Masters of Media

MOOCs — a New Era in Higher Education

Imagine you don‘t have to share a classroom with 150 other students, while summer is in full bloom. Imagine you can attend a class at the beach. Imagine you just need to go online. Imagine education is for everyone....

By Nora Wohlfeil on 09/10/13 0

Learning via WhatsApp is what’s up!

WhatsApp is a free smartphone application that is available on iPhone, Nokia, Blackberry, Symbian and Windows smartphones and gives users the possibility to send text messages, voice clips, photos, videos, locations and contacts. This all can be done in...

By Jonne-Marie Bouman on 09/10/13 202

MOOCs: nothing more than the latest craze… or are they?

“Big breakthroughs happen when what is suddenly possible meets what is desperately necessary.” – Thomas L. Friedman (May 15, 2012) 2012 was a year of many events and breakthroughs. The global economic crisis continued to be pervasive, the release...

By Rebecca Cachia on 09/10/13 0

The Internet as a Culture of Equality and Opportunity

The digital revolution not only introduced new means of economics and power, but also introduced radical changes in the social aspects of life, acting as a catalyst for the emerging virtual world. We no longer can imagine our lives...

By Katja Viarshynina on 09/10/13 0

How Do You Like Your Phone, Sir?

Technology is factually making our lives easier and more efficient, even though this notion comes with the critique that we get more lazy and rely too much on something we know too little about. Smartphones carry much more tools than...

By Ihab Khiri on 09/09/13 0

Women in games 2013: one step forward, two steps back

Even though it’s now common knowledge that 47% of gamers are women, the gaming industry and geek culture keep struggling to be more inclusive, as 2013 has already had its good share of controversies, tough debates and hateful Tweets...

By Matthieu Foucher on 09/09/13 1

Foto zoekt familie: Digital Dutch East Indies

“Is dit jouw oma?” was the question that numerous shoppers were confronted with, when strolling down the aisles of Dutch supermarkets in search of Indonesian chips called emping in the early months of 2013. The question...

By Tessa de Keijser on 09/09/13 3

The Digitization of DJing: From Analog Vinyl Records to Time-code Systems and Video Plug-ins

“The personal and social consequences of any medium -that is, of any extension of ourselves- result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology” (McLuhan, 1964, p.203)....

By Sotirios Sideris on 09/09/13 0

Remediation in Grand Theft Auto

Remediation is definitely one of those well-known concepts that new media scholars can discuss about for hours. According to Bolter and Grusin, remediation is the representation of ‘old’ media in new media. Characteristics of television and radio, for instance,...

By Wessel Schillemans on 09/09/13 0

The Internet is now built on mass surveillance

Brought to light in recent months, the Edward Snowden-powered NSA leaks have publicized the wholesale spying efforts by US and UK intelligence agencies that undermine the very fabric of the Internet – turning it into a vast surveillance program...

By Nicholas Vieira on 09/09/13 1

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

Drones reconfigured?

Not too long ago I wrote a short blog (in Dutch) about the increasing popularity of drones. By drones I mean unmanned (aerial) robotic vehicles and obviously not the variousity of species of male insects. In this post, I...

By Sander van Haren on 09/09/13 0

Audio Streaming Aesthetics: Who Cares?

After more than a century of constantly re-inventing audio recording and playback, plenty of disagreement exists about which methods are the best. The invention of portable playback devices has certainly not made it easier to take your own pick....

By Jan Zuilhof on 09/09/13 2

From Coin to Movie Ticket: the changed currency in the gaming industry

Amazing voice-acting, a great and mature storyline, emotional depth and solid directing while keeping the action tense and gripping. Judging from this praise above many would be inclined to say the subject matter here is a big budget Hollywood...

By Vincent Sloof on 09/08/13 0

Facebook enhances the brand image in consumer minds

Facebook is becoming a marketing tool involved in the 2.0. strategy, itself involved in the global brand’s strategy. The 2.0. strategy draws on social networks, as a marketing medium, and has a bidirectional communication that calls for creativity, rigor and...

By V Weydert on 09/08/13 0

From Disabilities to New Abilities

Have you ever thought about how visually impaired or hearing-impaired follow TV shows? Since television is taken for granted a long time ago, we usually ignore the fact that, for some, watching television can be indeed hard. Following TV...

By Gizem Ezgi Akdag on 09/08/13 0

Privacy in the digital age

We live in an age where we share everything online. We share photos of our loved ones, our political thoughts but moreover we share irrelevant information. The internet has made this all possible. Companies like Facebook, Whatsapp, Twitter and...

By Leon Meuwese on 09/08/13 1

Social network is aging. What’s next?

We’re hopelessly addicted to social platforms as if it would be still revolutionary in our lives but is anyone thinking about it to be aging? People start getting bored with social networks because it does change in the way...

By Indre Lauciute on 09/08/13 0

The failure of Interactive Whiteboard

But did it really fail? Rather, Interactive Whiteboard (IWB) is in fact a huge success from the business perspective of educational technology. Introduced in early 2000s and richly funded by educational technology industries and governments, IWB has obtained the...

By Yoojin Chelsea Jang on 09/07/13 2

From the Digital into the Physical: 3D Printing

In the west district of Amsterdam there is a building called the “old ACTA”, which is an old dentist academy and is now used for student housing and as a place where artists have their workshops. A few weeks...

By Pascal Janssens on 09/07/13 0

Total transparancy or personal privacy?

With the possibility to send, spread and pick up information online in a blink of an eye, the demand for transparancy is growing. Hackers like Julian Assange and Edward Snowden publish classified and sensitive government information. According to them...

By Jennifer Veldman on 09/06/13 0

Locked-out

By Jolien Siemerink on 06/11/13 1

Visualizing individual measures of emotion

Personal monitoring is becoming increasingly present in many of our daily routines as a conscious and voluntary choice. If you are an outdoor fitness enthusiastic, then you are probably aware of how many miles you ran last month and...

By Ana Crisostomo on 05/31/13 1

Improving your game performance with data visualization

Nowadays, more and more game producers release video games on digital distribution platforms. Besides the increase in digital distribution of game content, these platforms and game developers offer gamers an experience out of a gameplay environment. For instance, these...

By Ferdy Looijen on 05/31/13 2