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New Vision’s Vision Revealed

For the first time since travelled to Uganda for my research, I woke up with a purpose. I was invited to attend the editorial meeting at the New Vision Newspaper to meet all journalists. Editorial meetings take place every...
Pifworld: an Engaging Graphical Donating Platform

Pifworld: an Engaging Graphical Donating Platform

A friend of mine informed me about an interesting service that was recently launched: Pifworld. It is basically a Google Earth/SNS – mash-up that facilitates global crowd funding. It allows individuals and communities to support specific projects in a fun...

Media Students Embrace digital culture

  On Wednesday 8 April, I escorted Ben to Makerere University Faculty of ICT. During our discussions with the deputy dean, we were introduced to the communications manager. After explaining our fields of study, I was requested to make...
There is a snake in my computer!

There is a snake in my computer!

On friday april 17 I met with John, who had set up a few cybercafé’s and telecentres both in Uganda and Tanzania. He has a university degree in mechanical engineering, but as soon as he graduated he started focusing...

The little Big Belgian Firewall?

For the first time in history, the Belgian federal government has blocked an internet site. It is not a website containing child porn, but a website that publishes the whereabouts of (possible) pedophiles. The blocked website is similar to...
Ekimeeza, the Peoples Parliament of Uganda on Radio One

Ekimeeza, the Peoples Parliament of Uganda on Radio One

I arrived around 2.30 at club Obligato, where the massively popular radio talkshow ‘Ekimeeza’ was about to start. I was welcomed by a series of middle aged men, who...

New Media at the New Vision

  After finalizing the formalities with the administration, the human resource manager of the New Vision handed me over to the Mr. Ben Opolot, the Chief sub-editor. She made for me an appointment to meet him (Ben) on Monday...

Book Launch “Digital Material”

Our appreciated colleagues, the Department of New Media and Digital Culture of Utrecht University to be exact, have their 10th anniversary May 15. And you are cordially invited! On this day UU’s New media folks want to reflect on...
Peer pressure

Peer pressure

“When Napster told the district court that it had developed a technology to block the transfer of 99.4 percent of identified infringing material, the district court told counsel for Napster 99.4 percent was not good enough. Napster had to...

New Media meets old Media

  I started working on my research proposal last year. By the beginning of this year, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. And that is to research on the impact of ICT use on the print media...

The 45-Hour Flight To Africa

Ben and I booked the same flight to Uganda: Egypt Air. The flight was supposed to take off at 3.30pm from Schiphol airport (Amsterdam) on Saturday 4 April 2009.  We were to transit through Cairo in Egypt lasting one...

CBS: 29.000 Predators on MySpace

The Internet gives the citizen possibilities for surveillance. Citizens use these possibilities when they think vertical surveillance fails. Especially children are put into discourses of surveillance as if they are members of a vulnerable group, not watched over by...
First impressions on ICT in Kampala

First impressions on ICT in Kampala

On the plane from Cairo to Kampala I met a young Ugandan guy of 19 years old who just flew back from a tennis match in Egypt. He was a real cosmopolitan; he had traveled already all over the...
TweetDeck: A Cyberspace Odyssey

TweetDeck: A Cyberspace Odyssey

Some people get very nervous using Twitter; they find the constant stream of (seemingly) unimportant personal exclamations incredibly annoying. They say: how on Earth are you supposed to keep track of all that information? Well, those people should try...
Creative Commons Case Studies

Creative Commons Case Studies

Almost a year ago Creative Commons launched the Case Studies Project with the aim of qualitatively measuring the impact of CC licenses on the world. As of this writing, the project showcases around 500 Case Studies of people using...

Two months in China

Two months of my semester in Beijing have now gone by. With everyday feeling like a year of new impressions, it is crazy to see how fast time flew by. Right now I just made my first blogpost, but...

Mobile Everywhere in Kampala

Kampala – April 6th, 2009 First impressions – I have just arrived in Uganda and can tell you that the presence of the mobile phone is felt and seen everywhere! Just some notes from my trip from the airport....

Concept: using Twitter as a flow regulator

This scenario will illustrate the possibilities of social media like twitter to have a positive and substantial influence on ordinary life. In this case, the “flow regulator tweet” will very efficiently regulate the flow of people waiting in line...
How to Pave a Digital Silk Road

How to Pave a Digital Silk Road

If somebody would have told me 1 year ago that as a result of my New Media Master’s thesis research on the Internet industry in China I would be moving to Beijing, I would have reacted: ‘Right, and I...

Join Hap-poken-ing020!

This year, for the first time, the Digital Hippies will initiate a Happening. What is the plan? ‘Hap-poken-ing020’ is set to be a spectacular and spontaneous event that will harmlessly disturb the public domain of Amsterdam’s Dam square. It’s...

iPhone OS 3.0 is coming, still room for innovation though…

After the introduction of the iPhone, Apple’s main focus is pointed towards its software. But, their is still room for innovation on its hardware. The virtual keyboard as a concept is really innovative and intuitive, but tapping my fingers...

Compress Process

The whole video is created with one and the same skype video recording; its basically a selfportrait of me jumping around. Creating this video made me think about a couple of things. First of all, the research I am...

New posts to Scopic Regimes of Virtuality course blog

Rachel O’Reilly explores concepts of virtuality and (post-) modern machinic perception that emerge in Lauren Berlant’s article, ‘The Intuitionists’: History and the Affective Event.’ Vi Nguyen investigates the meaning of the Baroque by analyzing Gilles Deleuze’s ‘The Fold: Leibniz...

Call for Applications Fall ’09 Admissions UvA New Media MA

The New Media International MA program at UvA has issued a call for applications for students who would like to begin study in Fall 2009.  We already have an impressive pool of applicants and encourage additional applications in order...