Call for Applications: International M.A. in New Media ­University of Amsterdam

On: February 15, 2011
About Anne Helmond
Anne Helmond is Assistant Professor of New Media and Digital Culture and Program Director of the MA New Media and Digital Culture at the University of Amsterdam. She is a member of the Digital Methods Initiative research collective where she focuses her research on the infrastructure of social media platforms and apps. Her research interests include digital methods, software studies, platform studies, app studies, infrastructure studies and web history.

Website
http://www.annehelmond.nl    

International M.A. in New Media ­University of Amsterdam.
Call for Applications ­Fall 2011 admission deadline: 1 April 2011

Overview

The International M.A. in New Media & Digital Culture (NMMA) at the University of Amsterdam (UvA) is accepting applications for 2011-2012 academic year. The NMMA is a one-year residence program undertaken in English at UvA in the heart of Amsterdam. Students become actively engaged in critical Internet culture, with an emphasis on new media theory and aesthetics, including theoretical materialist traditions and practical information visualization trends. The overall focus of the MA is on training the students as new media researchers.Our permanent faculty are recognized experts in their fields, who are committed to their students. The program admits approximately forty to fifty students per year, classes are no larger than 20, and the faculty-to-student ratio is 1:10.

Curriculum

1st Semester: students follow a course in academic blogging, led by critical Internet theorist and tactical media practitioner Geert Lovink. Their entries form the internationally noted Masters of Media site, https://mastersofmedia.hum.uva.nl/, regarded as a top blog for new media research and nominated for a Dutch award for best educational blog. The concurrent new media theories course focuses on classic texts by innovators from Alan Turing to Tim Berners-Lee. The final first semester class, Digital Methods, given by the program Chair, Richard Rogers, trains students in novel techniques for Internet research, http://www.digitalmethods.net/.

2nd Semester: the student chooses between courses on digital aesthetics, new media politics or information visualization. The digital aesthetics course is theoretically inclined in the traditions of art history and visual culture, and the new media politics class is concerned with the transformations the Internet is bringing to politics. Information visualization is a joint theoretical-practical collaboration between designers, programmers and analysts, where the product is an online tool, digital visualization or interactive graphic. The course of study concludes with the M.A. thesis, an original analysis that makes a contribution to the field, undertaken with the close mentorship of a faculty supervisor. The graduation ceremony includes an international symposium with renowned speakers.

Graduates of the NMMA have gained an analytical and practical skill-set that enables diverse careers in research and practice-related areas that make use of the Internet, including business, government, NGOs, and creative industries that are evolving with emerging new media. Our graduates include Lotte Meijer, winner of a Webby award, and Eva Kol, whose MA thesis, Hyves, was published by Kosmos in 2008 and sold over 5000 copies its first year in print.

Student Life

The quality-of-living in Amsterdam ranks among the highest of international capitals. UvA¹s competitive tuition (see below) and the ubiquity of spoken English both on and off-campus make the program especially accommodating for foreign students. The city¹s many venues, festivals, and other events provide remarkably rich cultural offerings and displays of technological innovation. The program has ties to organizations including PICNIC, the Waag Society, Institute for Network Cultures, Virtueel Platform, Netherlands Institute for Media Art, govcom.org, and other cultural institutions, where internship opportunities and collaborations may be available, in consultation with the student¹s thesis supervisor. Students attend and blog, twitter or otherwise capture local new media events and festivals, while commenting as well on larger international issues and trends pertaining to new media. The quality of student life is equally to be found in the university¹s lively and varied intellectual climate. NMMA students come from North and South America Africa, Asia and across Europe and from academic and professional backgrounds including journalism, art and design, engineering, the humanities and social sciences. The International M.A. in New Media is a digital humanities program of study.

Faculty

Richard Rogers, Professor and Chair. Web epistemology, Digital methods. Publications include Information Politics on the Web (MIT Press, 2004/2005), awarded American Society for Information Science and Technology¹s 2005 Best Information Science Book of the Year Award, and the End of the Virtual (U Amsterdam P, 2009). Founding director of govcom.org.

Geert Lovink, Associate Professor. Critical Internet theory, Tactical Media. Publications include Zero Comments: Blogging and Critical Internet Culture (Routledge, 2007). Co-founder nettime listserve (1995 ­ present); founder, Institute of Network Cultures, 2004. http://www.networkcultures.org/.

Jan Simons, Associate Professor. Mobile Culture, Gaming, Film Theory. Publications include Playing The Waves: Lars von Trier’s Game Cinema (U Amsterdam P, 2007). Project Director, Mobile Learning Game Kit, Senior Member, Digital Games research group. http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/j.a.a.simons/

Yuri Engelhardt, Assistant Professor. Computer modeling and information visualization. Publications include The Language of Graphics (2002); founder and moderator of InfoDesign (1995-9); co-developer of Future Planet Studies at UvA. http://www.yuriweb.com/

Thomas Poell, Assistant Professor. New media politics. In 2007, he defended his PhD dissertation on the democratization and centralization of the Dutch state during the revolutionary period around 1800. Currently, he is doing research on social media and activism. http://nl.linkedin.com/in/thomaspoell

Bernhard Rieder, Assistant Professor.  Software theory and politics. Current research interests include search engine politics and the mechanization of knowledge production http://thepoliticsofsystems.net

Michael Dieter, Lecturer. Media art and materialist philosophy. His writing concerns critical uses of digital and networked technologies, and covers topics such as locative media, information visualization, gaming and software modification.

Sebastian  Scholz, Lecturer. Visual culture. His current research interests focus on relations of visibility, knowledge and media, the ‘newness’ of new media and the history and theory of (popular) television programs. http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/s.scholz/

Application and Deadline

General deadline: 1 April for Fall 2011 admission. Applicants will be notified around 15 May. Applications received after 1 April may be considered if places are available. See http://www.studeren.uva.nl/ma-nieuwe-media/ for details.

More Info & Questions

  • International M.A. in New Media & Digital Culture – University of Amsterdam, http://www.studeren.uva.nl/ma_new_media/
  • Graduate School for Humanities, General Information, http://www.hum.uva.nl/gs/actueel.cfm
  • Further general questions?  Please write to UvA¹s Graduate School of the Humanities, graduateschool-fgw ³at² uva.nl.
  • Specific questions about curriculum and student life? Please write to Thomas Poell, Assistant Professor and MA coordinator of New Media & Digital Culture, University of Amsterdam, Poell ³at² uva.nl

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