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

Co-star: Personalized astrology as a form of communication

Astrology, the study of cosmic objects, human patterns and seasonal shifts, has been practiced for decades, predominantly in three different cultures, Western, Hindu, and Chinese. For some, it exists as a coping mechanism to cushion uncertainty. However, for others,...

By on 09/28/20 Comments Off

The Personalization – Privacy Paradox of the Meditation App Balance

Meditation has been practiced for more than 5000 years, but the last decade people have started meditating with the help of their smartphones. With the arrival of the internet people progressively are sharing and seeking help for their mental...

By on 09/29/19 Comments Off

The Zero UI Music Player

One of the most iconic computers in cinema is certainly HAL9000 from Stanley Kubrick’s epos 2001: A Space Odyssey. With all inner workings hidden beneath a red light in a camera lens, the mischievous A.I. created an eerie atmosphere...

By Frederic Vosseberg on 09/23/18 Comments Off

Face the Bubble: Revealing How Facebook Selects Users’ News Stories

Introduction The media content we are exposed to is becoming increasingly personalised (Borgesius 2). Personalisation in this sense can be explained as online media content tailored to an individual for it to have a more personal appeal to the...

By Anna Lezard on 10/25/17 Comments Off

Can Google Search Solve the Most Topical Issue in Fashion Right Now?

There’s one thing that most of us have in common: We all Google. So when the tech giant decides to break into the Fashion Industry, it seems to be providing an alluring set of qualities that deserve our attention....

By Talía Cu on 09/19/16 Comments Off

Is Apple News what the newsroom of the future would look like?

Last month, Apple introduced an app named News. This newsreader gives Apple users the opportunity to collect all the news items that might be interesting for them. On their website, Apple states the following: News collects all the stories you...

By Anne Zwaan on 09/17/15 Comments Off

Captives of the Social: Facebook and Digital Pantopticism

As a network, the Web is usually connoted as an open-ended, anarchic and non-hierarchic environment. Compared to previous modes of organization, its distributed nature is considered an improvement over centralized and decentralized one-to-many communications and productions. (( Alexander R....

By Stijn Wonderen van on 10/19/12 Comments Off

Book Review: The Filter Bubble by Eli Pariser

The Filter Bubbler refers to the personalization processes taking place on the Web, which shape what content you see and more important what content you don't get to see. Big players like Google and Facebook feed you what they...

By Jorrit Schaap on 09/17/11 1