Filter posts by:
Just What Is It That Makes Today’s Media So Different, So Appealing?

Just What Is It That Makes Today’s Media So Different, So Appealing?

As any illustrator should be, I am obsessed by visual culture, art, design and media. The way contemporary creative conception and expression takes on new shapes and forms, catapulted through the fibre-optic network and available for all to consume,...

‘It’s the Village, Stupid!’: How Hyperlocal Media Can Save Journalism

Do you remember the good old days? Back then, journalism used to be a respected profession. Crowned by the rhetoric of popular culture as a sort of ‘champions of truth’ (Superman, His Girl Friday, All the President’s Men), reporters...
The virtuality debate

The virtuality debate

Media mention the term frequently: virtual. Think of virtual worlds (Second Life), gaming environments (World of Warcraft) or simply social network sites (Facebook). Those are places that don’t exist in a physical, touchable form, except from the hosting servers....

Master New Media; a logical choice.

The first week at the Master New Media was interesting and it gave a good view of what we will do in the upcoming year. It is nice to see that the classes consist of so many students from...

Media art to teach the unaware people

My first blogpost on the Masters of Media blog should be about a topic I’m interested in., but that’s not as easy as it looks, because my interests are very wide spread. The reason why I’m following the master...
The Naked Eye: Toward an Object-Oriented Ontology in the Literature of Tao Lin

The Naked Eye: Toward an Object-Oriented Ontology in the Literature of Tao Lin

On being seen naked in the bathroom by his pet cat, Derrida likens the feline’s stare to “… the gaze of a seer, visionary, or extra-lucid blind person,” (372). I am compelled to thwart such clairvoyance by putting my...

Notes from the underground torrent scene – or on the distributed emergence of taxonomical conventions.

There is an uncertainty aura around the act of downloading illegally distributed content: no matter how versed one is in the matter, one can’t always be completely sure of its precedence, which directly impacts its expected quality, relevancy, and...

A(n Ever)note from the train

There’s something remarkable about the interaction between man and machine (and vice versa). Marshall McLuhan and Raymond Williams both had their own view in this classic debate about the social shaping of technology versus the technological shaping of society....

The like button: Something mutual, nothing too personal

An interview with an average net user about the role of the virtual in her life.

‘She was loved, and she loved back’

I will never forget the look in Ladan’s eyes as she grabbed my Tamagotchi, without asking, and brutally pressed all the buttons at the same time. ‘Well, I really don’t get this stupid thing. It’s just stupid.’, she said,...

Jack in the Box: Digital Activism and Corporate Reputation

The recent case of Jack the Cat going missing on an American Airlines flight has seen its fair share of attention in both new and traditional media. But what are the reasons behind AA’s relentless efforts to cope with...
War is Over?

War is Over?

As a professional journalist and newbie blogger I had never thought about a question whether online news sites and citizen journalists are undermining journalistic profession until I was assigned to write an essay on this issue as part of...

Swift Access at the Cost of Swift Access: Diginotar

On the tenth of July 2011, the Dutch web security company Diginotar was hacked by (supposedly) a student from Iran. He was able to corrupt the so called SSL certificates and break into Gmail accounts and government websites. Nine...

The shopping revolution

Twenty-plus kilograms suitcase in hand, tackling what seemed to be the longest staircase that had ever been placed in a train station that featured four platforms and no elevators, I started thinking: when did I but all this stuff?...

Giving Away Free Digital Content: How Far Can You Go?

Giving away free content is nothing new. It has been around as part of business strategies for centuries. However, many online businesses are using free digital content as a means of getting attention and building their reputation. How far...

Lulzsec – Cyber terrorists, hacktivists or artists?

Phone hacking dominated British headlines during the summer months this year and the revelations were so detrimental to Murdoch’s empire that he thought it was best to shut down The News of the World – believing it had let...

We The People: A Direct Line To The White House?

The White House recently announced the development of a new platform: We The People. Obama is quoted in the introduction explaining why: “I pledged to make government more open and accountable to its citizens. That’s what the new We...

:-) or (^_^) – Western versus Japanese emoticons

It’s been a week now since the New Media Master 2010-2011 started. The first thing that stroke me while looking around at my fellow students in the lecture room on Monday morning was the enormous diversity of backgrounds, nationalities...

Social networks + SEO = Social SEO ?

Sometimes the results of a search on Google, Bing or Yahoo are not really satisfying. If you search for specific terms sometimes the search results are very limited. Often only the first three search results give usable information. The...
4chan, Ethics and Digital Methodology

4chan, Ethics and Digital Methodology

How much are you willing to disclose online? Do you post your phone number? Do you have embarrassing pictures on Facebook? Do you Tweet your current location? I think it’s fair to say most people have boundaries when it...

Inspiration

Inspiration is the basis to a lot of creative processes. If it’s writing, composing music, painting, blogging or even finding a good subject for your thesis. Inspiration is needed for getting new and innovative ideas. So, as an electronic...

The Power of Electricity

Every month 2.5 billion pictures are being uploaded on Facebook by their users. The social networking website is referring to itself as the ‘largest photo-sharing site’ on the web. The instant access of information and data means that servers...

Web and Pop Art: Systaime – the trashy net.artist.

Making art out of spam, pop-up X, adverts and bugs is the daily work of the French artist Michaël Borras aka Systaime. This video designer and graphic artist is a real enthusiast of e-junkfood and spends all of his...

‘Headdesking’ and Beyond: The British Uprisings

‘Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not...