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

The Strawberry Dress, a VIRAL cure for the pandemic?

Amidst a pandemic, worldwide lockdowns, in time of sweatpants and cancelled galas how did a sweet $490 strawberry dress become “the dress of the summer”? An examination of the prolific spread of the strawberry dress and how ‘viral’ objects...

By on 09/28/20 Comments Off

A Streamlined Explanation: The Problem with Streaming Games on YouTube

Felix “PewDiePie” Kjellberg is one of the most popular video game streamers on YouTube with more than 57 million subscribers (Orland, 2017). Because of a racial slur uttered in one of his recent Let’s Play videos, PewDiePie faced a...

By Ayse B. Tosun on 10/25/17 Comments Off

IT IS NOT JUST A GAME

It was not far ago when in order for you to have a video game experience you had to purchase a game package which included a DVD and instructions. Nowadays, with the evolution of the internet, games are bought...

By Alexandros Valarakis on 09/09/13 1

Hey Zuckerberg! You’re late!

One particular phenomenon I’ve always been very interested in is Virtual Reality (VR); a technology created in the 90s that places the user in an artificial environment generated by a computer. The goal of VR is to create a...

By Robert Silvis on 10/19/12 Comments Off

Online Fan Communities and Research Ethics: An Interview with Dr. Natasha Whiteman

Where there are communities there will, almost inevitably, be researchers observing and studying them. Just as the Internet provides a refuge for fan communities to dwell, so to does it provide a site for academics to research. Dr Natasha...

By Liam Voice on 10/26/11 1

Social Network Analysis: Considering Alternative Methodologies

The increasing extent of the Internet has also witnessed an incredible increase in the popularity of online social networking. Websites such as ‘Facebook‘ and ‘Twitter‘ are now the most frequently referred to examples although there are countless other social...

By Philip Breek on 10/01/11 Comments Off

The Leonard Cohen Files: bridging the gap between artist and fans

In 1993, legendary poet, singer and songwriter Leonard Cohen stopped performing and writing. He planned not to perform anymore. In 2008 an official announcement told the world he would return. At Leonard Cohen's personal request, the announcement was not...

By Lennard Torbijn on 09/11/10 1

Merging Social Media into the field of Online Dating

Personally on-line dating is not my cup of tea, and my boyfriend would kill me if I would consider it, but for some reason the phenomena itself keeps grabbing my attention. The basic concept of dating sites has not...

By Denise Pires on 09/27/09 Comments Off

Book review of: Online a lot of the time

A slightly contradictory book title due to medium in which it was written and the issues it addresses, but a rich volume in theory and striking examples about the virtual phenomena of avatars, webcam personas, rituals, fetish and signs....

By Denise Pires on 09/13/09 Comments Off

PICNIC 08 – Secrets and Lies

Genevieve Bell: on Secrets and Lies After the Clay Shirky speech there is no time for questions because it is time for Genevieve Bell, an anthropologist working for Intel (apology accepted), to talk about secrets and lies. She wants...

By Jasper Moes on 09/25/08 5

Repurposing the Wikiscanner: Comparing Dutch Universities’ edits on Wikipedia

<update>This project got quite a few positive responses, and many universities were interested in their own ‘profiles’. But the best was an endorsement by Virgil, who created the WikiScanner. He’s now made the Wikiscanner mashable, making this kind of...

By Michael Stevenson on 10/07/07 3

The University of Amsterdam’s ‘Great Man Theory’ on Wikipedia

Together with Erik, I’m working on a Digital Methods project called ‘Repurposing the Wikiscanner‘, where we try to adopt the infamous tool for uses other than scandal hunting. We’re still working on it, but here’s a nice preview. So...

By Michael Stevenson on 10/04/07 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

New Network Theory – Noshir Contractor

Noshir Contractor is the first speaker today, here to present MTML meets Web 2.0: Theorizing social processes in multidimensional networks. Noshir begins with a story of the social life of (technologically-enhanced) pets. Your smart-tagged dog can meet other dogs...

By Michael Stevenson on 06/29/07 Comments Off

Where do you live online?

(click map to enlarge) Lately I’ve been living mostly in the Flickr/Last FM area and on the Blogipelago but I am a vivid traveler. I have day passes to del.icio.us and Wikipedia and I always enjoy a good swim...

By Anne Helmond on 05/07/07 4