New Media M.A. Research Blog | Media Studies, University of Amsterdam

Book review: “Media Work” by Mark Deuze

As technologies develop, media diversifies its platforms and products, and becomes more and more present and involved in our lives, building barthesian myths around every object surrounding us, which consequently turns our every act: production, purchasing, consumption, etc., into...

By Liliana Bounegru on 09/15/08 Comments Off

Book review: Two bits, the Cultural Significance of Free Software

As the title of this book might suggest, it is mainly about the history of the Free Software phenomenon from a anthropological viewpoint, but as the author, Christopher Kelty, makes clear this history can also be seen as the...

By Stephan Barmentloo on 09/15/08 1

A Comparative Review of Two Books on Second Life

I, avatar, the culture and consequences of having a Second Life – Marc Stephen Meadows Published by: Voices that Matter € 23,09 Second Life: verhalen en reportages van een tweede leven – Ilja Leonard Pfeiffer Published by: De Arbeiderspers...

By Sarah van der Land on 09/15/08 Comments Off

Review: Beter Internet… Yeah Right!!

This is a critical review on the book "Beter Internet" which is the fourth in a series of books on the social changes that the internet brings about. This relatively small book contains four interviews on the theme Web...

By Kai Henriquez on 09/15/08 1

Review ‘Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good’

Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good: The Rebirth of Silicon Valley and the Rise of Web 2.0 (Sarah Lacy) Sarah Lacey, columnist for BusinessWeek, thoroughly describes the stories of young entrepreneurs who created groundbreaking new websites like Facebook and...

By Guido van Diepen on 09/15/08 Comments Off

Book Review on ‘Here Comes Everybody’

Review of the book 'Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations' by Clay Shirky about new tools of communication and organizing of groups on the Internet. What are the social implications and what will change?

By Hannah Biemold on 09/15/08 3

Book Review : Blogging Heroes

Blogging Heroes is Michael Bank's compilation of biographies and interviews with 30 of "The World's Top Bloggers". Included in the list are bloggers from such well known sites such...

By Chris Castiglione on 09/15/08 Comments Off

Book Review: Republic.com 2.0

After the book Republic.com (2001), law professor Cass Sunstein now provides us with an updated version by the name of Republic.com 2.0. As we look at the table of contents, not much seems to be changed except for the inclusion...

By Annewil Neervens on 09/14/08 1

Book Review: Uses of Blogs, a Toolbox for New Media Practicians

A university professor, after publishing an article about weblogs that provokes a snowball of critical responses from bloggers themselves, is forced to use one of his students’ blog to save his reputation (he does not have one by his...

By Andrea Fiore on 09/14/08 Comments Off

Book Review: Crossover, Liesbeth Huybrechts (red.)

Crossover, crosses over the boundaries of art and technology within very safe limits. Even though I understand why the tenure of the catalogue is positive on the influence of new media art on society (because of the broad audience and...

By saskia korsten on 09/14/08 Comments Off

I Reviewed this: _New Cultural Networks

At the Stifo@Sandberg masterclass professionals from all kind of disciplines, from film and art to radio and internet, come together for exchanging thoughts and working on several (cross)media products. It’s a joint project of the Dutch Cultural Broadcasting Fund (Stifo)...

By Arno de Natris on 09/14/08 Comments Off

13 Positions (Book review)

Also see the complete 13 Positions’ review here “Hi! This is the autonomous Opera Telephone of the City of Zurich. For your pleasure and entertainment, we have placed a bug in the Zurich Opera House. In a few seconds you...

By Alejandro Ortega Lozano on 09/14/08 Comments Off

Review of Google’s PageRank and Beyond: The Science of Search Engine Rankings

The book Google's PageRank and Beyond: The science of search engine rankings is about the technology behind the ranking of websites, especially Google's ranking. It will give a little insight in how the Google algorithm works. In the abstract...

By Bram Nijhof on 09/14/08 1

Book Review: Carr’s The Big Switch

After his first bestseller “Does IT Matter?” Nicholas Carr wrote another well written book called “The Big Switch”. For those who never heard of Nicholas Carr: he is a US Internet...

By Inge Ploum on 09/14/08 1

Chinese low-wage workers disloyal for a reason

I am currently reading a lot for my research and an interesting book I finished a few days ago is Fast Boat to China from Andrew Ross. In Fast Boat to China Andrew approaches the global outsourcing trend in a different way...

By Pieter-Paul Walraven on 03/02/08 2

Book Review: Six Degrees: The science of a connected age

Six Degrees: The science of a connected age Duncan J. Watts, Norton, 2003 Duncan J. Watts (1971-) is a professor of sociology at Columbia University, head of the CDG Collective Dynamics Group and in 2003 he wrote the book...

By Daphne Ben Shachar on 09/24/07 Comments Off

review: “Emergence” by Steven Johnson

“Emergence – the connected lives of ants, brains, cities and software” Steven Johnson New York: Scribner, 2001 Are you familiar with the situation in which you’re having a talk over the hedge with that neighbor that emerges from behind...

By Minke Kampman on 09/24/07 Comments Off

Review: Albert-László Barabási’s ‘Linked’

In 2002 Albert-László Barabási wrote: ‘Linked - how everything is connected to everything else and what it means for business, science, and everyday life’. In numerous links (chapters) Barabási lists all sorts of networks, such as biology, physics,...

By Bas Bisseling on 09/19/07 Comments Off

Review: Blog! How the newest media revolution is changing politics, business, and culture – David Kline and Dan Burstein

David Kline and Dan Burstein points out that the blogosphere will transform many areas of politics, business, media and culture. In their book ‘Blog! How the newest media revolution is changing politics, business, and culture’ they have interviewed...

By Bram Nijhof on 09/17/07 11

Review: Blogosphere The New Political Arena by Michael Keren

Blogosphere can be seen as a new and important element of the new public sphere. On a blog people are able to not only comment on public affairs or read about what they find interesting. On a blog they...

By Rikus Wegman on 09/17/07 Comments Off

Review: The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki

This book is a bundle of theories and case studies which Surowiecki uses to convince the reader that a diverse crowd can come up with better answers and solutions than a single group of experts. The cases he brings...

By Maarten van Sprang on 09/17/07 1

We the Media – Dan Gilmor

In his book ‘We the Media: Grassroots journalism by the People’, Dan Gilmor describes the development in the so called grassroots journalism. Gilmors goal is: “to persuade you that the collision of journalism and technology is having major consequences...

By Carolien van der Vorst on 09/17/07 Comments Off

Salam Pax’ The Clandestine Diary of an Ordinary Iraqi.

This summer I was part of the Digital Methods Initiative, a summer school program that aims to contribute to doing research into the “natively digital”. One of the projects I participated in was: Diagnosing the Condition of Iraq: The...

By Rosa Menkman on 09/17/07 Comments Off

24/7 Time and Temporality in the Network Society

Real time, cyber time, machine time, clock time, chronos time, frankentime, mythic time, objective time, natural time, subjective time, present time, timeless time, being time, bullet time, internet time, chronoscopic time, global standard time, local time…are you still there?...

By Paulien Dresscher on 09/17/07 Comments Off