Masters of Media

IGTV: Instagram’s TV or Influencer’s TV?

On June 20, 2018, two major announcements were published on the Instagram Info Center. The first being that Instagram reached one billion users. The second was the launch of a new stand-alone application affiliated with Instagram: IGTV. IGTV:...

By Ouejdane Sabbah on 09/23/18 0

Spare Change Investment: Saving for the Future or Selling Out Today?

Millennials are a new target market. Personal growth, independence, and self-improvement are trends especially prominent with generation Y and Z. Right in tune, finances are following suit with budget, mobile payment and now investment apps like Acorns and Moneybox....

By Vanessa Richter on 09/23/18 0

Goodbye Cashiers. Goodbye Checkouts. Goodbye Privacy?

Imagine going to University in the morning. You haven’t had breakfast, but you missed your train, so there’s no time for that queue at Albert Heijn. Now, imagine how convenient it would be to just run into a grocery...

By Ashley Snoei on 09/23/18 0

Drones Floating to Freedom

On a warm August night in the Dutch summer of 2018, I went for a stroll in the heart of my new home: Amsterdam. Arriving at the edge of the center, I found myself surrounded by thousands of people...

By Daniël Jurg on 09/23/18 0

WhatsApp Killings: Affordances Of The Platform

In the past year, there have been multiple mob killings in India (Vindu Goel, Suhasini Raj and Priyadarshini Ravichandran). At least 30 people have been murdered by these mobs (Michael Safi). Why are these killings happening? The answer is...

By Carmen Ferri on 09/23/18 0

Verifying Facts in a Post-Truth World

In a digital world chock-full with misinformation, post-truth proclamations, and misleading headlines, it is harder than ever for one to fully trust the news. From that lens, it is safe to say that the spread of objective facts has...

By Mahmoud Badry on 09/23/18 0

Financial superpowers? Cryptocurrency and the next generation

Pigzbe, a digital piggy-bank has just appeared on the market, with one goal: introducing children to the world of cryptocurrency. Filippo Yacob, CEO of the company, claims that this device will give a new generation of children “financial superpowers”....

By Anastasia Pelini on 09/23/18 0

Big Brother is watching you play football

The new football season has recently started again. Millions of people will watch the matches of their favourite professional football clubs live on one of their digital devices. For the first time in history, it will also be possible...

By Auke van de Hulst on 09/23/18 0

Selling Sexualities: The ethical implications of Grindr’s new advertising tool

The gay dating app Grindr is trying to reinvent itself. In a mission to leave behind its image as a hookup platform, Grindr Inc. has launched several new projects, including the LGBT-themed magazine INTO, anti-discrimination campaign Kindr, and the...

By Max Rogall on 09/23/18 0

Wonder or Worry? Google has a new human-sounding Assistant!

We can see AI at work everyday in the form of virtual personal assistants, which are embedded in almost any smartphone today. Whether its Alexa, Siri or Google Now, these virtual assistants have made our everyday lives simpler and...

By Sohini Goswami on 09/23/18 0

Stop trying to script my life

The colonization of the empty state and nudges as contested territory. On another day at the office, something remarkable happens. I manage to clean up my entire email inbox. Not being the kind of person whose inbox is often...

By Sanne Stevens on 09/23/18 0

To what extent is digital media influencing human-to-human relationships?

Sex or companion dolls are becoming more and more part of society. What are the triggers for this trend? Do companion dolls offer their users positive imaginary tools that are being diminished by modern technology, such as social media?...

By Sophie Wandzilak on 09/23/18 0

Is IGTV set to tilt our perception of online videos from horizontal to vertical?

IGTV is a new feature within the main Instagram app, as well as a new standalone app of its own, dedicated to the sharing of long-form vertical videos. What does this mean for online video-sharing platforms, like YouTube? Are...

By Lucas Prado Amaral on 09/23/18 0

The only way to save the Internet is to claim it back from Big Data

Sometime in November, the proportion of humans on earth using the web will exceed 50%. Close to 4 billion people will have become internet “users”, bringing with them 4 billion sets of data. Tim-Berners Lee created the internet and...

By Lucie Chateau on 09/23/18 0

AI IS WATCHING YOU

Artificial Intelligence is, and actually always has been, a hot topic of debate. In the computational sciences AI is conceptualized as the study of intelligent agents. The computer perceives the environment and consequently performs actions that are expected to...

By Robine Hartman on 09/23/18 0

Love at Stake? Facebook Is Entering the Online World of Dating!

Are you ready to leave behind your one-night-stands and start a meaningful relationship? Well than thank God, Facebook is here to help you! When Mark Zuckerberg, a co-founder and the current CEO of Facebook, said during the annual F8...

By Anna Teresova on 09/23/18 0

Amazon-Go stores – A critical analysis of the cashless stores of the future

Recently, Amazon opened its second cashier-free Go store in the United States and announced the planning 3000 new ones by the year of 2021. Other companies, such as Tesco and Ikea are planning on testing such cashless systems as...

By Maria Stenzel Timmermans on 09/23/18 0

Monopolies of Knowledge Facilitated by Black-Box Algorithms

Whether you search for something on Google or Twitter, or scroll down an Instagram or Facebook feed, a vast amount, if not a majority, of online content is present to users via algorithms. These algorithms, the code of which...

By Holly Foxton on 09/23/18 0

Blockchain- next step to ensure internet voting’s credibility?

Tsukuba -a Japanese city- is testing a blockchain based voting system to encourage citizens to vote on different municipal projects (O’Brian). It is a welcome move, a move that at first sight allows for a smoother and more secure...

By Hanna Jemmer on 09/23/18 0

Controlled Wombs: How a Hip Contraceptive App Reinforces Binary Gender Roles

Natural Cycles is a digital method of birth control cleared by regulators both in the US and Europe. It claims to be a hormone-free alternative that brings a new level of accuracy to fertility tracking. But is it made...

By Victoria Andelsman on 09/23/18 0

Can we “unplug online”? The Paradox of Meditation Apps and Mindfulness

In our digitized world, people long more and more for taking a step back from social media and the overload of information to focus on their ‘inner self’ and guess what – there’s an app for that! Using...

By Annika Heinemeyer on 09/23/18 0

Plastic never goes away – Can apps contribute to avoid plastic pollution?

Video: Plastic Pollution Coalition – OPEN YOUR EYES The Plastic Age There is more plastic in the sea, than stars in the galaxy. Each year, 13 million tonnes of plastic end up in the oceans, and by 2050,...

By Clara Bläser on 09/23/18 0

GDPR Data Portability and the Semantic Utopia

Since May 2018 you can do a “data subject request” under EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Within 30 days you get all the data an organization have on you. You should also be able to move data from...

By Joel Galvez on 09/23/18 0

ArtPassport: A Digitalized and Democratized Experience of Art

As media technologies and practices continue to advance, the art world is simultaneously facing a metamorphosis that presents new challenges to not only what constitutes art—but how art should be experienced. ArtPassport is one such example of an app...

By Anya Doshi on 09/23/18 0