International M.A. in New Media ­at the University of Amsterdam: Call for Applications for­ Fall 2013

On: November 1, 2012
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About Bernhard Rieder
Assistant Professor at UvA Media Studies, researching on the history, theory, and politics of software, more particularly on the role of algorithms in social processes and the production of knowledge. Has worked as a Web programmer on various projects and is currently writing a book on the history and cultural significance of information processing.

Website
http://thepoliticsofsystems.net    

International M.A. in New Media ­at the University of Amsterdam

Call for Applications for­ Fall 2013, rolling admissions open on 1 November 2012 and close on 1 April 2013

One-year and two-year New Media M.A. Programs available.
For the two-year “Research Master’s Program: New Media Track,” see below.

New Media M.A. – One-year Program

The International M.A. in New Media & Digital Culture (NMMA) at the University of Amsterdam (UvA) is accepting applications for 2013-2014 academic year. Applications open on 1 November 2012 and close on 1 April 2013. The NMMA is a one-year residence program undertaken in English at the 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, practical information visualization trends and web data using digital methods. 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 fifty students per year, classes are no larger than 20, and the faculty-to-student ratio is 1:5.

Curriculum

1st Semester: students follow a course in new media research practices and 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 contemporary thought around such subject matters as protocol, apparatus theory, media ecologies, informational economies, blogging, hacking, comparative media studies and wild card theory. 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 theme seminars on digital sexualities, new media politics, information visualization, ubiquitous computing and others offered outside of new media. The digital sexualities course is theoretically inclined in the traditions of virtual ethnography. The new media politics class is concerned with issue mapping, and is a member of the international network of mapping courses following Bruno Latour’s methods. The finest student work is entered into the annual controversy mapping award in Toulouse. 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. Ubiquitous computing follows the disappearance of the computer, and the computerisation of everyday life, but in actuality is a gadget studies course, exploring the scholarship on mobile urban lifestyles and locative media. The program 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. UvA’s competitive tuition (see below) and the ubiquity of spoken English both on and off-campus make the program especially accommodating for foreign students. The city’s 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, Virtual Platform, govcom.org, and other cultural institutions, where internship opportunities and collaborations may be available, in consultation with the student’s 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 university’s 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 an up-to-date digital humanities program of study.

Application and Deadline

Rolling admissions from 1 November 2012 to 1 April 2013 for Fall 2013 admission.

More Info & Questions

  • International M.A. in New Media & Digital Culture – University of Amsterdam – http://gsh.uva.nl/ma-programmes/programmes/item/new-media-and-digital-culture.html for details, including fees.
  • Graduate School for Humanities, General Information – http://gsh.uva.nl/
  • Further general questions? Please write to UvA’s Graduate School of the Humanities, email graduateschoolhumanities-fgw[at]uva.nl.
  • Specific questions about curriculum and student life? Please write to Professor Richard Rogers, New Media Program Director, University of Amsterdam, email rogers [at]uva.nl


 

Research Master’s in Media Studies, New Media Track – Two-year program

The New Media Research Master is a specialised track within the Media Studies Research Master’s Degree Program, and focuses on the theoretical, artistic, practical and methodological study of digital culture. The New Media Research Master has two ‘routes,’ the theoretical aesthetic and the practical empirical ones. In the theoretical aesthetic route, students focus on contemporary media theory, with a concentration on critical media art, including areas that have been pioneered in Amsterdam (tactical media, distributed aesthetics). The other route is the practical empirical, which is the other specialty of new media research in Amsterdam: digital methods and information visualization. Students also may combine coursework from each of the two routes, putting together a course package that treats aesthetics and visualization, on the one hand, or media art and digital methods, on the other.

As a crucial component of the Amsterdam New Media Research Program, the New Media Research Master encourages fieldwork and lab work, which result in a ‘new media project’ and also provide materials for the thesis. In undertaking fieldwork, students are given the opportunity to spend a period abroad for structured data collection and study, doing either a ‘research internship’ or an independent project, supervised by a staff member. For example, in the past students have studied ICTs for development in Africa, and electronics factories in China. The lab work, which fits well with the practical-empirical route, would result in a research project that combines web data collection, tool use and development as well as visualisation. It often addresses a contemporary issue, such as Wikileaks Cablegate, and brings together a group of researchers in a data sprint, hackathon or barcamp, intensively working to output new info-graphics, blog postings and research reports on the state of art of the subject.

