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

Putting the “face” in Facebook: Examining the role of digital media mediation through Facebook’s latest smart glasses

In Reality Check Digital Methods, Venturini et al make the claim that, though we upload our own content to our social media profiles, digital media itself “belong to the companies and institutions that have paid the huge cost necessary...

By on 10/07/21 Comments Off

Censorship creates discourse: the implications of banning political advertising

Ayushi Arora (13237748, arora.ayushi@gmail.com) Thomas Ba (13286544, thomas.ba.7@outlook.it) Maurice Dharampal (10439250, maurice.dharampal@student.uva.nl) Alex Soete (13208918, alex.soete@gmail.com) Introduction Is free-speech under attack? Founder and CEO of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg has recently joined the head of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, in the...

By on 10/20/20 Comments Off

Too young to vote, but not to like: is Matteo Salvini attempting to reach under-age youngsters on Tik Tok?

Introduction Matteo Salvini, leader of the major Italian political party La Lega, with his 4,3 million likes on Facebook is one of most followed politicians in Italy. Last November he was the first (and so far the only) major...

By on 09/28/20 Comments Off

Health Code, a tool to tackle COVID-19 or automatize social control?

“Please show your Health Code.” A few months since the COVID-19 pandemic started, almost all public places in China have posted such requests at the entrances. Health Code, a color-based application, is rolled out to control people’s movements and...

By on 09/28/20 Comments Off

Matteo Salvini and the potentials of Facebook live-stream

Politicians are among the most affected by the breaking of live-stream services in social networks: this new communication has opened up uncharted ways to interact with supporters. Matteo Salvini, the most influential representative of European far-right populism, has developed...

By Giovanni Rossetti on 09/24/18 Comments Off

Vote yay or vote nay, but you just can’t ignore micro-targeting.

“Numbers and democracy have always been linked.”John Durham Peters proclaims, giving examples from Greek political systems to modern opinion surveys. He focuses on majority – the social force through numbers, that democracy uses to establish legitimacy (434). And when...

By Ketaki Chand on 09/24/18 Comments Off

Power according to Foucault

Introduction This article gives a short overview about several concepts related to ‘power’ from 20th century French social theorist Michel Foucault. He was highly influenced by Jean Hyppolite and Louis Althusser. Foucault is both associated as a structuralist and...

By Vera Seegers on 05/09/18 Comments Off

Facebook’s new “two more big steps”. A responsible resolution or a surge for more self-regulation?

Facebook has recently come under attack. Much can be written about the controversies that the social media platform is currently facing. Questionable subjects are, to name a few, tax evasion, live streaming of violence, the effects of social media...

By Aimee Dirkzwager on 05/02/18 Comments Off

“Google Bombs as a weapon in the hands of the counterpublics: The case of /r/fullcommunism”

During the mapping of the subreddit ‘full_communism’, a specific practice has been revealed, in which the community frequently engages with: Google bombs. Used by digital activists and counterpublics to demonstrate opposition, Google bombs can signify a new way of...

By Nefeli Gkoni on 02/12/18 Comments Off

Digital Gerrymandering, Computational Propaganda and the Electronic Electoral Advantage: Towards a Case for Reform

Jonathan Zittrain, professor of international law at Harvard University, coined the term ‘digital gerrymandering’ in 2014. Traditionally, gerrymandering was the political practice of manipulating constituency boundaries to cultivate a party-political advantage. Although the etymology derives from Elbridge Gerry’s governorship...

By Ryan Tristram-Walmsley on 09/25/17 Comments Off

Goalpost in the Ozone: The Deceptively Good Intentions of #Climate

As far as scientific consensus goes, it’s tempting to label the ‘debate’ around climate change as being over. However, to do so invites complacency, a willingness to delegate responsibility to a far-off unknown authority. News organisations, politicians and activists...

By David Molloy on 09/24/17 Comments Off

The Lebanese Hashtag War: People vs. Government

Like many of the Arab Nations that surround it, Lebanon has fallen into the hands of an escalating social revolution. The Lebanese population began voicing its discontent towards their government about the garbage that has been piling up, since July...

By Kelly Sadek on 09/17/15 Comments Off

A new enemy in our control society

From an army of sabotage to a slippery enemy Ouroboros, the famous snake virus, crawled into the digital systems of Ukraine in 2013 and until today it has attacked large parts of the country’s infrastructure. There are many allegations that Russia is responsible for...

By Wouter Klaase on 11/07/14 Comments Off

Finite FM | Podcast with Franco Berardi

In 2011 Franco – Bifo – Berardi, an Italian media theorist and media activist, published the book After the Future with AK Press, an anarchistic publishing company. He writes about the idea of the future and the way it is...

By Inte Gloerich on 10/31/13 1

Hacking the Digital: Fingerprint Secured Touch ID from Apple

The iPhone 5S is a revised version of its predecessor, the iPhone 5, and was unveiled to the general public last month on September 20th. Aside from various improvements and new available features, Apple’s new fingerprint-based identity sensor, Touch...

By Nicholas Vieira on 10/10/13 1

#VemPraRua

How the use of Social Media platforms can mobilize a whole nation and transform the history of a country “Vem pra rua, porque a rua é a maior arquibancada do Brasil” The sentence above was extracted from the song...

By Gustavo López on 09/12/13 3

Social media – the new watchdog?

September 5th the former leader of the Norwegian far right party (Progress Party), Carl I. Hagen, wrote a status update on his Facebook-profile. Here he blamed the current government for the murder of a 21-year old girl, Anja Weløy...

By May Andersen on 09/11/13 Comments Off

The Internet is now built on mass surveillance

Brought to light in recent months, the Edward Snowden-powered NSA leaks have publicized the wholesale spying efforts by US and UK intelligence agencies that undermine the very fabric of the Internet – turning it into a vast surveillance program...

By Nicholas Vieira on 09/09/13 1

Protect our Noble Pirates! On Pirating for the Greater Good.

What comes to mind when you think about piracy? Being but a simple new media-layman myself, my mind wanders off to the joy the free ‘file-sharing’ program Limewire († 2010) brought me in my teenage years and, more recently,...

By Ingrid van der Mooren on 03/16/13 Comments Off

Syria: Cracking down on digital dissidents

For Syrian dissidents, social networking sites are essential for bypassing traditional media and communication channels. But in doing so, online activists might all too easily fall prey to the government’s digital surveillance. Social networking services like Facebook, Twitter and...

By Mathias Schuh on 10/19/12 1