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

Who owns the playground?: Urban gamification and spatial politics in Pokémon GO

“Sydney park destroyed as thousands of Pokémon Go players descend” wrote Irish news website TheJournal.ie on the first of August. This is just one example of a situation wherein Niantic’s popular augmented reality game Pokémon GO puts a considerable...

By Stefani Mans on 11/14/16 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

Understanding New Media – a quick overview

By exploring the intersection of computing science, humanities and visual and performing art, new media is exploring its own path towards a science status. If the new media is affecting the way society behaves, we should try to...

By Caio Domingues on 09/08/14 Comments Off

Re-visiting 90s media theory: The Media Archive by ADILKNO

Alexandra Kontou, Caroline Boserup, Jakub Dutka ADILKNO / BILWET (Foundation for the Advancement of Illegal Knowledge / Stichting tot Bevordering van Illegale Wetenschap ) was founded in 1983 as a collective of five artists/authors, Geert Lovink, Arjen Mulder,...

By Jakub Dutka on 03/21/14 Comments Off

Global Internet Censorship – ACTA

The internet as we know is a place with limitless accessibility and constant access to all shareable online information within an open exchange where media exist and co-exist in the way of informing and entertaining. It also means to...

By Christoph Rauch on 09/13/13 1

The history of Dutch newspaper websites, 1996-2011

During the late-1990s newspapers began to move onto the Internet en masse, giving rise to the question whether these digital immigrants would adapt to the new world of the internet and make full use of the opportunities offered by...

By Lucas Reehorst on 09/13/12 Comments Off

So you think your a journalist?*

It started off as a protest, a personal objection to the poorly made yellow journalism we all come across on a daily basis. Being called a “grammar nazi” so many times before certainly has its perks. At first, you’re...

By Vicentiu Dinga on 09/10/12 Comments Off

Not About Media!

The Impossibility of Media Theory Where previous generations of Serious Men saw in the concept of Medium but marginal or esoteric wordplay, we in our times seem to attribute to it almost magical qualities, such as the 19th century...

By Daniel de Zeeuw on 09/11/11 Comments Off

The revolutionary potential of Wikipedia’s equipotential paradigm.

This is part of the final paper I submitted for the course “Culture of Spectacle” As shown in the previous post, the “anyone can edit” philosophy of Wikipedia is often viewed with great skepticism in academic circles, while its...

By Ilektra Pavlaki on 06/19/11 Comments Off

Knowledge, not the way you knew it: Studying the impact of Wikipedia on the reception of knowledge

This is part of the final paper I submitted for the course “Culture of Spectacle” 17.000.000 articles. 91.000 active contributors. 270 languages. No matter what words one would choose to describe Wikipedia, numbers cannot speak but the truth: Wikipedia,...

By Ilektra Pavlaki on 06/13/11 1

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

MADONNA R.I.P ?

Some thoughts on mock-up obituaries in view of the New Media Research Seminar’s start. A fatal car accident. Thousands of cameras capturing the scene. Millions of mourning fans. Breaking news: Madonna has passed away.

By Ilektra Pavlaki on 10/31/10 5

Alice in iPad, the New Wonderland.

Will fairy tales live happily ever after in the digital publishing era? Once upon a time, electronic signatures didn’t designate us as individuals, passwords didn’t determine if we would be denied or not the access in data and emoticons...

By Ilektra Pavlaki on 10/20/10 Comments Off

Are E-books just a transitional technology?

“At breakfast Sal reads the news. She still prefers the paper form, as do most of the people. She spots an interesting quote from a columnist in the business section. She wipes her pen over the news paper´s name,...

By Cristina Reyna on 10/19/10 Comments Off

The E-reading Development Compared To Past MP3 Culture

Cheaper Books and Violation of Copyright?

The value added tax (VAT) for a Dutch digital book consists 19% instead of the 6% for a printed one. This results in only a minimal difference...

By Elias van Hees on 10/18/10 Comments Off

How to become a celebrity in 3 months? #los33

Garcia Marquez would describe it as “Macondo”. Magic surrealism in Latin-America, more than being a novel, is a daily reality. With incredible admiration on the impact of New Media on the society I have followed the big brother tragedy...

By Cristina Reyna on 10/15/10 Comments Off

Wikipedia: Propaganda or Contribution?

In 1945 Vannevar Bush already predicted an innovative new way of structuring information, a new library. Wikipedia was launched in 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger and was indeed a new initiative to...

By Elias van Hees on 10/04/10 Comments Off

Should one write: he and she or she and he?

I posted on the Spanish version of Wikipedia an item on the World March of Women, an international feminist movement. I thought it was a nice way to participate in the 3rd international Action that is taking place this...

By Cristina Reyna on 10/03/10 1

Campaigning and advocacy via social network sites, are social movements on the right path?

I do believe the Web 2.0 is shaping our societies, and much more the way users relate to each other. Social movements are adopting very fast social media technologies in their communication strategy. They use social network sites mostly...

By Cristina Reyna on 09/26/10 Comments Off

Book Review- Imaginal Machines: Autonomy and Self-Organization in the Revolutions of Everyday Life, by Stevphen Shukaitis

In the era of New Media, where the multiple identities of social movements find their best way of expression, Stevphen Shukaitis recalls the power of radical and collective imagination giving a new perspective on radical social movements nowadays. What...

By Cristina Reyna on 09/19/10 Comments Off