grandiose, it is not untrue.The “makers of knowledge” have been throughout the centuries the most revered, respected social castе. They...

By Bozhan Chipev on 03/11/13 Comments Off

Spam books: How Amazon is selling you 35 Shades of Gray

Amazon’s Kindle has become somewhat of an industry leader for digital books or e-book consumption. With millions of digital books selling through the single platform reader as well as garnering a general mainstream acceptance, there is a growing concern...

By Geoff Kim on 03/04/13 Comments Off

Digital books: The end of private reading?

Digital books are touted for their new possibilities: portability, searchability, durability and ubiquitous notes and bookmarks, to name a few. But while readers benefit from this, so do third parties. The thought of someone reading over your shoulder feels...

By Larissa Hildebrandt on 03/03/13 Comments Off