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

Markets of Amsterdam. An e-book about the colourful and lively market scene of Amsterdam

As a final project of the New Media Research Practices course, the New Media & Digital Culture MA students of the 2014 class were asked to develop free-form new media projects. The class was divided into 9 groups of...

By Giovanna Salazar Ojeda on 10/17/14 Comments Off

EPUB – A Book Pirate’s Go-To Format

EPUB, short for “electronic publication”, is a free and open e-book standard by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF). It was initially developed in 2007 as a way to streamline digital publishing. What the IDPF didn’t consider back then, is the...

By Bozhan Chipev on 03/03/13 Comments Off

Does Adobe Digital Editions replace the paper book? A consumer’s report.

Although I’m only 25 years old, I sometimes feel like I should join my 80-years-old uncle Wim. He lives in a peacefull retirement house called Aar en Amstel, which means as much as ear of corn by the river...

By Marijke van Leeuwen on 03/03/13 Comments Off

Please, let’s take book out of e-book

The e-book, threat or treasure, is definitely a hot topic within the book industry . As we all know, there is still quite some room for improvement and innovation. But how to approach the e-book? That remains the central...

By Doris Zevenbergen on 03/03/13 Comments Off

Anne Mangen on the Technologies and Haptics of Reading

[This post was originally published on The Unbound Book Conference Blog) ‘The Ascent of E-readers‘, the third session of the day, kicked off with Anne Mangen, Ph.D., an Associate professor in literacy and reading research and a reading specialist at The...

By Ekaterina Yudin on 05/22/11 1

Bernhard Rieder: 81,498 Words: the Book as Data Object

[This post was originally published on The Unbound Book Conference Blog) The second session of day 1 of the Unbound Book conference – also titled The Unbound Book – was moderated by Geert Lovink, and discussions of what a book becomes once...

By Ekaterina Yudin on 05/22/11 3

The Yoza Project : Cellphones and ‘mlearning’ in South-Africa.

Storytelling is the conveying of narratives, an idea as old as human history itself. The origins of narration are difficult to grasp, and because this phenomenon plays such a prominent role in most of our lives, no one is...

By Elias van Hees on 04/29/11 Comments Off

The Shelfless Bookstore

What is the difference between a traditional bookstore and an online bookstore? You could say it’s in the opening hours, the delivery time and number of employees, but let’s focus on one of the main differences. A traditional bookstore...

By Marije Rooze on 10/26/10 1

Digital Publishing in Education

In this new era of digital publishing, we should not only be concerned with the things we can can do in our leisure time, moreover, we should try to find the boundaries of what digital publishing can mean to...

By Fei An Tjan on 10/21/10 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

E-books Should Take a Page Out of The Internet

Being a student of New Media, people I know who are less involved in the world of new media sometimes turn to me with questions on the latest technological developments that are being covered in the news. As if...

By Erik van Bemmelen on 10/18/10 4

The e-book: it doesn’t smell or feel like a book

32-year-publishing veteran Jerry D. Simmons says that e-books will replace traditional media. Many academic libraries, including Openbare Bibliotheek Amsterdam are rapidly expanding their catalogs with electronic books and the digitization of their printed materials. So are libraries in favour...

By Janice Wong on 10/18/10 3

Futureader

Whether they are hard or soft cover, thick or thin, large or small, heavy or light, old or new, owned or borrowed – the traditional book exists in all shapes, forms and genres. The e-book lacks this spectrum of...

By Agathe Wiedemair on 10/17/10 1

E-books – The Black Market. Can We Stop It?

Along with the growth of the popularity of e-books as well as iPad, e-reader and other devices that allow for reading digital publications on the screen there is a huge increase in books piracy, what causes enormous losses for...

By Michal Kielbasa on 10/17/10 Comments Off

If it Looks Like a Book, and Reads Like a Book, is it a Book?

The death of the book has been foreseen: Several sources have predicted the demise of the book as we know it, like a modern Nostradamus. However, this is not the first time in history that we have heard this...

By Marte Lindstrom on 10/17/10 2

E-readers and e-books for education

Firstly, I need to say that I love to read and I love technology. So isn’t an e-reader the perfect combination of both? Isn’t it the perfect compromise between the small screen of an iPhone or iPod Touch and...

By Anne Lukas on 10/16/10 7

Are you an e-book sinner or saint?

The people at the church of Google believe we do not have to dress up every Sundaymorning anymore, go to church and watch the preacher to experience something like a God. We experience an actual God everyday at work...

By Levien Rocha on 10/14/10 Comments Off

From book to booooooooooooooooooooook

In a recent work about the future of printed literature, italian intellectual Umberto Eco describes the book as an eternal technology, something similar to a spoon or a bycicle: while time goes by and innovations pop up ceaselessly, some...

By Alberto Angelini on 10/13/10 2

About e-books and media, books are not dead

Following the example of foreign publishers, Dutch publishers also decide to give away free content. The idea is to boost sales of the printed book and to be ahead of piracy. Users will be able to find a way...

By Hannah Biemold on 10/13/10 4

Remediation: Will new media eat older media alive?

In their book Remediation Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin argue that new visual media achieve cultural significance by refashioning earlier media. New media define themselves in relationship to older media. Remediation operates in two directions: older media tries...

By Suzanne Schram on 09/04/10 3

The immersive and interactive qualities of literature

In “Immersion vs. Interactivity: Virtual Reality and Literary Theory” Marie-Laure Ryan explores the problematics of Virtual literature. Marie-Laure Ryan is a literary scholar and critic. She has written several books and articles concerning narratology, fiction and cyberculture, and she...

By Suzanne Schram on 09/04/10 Comments Off

The universal library of enhanced e-books

Kevin Kelly explains in his article Scan this book! a future in which it is possible to create a universal library. In this library all the existing books should be present in a digital form. For a long time...

By Suzanne Schram on 10/16/09 Comments Off