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

In search for universal language

Umberto Eco, a cultural critic, semiotician, and a writer said that we live in an age where the “diminutive, the brief and the simple are highly prized in communication” (Thurlow & Brown). New communication technologies can empower young people...

By Jan Bajec on 10/05/09 Comments Off

“ILNY, it’s a gr8 plc”

According to the recent statistic from ITU (International Telecommunication Union), in conjunction with UN, more than half of the globe population is subscribed to mobile telephony systems. And this number competes with that of the Internet subscribers. While mobiles...

By Radmila Radojevic on 10/05/09 Comments Off

Facebook vs Ning – what is “social”?

A social network is, according to Wikipedia, a social structure made of individuals or organizations, which are connected by one or more specific types of interdependency (friendship, kinship, financial exchange, sexual relationships, and relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige)....

By Jan Bajec on 09/29/09 Comments Off

What are possible consequences of Wikipedia for the future of human knowledge?

Two of the most important features of Wikipedia are the history pages and the discussion pages. Wikipedia not only contain the facts, but it also records and contributes to the politicization and dissemination of scientific research and communication. It...

By Jan Bajec on 09/21/09 2

Wikipedia changes our perception of knowledge

Wikipedia differs greatly with the traditional encyclopedia. Examples of aspects of differentiation: · Broader public: knowledge is for everyone. · Authority: everyone can write for Wikipedia. · Broader range of subjects: everyone can decide what is important to be...

By Suzanne Schram on 09/21/09 Comments Off

A review of: Blogging

Blogging is written by Jill Walker Rettberg. She is a blogger her self. On her blog she presents her self as “an associate professor at the University of Bergen, and I do research on how people tell stories online.”...

By Suzanne Schram on 09/17/09 Comments Off

Book Report: Virtualpolitik by Elizabeth Losh

Elizabeth Losh is the Writing Director of the Humanities Core Course at U.C. Irvine where she teaches courses on digital rhetoric and public communication. Her research specialty is digital rhetoric and the discourses of information culture, especially the...

By Jan Bajec on 09/14/09 Comments Off

Announcement: new Masters of Media blog!

The masters of media blog is redesigned and updated! Since the beginning of this semester the masters of media v 2.0 have been posting on this blog. A new group of masters also needs a fresh new look. In...

By Esther Weltevrede on 10/12/07 10

Nietzsche on hypertext

This week’s assignment made us compare new media issues to Nietzsche quotes. I came across the following quote: This quote immediately triggered the post-modern idea of differance, that all meaning gets postponed and that one will never get to...

By Maarten van Sprang on 10/08/07 Comments Off

Repurposing the Wikiscanner: Comparing Dutch Universities’ edits on Wikipedia

<update>This project got quite a few positive responses, and many universities were interested in their own ‘profiles’. But the best was an endorsement by Virgil, who created the WikiScanner. He’s now made the Wikiscanner mashable, making this kind of...

By Michael Stevenson on 10/07/07 3

93 Wonderful Things: a short history of BoingBoing

BoingBoing: A Directory of Wonderful Things is a groupblog that provides a mix of Web humor, art, politics, gadgetry and unicorns (and plenty more). It is probably the only blog popular enough to receive its own backlash. I used...

By Michael Stevenson on 09/26/07 2

Book Review: Six Degrees: The science of a connected age

Six Degrees: The science of a connected age Duncan J. Watts, Norton, 2003 Duncan J. Watts (1971-) is a professor of sociology at Columbia University, head of the CDG Collective Dynamics Group and in 2003 he wrote the book...

By Daphne Ben Shachar on 09/24/07 Comments Off

An analysis and proposal for Scienceblog.com

Scienceblog.com is a blog with scientific articles. I analyse this blog on usability aspects using Jakob Nielsen’s articles Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes and Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design. According to Nielsen these are the principles...

By Bram Nijhof on 09/24/07 1

Blog analysis: Frankwatching.com

Frankwatching.com is a blog on news and opinion about digital trends. All sorts of items come by, marketing, gadgets, wiki’s, social software etc. What I try to do in this post is give you a brief analysis of this...

By Daphne Ben Shachar on 09/23/07 4

Blog Analysis: Ecorazzi.com

There are a tremendous amount of celebrity gossip weblogs on the internet. One that has caught my attention, because of its different approach towards celebrity gossip, is Ecorazzi.com. This weblog is about celebrity gossip involving the environment and other...

By Fleur Dujardin on 09/23/07 1

Review: Blog! How the newest media revolution is changing politics, business, and culture – David Kline and Dan Burstein

David Kline and Dan Burstein points out that the blogosphere will transform many areas of politics, business, media and culture. In their book ‘Blog! How the newest media revolution is changing politics, business, and culture’ they have interviewed...

By Bram Nijhof on 09/17/07 11

Review: Blogosphere The New Political Arena by Michael Keren

Blogosphere can be seen as a new and important element of the new public sphere. On a blog people are able to not only comment on public affairs or read about what they find interesting. On a blog they...

By Rikus Wegman on 09/17/07 Comments Off

Review: The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki

This book is a bundle of theories and case studies which Surowiecki uses to convince the reader that a diverse crowd can come up with better answers and solutions than a single group of experts. The cases he brings...

By Maarten van Sprang on 09/17/07 1

We the Media – Dan Gilmor

In his book ‘We the Media: Grassroots journalism by the People’, Dan Gilmor describes the development in the so called grassroots journalism. Gilmors goal is: “to persuade you that the collision of journalism and technology is having major consequences...

By Carolien van der Vorst on 09/17/07 Comments Off

Reflections on Uses of Blogs

Cross-posted at Politics of Many Minds From the perspective of Politics of Many Minds, and doing research into the ‘natively digital’ more general, the book Uses of Blogs provided me some interesting thoughts on investigating blogging and the blogosphere....

By Esther Weltevrede on 09/16/07 4

Smart Mobs: smart mob(ile)s or smart Men On Bits?

In this review, Howard Rheingold’s vision on the future of communication and interaction is explained, as layed out in his book ‘Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution’, 2002. Rheingold noted that SMS has been used for dating in teenage...

By Erik Borra on 09/16/07 21

Review: Extreme Democracy

Politics is always changing as society incorporates new technology for disseminating information and connecting people’ (6) Extreme democracy is a political philosophy of the information era that puts people in charge of the entire political process. It suggests a...

By Fleur Dujardin on 09/16/07 2

Review: “Organized Networks”

In ‘organized networks”, Australian media theorist Ned Rossiter states the urgency for new institutional forms, while ‘the uncertainties of labour and life within network societies and informational economies have all too clearly exposed the limits of prevailing institutional systems...

By Tjerk Timan on 09/16/07 1

Review: From Counterculture to Cyberculture

What follows is a summary and review of Fred Turner’s book, From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network and the Rise of Digital Utopianism. Nerd Politics? A recent Ask Slashdot piece appeared...

By Michael Stevenson on 09/15/07 1