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

The Internet Is Taking My Pictures

Unlike Google Maps, Russia’s Yandex Карты is much more tourist friendly in that it does not blur your face away when you have been caught on camera! Yandex does not seem to uphold an evenly strict privacy policy as...

By Pim van Bree on 06/06/11 1

#You’re fired

Thoughts and funny incidents on… contemporary ways to lose your job ( via Blogspot/ WordPress, Facebook, Twitter) There are many valid reasons for an employee to lose his job: the pretense of economic crisis, the company closing down, the...

By Ourania on 11/01/10 9

The Invention of the Century: Privacy

Privacy is considered to be an important issue for it is not just a social structure within a community, which can be regulated by social control anymore. It has developed to a dialectic notion of widespread surveillance activities within...

By Fenneke Mink on 10/27/10 2

Facebook Launches Three Key Features To Protect Privacy

It seems that Mark Zuckerberg has listened to all the nagging about how Facebook is violating the privacy of their users. On the live press-conference of Facebook yesterday, Zuckerberg announced a few features that the social networking site will...

By Philip Man on 10/07/10 Comments Off

Adopted Teen Traced on Social Network

A great example of how the privacy issues we face on social networks are not just limited to our data being sold to marketers. This BBC interview tells how a British girl was traced by her natural sister on...

By Natalie Dixon on 09/29/10 Comments Off

Be free. Don’t adjust your Facebook privacy settings

Chun states that we, the users, perceive new media, in particular the Internet, to be free, democratic and save. We think we are in control of our content, but just like with other technologies, we can never have total...

By Emina Sendijarevic on 09/27/10 1

Hyves, THE information source for companies

How would I do research in web 2.0 and Social Network Sites? First I have to make clear for myself what web 2.0 exactly is. According to Tim O’Reilly, one of the founders of web 2.0, web 2.0 existed...

By Floor Broer van Dijk on 09/26/10 Comments Off

Book Review: Check in/ check uit. De digitalisering van de openbare ruimte. [The Digitalization of Public Space] by C. van ’t Hof, R. van Est, F. Daemen

Is it still possible to check out? Check in/ check uit. De digitalisering van de openbare ruimte. stems from the assumption that new media developments such as OV-chipkaart and Google Street view are the visible parts of a fundamental...

By Mareline Heijman on 09/26/10 5

The Privacy Paradox in a control society

Nowadays a lot of people are in some form represented on the internet. These virtual forms can include profiles on social network sites like Facebook and Twitter, but also as writings on a personal websites and blogs. They has...

By Sander Jansma on 09/24/10 4

Book-review- Open 19: Beyond Privacy. New Perspectives on the Public and Private Domain

Book-review- Open 19: Beyond Privacy. New Perspectives on the Public and Private Domain Jorinde Seijdel (Editor), Liesbeth Melis (Editor) ISBN: 978-90-5662-736-,144 pages, This book is an edition of Open, published by SKOR a foundation of art and public...

By Layla Van Daalen on 09/21/10 Comments Off

Book Review – Access Controlled : the shaping of power, rights and rule in cyberspace

Access Controlled reports on the new normative terrain of internet filtering, censorship of Web content, and online surveillance. The preface and foreword are clear about what the reader can expect per chapter and also...

By Elias van Hees on 09/20/10 1

I Fly with my Little Spy! New Stealth Techno-Toys.

The recent debate about the proposed use of military-style surveillance drones in the United Kingdom, and further afield, has fuelled fears and given rise to concern over the continual erosion of the individual’s right to privacy and safety. ...

By Isobel Gorman on 09/12/10 Comments Off

Burning Questions

Is Google the always-on, silent recorder of global zeitgeist? There’s Google Trends, which lists most searched-for sites and topics in the last week, month or year around the globe. This has been a useful tool for digital publishers to...

By Natalie Dixon on 09/11/10 Comments Off

The Battle for the Internet

Things seem to be looking up in the battle for the Internet. For years now ACTA negations have been mired in secrecy and controversy. The leaked documents from the negotiations painted a bleak picture of corporations using their lobbying...

By Onur Yilmaz on 09/10/10 Comments Off

Persistence of Life-Streams – An Inquiry Into the Implications of Mixed Surveillance

Here’s the final version of my thesis which covers the nature and implications of (participatory) surveillance in the field of social media, and specifically in life-streaming services like Twitter and Facebook. (PDF can be downloaded here). Introduction: In this...

By Sjoerd Tuinema on 09/06/10 Comments Off

Google, Buzz off! A reflection..

While many technology and media journalists are now focusing their attention on Facebook’s recent privacy moves, I’d like to shed some light on an earlier privacy issue: the implementation of Google Buzz. Some of you might be are aware...

By Marc Stumpel on 06/06/10 2

Post-Privacy: Talk by Christian Heller

The first session at the Geneva Lift Conference covered “The Redefinition of Privacy” and what privacy and personal security means in the 21st Century. Independent Futurist Christian Heller spoke on the topic of Post-Privacy. Below is a summary on his views on...

By Sarah Moore on 05/06/10 1