Masters of Media

Browsing from the right side of history: political polarization online

To many, the old ghosts of the far-right appear to have come back from the dead. Trump, Wilders, Le Pen, Petry, Orbán, Hofer, Fujimori in Peru and Bolsonaro in Brazil — all of these figures announce the unexpected return...

By Emillie V. de Keulenaar on 09/20/16 Comments Off

Clinton’s campaign app – play for presidency

Traditional campaigning is not enough anymore – politicians need to follow technological trends. Fittingly, the Hillary Clinton campaign developed its own app for the upcoming US presidential elections. Launched this July, “Hillary 2016” lets users compete challenges in their personalized...

By Vincent Buss on 09/19/16 Comments Off

Prisma: The Photo App With Its Own Charisma!

All the Instagram addicts must have already tried out or, at least, come across with artsy photos badged with the #prisma hashtag. For those of you who (strangely enough) haven’t seen or heard of it before, Prisma is...

By Christina Panteli on 09/19/16 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

Gboard: The Ultimate iPhone Keyboard?

Google recently released a new app for iOS called Gboard which expands the keyboard with a built in search engine. With Gboard Google makes it possible to search without a browser. Instead of leaving the app you’re currently using...

By Maud Looij on 09/19/16 Comments Off

Tesla’s Autopilot Function in the Light of Liability and Assistance

One of the newest tools, that not only the multinational car companies but also companies like Google and Apple are assumed to work on, is the introduction of the self-driving car. Telsa has recently introduced a Tesla car with...

By Michel Blonk on 09/19/16 Comments Off

YouTube: From Video Sharing to Building a Community

What? Where? When? For some, YouTube is just a video sharing platform, but for others (such as PewDiePie, JennaMarbles, or Zoella – only to mention some of the famous YouTubers) it is actually a job. However, in order to...

By Bianca Andreea Banu on 09/19/16 Comments Off

Want to join ISIS? Google it!

So, let’s say that you are interested in becoming an ISIS terrorist. What are you going to do? Probably Google it, like you would in any other situation. The Redirect Method Over the last year Jigsaw, an Alphabet...

By Manon vanHoek on 09/19/16 Comments Off

Medical applications, the brilliant health-care helper?

More and more Medical apps for smartphone and tablet users have been released in recent years. These applications transform traditional medical services into mobile and digital services which people can evaluate themselves with the apps and do not need...

By Christine Cheng on 09/19/16 Comments Off

Microsoft HoloLens: A jump into Augmented Reality

Sci-Fi movies have teased the public for years with their in-movie holographic technology, which seemed, in our time, so far away. Think of holograms in the Star Wars movies and Tom Cruise’s home videos in Minority Report (2002). But...

By Sabina B. on 09/19/16 Comments Off

Pokémon Go: A Blueprint for Augmented Reality?

July 2016, a cultural zeitgeist dating back to the 90s was unleashed upon the world with renewed and unprecedented vigour. Pokémon Go fever swept the world – at its peak in mid-July, it was estimated that over 45 million (Griffiths)...

By Rhubini Kunasegaran on 09/19/16 Comments Off

Autonomy and why vehicles won’t stop killing, but they’ll try

Semi-autonomous vehicles (SAV’s) have been around in some form for a few years now, and they are becoming ever more present on city streets. Just a couple of years ago few auto manufacturers offered any kind of autonomy in...

By Philip HutchisonBarry on 09/19/16 Comments Off

FemInstagram: can Instagram help fight sexism?

Lena Dunham, Feminista Jones, Anna Gensler, Rupi Kaur are only a few of the many social media activists, involved in the debate on feminist issues, but all of them report having been victims of cyber-bullying in one way or another. Besides...

By Emilija Jokubauskaite on 09/19/16 Comments Off

New Media Art and the Aura

New Media Art. A Short Introduction In the last three decades, the term new media art gained massive popularity and became the official label for a wide range of artistic practices that use new media technologies (Quaranta). However, defining this...

By Daria Bojan on 09/19/16 Comments Off

Rixi: The Altruistic Transporter or the new Capitalistic Platform?

The digital landscape in Pakistan, is currently progressing and has had quite an impact on the transport industry. With public transport previously being unreliable at best, and Uber and its competitors entering the arena, the stage is all set...

By Maria Hayat on 09/19/16 Comments Off

Bad News for Facebook

In the past couple of weeks Facebook and its content-monitoring policy as well as the changes made to its Trending Topics section made the headlines over and over again. These headlines have led to many opinion pieces and several...

By Ecesu Erol on 09/19/16 Comments Off

Facebook: New Tools to Help Business go Global

Facebook has launched several new tools for business owners to expand internationally, and a 64-page guide book has been made available for download, providing detailed data analyses on the potential and impact of Facebook marketing, global success stories, and...

By Yanqin Gao on 09/19/16 Comments Off

Virtual Storytelling in Journalism

Innovative virtual technologies are infiltrating the world of journalism. New York Times is one of the leading actors in creating this new way of storytelling, by introducing a Virtual Reality application to convey news stories through virtual technology. As NY...

By Anna-Karólína Gestsdóttir on 09/19/16 Comments Off

“I want to show you something”: Cinetree as an alternative to automated recommendations

A boutique among department stores Last year, Dutch actress Hanna Verboom launched a new video on demand service, Cinetree. It distinguishes itself from other popular movie streaming sites by offering a very limited yet carefully curated selection of films....

By Joep Bouma on 09/19/16 Comments Off

Can a new App save Democracy?

According to recent opinion polls, most Europeans do not trust their politicians. Nor do they believe that their voice actually counts (European Commission 14-19). In the last years, citizens expressed their dissatisfaction at the ballot box, as the frightening...

By Taylan Engin on 09/19/16 Comments Off

Now on Sale: Sleep and Relaxation

Sleep is an uncompromising interruption of the theft of time from us by capitalism (Crary, 10). We seem to be living in a time that is known for sleep deprivation, and many other activities that are being linked to...

By Guido vanderMeer on 09/19/16 Comments Off

VR, too soon for journalism?

Last month, for the very first time in history, people in the United States were able to follow a presidential debate through Virtual Reality (VR). Together with NextVR, CNN offered the service to viewers and promised them an experience wherein they could get to...

By Lars Kntl on 10/30/15 Comments Off

Search No Further: How Changes to the Search Feature Give Facebook More Power Than Ever

Announcing Big Changes: This past week, Facebook launched an update to its search feature that may give Twitter a run for its money – or at very least, some cause for concern. An announcement by Tom Stocky, VP of...

By Brittany Mcgillivray on 10/30/15 1

Google’s DeepDream: Algorithms on LSD

Last July a vast variety of psychedelic strange images flooded the social media. From Edward Munch’s The Scream to Porn and landscapes, surreal hallucinatory depictions of eyes, birds and dogs were generated in every image, recreating almost a LSD...

By Konstantinos Gkotzos on 10/30/15 Comments Off