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

The Academic Value of Bottom-up Knowledge Produced by Marginalized Groups: The Relevance of Instagram Infographics for Ethical Terminology Frameworks

Rosemary Clark-Parson and Jessa Lingel explain that when studying online alterity, it is important to critically reflect on the power politics behind the terminology researchers use to describe the groups they study. Instagram infographics a relevant source for researchers...

By Chloë Arkenbout on 10/03/21 Comments Off

Using open data to analyse patterns

In the last few years data has become more and more important. Government agencies and commercial companies create and collect a lot of data. On the internet users are increasingly generating data through clicks, likes and other metrics such...

By Joram Binsbergen on 09/11/13 Comments Off

Snow Fall, the future of online journalism?

We live in a time of dropping newspaper sales and traditional journalists that see their offline audiences shrink each year. Most newspapers have a well maintained online presence and try to employ the medium’s possibilities like showing video content...

By Inte Gloerich on 09/11/13 Comments Off

Google Maps and Fukushima: Collective Memory and Data Visualization

As major world events unfold before our eyes at accelerated speeds, via a host of different medias how can we process these vast quantities of information? In the digital age, we consume news round-the-clock, whether we use smart phone...

By Susan Clandillon on 09/10/13 1

What is data visualization’s goal? NGOs and real impact

The main goal of data visualization is to communicate information clearly and effectively through graphical means. (Friedman 2008) Friedman’s definition is simple and concise, yet broad and applicable to any type of visualization. What it fails to provide is what...

By Irina Enache on 03/21/13 2

Making Visible the Invisible: Information Visualization Through a Fine Art Lens

“Big Data will replace ideas, paradigms, organizations and ways of thinking about the world.” –Steve Lohr It is difficult to mention the present-day ubiquity of data without resorting to clichés. We are frequently reminded that data is in use...

By Maya Livio on 03/14/13 Comments Off

Data Visualization Templates

Templates are ready-made project files that can be customized and used as the basis for various types of media content. In the world of graphic design, web design and motion graphic design, the use of templates is widely spread....

By Jorrit Schaap on 07/03/12 Comments Off

Seminar: CBS Data Visualization – Data Journalism

– Last Friday the Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) held an interactive data visualization day “Datavisualisatie in beweging” initiated by web designer Eugene Tjoa and Bas Broekhuizen. With this seminar several data visualization professionals were invited, to present their work in...

By Fenneke Mink on 02/07/12 Comments Off

A(n Ever)note from the train

There’s something remarkable about the interaction between man and machine (and vice versa). Marshall McLuhan and Raymond Williams both had their own view in this classic debate about the social shaping of technology versus the technological shaping of society....

By Bree Tahapary on 09/14/11 1

How to make beautiful music (audibly & visually) without being a musician

Composing and representing music visually has traditionally been through music notation. Using a 5 lined “staff” or “stave” as a framework, black circles with lines are drawn to represent pitch and length of notes with other markings such as...

By Janice Wong on 05/10/11 1

Interactivity in the Online Graphics of The New York Times and The Guardian

Almost every story a journalist writes contains the five W’s: who, what, where, why, when. However, in the last two decades the journalistic profession and it’s employer were forced to make some new transformations. These changes have been caused...

By Marije Rooze on 05/06/11 2

Visualising music: the problems with genre classification

Want to listen to new music but sick of staring at your old MP3 collection? Streaming applications like Spotify, Last.fm and Pandora (US only) recommend related artists. Sites like The Hype Machine and Elbows aggregate music blogs for instant...

By Janice Wong on 04/26/11 1

Book Review: ‘The World as Flatland – Report 1: Designing Universal Knowledge’ – by Gerlinde Schuller

Designing Universal Knowledge is one of those books you often come back to, not only because of its innovative and universal content, but also because of its original structure and visual attractiveness. Gerlinde Schuller, the author of this piece,...

By Bart Brodzki on 09/19/10 Comments Off

Information Visualization & Charting The Beatles

Since I am a huge Beatles fan and I’m currently enrolled in the Information Visualization course I want to give this project some attention; Charting The Beatles, lead by graphic designer Michael Deal. This projects attempts visual analysis of...

By Maarten Hoogvliet on 05/24/10 1

Our need for track and trace

When we think of Maps, we are prone to think of a visual, detailed and accurate representation of an area. Our most common idea of maps is that they serve the purpose of depicting geography, we may think particularly...

By Margarida Fonseca on 05/10/10 1

Casual InfoViz – Beneficial or Banal?

Although most information graphics and information visualizations to date have strived to deal with vast amounts of important, albeit often unintelligible, data in new and meaningful ways in the hopes of educating or effecting change, some recent forays into...

By Thomas Wielemaker on 05/04/10 1

Visualizing the ‘invisible space’

We live in a constant struggle to steer through the big and varied torrent of data which is unleashed everyday. And “data” can cover many different things. By following the Concise Lexicon for the Digital Commons created in 2001...

By Susana Zaragoza on 04/20/10 1

Information visualization, going public

2010 has great potential in being the year that Information Visualization (InfoVis) went public and moved from being a term only used by enthusiasts, to an interest shared by a broader audience. I am not saying this just because...

By Margarida Fonseca on 04/19/10 2

What Real Time Strategy game must I play?

So you like Real Time Strategy games and want to find new games previously unknown to you, but potentially worth playing?

By Kai Henriquez on 11/24/09 Comments Off

Infographics for the Great Good (or Who is Otto Neurath?)

Thanks to something called Petabyte computing (one quadrillion bytes of computer information), we’re encountering a number landslide. AT&T has about 16 petabytes of information switching through its network every day. Facebook has 1.5 petabytes worth of user photos alone....

By Morgan Currie on 09/11/09 4