Masters of Media

Butter as the Legal Version of Popcorn Time?

by Hans Kok The most popular video streaming service Popcorn Time stopped working on October 23. Although it’s not the first time the service is down, it might be down forever now since the threats of possible legal actions...

By Hans Kok on 10/29/15 Comments Off

Yeah, the “dislike” button is finally here – but it does not like this!

Finally a “dislike” button! Well, not really… The long-awaited Facebook “dislike” button is finally here, but presumably it looks a little bit different than you might have expected it to look like. Probably you cannot even call it...

By Leonie Herma on 10/29/15 1

PeerRevYOU: A Tool for Media Students

Presenting to you: PeerRevYOU, a peer review platform for Media students. Thanks to this tool, students are able to review each other’s work before they hand it in to their teacher. We argue that this process could improve...

By Lisanne Buijze on 10/16/15 Comments Off

The Logout Project

We might all have felt this way at some point– scrolling through endless posts and photographs of people who seem like they are living “The Life”: getting that promotion they have dreamed of, marrying the most perfect person in...

By Izumi Otsuka on 10/16/15 Comments Off

The CensorSensor – Revealing Localized Censorship through Interactive Maps: A Maptivist Approach to Corporate and Government Censorship

Almost all countries filter the Internet to varying degrees; anything from illegal downloading to child pornography and from human rights activities to government criticism. Filtering the Internet has a potential to reinforce the hegemonic power structures and to constrain...

By Pepijn Bierhuizen on 10/16/15 Comments Off

From Chocolate Chips to Online – Creating a Cookie Monster

Project by: Daniël Landman, Nick van der Meulen, Nicola Romagnoli and Seastar So. Link to Final Project. Cookies are the most well-known form of online tracking and can be used for a variety of reasons such as recording personal...

By Daniël Landman on 10/16/15 Comments Off

Safety Net – Play With Privacy or It Will Play You

Have you ever used a website that uses cookies? “Liked” a photo on Facebook? Geo-tagged your location in a post or used Google Maps? Of course you have. But were you aware of how the information you...

By Deniz Gulsoken on 10/16/15 Comments Off

EveryArtoF It

Hutspot is a concept store in which upcoming designers share a space to present their work for a monthly fee. This store was not only the place of our first group meeting, but also triggered a discussion about the...

By Julia Wissel on 10/16/15 Comments Off

AdBlock Fair: Supporting content online, ad blocking awareness

By Ryan de Ruiter, Jennifer Swagers, Hidde van der Beek, Lara Molendijk, Frans Bootsman & Hans Kok Project idea Already in 2007 a New York Times article by Noam Cohen forecasted the “potential for extreme menace to the online-advertising...

By Hans Kok on 10/16/15 Comments Off

Post Mortem

How to Quit Facebook (or Make It Quit You) At the start of 2015, it seemed that Facebook was losing users, especially among younger people (Lang). According to an article in the Washington Post, teenagers...

By Kyra Delsing on 10/16/15 Comments Off

Spy me, please!

A project, brought to you by Afra Suci Ramadhon, Alina Niemann, Kimberly Leerkes, Kyra Teklu and Radina Teodosieva The exhibitionist beginning Several weeks ago we were presented with an assignment - to create a new media project, intervening an...

By Radina Teodosieva on 10/16/15 Comments Off

HelpOut: Real Help for Real People

The Crisis at Hand Political upheaval in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia have forced about 464,000 migrants to cross into Europe in 2015, a phenomenon referred to as the “Refugee Crisis” (Park). Numerous tragic events, like the...

By Katharina Lueke on 10/16/15 Comments Off

Putting the Face back in Facebook

“Mark Zuckerberg is promising Facebook users a new button to express an emotion other than “like”. It’s being referred to as a “dislike” button, though Zuckerberg says it’s going to be a tool to express empathy, rather than contempt.”...

By Atossa Atabaki on 10/15/15 Comments Off

Been There Done That – Fake Your Way Around the World

Nowadays our social media are everything. We’re constantly thinking about a witty comment to tweet, we’re on the lookout for picture perfect lattes to post on Instagram and our life events are instantly shared on Facebook. We live in...

By Lieke Kersten on 10/15/15 Comments Off

‘The Amsterdam Diaries’: A Critical Reflection on Amsterdam City Bloggers

Introduction The Amsterdam Diaries is a blog with a focus on hidden, intimate or new hang-out options in Amsterdam. It consists of eight videos, all shot within the city center of Amsterdam. It’s presented by Kate van Dam, a...

By Ka-Tjun Hau on 10/15/15 1

Is This Legal?

The Is This Legal? smartphone app. provides users with easily accessible and transparent information about legal systems they are subject to in their current, geotagged location – complicating users’ readings of foreign national identities. ITL’s concept arose from brainstorming,...

By Richa Watts on 10/15/15 Comments Off

FeelReal: The social media app where reality is more important than fakeness

Nowadays, you can’t make a friend without having them connected to you on Whatsapp, Facebook, or Instagram. The social media hype is only understandable given the fact that your connection with these new friends is taken to another social...

By Willemijn van der Holst on 10/15/15 1

Le Flâneur: let him take you on a journey through Amsterdam…

Le Flâneur is a mobile application that aims at improving users’ orientation skills by making them explore Amsterdam in a “smart way”. Making users learn the names of the streets and enable them to situate themselves without looking at wayfinding...

By Mathilde Grenod on 10/13/15 Comments Off

Internet of things – chances and challenges

The first edition of the Internet of Things Congress took place on the 29th of September 2015 at the Mercure Hotel Amsterdam City. Approximately 200 delegates, experts and entrepreneurs gathered together to talk about the chances and challenges the...

By Alina Niemann on 10/06/15 Comments Off

Can Periscope (and live streaming apps) empower journalism?

Twitter’s launch of the live streaming app Periscope last March, was received with much enthusiasm by those who believe that it will empower reporting and citizen journalism. Live streaming apps are not something new. Few months before Periscope’s launch,...

By Afef Abrougui on 09/26/15 2