Outstanding New Media research master graduates are expected to compete favorably for PhD positions nationally and internationally, and have skill sets enabling new media research in scholarly and professional settings.

The New Media Research Master Track has as its target 15 students annually.

Curriculum

Year one

1st Semester: students follow courses in new media research practices and digital methods, which provides in-depth training in Internet critique and empirical analysis of the web. The research practices course is an introduction to and overall resource crash course on searching & collecting, social media data, journals in the field, blogging, the Amsterdam Scene, new media events, academic writing, (data) collections, data tools, data visualisation, new media methods, key works, collaboration & coordination. Concurrently students take new media theories, a course that introduces students to some of the major theoretical traditions in new media, including cybernetics, network theory, concepts of power/control, software studies, participatory culture, surveillance studies, digital labour, locative media and neo-materialism.

2nd Semester: the student follows media & politics, which places both historically crucial and contemporary political manifestos in relation to media analyses, encouraging a consideration of concepts such as labour, spectacle, the machine, identity and affect. Students also have an elective, and may choose between digital sexualities, new media politics, information visualization, ubiquitous computing and others in the research master’s. (For more details on those courses, see the one-year MA description above.)

Year two

1st Semester: students may pursue a “research internship” or a study abroad program with partner universities. They may undertake fieldwork for a research project, or join a digital methods lab project. Students also may follow an elective course, taken from the broader Media Studies offerings.

2nd Semester: students follow an elective course, where again the choice is between digital sexualities, new media politics, information visualization, ubiquitous computing and others. Students also write the thesis, which is expected to be original and make a contribution to a discourse in the field. The research master’s degree program concludes with a presentation and defense of the thesis.

Application and Deadline

Rolling admissions from 1 November 2012 to 1 April 2013 for Fall 2013 admission.

More Info & Questions

  • International Research M.A. in Media Studies – University of Amsterdam – http://gsh.uva.nl/ma-programmes/programmes/item/media-studies-research.html for details, including fees. When applying, indicate that your application is for the “New Media Track.”
  • Graduate School for Humanities, General Information – http://gsh.uva.nl/
  • Further general questions? Please write to UvA’s Graduate School of the Humanities, email graduateschoolhumanities-fgw atuva.nl.
  • Specific questions about curriculum and student life? Please write to Professor Richard Rogers, New Media Program Director, University of Amsterdam, email rogers[at]uva.nl

 

New Media M.A. Faculty
University of Amsterdam

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 Technology’s 2005 Best Information Science Book of the Year Award, and Digital Methods (MIT Press, 2013). Founding director of govcom.org and digitalmethods.net.

Geert Lovink, Associate Professor. Critical Internet theory, Tactical Media. Publications include Zero Comments: Blogging and Critical Internet Culture (Routledge, 2007) and Networks without a Cause: A Critique of Social Media (Polity, 2012). Co-founder nettime list (1995 -­ present); founder, Institute of Network Cultures (2004 – present). 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/

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

Carolin Gerlitz, Assistant Professor. Digital research, software/platform studies, social media, economic sociology, topology, numeracy and issue mapping online. http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/c.gerlitz/

Niels van Doorn. Assistant Professor. Materialization of gender, sexuality, and embodiment in digital spaces. http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/n.a.j.m.vandoorn/

Thomas Poell. Assistant Professor. Social media and the transformation of activist communication in different parts of the world. http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/t.poell/

Almila Akdag, KNAW Royal Academy Fellow. Digital humanities. http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/a.a.akdag/

Erik Borra, Lecturer. Data science. Digital methods lead developer. http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/e.k.borra/

Michael Dieter, Lecturer. Media art and materialist philosophy. Critical uses of digital and networked technologies such as locative media, information visualization, gaming and software modification. http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/m.j.dieter/

Esther Weltevrede, Lecturer. Controversy mapping with the Web, temporalities and dynamics online and device studies. http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/e.j.t.weltevrede/

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