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

#CopyPaste – The battle between Instagram and Snapchat

There is a battle going on between Instagram and Snapchat.. but who is on the winning hand? A-team Instagram is a mobile phone photo-sharing, video-sharing and social network service. It enables users to take pictures and videos and...

By Arabella Memdouh on 09/21/16 Comments Off

You ‘like’, you pay! – Do Social Network Services Users Consciously and Willingly Give Up Their Right for Privacy?

Facebook faces more and more scrutiny over its user privacy issues, but do people willingly trade privacy as a commodity for using Social Network Services (SNSs)? Would they prefer to pay a certain fee in order to prevent surveillance...

By Andrei Florian on 10/08/11 Comments Off

“Ask Me, Ask Me, Ask Me” – Formspring: Asking, Answering and Telling the Truth.

Social networking sites allow a user to have all the combined knowledge of their social groups at their fingertips. It is no wonder that the Facebook status tool, for example, has been re-appropriated for question asking purposes. Even outside...

By Liam Voice on 10/03/11 3

Right man for the job: how LinkedIn is changing the way employees are recruited.

In today’s highly competitive market companies are increasingly turning to look at how to best attract one of their most valuable resources: people (Wilson and Sayers, 1997). Facing the troubles concerned with the phenomenon of ‘jobhopping’, the tendency of...

By Leander Roet on 10/03/11 4

What Juliet Didn’t Ask

Deepening the Motivations and Consequences of Facebook Aliases I was a freshman in college when Facebook was fresh off the server. The social network’s inaugural class has since grown up, and so has its Facebook identity. An established social...

By Kendall Grady on 10/02/11 Comments Off

Evolution of Twitter through Alternative Ways of Usage

Since Darwin’s On the Origins of Species the idea of evolution through natural selection has been used in a variety of disciplines, even in the field of media studies. Different types of media are born (being a technical invention)...

By Bob Nefkens on 10/14/10 3

Twitter as eWoM-cashcow?

Sander Jansma already discussed the phenomenon of ‘word-of-mouth’, the so-called WoM. The idea of passing information from person to person has been around since humankind could communicate orally and has evolved with the rise of different means of communication....

By Levien Rocha on 10/11/10 4

Not to get too emotional… but what happened to emotion?

She' ll smile to you if you move to the left. No, try a different angle. I don't know... Is she smiling at all? For over 500 years, viewers and researchers have been trying to interpret Mona Lisa's...

By Ilektra Pavlaki on 09/28/10 Comments Off

Be free. Don’t adjust your Facebook privacy settings

Chun states that we, the users, perceive new media, in particular the Internet, to be free, democratic and save. We think we are in control of our content, but just like with other technologies, we can never have total...

By Emina Sendijarevic on 09/27/10 1

Does Facebook Rule? Ideas For The Future.

Facebook is everywhere. It connects 500 millions of people around the world. No doubts, it is an effect of purposeful endeavours of those who stay behind the success of the platform. It is becoming more and more interconnected into...

By Michal Kielbasa on 09/26/10 Comments Off

Second Life meets FaceBook: Why do we like being part of a virtual community?

Even though Levy‘s writing style is not my favorite (and that is probably because I am getting used to the Dutch style, very to-the-point), I still can handle it (probably because, in the end, I’m Italian and his mother...

By Marta Colpani on 10/13/09 2

In search for universal language

Umberto Eco, a cultural critic, semiotician, and a writer said that we live in an age where the “diminutive, the brief and the simple are highly prized in communication” (Thurlow & Brown). New communication technologies can empower young people...

By Jan Bajec on 10/05/09 Comments Off

“ILNY, it’s a gr8 plc”

According to the recent statistic from ITU (International Telecommunication Union), in conjunction with UN, more than half of the globe population is subscribed to mobile telephony systems. And this number competes with that of the Internet subscribers. While mobiles...

By Radmila Radojevic on 10/05/09 Comments Off

Collective writing: How literature is changed by the new medium

There are many variants of social networking sites. Some of them are based on an analog medium. The use of the Internet and the computer has resulted in that the digital medium differs from the analog medium. Examples of...

By Suzanne Schram on 10/04/09 Comments Off

Ning’s Privacy Issues

My background is not only media studies/theories but I’m also enrolled in the Bachelor program of Law at the University of Amsterdam. This post is about my critique on the interaction between privacy and user on Ning.com. For class...

By Tim van Essen on 10/03/09 4

Social Networking Sites: to type oneself into being

“Typing oneself into being” sounds like a great way to summarize a person’s motive for online exposure. When you’re not online, you seem to be nowhere at all. Creating an online profile on a social networking site is an...

By Rutger van den Berg on 10/01/09 Comments Off

Twitter Poetry and Mobility in Art

Twitter is the ultimate social networking site. The last trend for new media junks. Journalists, politicians, writers, artists, depressed teenagers, hyper-active middle-aged Internet addicted, new Iphone owners, everyone seems to be out there, on Twitter. Of course, because Facebook...

By Marta Colpani on 10/01/09 Comments Off

The Construction of an Online (Facebook) Identity

The web has become something other than the illusive place where we can get as much information as we want at all times. More than a knowledge database, the Internet has transformed into a place where we can not...

By Charlotte Hendriks on 09/28/09 Comments Off

Social Network Site vs. Social Networking Site?

Boyd and Ellison give a useful definition for social network sites, that entails the minimum core functions a web-based application must have to be considered a SNS. But at the same time this definition falls short in defining what...

By Alessandro Valente on 10/06/08 1

Web-Kare Review

Last week a new sort of web 2.0 application was launched in Japan. Web-Kare (Web-Boyfriend) is a social networking site for Japanese girls, which allows the girls to date a virtual boyfriend. There are four cartoon boys to choose...

By Guido van Diepen on 09/21/08 Comments Off

Ethnic social networking sites

It is no longer a matter of signing up for a social networking account, but rather choosing one from the existing social networking sites. Major social networking sites such as Facebook or Myspace have secured their position in the...

By Qilan Zhao on 11/04/07 4

How Social is Wikipedia?

On the Wikipedia site itself, it does state 'Wikipedia' under the entry "Social Software". But I was wondering about how social Wikipedia is in comparison with other social sites (for instance YouTube, MySpace, etc - see previous post). Because...

By Minke Kampman on 10/23/07 1

Review: The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell.

In this book review the theory and ideas that come forward in the book The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, will be discussed. Tipping point: one dramatic moment in an epidemic when everything can change all at once. The...

By Pieter-Paul Walraven on 09/16/07 1

Facebook and MySpace class distinctions

danah boyd recently wrote an interesting article on “viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace.” She points out that class divisions have emerged and are being played out through aesthetics in Facebook and MySpace. I think this is...

By Anne Helmond on 06/26/07 5