Masters of Media

Is Apple our Online-Privacy Vigilante?

Abstract: Apple purports that its new Intelligent Tracking Prevention Technology integrated in Safari browser prevents 3rd-party cookies from collecting users’ data, therefore, reducing online ads, and ultimately protecting users’ privacy. This paper challenges this by arguing that ITP’s functionality...

By K. Abdulghani on 09/24/17 0

Facial ID scanning: An advertisers’ dream, or a consumers’ nightmare?

A couple of weeks ago, a traveler noticed a camera in one of the digital advertising screens at a train station in the Netherlands. A photo of this ‘hidden’ camera was then posted on Twitter, questioning the purpose of these...

By Els Versluis on 09/24/17 0

Possible ‘Alexa’ commands of the future: “ Home, tweet ‘Home’ ”

The conceptual ‘Home of the Future’ (HoF) has been a curiosity and fixation for as long as technological design has existed. In 1967, a U.S. television special aired the conceptual design for ‘The Home of 2001’, which displayed now-standard...

By Eliza Connolly on 09/18/18 0

Power according to Foucault

Introduction This article gives a short overview about several concepts related to ‘power’ from 20th century French social theorist Michel Foucault. He was highly influenced by Jean Hyppolite and Louis Althusser. Foucault is both associated as a structuralist and...

By Vera Seegers on 05/09/18 0

Platform Capitalism: Democratic Subjectivity and the Democratic Surround

Drawing on Fred Turner’s book “The Democratic Surround”, this blogpost will dive into what it means and where it originates. The main question of this book is: ‘Was there a mode of communication that could produce more democratic individuals?’...

By Els Versluis on 05/03/18 0

Airbnb and the Experience Economy: the end of sharing?

Video: Introducing Airbnb Trips, Airbnb Airbnb Trips: the promise of an ‘easy’ and ‘magical’ stay booked alongside your Airbnb home. Launched in November 2017, Trips is Airbnb’s biggest and most significant development since its initiation eight years ago (Airbnb)....

By Renate Brulleman on 05/02/18 0

Facebook’s new “two more big steps”. A responsible resolution or a surge for more self-regulation?

Facebook has recently come under attack. Much can be written about the controversies that the social media platform is currently facing. Questionable subjects are, to name a few, tax evasion, live streaming of violence, the effects of social media...

By Aimee Dirkzwager on 05/02/18 0

Platform Capitalism: Neoliberalism and the Homo Economicus

In relation to the theme of neoliberalism, we chose to explore the creation of the homo-economicus and the factors that play into it: Both classical and neo-liberalism place importance on man as an economic subject. They both have a...

By Ayse B. Tosun on 04/26/18 0

A Foucauldian Genealogy of Cybernetic Subjectivity

An overview of cybernetics, its production of subjects and key players and ideas that formed the cybernetic paradigm.

By Jasper van Tilburg on 04/23/18 0

Platform Capitalism: Visualising The Postcapitalist Future

This visualisation is the end result of a fantasy scenario conducted in class where the goal was to create a postcapitalist utopia, complete with a democratically elected name, political party and laws. The game was designed to introduce ideas of...

By David Molloy on 03/13/18 0

Platform Capitalism: Conceptualising the ‘Social Factory’

The core concepts outlined in this visualization relate to society from a post-marxist viewing point: autonomism. The ideas of the operaismo discerned from classical marxism and provided new readings of some of Marx’s famous works, particularly the Grundrisse....

By Liam Corcoran on 03/03/18 0

The future of “rentism”

This visualization is intended to give an overview of the concept of “Rentism” as it is discussed in the writings of 5 scholars: Joseph Stiglitz, Christian Marazzi, David Harvey, Thomas Piketty and Peter Frase. The visualization is a product...

By Yarden Skop on 02/26/18 0

Interventions on Nick Srnicek’s “Platform Capitalism”

A representation of the current platform capitalist culture.

