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

Twitch.tv: A Socially Valuable Platform, or Just Another Amazon Revenue Stream?

Instagram influencers and YouTube vloggers have long been seen as the leaders in monetizing one’s online self. New to this scene are an entirely different cohort of digital money makers: those who profit as professional video gamers on live...

By Emma Knight on 09/21/18 Comments Off

Is Vidme the ‘NewTube’? Why video creators are changing sides and how they feel about it

A few weeks ago on September 9, video platform Vidme’s own channel uploaded their weekly episode of ‘This Week @ Vidme’ titled ‘German INVASION’. The video refers to a sudden and significant increase of German led channels on Vidme:...

By Frederike Lichtenstein on 09/24/17 Comments Off

Couchsurfing and Airbnb: Sleeping abroad in a sharing economy

Although I planned to get rid of all digital devices during my backpack experience in Thailand this summer, the mini computer in my pocket called iPhone turned out to be an absolute life saver in desperate moments. It for instance...

By Stef van den Broek on 09/08/14 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

Design your own reality with Stiktu

Recently, Dutch software-firm Layar introduced Stiktu, an application that lets users be creative with augmented reality. The app runs on iPhone and Android platforms and aims to be the next best thing in social media, blurring the boundaries between...

By Robert Silvis on 10/05/12 2

Free labor? An attempt to determine the value of user generated content – for the user

Writings on the value of user generated content tend to stress the (market) value users produce for companies such as Facebook by adding content, labeling these activities as "free labor". Assuming that there must also be something in it...

By Joep Hegger on 10/04/11 1

Politwittic

Politics in the age of new media have different characteristics than the politics before the year 2000. Since its launch, the World Wide Web revealed itself as a powerful tool to reach a large part of the (wealthy) population....

By Jorien De Wandeler on 04/26/11 Comments Off

Editor Generated Content?

I am a passive Wikipediaist, and as of this weekend, I will stick with that role. I use Wikipedia mainly as a source of quick, (semi)reliable information; yet I do not share stronger bonds with this particular cyber institution....

By Agathe Wiedemair on 10/04/10 Comments Off

WikiAdmin: No Recent Changes

After being asked to write a Wikipedia article I soon realised that the challenge would not be related to the technical side of things, but rather to coming up with a topic. It was difficult to think of a topic that is...

By Marte Lindstrom on 10/03/10 Comments Off

Rage Against the Machine

Can you only make a Wikipedia entry if your subject has been covered in the mainstream press a gazillion times? How do underground, guerilla, new subcultures or artists get exposure on Wiki? Short answer: they don’t. I referenced the...

By Natalie Dixon on 10/03/10 1

Africa Unsigned: the Professionalizing of User Input

In the past years the Internet has been flooded with user generated content. The theory on new media has subsequently been flooded with research into this phenomenon, that is commonly centered around the web 2.0 concept. This theorizing of...

By Erik van Bemmelen on 09/30/10 Comments Off

Book review of “Against The Machine – Being Human In The Age Of The Electronic Mob” by Lee Siegel

Lee Siegel was born in New York in 1957 and has Bachelor, Master and Master of Philosophy degrees from Columbia University. While working as a staff writer at The New Republic, an American magazine on politics and the arts,...

By Maarten Hoogvliet on 09/17/09 Comments Off

In Memoriam GeoCities (1994-2009)

Yahoo! will soon pull the plug on the once-famous GeoCities.com. The passing of this iconic Internet site is interesting for two reasons. Firstly, GeoCities (and its competitors like Tripod and Angelfire) were an important catalyst for the development of...

By on 05/03/09 4

Control Rates in User Generated Content: PoliticalBase.com, the Moderated Political Wikipedia

Technological developments, resulting in free user-friendly interface applications, led to the second step in the evolution of the World Wide Web, the Web 2.0. The Web 2.0 reflects a paradigm shift, from the “read web”, another platform of...

By Liliana Bounegru on 09/22/08 1

Book Review on ‘Here Comes Everybody’

Review of the book 'Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations' by Clay Shirky about new tools of communication and organizing of groups on the Internet. What are the social implications and what will change?

By Hannah Biemold on 09/15/08 3

Lev Manovich on User Generated Content @ Video Vortex

The following post is a combination of a transcription of Manovich’s keynote and my own notes and commentary. Introduction by Geert Lovink Online video is renegotiating its (problematic) relationship with cinema. It deals with cinematographic principles versus the principles...

By Anne Helmond on 10/05/07 4