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

“hello literally everyone”: A Case Study on Social Response to Facebook’s Infrastructure Disruption

A submission by Shiyi (Annie) Zhou, Zarah Noorani, Niels Willemsen and Ayoub Samadi Facebook, now a common name in communication all over the world, faced a complete shutdown of services on October 4, 2021. This outage reflected on the...

By on 10/29/21 Comments Off

“I’m addicted to you, don’t you know that you’re Toxic?”

On the 5th of October 2021, Britney Spears posted a video much like the ones of the past two years — standing in front of the camera, looking up and dancing.

By on 10/29/21 Comments Off

Conspiracy theories in the digital world – How does the digital language surrounding QAnon conspiracy theories differ on platforms such as Twitter and Reddit through the lens of “Face” and “Mask” culture?

Authors: Christian R. , Doortje N., Lara., Sara N. Conspiracy theories are in no way something new and have, in fact, already been circulating and believed for a long time, some of the most famous examples being the conspiracy...

By Lara R. on 10/21/20 Comments Off

TERF Wars

Oscar Fitzpatrick, Caitlin Harzem, Gerry LaBarbera Abstract: There was a time when speaking of JK Rowling would primarily include topics regarding children’s literature, or specifically the Harry Potter franchise. In 2020 much of the debate surrounding JK Rowling is...

By on 10/20/20 Comments Off

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

Call to think: Twitter and Facebook urge users to fact-check information

Abstract:Aiming to nudge users in the right direction, Twitter introduced pop-up notifications if users want to (re-)post a news article that they have not opened yet, prompting them to be more aware of the content they are circulating to...

By Lara R. on 09/27/20 Comments Off

Who gets previewed? Racial Bias and User Experiments within Twitter’s Algorithmic Image Cropping

Recently Twitter users have been discovering the algorithmic bias of Twitter's image cropping system. How have they experimented and what do we do with the results? Why is Twitter selecting white faces? Why does it prefer Ted Cruz with...

By on 09/27/20 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

#SavetheAmazon? – A Case Study of Misinformation across Social Media Reactions to the Amazon Rainforest Fires.

By logging online in August 2019, one is immediately exposed to blazing fires both in the Amazon and across social media. Fires across the Amazon rainforest caused uproar online with many unknowingly re-sharing images that did not depict current...

By Romane Donadini on 10/24/19 Comments Off

“Blue Tick Brigade”: A critique of Twitter’s verification system as a shaper of online self-presentation

By Agustín Ferrari Braun, Eleni Maragkou, Marie-Liesse H, Shivaani Gore Over the course of the past years, politics in Europe and the United States have become increasingly concerned with the nature of online personhood. Only last month, the far-right...

By Eleni Maragkou on 10/24/19 Comments Off

Did you see Trump’s Tweet today: Consumption of Information on Twitter and birth of TweetCheck

With the constant evolution of new media, people are offered with more options on how to inform themselves on the current situation in the world. As Arkaitz Zubiaga et al. note, ‘while social media have become mainstream, as shown...

By Anna Teresova on 10/19/18 Comments Off

Extended Browsing, Plugged-In Activism

“It may be cold comfort in this chaotic era, but Americans should know that there are adults in the room. … And we are trying to do what’s right even when Donald Trump won’t” (“I Am Part”). The anonymous...

By Tiancheng Cao on 09/23/18 Comments Off

The fake fame – Black market on social media

Sitting on a Saturday morning at my desk, it took me ten seconds to find a website which wanted to sell me 2,500 ‘quality Instagram followers’ to boost my account for the price of about 25€. The website claims...

By Mandy Theel on 09/24/17 Comments Off

Search No Further: How Changes to the Search Feature Give Facebook More Power Than Ever

Announcing Big Changes: This past week, Facebook launched an update to its search feature that may give Twitter a run for its money – or at very least, some cause for concern. An announcement by Tom Stocky, VP of...

By Brittany Mcgillivray on 10/30/15 1

The CensorSensor – Revealing Localized Censorship through Interactive Maps: A Maptivist Approach to Corporate and Government Censorship

Almost all countries filter the Internet to varying degrees; anything from illegal downloading to child pornography and from human rights activities to government criticism. Filtering the Internet has a potential to reinforce the hegemonic power structures and to constrain...

By Pepijn Bierhuizen on 10/16/15 Comments Off

Facebook Jumps on the Bandwagon!

Facebook Notes has been long forgotten over the years as the company’s main focus was to distinguish the platform from other what seemed similar ones in the past days. Today the company (Facebook) seems to have grasped the importance of...

By Ash Monzer on 09/16/15 Comments Off

“Buy buttons”: Is this the new shopping mecca?

If you just rewind back to the past, freeze your memory in the ‘90s and try to recall the retail websites of this era, it will be obvious how boring and indifferent purchases could be. But it was time...

By Christina Giannouli Kyrimi on 09/15/15 Comments Off

Twitter’s “buy” button creates one-click shopping

Twitter, a microblogging platform with 271 million monthly active users began beta testing a “buy” button, allowing users to purchase exclusive merchandise from within the Twitter app. According to Twitter’s blog post, released September 8, 2014: “Today we are...

By Sage Stargrove on 09/18/14 Comments Off

Tweet, Tweet, Buy. (Or bye bye Tweet?)

Last week I received an e-mail from Twitter with the heading ‘We’ve updated our Privacy Policy and terms of Service.’ That’s always interesting news. What was even more interesting was the easily announced new feature Twitter is testing: a “Buy” button...

By Arla Krikke on 09/16/14 Comments Off

Should companies care for social media webcare?

Who does not use social networking sites these days? For millions of people around the world social networking sites are part of their daily routine. This phenomenon has major advantages for companies; it offers them the possibility to enhance...

By Richelle Werners on 09/11/14 Comments Off

Social Media and Sensitive Content

Since its inception, Twitter has considered itself a stalwart for free speech. It’s gotten them into some hot water in the past, including outcries over abusive Internet trolls, as well as the intricate balancing act of promoting open dialogue...

By Nora McLeese on 09/10/14 Comments Off

SHOW ME THE DATA! 2014

On Thursday afternoon March 27th seven interactive data visualization projects will be presented, developed by Master students of the University of Amsterdam. Show Me The Data is an annual event which is open to the public, click here for...

By Nicholas Vieira on 03/22/14 Comments Off

We Are Dread: A Review of the Dread Exhibition at De Hallen, Haarlem

By Lani Shadduck & Lucy Chinen “Dread trembles in my pocket. Dread chirps incessantly. Dread flashes and bounces. Dread summons me a hundred times a day to pay attention to my phone or my laptop, and stiffening...

By Lani Shadduck on 10/09/13 Comments Off

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