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

GOOGLE SYNDROME: A Psychological Perspective

Usually Google needs no introduction. But what it stands for is quite relative and as all things in life, it’s in the eye of the beholder. Thus, for my mum Google is the whole internet (!), for some tech...

By Nikos Roumeliotis on 09/10/14 Comments Off

Hey Jimmy Wales, Nobody Cares About your Life in the Spanish Wikipedia

What happens when you knock on the ‘door’ of the Wikipedia founder? Apparently nothing, if you are Spanish language speaker. Compelled to create an article for ‘the mother of all wikis’, I assumed that writing about some hobby or...

By Jacobo Corujeira on 10/25/11 1

How did the Internet change your way of thinking?

The Edge project asked artists, scientists and writers how the Internet changed their way of thinking. Specifically their way of thinking, resulting in a book with diverse and personal essays. Larry Sanger, co-founder of Wikipedia and Citizendium wrote an...

By Leonie Nijenmanting on 10/02/11 1

We fought the fight – and we’re still fighting- Wikipedia and Tek9.

So you’re thinking, ‘fight’… ‘battle’? What kind of nonsense is this guy stirring up? How can you fight Wikipedia? Good question. The only answer to that is yes, it’s possible, and most importantly, probable if you’re intending on making...

By Christopher Mead on 09/29/11 Comments Off

Save my Wiki!

I never thought one Wikipedia entry could go as wrong as mine has. Although it was quite easy and interesting to write such an article, keeping it turned into a true challenge. Yet, I am sad to say, it...

By Luana Pascu on 09/28/11 Comments Off

Adding to Wikipedia: Not too much of a hassle

Contrary to many stories I heard before attempting to make my first contributions to Wikipedia, the actual process was not that much of a hassle at all. I made three (albeit minor) contributions, namely editing two existing entries and...

By Jorrit Schaap on 09/28/11 Comments Off

Wikimania Day I: Plenary led by Sue Gardner and Q&A panel with the WMF Board of Trustees.

Sue Gardner, Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation, had a very difficult task to accomplish: in 25’ she had to report on the Foundation’s activities during the year 2010- 2011, but also to treat the attendees to a sneak...

By Ilektra Pavlaki on 08/15/11 Comments Off

Haifa, here I come: Wikimania 2011, Part I

03/08/2011, 08:20 am – Schiphol airport. Holding a small handbag in one hand and a packet of cinnamon cookies in the other, I was waiting to check in for my flight to Tel Aviv, Israel. From Tel Aviv I...

By Ilektra Pavlaki on 08/10/11 Comments Off

An interview with User:Markellos, prolific editor and administrator on the Greek-language Wikipedia.

This is an interview with Markellos Stevis, an administrator of the Greek-language Wikipedia and one of its most prolific editors. Markellos participates actively in the “I participate in Wikipedia” initiative, a campaign that aims at the development and enrichment...

By Ilektra Pavlaki on 07/23/11 Comments Off

The development of the Greek-language Wikipedia: An interview with the general coordinator of the “I participate in Wikipedia” campaign. PART II.

You can read part I of the interview here. The existing community & the new users Usually, the users are the ones who approach Wikipedia. With this campaign, however, it is the Wikipedia community that approaches the public. What...

By Ilektra Pavlaki on 07/07/11 2

The development of the Greek-language Wikipedia: An interview with the general coordinator of the “I participate in Wikipedia” campaign.

Yiannis Giannarakis is the general coordinator of the “I participate in Wikipedia” campaign, which aims at the development and enrichment of the Greek – language Wikipedia. The initiative, launched in January 2011, is supported by the Greek-language Wikipedia community,...

By Ilektra Pavlaki on 07/05/11 2

The revolutionary potential of Wikipedia’s equipotential paradigm.

This is part of the final paper I submitted for the course “Culture of Spectacle” As shown in the previous post, the “anyone can edit” philosophy of Wikipedia is often viewed with great skepticism in academic circles, while its...

By Ilektra Pavlaki on 06/19/11 Comments Off

Knowledge, not the way you knew it: Studying the impact of Wikipedia on the reception of knowledge

This is part of the final paper I submitted for the course “Culture of Spectacle” 17.000.000 articles. 91.000 active contributors. 270 languages. No matter what words one would choose to describe Wikipedia, numbers cannot speak but the truth: Wikipedia,...

By Ilektra Pavlaki on 06/13/11 1

The lessons that “teaching” taught me: Following the campaign for the development of the Greek-language Wikipedia, Part II

The truth is that one needs all the support that can get when is called to present an online encyclopedia in front of the so – called Net Gen or Generation Y. I wouldn’t dare to count myself a...

By Ilektra Pavlaki on 05/19/11 Comments Off

A “lazy” Wikipedia. An active community. An interesting story: Following the campaign for the development of the Greek-language Wikipedia, Part I

In the first 10 years of its existence, Wikipedia, this unusual “experiment” as it used to be called, has evolved into the world’s greatest reference source. Far more than that however, Wikipedia’s most surprising achievement is that it turned...

By Ilektra Pavlaki on 05/11/11 3

Who In The Australian Department of Justice Edited Julian Assange’s Wikipedia Page?

According to Wikipedia's edit history, on 23 September 2010 shortly before midnight, the entry for Julian Assange was edited by a user whose IP address belongs to the Australian Government’s Justice Department. The user attempted to make a seemingly...

By Natalie Dixon on 12/14/10 1

Commons-based peer produsage? Rethinking online production.

The Internet, and the emergence of Web 2.0 in particular, have been celebrated for their liberatory potential, setting free the individual consumers once bounded by industrial inertia. We only need to take a quick look at the Arctic Monkey’s...

By Lennard Torbijn on 10/31/10 Comments Off

Follow up: Dutch Wikipedia strangely crueler than English Wikipedia

It is with great sadness that I announce the death of two Wikipedia articles. These were articles I introduced with parental pride a couple of weeks ago. On beforehand we were told that the English Wikipedia would be the...

By Cendy Calis on 10/28/10 5

E = Media Combinations2: The survival of the fittest

Every old medium was once new. And when something gets old we’ve got to search for a way to give it its old glance back. The printed book was once a new medium. It was revolutionary, groundbreaking. But today...

By Chris Hoogeveen on 10/13/10 3

Hacktivists and trolls on Wikipedia

In the past few years, a lot of research efforts have been directed towards topics that gravitate around Wikipedia, be it trying to determine the motivations of users to contribute with their own content, the proper use of Wikipedia...

By Stefania Bercu on 10/08/10 Comments Off

The Wiki Game

Sometimes, things going smoothly can be very disappointing. It seems strange and contradictory, but there you have it. Writing my first Wikipedia article I had expected to experience first hand the community driven process that defines the wiki platform....

By Onur Yilmaz on 10/07/10 1