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

Censorship creates discourse: the implications of banning political advertising

Ayushi Arora (13237748, arora.ayushi@gmail.com) Thomas Ba (13286544, thomas.ba.7@outlook.it) Maurice Dharampal (10439250, maurice.dharampal@student.uva.nl) Alex Soete (13208918, alex.soete@gmail.com) Introduction Is free-speech under attack? Founder and CEO of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg has recently joined the head of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, in the...

By on 10/20/20 Comments Off

Too young to vote, but not to like: is Matteo Salvini attempting to reach under-age youngsters on Tik Tok?

Introduction Matteo Salvini, leader of the major Italian political party La Lega, with his 4,3 million likes on Facebook is one of most followed politicians in Italy. Last November he was the first (and so far the only) major...

By on 09/28/20 Comments Off

Fighting Fake News: A closer look at Sleeping Giants Brazil

This article is a descriptive exploratory research based on data collected on Sleeping Giants Brazil’s Twitter account, @slpng_giants_pt. It aims to briefly describe the conditions that stimulated the organization of Sleeping Giants in Brazil and whether there are impacts...

By Sandy Rafaela Krambeck on 09/27/20 Comments Off

Vote yay or vote nay, but you just can’t ignore micro-targeting.

“Numbers and democracy have always been linked.”John Durham Peters proclaims, giving examples from Greek political systems to modern opinion surveys. He focuses on majority – the social force through numbers, that democracy uses to establish legitimacy (434). And when...

By Ketaki Chand on 09/24/18 Comments Off

How Can Art Be Subversive in a Platform System? The Case of Benjamin Grosser

What would happen if one morning, a morning like many others, after you got up, you discovered that your Facebook home page is completely empty, without any type of content? I’m not talking about a crash or...

By Tommaso Campagna on 09/24/18 Comments Off

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 Comments Off

The future of “rentism”

This visualization is intended to give an overview of the concept of “Rentism” as it is discussed in the writings of 5 scholars: Joseph Stiglitz, Christian Marazzi, David Harvey, Thomas Piketty and Peter Frase. The visualization is a product...

By Yarden Skop on 02/26/18 Comments Off

Digital Gerrymandering, Computational Propaganda and the Electronic Electoral Advantage: Towards a Case for Reform

Jonathan Zittrain, professor of international law at Harvard University, coined the term ‘digital gerrymandering’ in 2014. Traditionally, gerrymandering was the political practice of manipulating constituency boundaries to cultivate a party-political advantage. Although the etymology derives from Elbridge Gerry’s governorship...

By Ryan Tristram-Walmsley on 09/25/17 Comments Off

Clinton’s campaign app – play for presidency

Traditional campaigning is not enough anymore – politicians need to follow technological trends. Fittingly, the Hillary Clinton campaign developed its own app for the upcoming US presidential elections. Launched this July, “Hillary 2016” lets users compete challenges in their personalized...

By Vincent Buss on 09/19/16 Comments Off

HelpOut: Real Help for Real People

The Crisis at Hand Political upheaval in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia have forced about 464,000 migrants to cross into Europe in 2015, a phenomenon referred to as the “Refugee Crisis” (Park). Numerous tragic events, like the...

By Katharina Lueke on 10/16/15 Comments Off

Social media – the new watchdog?

September 5th the former leader of the Norwegian far right party (Progress Party), Carl I. Hagen, wrote a status update on his Facebook-profile. Here he blamed the current government for the murder of a 21-year old girl, Anja Weløy...

By May Andersen on 09/11/13 Comments Off

Locked-out

By Jolien Siemerink on 06/11/13 1

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

Obama vs. Romney: analyzing the image of the future First Lady

The predicted outcome of the upcoming 2012 U.S. presidential elections is still very much subject to fluctuation. Polls are still changing on a daily basis, with the difference between predicted votes for Barack Obama and Mitt Romney only a...

By Lydia van der Spek on 10/19/12 Comments Off

Memeification of the News

Internet memes (specifically image memes) have taken the role of a media format for civic journalism, ever evolving and reproducing cultural/political concerns which reflect our social condition. As an amalgamated entity, memes are constantly integrating themselves within social platforms...

By Joseph Jackson on 10/17/12 Comments Off

Citizen Journalism in Egypt: The Newsfeed of the Revolution

What does it need to launch a successful media outlet? Probably a good deal of start-up capital, a team of editors, a business plan and some advertising clients. Cairo’s Rassd News Network started with two things: a Facebook page...

By Mathias Schuh on 10/05/12 2

NIMk: Yes, they’re still open!

Before closing its doors for good at the end of this year, the Netherlands Media Art Institute dedicates an exhibition to one of the key terms in online culture: openness. Getting lost is one of the annoying, yet inevitable...

By Mathias Schuh on 09/12/12 Comments Off

Yes we can – the use of social media by Dutch politicians during electorial campaigns in 2012

During their campaign for the 2002 Dutch elections, politicians were mainly using blogs as a mechanism to advocate their ideas on the Internet. In 2006 podcasting and postings on the Dutch Facebook equivalent “Hyves” were added as additional ways...

By Wieneke Vucht van on 09/10/12 2

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