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

Is Performative Activism bad?

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the world listened to an ongoing battle of police brutality and racially motivated violence against black people. The video of police killing George Floyd went viral on Instagram and Twitter, followed by countless black squares...

By on 09/28/20 Comments Off

Extend the Flawless Beauty: Facetune Video Further Goes against Beauty Activism

With TikTok becoming increasingly popular in people’s daily life, such global prevalence of applications that focus on instant short video feeds indicates that people’s quest for a flawless face and a well-proportioned body shape no longer stops at still...

By on 09/28/20 Comments Off

“Encrypt your face”: protestors Signal digital data privacy fears with new face-blurring feature

In the wake of George Floyd’s death, protestors flocked to encrypted messaging application (“app”) Signal to plan events and share content. In response, a new tool was quickly released that allows faces to be blurred in photos. These events...

By Paul Bugeja on 09/28/20 Comments Off

Smoke Signals: A technical and ideological response to U.S. surveillance in 2020

Americans have a lot to say in 2020, and protests are the chosen platform of the year. With race-fueled police brutality reaching peak heights, people are occupying space physically and vocally to say their piece in the Black Lives...

By Gerry LaBarbera on 09/27/20 Comments Off

“Grassroots Maptivism”: Mapping Feminist Movements Around the World

The virtual space has become the preferred place to demand for change. There are several examples of such movements from all over the world – Occupy Wall Street, The Arab Spring, #BlackLivesMatter, #NiUnaMenos #15-M Movement. With over 4 billion...

By Tommaso Campagna on 10/23/18 Comments Off

Activism via social media is only a digital graffiti?

Recently it has become an online trend to be socially active and involved in public issues. This kind of activism is thriving: like if you care. Immediately there are hundreds/thousands/million likes and comments under a post that suggests supporting...

By Lina Ku_inskaite on 09/20/16 Comments Off

Finite FM | Podcast with Franco Berardi

In 2011 Franco – Bifo – Berardi, an Italian media theorist and media activist, published the book After the Future with AK Press, an anarchistic publishing company. He writes about the idea of the future and the way it is...

By Inte Gloerich on 10/31/13 1

#VemPraRua

How the use of Social Media platforms can mobilize a whole nation and transform the history of a country “Vem pra rua, porque a rua é a maior arquibancada do Brasil” The sentence above was extracted from the song...

By Gustavo López on 09/12/13 3

Brazil Left Facebook

Although it’s winter in Brazil, the so-called ‘Brazilian Spring’ has clearly arisen in June and July 2013. The protests in Brazil show parallels to the ‘Arab Spring’ demonstrations (Dec. 2010-Feb. 2011), in which network communications were used to form a grassroots movement. Through...

By Cristel Kolopaking on 09/11/13 Comments Off

[Event] Unlike Us #3 | Social Media: Design or Decline

This March, the Unlike Us conference is taking place in Amsterdam for a second consecutive year. Hosted by Amsterdam’s Institute of Network Cultures, the event gathers academics, artists and activists to discuss ‘social media monopolies and their alternatives’. Unlike...

By Larissa Hildebrandt on 02/28/13 Comments Off

Syria: Cracking down on digital dissidents

For Syrian dissidents, social networking sites are essential for bypassing traditional media and communication channels. But in doing so, online activists might all too easily fall prey to the government’s digital surveillance. Social networking services like Facebook, Twitter and...

By Mathias Schuh on 10/19/12 1

Wanted: skilled volunteers to change the world

New media has been offering many possibilities for non-profit and social enterprises to find volunteers online, but an initiative called Catchafire is taking the center of attentions within the web. The purpose of the website is simple: provide a...

By Juliana Marques on 10/14/12 Comments Off

Bioart, Ethics And Artworks

This lengthy post is part of a Critical Media Art Course. The theme of the week was "Life", and the readings provided focused on Bioart, and the concerns around it. Following an introduction to the term of Bioart,...

By Clément Adam on 04/18/12 6

Visualizing Food Systems

What did you have for breakfast? It’s an easy enough question. But how about, where did your breakfast come from? Using innovative data visualization tools, a growing number of developers and activists have created dynamic ways in which human...

By Joe Mier on 03/27/12 Comments Off

Lessons in anti-security: tactical media and viral art

The following report is the outcome of two three hour sessions held in the context of the New Media course “Critical Media Art”, exploring the ideas and practices of ‘tactical media‘, in particular the use of viral tactics by...

By Daniel de Zeeuw on 02/19/12 Comments Off

you will _KNOW how_ : interview with Nancy Mauro-Flude

I first encountered the work of Tasmanian performance artist and media researcher Nancy Mauro-Flude during The Art of Hacking exhibition opening at the Netherlands Media Art Institute (NIMk) on September 9, 2011. Mauro-Flude’s Error_in_Time(V.T_3), a poetic coding performance featuring...

By Kendall Grady on 10/31/11 Comments Off

New Media and the Syrian uprisings: one student’s perspective.

Edward Said wrote in his book Covering Islam that historically the western mass media have exercised the power of representation over the (in this case) Islamic ‘other’ and suppresses the possible multiplicity of 800 000 000 global Islamic citizens...

By Jamie Franklin on 10/14/11 1

For the Love of Material!

Posthumanism, Protocol and Techno-Craft at Mediamatic’s Ignite Amsterdam 10 If androids dream of electric sheep, we posthumous dream of the Jetson family’s flying car. “Posthuman” because, as foreseen by early prostheses now as natural as eyeglass, human identity consciousness...

By Kendall Grady on 09/29/11 Comments Off

Book Review: Alternative and Activist New Media by Leah Lievrouw

Drawing on the works of David Bolter and Richard Grusin and their seminal work – “Remediation: Understanding New Media”, Leah Lievrouw analyses in ‘Alternative and Activist New Media’ (Polity Press, 2011) a series of new media activism practices. Offering...

By Andrei Florian on 09/22/11 Comments Off

Lulzsec – Cyber terrorists, hacktivists or artists?

Phone hacking dominated British headlines during the summer months this year and the revelations were so detrimental to Murdoch’s empire that he thought it was best to shut down The News of the World – believing it had let...

By Christopher Mead on 09/14/11 Comments Off

‘Headdesking’ and Beyond: The British Uprisings

‘Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not...

By Jamie Franklin on 09/12/11 2

The Websphere where collective knowledge becomes material

‘Ce que le web fait, c’est de matérialiser des éléments qu’on ne voyait pas et qu’on ne pouvait pas tracer auparavant, par le fait d’avoir un login, un écran, un clavier, des avatars‘ Latour Internet applications offer opportunities...

By Cristina Reyna on 04/01/11 2

Video Vortex #6: Sam Gregory on video activism and advocacy

Sam Gregory, program director at WITNESS presented his thoughts on using online video as a political tool at Video Vortex #6 in Amsterdam yesterday.

By Janice Wong on 03/13/11 Comments Off

TOP: Egypt, Twitter, and Activism.

Activism and social network platforms such as Twitter and Facebook are mentioned together more often than ever. The 2009 Iranian election protest was nicknamed the ‘Twitter Revolution,’ and the more recent protests in Egypt are depicted similarly. The platforms...

By Kimberley Spreeuwenberg on 02/19/11 Comments Off