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

Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness: an interview on Chinese internet usage

How do we find happiness? I cannot answer that question for you, but it is relevant to everybody. The state of happiness was deemed so important by the Founding Fathers of the United States that they added it to...

By Yeun Au on 10/30/11 Comments Off

Do you remember the first time? Music and the rise of the ‘scented candle’

I grew up listening to Pulp. I vividly remember lying outside my older sisters’ bedroom as she played Different Class from her multi-CD changer Hi-Fi, while I pushed myself up against her door, devouring Jarvis’ every word. Outside, unbeknown...

By Jamie Franklin on 10/18/11 Comments Off

Open social networks and their role in society

Social media has grown to amazing heights the last couple of years. Some people say that these social media platforms help to activate citizens and to help answer social issues. Examples of the power of these platforms are abundant:...

By Wouter Timmermans on 10/09/11 Comments Off

The Administrator

The administrator is the boss. He is the ruler of his community. He has the power to alter his site, remove content or ban specific users. Basically one could consider him as the autocrat, the despot of the community....

By Erik van Mastrigt on 10/05/11 4

For the Love of Material!

Posthumanism, Protocol and Techno-Craft at Mediamatic’s Ignite Amsterdam 10 If androids dream of electric sheep, we posthumous dream of the Jetson family’s flying car. “Posthuman” because, as foreseen by early prostheses now as natural as eyeglass, human identity consciousness...

By Kendall Grady on 09/29/11 Comments Off

Book review: Precarious Rhapsody. Semiocapitalism and the pathologies of the post-alpha generation by Franco “Bifo” Berardi

An infinite series of bifurcations, forking paths, choices (to be) made. Every choice made rules out other possibilities. But do we make these choices, or are they made for us? Is there a real choice? In Precarious Rhapsody, Franco...

By Martijn Dorresteijn on 09/20/11 1

BOOK REVIEW The Murmuring of the Artistic Multitude: Global Art, Memory and Post-Fordism

BOOK REVIEW Title: The Murmuring of the Artistic Multitude: Global Art, Memory and Post-Fordism Author: Pascal Gielen Year: 2009 Publisher: Valiz In The Murmuring of the Artistic multitude, art-sociologist Pascal Gielen reflects on the increasing co-incidence of, and structural...

By Daniel de Zeeuw on 09/18/11 Comments Off

Book Review: Cognitive Surplus by Clay Shirky

As a follow up of his first book, Here Comes Everybody, Clay Shirky now present to us the concept of Cognitive Surplus. In previous years of this so called “new world”, criticizing the Television became a common thing. The...

By Juliana Paiva on 09/17/11 1

Swift Access at the Cost of Swift Access: Diginotar

On the tenth of July 2011, the Dutch web security company Diginotar was hacked by (supposedly) a student from Iran. He was able to corrupt the so called SSL certificates and break into Gmail accounts and government websites. Nine...

By Stijnie Thuijs on 09/14/11 Comments Off

The battle between industry and ideology

Just a quick word on something that might sound obvious to all of us, yet is a topic that in my opinion is applicable on most new media discourses. The struggle between ideology and the ‘real world’.

By Renoud Netjes on 09/12/11 3

A Domain By Any Other Name

Websites are headed towards major name changes. Recent amendments have authorized the creation of a porn specific .XXX domain, allowed non-Latin alphabet characters into the address bar, and most significantly freed top-level domain names from the conventional endings of...

By Autumn Hand on 09/11/11 1

Is the internet ruining our brains?

We shouldn’t be talking about the rise of the social media and new media any more. It’s here, in everyone’s lives on a daily basis. And it’s doing things to us. It’s changing the way we communicate, learn, socialise...

By Ave Tampere on 09/09/11 Comments Off

The Unbound Book Conference, May 19-21

Reading and publishing in the digital age The conventional notion of the book, based on centuries of print, is rapidly growing outdated. The book is coming unbound in a double sense: both freed from the bindings of the printed...

By Elias van Hees on 04/12/11 Comments Off

Art and Music for Resistance

A description of the second and third day of LabSurLab where I met with the founders of FRACTALAB. Latter is focused on a multidisciplinary idea to create open space for the youth in the coffee region of Colombia (Eje...

By Fei An Tjan on 04/11/11 1

TOP: Networks and Resistance

What are the role of networks in the Arabic revolution? Can we then speak about a network that is being changed from within? And what, in that respect, is within? The situation in Egypt became so chaotic that defining...

By Fei An Tjan on 03/09/11 1

Simona Levi – “Power is always using the name of freedom to do the nasty thing”

This post was orginaly posted in the Economy of the Commons conference blog: Last, but surely not least in the session of “Critique of the Free and Open” is Simona Levi, multidisciplinary artist, director of Conservas and arts festival...

By Emina Sendijarevic on 11/15/10 Comments Off

‘What you’re doing’ is relevant to your followers on Twitter

Sure, Twitter had its impact on journalism, politics and advertising. If you’re a journalist, getting information fast and keeping in touch with your sources is easy. Politicians have found a tool to directly talk and discuss political issues with...

By Emina Sendijarevic on 10/10/10 Comments Off

Facebook Launches Three Key Features To Protect Privacy

It seems that Mark Zuckerberg has listened to all the nagging about how Facebook is violating the privacy of their users. On the live press-conference of Facebook yesterday, Zuckerberg announced a few features that the social networking site will...

By Philip Man on 10/07/10 Comments Off

Bookreview: Communication Power

Where lies the power in network society? That’s the question Manuel Castells tries to answer in his book ‘Communication Power’. An interesting and relevant question considering our changing society. According to Castells, power relationships operate in networks. In his...

By Mathijs Voordenberg on 10/02/10 Comments Off

Campaigning and advocacy via social network sites, are social movements on the right path?

I do believe the Web 2.0 is shaping our societies, and much more the way users relate to each other. Social movements are adopting very fast social media technologies in their communication strategy. They use social network sites mostly...

By Cristina Reyna on 09/26/10 Comments Off

Book Review: Mythologie du Portable (Laurence Allard)

In an age where the iPhone and similar devices have become staple accessories of an always connected global citizen, it is high time to track the origins of the mobile phone, its emergence as a crucial tool for economic...

By Catalina Iorga on 09/20/10 Comments Off

Book Review: Network Power – David Singh Grewal

Globalization is reintroduced to society in David Singh Grewal’s “Network Power”. A volume that contains so much information, it can easily be viewed as a contemporary globalization handbook. Grewal’s perspective is fresh and bold, albeit not empirically substantiated....

By Ronen Shay on 09/20/10 1

New Media education for critical consciousness

I am from the generation who wasn’t born with the chip installed; in fact when I studied Journalism I had to bring with me a heavy type writer and the Pentax to classes. The video camera wasn’t as affordable...

By Cristina Reyna on 09/12/10 Comments Off