By Els Versluis on 02/16/18 0

“Google Bombs as a weapon in the hands of the counterpublics: The case of /r/fullcommunism”

During the mapping of the subreddit ‘full_communism’, a specific practice has been revealed, in which the community frequently engages with: Google bombs. Used by digital activists and counterpublics to demonstrate opposition, Google bombs can signify a new way of...

By Nefeli Gkoni on 02/12/18 0

Uber, uber bad.

It seems that Uber, the global transportation technology company, is having issues with keeping itself out of trouble. Last year, Uber agreed to pay a fine of 20,000 USD as well as adopting a more stringent privacy practice after...

By Jessie Jashithra Assokan on 11/29/17 0

Winter is coming for Uber

V.S Knockout or next round? All eyes towards the battle between the online platform Uber and London’s transport regulation system ‘TfL’. Employee conditions and security affairs triggered the next...

By Maximilian Zucchet on 11/21/17 0

Call for Applications – MA in New Media and Digital Culture at the University of Amsterdam 2018-2019

One-year and two-year international Master’s programs in New Media available: MA Media Studies: New Media and Digital Culture (one year, full time) Research MA Media Studies: New Media and Digital Culture (two years, full time) MA New Media...

By Esther Weltevrede on 11/21/17 0

Tagging onto #MeToo

Halleluja! Alyssa Milano was preaching to the choir with her tweet on october 15th 2017. As a young feminist that has experienced her share of harassment and patriarchal justifications, she could not have found a more receptive public. But...

By Claire Gersen on 11/16/17 0

ADPOCALYPSE!! Is YouTube taking it to far in their recent rage of demonitizing video’s by the masses?

ADPOCALYPSE!! Is YouTube taking it to far in their recent rage of demonitizing video’s by the masses? The ‘Adpocalypse’, as it has been declared by worlds most popular YouTuber, Pewdiepie, is without any doubt the biggest struggle YouTube...

By Tom Brok on 11/15/17 0

ecoarttech: techno-art connecting people with nature

The New Media art partnership between Cary Peppermint and Leila Christine Nadir entitled ecoarttech aims to repurpose the use of common technologies (e.g. smartphones) with the intent of bringing global communities closer together, as well as local communities closer to,...

By Megan Phipps on 11/15/17 0

Seeing eye to I(t)

What became of the bionic contact lens? Since the digital display was introduced users have dreamt of breaking it free from its four encapsulating walls. Numerous attempts, from projected to integrated and even curved or rimless screens, have all...

By Tsjip van der Nat on 11/03/17 0

“De Sleepwet”: Why five students are trying to protect the privacy of Dutch citizens

A revised version of the Dutch law on intelligence and security is challenged by five students, because it violates the right to privacy. They started a campaign with the goal to enable a referendum, in an effort to protect...

By Leon Smits on 11/03/17 0

Creating awareness by visualizing the variety of “fake newses”

Our research objective is the phenomenon of fake news. We claim that fake news is not one thing, and also not a new phenomenon. Rather we would like to offer a new conceptualization by visualizing the various levels of...

By Yarden Skop on 10/25/17 0

Digital Literacy in Greece: Mapping the current issues in developing and deploying policies for digital literacy and education

Without question, the emergence of Web 2.0 has revolutionized many aspects of people’s lives. One of its most basic characteristics is how communication is now enabled globally, allowing information to flow easily from one part of the world to...

By Andy on 10/25/17 0

A Streamlined Explanation: The Problem with Streaming Games on YouTube

Felix “PewDiePie” Kjellberg is one of the most popular video game streamers on YouTube with more than 57 million subscribers (Orland, 2017). Because of a racial slur uttered in one of his recent Let’s Play videos, PewDiePie faced a...

By Ayse B. Tosun on 10/25/17 0

Where does your data go? Mapping the data flow of Nest

Introduction With this research project, we set out to investigate the volume of data created and shared from smart home devices. Intrigued by the claim that our homes are getting smarter and more connected, we aimed to find out...

By Aimee Dirkzwager on 10/25/17 0