“I’m addicted to you, don’t you know that you’re Toxic?”
On the 5th of October 2021, Britney Spears posted a video much like the ones of the past two years — standing in front of the camera, looking up and dancing.
Data Visualization and the Aestheticization of Activism on Instagram
In Kennedy and Hill’s article “The Pleasure and Pain of Visualizing Data in Times of Data Power” the way data is communicated through visualization is explored along with the ideological work that is involved, the ways in which data...
The Health Code System: or the Reinforcement of New Digital Mass Surveillance Practices
The rapid acceleration in the adoption of new technologies during infectious disease surveillance is not new, nor is it only applicable to the contexts of Covid-19. However, the outbreak of the coronavirus has brought a reality that demanded a...
Call for Applications – MA in New Media and Digital Culture at the University of Amsterdam
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 and...
MOM Over Time: A meta-analysis
Introduction MOM, a weblog belonging to the students and professors of Media Studies at the University of Amsterdam, has been online for about fifteen years now. Master of Media blog (MOM), is about new media phenomena and digital culture...
The digital “gig economy”: empowering or constricting freelancers?
In the last decade sharing economy led to the blossoming of digital platforms that facilitate connections between clients and service providers. New companies managed to enter established industries and they didn’t do it quietly. Their approach is redefining actors,...
Surfing on the free trial wave – New app cancels free trials by the end of subscription period.
A new feature within the DoNotPay app launched this September and promises to cancel free trials before they run out and cost customers a lot of money. In a world in which streaming- and subscription services have become part...
Neurchi d’algorithmes
In 2017 Mark Zuckerberg decided that he wanted to help Nigerian women and reinvigorate Facebook’s business model. Somehow it triggered a renaissance in French memes.
Are you watching Netflix (or is it watching you)?
Bandersnatch (2018), is the first release of an interactive film for adults on a platform (Netflix) where the viewers make decisions for the main character, taking control of the storyline. The question is: do we really monitor the characters’...
Cross media learning: from a book to an online tribe – Miracle Morning
How the book “Miracle Morning” can be the driver of a social movement on the web 2.0? Prosumers are combining traditional and new medias to foster innovative ways of learning. Welcome to our online tribe!
Learning via WhatsApp is what’s up!
WhatsApp is a free smartphone application that is available on iPhone, Nokia, Blackberry, Symbian and Windows smartphones and gives users the possibility to send text messages, voice clips, photos, videos, locations and contacts. This all can be done in...
Hyves: Social Network Site?
Social networksite Hyves is declared ‘website of the year’ by internet users in The Netherlands. About fifty percent of the Dutch own a profile on this fast growing social network site. But what is Hyves and how to study...
Recalling RFID: Full Report
Recalling RFID was held on Friday the 19th and Saturday the 20th of October at de Balie. This unique event included presentations on RFID, debates and digital connectivity scenarios by industry representatives, academics, artists, privacy advocates, programmers and consultants....
Towards openness – A study about open design and its translation from theory into practice
For anyone interested in design, open source and open design, my recently finished (june 2012) MA Thesis is available for download here. Below is the thesis’ abstract: Following the course of web 2.0, user-generated content and open source software; design...
Is your boyfriend cheating on you? There’s an app for that too
With new smart phones and GPS tracking, it’s possible to find and locate the position of other smart phones and the human body that goes with it. But is this legal? Does privacy still exist? Japanese women apparently don’t...
Shocklog: Introducing the term to the world
To our surprise the term shocklog, a wellknown term in the Netherlands, was nowhere to be found on the rest of the World Wide Web. We wanted that to change, so we -The Masters of Media- coined the term...
Using map projections in data visualizations
In an era of internet users actively creating their own content, easily accessible tools are available for the public to create their own data visualizations. Applications like Many Eyes or Tableau Public give statistic enthusiasts the appropriate possibilities to...
‘Imagined Community’ applied to weblogs
One of my favourite philosophical themes is the the notion of nation, and how nations are created. Some argue they have been around forever, but currently the academic consensus rests on the idea that the concept of nation, or...
Making the Spinplant Relevant: more from Friedrich Nietzsche
<update> See bottom of the post and the comments </ update> About a week ago there was a small-scale furor on this blog and a Nettime-NL thread surrounding the spinplant. Laura (one of the very creative members of this...
LOL theorists
So I was browsing this fantastic cat picture site when I found delicious links to similar projects, such as this one on presidents and more importantly, this one on theorists. It features Deleuze, Foucault, even Henry Jenkins. He caught...
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...
Wikipedia Battle Log: Neologisms, Minorities and US Centric Views
In a couple of the previous posts on MoM we announced that we were adding the term ‘Shocklog’ to the English Wikipedia. Why? Well, the term is used often in the field of Media Studies and genre specific blogs...
Virtual Worlds in Modern China
Since the launch of Second Life (SL) by Linden Lab in 2003 it has attracted the attention of many Chinese users. Despite the popularity of SL in China and partly because SL has never been officially launched in China,...
Bruce Sterling: Gothic Chic in the Future Favela
Bruce Sterling delivered the futurist goods at this weekend’s lean but excellent conference You Me and Everyone We Know is a Curator. Here’s a transcription of the entire delivery typed up as best I could, but it still doesn’t...
De kennis van Wikipedia
Hoe makkelijk is het om berichten op de Nederlandse variant van Wikipedia te plaatsen? Wie bekijkt de nieuw aangemaakte pagina’s? Wat is waarheid volgens Wikipedia? Met deze vragen in het achterhoofd heb ik op woensdag 26 september een pagina...
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Ask the Masters: Which Dutch party has the best agenda for New Media developments?
Wednesday the 22nd of November is Election Day in The Netherlands. Which party has the most promising program for New Media scientists, New Media creators/designers, and New Media consumers? Which party will invest in New Media developers and theorists,...
Small is Beautiful: a discussion with AAAARG architect Sean Dockray
One of my favorite websites is the semi-obscure digital library known as AAAARG (don’t even try googling. You just get pirate-themed sites). The site is a sundry collection of critical documents – many of them highly treasured theoretical classics,...
Google and Blogger, please stop localizing me!
While writing a piece about the Ubiscribe event on my own blog I went to Blogger’s website. Blogger automatically localizes me based on my IP-address and welcomes me in my own language. Google does the same thing when I...
911truth.org dissappears from google
Update: 911truth.org reappeared in Google’s search returns on October 7. No explanation has been put forward yet, but this second coming has been nicely documented and visualized on the Issue Dramaturg . About a year ago...
Ask-the-Masters: Can we use Wikipedia to map emergent issues?
Watching the Mark Foley scandal make its way from a newspaper blog to political blogs to the front pages of major newspapers, I was intrigued with how various actors got involved (and by actors I mean places, things, terms...
Review: Pinterest caught our interest
“A picture says more than thousand words.” This is the strength behind social network site Pinterest, a virtual pinboard where people can collect and share pictures and photos of interest they find on the web. The founders of Pinterest...
Obey the HABBO way and you’re OK
In ‘the declaration of independence of cyberspace’ John Perry Barlow spread a utopian view on the internet in witch users will create their own rules and laws without restrictions or political interference. In this post I will compare this...
Writely frustrations… and ideas
In the Masters of Media class we’ve been trying out Writely.com for a couple of assignments in the past weeks. Not so long ago the online word processor was acquired by Google. The idea is very promising: “Share documents...
Skype alternatives
One of the great things about web 2.0 is making free phone calls to friends all over the world. Just turn on one of the programs that offer this service, make sure your friend is online too, and make...